Page 7 of Stolen Princess

FERRIN

Most of the time, I like it when a beautiful girl gets the best of me. I don’t even mind if she wants to tie me up. This isn’t one of those times. Yet I can’t help the way my gaze clings to her, and my cock twitches accordingly. I mean, fuuuck. She’s a vision with a gorgeous face and a knockout body. It’s not even the head injury speaking for me, though that’s no joke. My head is fucking killing me.

That aside, if I weren’t tied to a table…

Except I am. She’s got the necklace and my gun, so there’s that.

“Darlin’, for the third time, I didn’t find you. I found your cottage. That’s all.”

Her pretty gray eyes narrow. “Why would I believe that? In all the years I’ve lived here, you’re the first person to do so.”

That gives me pause and raises some serious questions. No one voluntarily lives like this unless they’re hiding something they don’t want anyone else to find or know about.

I do my best to hitch a shoulder. “It’s true. I was working a job, had to flee, and came across your house. I thought it would be the perfect spot to hide out for a day or two, and then you cracked me across the skull. I never expected anyone to live out here.”

That does something unexpected to her. For the first time since I set eyes on her, her tough veneer cracks. Her shoulders droop, and she looks down at her hands in her lap.

“Are you someone famous? Is that why you're hiding here?” I ask again. She has to be, right?

She shakes her head, and the rush of anguish on her face makes my stomach twist uncomfortably. I don’t like it.

My eyebrows slant. “I don’t understand. If you’re not hiding out and you’re not famous, then why were you so worried that I found you?”

She licks her lips and lifts her chin. “The world is a dangerous place, filled with evil people wanting to do evil deeds.” She points at me. “Like you.”

“I’m not evil,” I defend, even though I am. I’m ruthless and callous and make no apologies for it because no one’s ever apologized to me for their cruelty. But telling her the truth won’t set me free. Staying light and charming might, though.

She arches an unimpressed eyebrow. “You have a gun and a necklace I’m assuming you stole.”

“That doesn’t make me evil, simply opportunistic and self-protective. I’m a jewelry connoisseur and collector.” Not quite a lie. “The gun is protection, but in all my years, I’ve never fired it.” That’s definitely a lie.

She tilts her head, her brows pinching. “Never?”

“Not once. I don’t like violence.”

She stands and comes closer to me, her long hair damp on the ends, but the golden color and the way the waves move as she walks are distracting. Hell, everything about her is from how she looks to the fact that she’s a young woman alone, living in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

She sinks down in front of me, appraising me, and I get a hint of her shampoo or bodywash. She smells like honeysuckle. I wonder if all of her would taste so sweet.

“Why should I trust you?”

I grin but don’t give her my full smolder since she thought it was creepy. “Why shouldn’t you?”

“I can think of several reasons.”

I’m sure she can, and she’d be right on all of them. But right now, my head throbs, my wrists and shoulders burn from being tied up, and I just want to get the fuck out of here.

I hold her gaze. “I won’t hurt you. I swear. You can even hold my knife to my back and walk me to the perimeter before you let me go.”

She inches in closer, her silver eyes full of cautious distrust. “Say I let you go. What then?”

“Just as I said. I take my knapsack and leave. Case closed.”

“And you won’t tell anyone you were here?”

“No.”

She thinks about this with more seriousness than I’ve ever given anything in my life. “Have you ever been to Carona?”