“You,” she hisses as her eyes narrow intensely.
She pops out of the bed and onto her feet. Her hands are balled into fists and I can’t look away. Is she about to fight me? I’ve got a foot and a half and a hundred-plus pounds on her. Does she really think she can take me?
Apparently, that’s exactly what she’s thinking because she charges forward, her jaw clenching with purpose. “I guess all those rumors about you were true.”
“If I got into the rumors about me, we’d be here all day.”
“I have been here all day,” she snaps. “Speaking of which, why the hell am I in this dungeon of yours?”
I look around in amusement. “I’d hardly call this a dungeon. You’ve got a flat screen TV in that nook, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, am I supposed to be thanking you for the very comfortable prison you’ve stashed me in?” She scoffs derisively. “Because I got news for you: it doesn’t matter how pretty or luxurious it is; a cell is still a cell. And I don’t do well in cages.”
Her chest is heaving temptingly but I make sure to keep my eyes fixed on her face. Watching those pale cheeks turn pink is strangely quite a titillating experience.
“You think I want you here?” I ask carelessly. “If I had my way, you’d be sitting in your little shack right now doing a crossword puzzle.”
She flinches backward. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act like you know me. All that information I gave you last night, I shared only because I thought—” She stops short, her eyes going just a little wider as something clicks in her brain.
I take a step closer to her. “You thought what, narushitel?”
“Stop with the nickname. I don’t even know what it means.”
“It means ‘little thief,’ because that’s what you are. And you didn’t mind it last night.”
“Yeah, well, you hadn’t abducted me and locked me up in the basement last night.”
Is it weird that I’m enjoying this interaction so much? Is it weird that it’s giving me a natural high better than any drug?
Her fingers are trembling as she inches closer. “Please, Uri… let me go.”
“Believe me: there’s nothing I want more.” The strange tightening in my gut says otherwise, but I choose to ignore that. “Except that you, Little Miss Pandora, went and opened a box you should have left closed. And now, it’s unleashed all manner of horrors.”
She stiffens instantly. Her eyes dart from side to side before finally settling back on me. “I thought it was my package,” she whispers in a voice that’s heartbreakingly meek.
“My name on the label didn’t tip you off?”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. I had just come back home and I was flustered and distracted and thinking about—”
She stops short again, but this time, I think I know what she was about to say. “You were thinking about me.”
She grits her teeth. “Yes, I was thinking about you—but only because of… what happened. But it wasn’t like I was all googly-eyed about what happened. I was ready to put the whole thing behind me.”
“If only you hadn’t been so distracted by thoughts of me that you’d read the front of the package. There certainly weren’t any purple tentacle dildos in there.”
“It was a mis—” Her eyes go wide as she freezes mid-sentence. “You opened my package?”
“Tit for tat.”
Alyssa glares at me. “What are you—twelve years old? I wasn’t aware I was opening your package, but you sure as hell knew what you were doing when you opened mine.”
I shrug, completely unapologetic. “I had to make sure you were telling me the truth.”
“Oh, right, because I am clearly the suspicious one here.” Every time I keep inching closer, she keeps moving further away. Now, she’s only a foot from the bed, which is putting all sorts of ideas in my head.
That, in and of itself, is a shock. When have I ever fantasized about a woman after I’ve fucked her?
“I’m the suspicious one?” I ask, wrenching myself back to the topic at hand.
“You got a freaking finger in a box!” she exclaims. “A finger. In a box. In the mail. What kind of man gets packages like that?”
“The kind of man whose fence you should not be scaling.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Yeah, okay, fair point. But it’s not like I knew that then. And anyway, my only concern was getting that package back before—”
“Before anyone knew all the freaky shit you’re into?”
“It’s not for me!” she explodes, practically frothing at the mouth with rage.
I have to try hard to suppress my laughter. I do a piss-poor job of it, though, which I know because her glare only gets more pointed. For a blush-prone wallflower, she’s got a lot of spice.
“Right. ‘Elle.’ Who most definitely is a person who exists.”
“She’s a real freaking person! And you’re a real freaking asshole. I’m sure the legion of women you fuck and forget on a nightly basis will agree with me on that one.”
“Unlike you, those women have realistic expectations of me.”
“It’s not an unrealistic expectation to want to get out of your neighbor’s house alive.”
I laugh in her face. “You think I’m gonna kill you?” She takes another unsmiling step backward, which is as good as an answer. “For fuck’s sake, princess: if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”
“Oh, well, isn’t that comforting.” Her legs hit the edge of the bed and she hisses in surprise. She mutters under her breath, an obscenity that makes my smirk twitch, before she straightens up again. “I won’t tell anyone about what I saw. I swear to you, I will take this secret to the grave. You can trust me. Just—just let me go.”
“You want me to trust you?”
“I know that’s difficult for a man like you, but I’m different. I can be trusted.”
My eyes narrow. The woman really needs to work on her convincing skills. “‘A man like me’? Explain what that means to you.”
She swallows but her hands aren’t trembling anymore. “A man who can’t or won’t trust anyone else.”
The fact that she thinks she knows me is laughable. But I know the moment I push that point, she’s going to interpret it as defensiveness.
“Listen,” she continues, “you don’t know me well, but I am a woman of my word. If I make a promise, I will keep it.”
She’s emphatic—but letting her walk off my property is no longer an option.
I sigh. “Unfortunately, your word is not enough. For the time being—”
But I’m forced to break off mid-sentence because she springs forward, her eyes wild and unhinged as her knee flies upwards towards my crotch.
It’s reckless enough to take me by surprise.