Page 21 of Vicious Angel

I paused, trying to gauge his expression.

“About five grand.”

“About?”

“Exactly seven grand.”

“Right. I’ll give you twenty.”

“Sorry to have wasted your—what?” I laughed.

“I’ll give you twenty grand if you help me. Help us,” he amended. He looked dead serious, all traces of his earlier good humor gone.

“Help you…with what? Who’s ‘us’?” He’d mentioned a Vincent and a Cade, so it was safe to say that he was working with two other guys. But working on what? What was actually going on here?

He grasped a loose strand of my hair between his fingers, his eyes flicking down to watch himself play with it.

He was so goddamn weird.

He let go of my hair and raised his eyes to mine. “The only reason I cuffed you is because I wanted to be able to talk to you and I knew you’d just run away the first chance you got. You need to know that it’s not safe out there for you. Not anymore. You’ve wandered into a part of New York that’s run by gangs and riddled with corruption. Nobody plays nice here. Thorne was going to hurt you, and now that we’ve fucked up his plans, he’ll be looking twice as hard for you and all of us. So help us steal from him while we keep you safe.”

I stared into his eyes as his words slowly sank in. I was so confused. I didn’t really believe him, to be honest. He looked very convincing and sincere as he gazed down at me with those pretty green eyes, intensely resolute. But I didn’t believe a word he was saying.

All I wanted was to get out of here. I hated being trapped, and he’d effectively put me in a cage.

“Get off me,” I whispered.

“Help us get revenge and let us protect you.”

I scoffed. “Protect me? You’re doing great so far with that, aren’t you?”

He growled, shocking me when he pressed his face into the crook of my neck. A flare of something warm sparked through me as his nose brushed against my throat. What the fuck was he doing?

“You’re safe with us,” he said vehemently. “Just let me protect you.”

I was quiet for so long, having no fucking clue what to say to any of that. The things he said, the way he said them, everything he did…

It was so strange and foreign to me that I had no idea how to respond or react to him.

He lifted his head when I didn’t say anything, eyes searching mine.

“Can you just let me go? Seriously. I don’t want or need your protection.” I whipped my head forward, slamming my forehead into his nose.

I hoped it broke.

He groaned, but it didn’t sound like he was in pain. He grunted, “Fuck,” then flipped me onto my stomach so easily I felt like a rag doll in the maw of a lion. He wrapped his hand around the nape of my neck, and… he was trembling?

His entire body was shaking, like he was fighting against something, or overwhelmed or god fucking knew what was happening to him.

Was he trying to hold himself back from killing me?

Probably.

“Can you—” My words cut off on a scream when he bit my ear. The wet heat of his tongue sent a jolt of white-hot arousal straight to my core. He let go of my ear with a low, satisfied groan and moved to my neck, biting my pulse point, then licking away the sharp sting. Every one of my senses homed in on the hand he rested on my hip. His fingers pressed close to my groin, so, so close⁠—

Click.

His weight disappeared, and I lifted my head. Saw the handcuffs that had been strung around my wrist and one of the posts on the headboard.