Page 11 of Tracking Luxe

She wanted his lips.

The kidnapper’s gorgeous full lips.

“You wanted my kiss, little thief.” His abrasive tone washed through her, making her wince and hot all at once. “I won’t try to kiss you again. Until you ask me for it.”

The silence that followed was a different shape than it had been all day, it stirred an unease inside her. It was as if this atmosphere between them had appeared suddenly and brought seriousness with it.

Because of a wanted kiss and not the fact she was a prisoner. Fucking ridiculous. She was churned up inside.

He let go of her hands, and shifted himself up until she was free of his weight. Somehow bereft of it, she wanted it back, wanted it crushing her into the uncomfortable scratchy motel bed.

Like a hallucinogen invading her brain, she was lightheaded as he stayed by the bed looking down at her with… displeasure? Whatever, it was in some rule book somewhere that kidnappers didn’t get kisses. She was sure it was written down somewhere.

It wasn’t every day she was taken hostage and wanted to taste the captor. Didn’t happen at all, in fact. No wonder her mind was a swirl of head-fucked.

Attraction to Grinder had come easy once, one summer on a late night of flirting and drinks that had spilled into gropes and hot, delicious kisses.

Now though, things were different. He’d seen to that, hadn’t he just?

She had something he wanted, for one. Something she didn’t even know she had, what the hell was she going to do when he found out she’d most probably sold on what he was demanding?

Sneaking a look as he paced away, his spine rod straight, he rubbed his beard before throwing his large body down into the chair, the thing groaning under the sudden weight, she figured she’d keep that to herself, no point in angering the captor, not until she was free and she could slash his tires.

Rule one; don’t anger the abductor.

The unofficial rule two should be not to want to kiss the fucking abductor, either.

The quieter he became sitting way over there brooding the more upset Luxe felt in her throat. Only the reason wasn’t the most glaringly obvious one.

No, it was much baser than that.

CHAPTER FOUR

“So, there’s this dickhead and he kidnaps a woman. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.” – Grinder.

Day Two

Self-loathing had forced Grinder to lift himself off Luxe’s prone body hours ago and he was still hating himself for the weakness. What the fuck had he been thinking. Seriously, rocks in his fucking brain. But that was the thing, he hadn’t been using his brain in the last few days, that organ had taken off, leaving behind one dumb as fuck shithead.

The need for her had almost overtaken his fucking logic, even now his blood was boiling, he kept his eyes lowered while he reined in his fucking self. Dickhead move, like she would want his kiss.

He could say sorry. But what good was that now? Even though he wasn’t truly sorry, he could still feel his temper bristling underneath his skin, he’d wanted her to give in, to tell him what he wanted to know, hadn’t expected the beauty to stand up to him, glowering with her dark eyes and spitting curse words off the end of her vicious tongue. She was a thief and a tenacious hellion and the one woman to make him lose his stringent control.

Christ. He was stuck on her scent. Sex and danger. It was a heady combination he wanted to inhale. Shit made him crazy … crazier. And he couldn’t blame her for the attitude, at the same time liking it. She had passion, but then, he knew that already, he’d wanted to gulp her blaze before until she’d sneaked away with his cock hard and tongue saturated in her taste. What Grinder knew now was, he still wanted Luxe just as much.

Keep dreaming. If you kiss me again I’ll never forgive you.

Her words bounced around his skull watching her curl up falling to sleep. She never moved all night, she looked so innocent that mid-way through the night he’d strode across the room and covered her over with a blanket, even then she didn’t flicker, he was so tempted to brush her hair from her face, to show her he could be tender, that this bullshit wasn’t really him.Give me a chance.

What the fuck was he doing? He’d ignored a text from Preacher asking where he was and did he want to grab a drink. His buddy was going through some of his own crap with his old lady and while Grinder wanted to help, he’d gotten himself caught up in this clusterfuck. Only when he received a message from Rider did he pause. His president needed a recon job doing ASAP concerning the Russian’s, he ordered a visual to pinpoint where they were in Armado and who they spoke to. The thing being the go-to guy, Grinder never had a minute to himself some days, because Grinder knew guys everywhere. He had a courthouse guy, a police guy, a drugs guy, a snitch guy, a guy in the local government. At any given time, he could reach out and have some fucker with the right answer. He paid to have a lot of people in his pocket, but it sure got busy.

Fuck.

Great timing, but this was his job, not kidnapping. On it.he’d replied to his prez.

Continuing to sit there in that too small arm chair listening to the traffic outside as people laughed and stumbled along the landing to their own rooms, he eyed the roll of duct tape and the rope he’d used, the cloth blindfold in his pocket made bile roll up into his throat. Had he really tied a woman to the bed? Fucks sake, he’d truly lost all his goddamn mind, hadn’t he?

It made him think of that bleak time when his mom had taken off for good this time and his Pop didn’t move from the couch for weeks, and when he did he was drunk and then after that he was just lifeless for a long time. Grinder, as a boy, didn’t truly understand a lunacy a woman could inflict on a man, all he knew was his dad was different, didn’t want to play catch or video games and hardly went to work. His uncle had stepped in and made sure Grinder turned up to school every day, had lunch and dinner and took him to ball games on the weekend. He’d overheard his uncle shout at his Pop a lot from the other room, telling him to pull his head out of his ass and ‘forget the bitch’ It had taken a long fucking time for his Pop to even resemble the man Grinder used to know.

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