“Because I don’t usually wear my seat belt.” It was true. I wasn’t afraid of getting in a car accident. I wasn’t afraid of pain, or of death. I wasn’t afraid of anything except for being at the mercy of another person, or of never finding Declan again.
“That’s foolish.” He kicked the car into reverse and peeled out of his parking spot, then gunned the engine up the ramp and out onto the street.
“You’re not wearing yours,” I pointed out.
“I’m driving.”
“So?”
“So that means I’m in control.”
“So? What if someone smashes into you? You can’t control everyone else on the road.”
He shrugged in that nonchalant way of his, making it seem like he did think he could control everyone else.
“Do you, um… do you know how to get to Walnut Street?” I asked.
His Bluetooth rang before he could answer, and a little phone icon popped up on the screen in front of us. I shook my head. Some people had phones that connected to their cars, and other people, like me, had to borrow someone’s cell phone this morning just so I could make a call to try to get a job as a stripper. It was mind-boggling.
The caller ID said “Mick.”
Colt hit the answer button, clearly annoyed. “Yeah,” he barked.
“Where the fuck are you?” A man’s voice echoed through the speaker in the car. He sounded older, and pissed off as hell.
“I told you, I’m on my way.” Colt sat up in the front seat, applying a little more pressure to the gas.
“It’s pretty fucking bad, Colt,” Mick, whoever that was, said. “She’s all fucking bruised up. And the cops are – “
“I said I’d be there,” Colt barked.
“This is your mess. You better get down here and clean it up.”
The line went dead.
Colt reached over and hit the end call button angrily. He tapped his hand against the steering wheel impatiently, then sped up to fly through a yellow light before it could turn red.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Sorry, Princess,” he said, ignoring my question as he turned the car off the highway back toward downtown, away from Ditch City, which is what everyone called the area where the Walnut Street Shelter was located. “But I gotta make a stop.”
“What?” I shook my head. “No way. Drop me off first.”
He didn’t respond.
“Just let me off here then,” I said. “I’ll take the bus home.”
“I’m not leaving you in the middle of the city with no money so you can take a buss back to a homeless shelter.”
“How do you know I have no money?”
He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Please.”
“It’s none of your business,” I said as he pulled the car into the parking lot of Loose Cannons. “It’s none of your business what I’m doing or where I’m going.”
He drove around to the back of the club and turned the car off. “Olivia,” he said, and his voice was low and gravelly and serious. It was the first time he’d said my name, the first time he hadn’t called me Princess. I liked it. It gave me goose bumps on my arms and a shiver down my spine. “You are going to stay in this car. You are not going to talk to anyone. You are not going to move. You are going to sit here until I get back, and you are not going to ask any questions.”
“And then you’ll take me to the shelter?”
He hesitated. It was brief, but I saw it.
Hesitation.
He wasn’t going to take me to the shelter.
I reached out and went for the door handle, but he hit the automatic lock before I could open it. I unlocked it. He locked it. I unlocked it. He hit the child safety lock, which essentially locked me in the car.
“Wait here,” he said. “Do you understand?”
I shook my head. “I want to go home. Now unlock the door. Or I’ll call the police.”
“And tell them what?” he demanded. “That I was trying to give you a ride somewhere and you insisted on taking the bus?”
“No, that you locked me in this car against my will.”
“You are unbelieveable, you know that?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“So I’ve been told.” It was a lie. I’d never been told I was unbelieveable.
“You’re also really cute when you’re trying to be tough.” His voice softened when he said this last part, almost into a flirty tone, and it threw me just enough that when he reached down near my feet and grabbed my purse, I was too slow to stop him.
“Hey!” I said. “That’s mine.”
“Yeah, well, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
I undid my seatbelt and went to grab my bag, but he held it out of my reach. My body was pressed up against his, my breasts pushing against his broad chest as I pretty much threw myself onto him.