Page 4 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
And the whole world seemed to tilt and whirl, knocking her so far off its axis she felt as if she was spinning off into space—
It took her far too long to understand that he had lifted her up, tossing her over his shoulder as he spun around to march right back up that aisle again.
It took her too long because once again, all of that impossible sensation seemed to detonate inside of her.
That hard, muscled shoulder was making itself known against her belly with every step. Worse—better?—his hand was on her bottom, holding her fast.
She was reduced to a shiver with head dangling down against the hard stretch of his muscled back.
Surely she ought to...fight this, or something, she thought, but she felt no particularurgeto do anything of the kind.
And she couldn’t tell if anyone else was protesting—not when there was far too much ringing in her ears and a mad noise in her head. But by the time the thought landed in her, fully formed, they were already outside. She could feel the sweet Lake Como breeze that seemed to press against her face, making it clear to her that she was already far too hot for anything like comfort.
The man kept going, stalking away from the chapel and down the narrow old road—really more a path—that she’d walked up not long ago.
Hope felt dizzy and outside herself—yet no matter how she tried to lecture herself, she couldn’t quite bring herself to cause a scene. To shout, make demands, or attract attention.
Everything shifted again, a rush and tumble. And she could hardly make sense of that, either, until he slid into the back of the vehicle where he’d tossed her, slammed the door behind him, and said something in a foreign language to another man at the steering wheel in front.
A foreign language that was neither the Italian a person would expect to hear while in Italy nor even the Spanish that was her almost-groom’s first language.
She should have been terrified. Yet as the vehicle lurched away, Hope found herself blinking back the strangest rush of an emotion that certainly wasn’t fear.
Relief, something in her pronounced, and though she told herself it was an accusation, it didn’t feel like one.
Because if she was being spirited away, against her own wishes and without her own advanced knowledge or direction, she couldn’t be expected to go through with her wedding, could she?
Deep down, she could admit that delighted her, because she didn’t really want to marry Lionel.
Or anyone else.
And, sure, this felt a great deal like a frying pan into the fire moment, but if she had learned anything in these last, difficult years, it was that she should always take time to mark the little victories. No matter what.
Because they were few and far between, and needed celebrating when they came.
Mignon had taught her that.
“Do not attempt to escape,” the man beside her told her as if she’d lunged for the door. It made her think she should have tried, at the very least, for appearances’ sake. Especially because she couldn’t quitelookat him. Not directly. He was too...beautiful, yes, in a harsh kind of way that made her think of a storm. As implacable as he was stunning, and she found she had no place to put that.
“We will be in the air within the hour,” the man continued in that same forbidding way that she really shouldn’t have found so...compelling.“Nothing and no one will stop us. And anything but the strictest obedience on your part will be met with consequences I doubt very much you will like.”
“Well,” Hope said, mildly enough, looking down at her hands. She thought her hands ought to have been shaking, though they weren’t, and moved them against the skirt of her gown to feel its smoothness against her palms. She had gone for very little adornment because even the faintest embellishment had felt romantic and this wedding had been a business arrangement, nothing more. “That’s me told, then.”
Beside her, she could feel the man shift, and was aware of his affront even before she glanced over to confirm it.
“This is who you are,” he said in a low voice that was rich with a kind of betrayal that made her stomach flip, even though she couldn’t understand it. Not from a stranger. “You do not even care what man claims you, do you? You flit from one to the next as if it is nothing.”
“This was a bit less of a flit,” she pointed out, trying to focus slightly to one side of his outrageously handsome face because all of that hard bronze was too distracting. “And a bit more of a kidnap, really. So it’s not exactly sporting to hold me responsible for it, is it?”
And it was only as she said that out loud that the truth of what was happening really rushed through her, like some floodgates had opened deep within. When Hope hadn’t even known that shehadfloodgates. She would have said that all such emotion had been carved out of her years ago.
That’s just what happens when you’re desperate, she told herself tartly.
In her desperation, Lionel had seemed like a savior. He was not unpleasant. He was not even unkind. He was businesslike all the way through and his wanting to marry her saved her from far worse fates. Hope knew that well enough, though she hadn’t wept with joy when she’d agreed to marry him the way her mother had. But she could admit that she’d felt some measure of peace, and even happiness that she’d managed it. That she’d saved Mignon.
And herself in ways she hadn’t imagined she’d need to when she’d started this journey two years ago.
But at least she’dagreedto her deal with Lionel. She hadn’t agreed tothis.
