“Sonia –” Callum started but she talked over him.
“When I met him, I brought him here, the wolf that is. And… and, I liked this wolf. He was a beautiful wolf. I’d seen wolves before out in the woods with my father, but never one like him. He was huge and he had this dignity…” She paused again, realizing she was veering off track and then continued, “Anyway, he made an impression on me. I’ve never forgotten him and I think, being in what I thought was a dream, seeing you here in this cabin and the last time I was here I met that wolf, for some reason, because of him, I used that as an endearment.” She sucked in breath through her nose then said, “So there, that’s why I called you ‘wolf’.”
And that didn’t sound like a lie. In fact, she was pretty pleased with herself and, maybe, that was why she called her dream Callum “wolf” too, who knew?
When she’d stopped congratulating herself, she focused on his face. Then she sucked in another breath.
His face was warm and gentle and, she was shocked to see, his eyes weren’t blue, they were tawny.
Oh wow.
She told herself, firmly, she didn’t like it when his eyes went golden (but she did).
Anyway, how did he do that?
“What?” she whispered, forgetting her travails when his eyes were like that but his hand slid up her back to her neck, his fingers cupped her there and he forced her head to his shoulder.
“Nothing, little one,” he murmured but his voice was warm and gentle too.
She took another deep breath and told herself his big, warm body didn’t feel great cradling hers (which it did) and his deep, warm, gentle voice rumbling in her ear didn’t sound wonderful (which it also did). Then she reminded herself that she was in a frightening situation, sitting in the lap of a large, strong albeit handsome man who was likely dangerous and not her dream man (even though he was, in a way).
She screwed up the courage to start talking about what she wanted to talk about.
“I want to go home,” she told his collarbone.
“You can’t, honey, not for a while,” was his scary response.
“I want to go home,” she repeated.
“You need to stay with me. When this is over, I don’t know where we’ll settle. We’ll talk about it when that happens.”
When what was over?
And…
He didn’t know where they’d settle?
What was he on about?
She didn’t care and she wasn’t going to ask.
Instead, softly she enquired, “Callum, how much for you to take me home?”
“Honey, you can’t go home,” he reiterated.
“I’ll give you a million dollars.”
She held her breath and waited.
He was silent.
Oh no. Had she gone too high too fast? Or would he get angry knowing she’d low-balled him. She was, he had to know since she was his mark, seriously loaded.
While these thoughts flitted through her brain she felt his body shaking under hers.
She lifted her head and saw he was smiling. The shaking of the body was him silently laughing.
“I wasn’t being funny,” she told him, losing patience.
“You think I’ve kidnapped you,” he told her.
Her mouth dropped open (again).
“Sorry?” she asked after she’d closed it.
His head tipped down and he nuzzled his temple against hers in that tender way she told herself she hated (when she absolutely didn’t) before saying, “Baby doll, I haven’t kidnapped you.”
All of a sudden she was angry because he called her “baby doll” and the fact that this man, in real life, did that was the worst cosmic joke of all.
Maybe this made her stupid, but she didn’t care.
She yanked her head back.
“Okay, Callum, this is what I know,” she stated. “Two guys break into my house, they grab me, discuss raping me and, suddenly, even though it’s the middle of the night and I haven’t made a noise, you’re there to save the day. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance as I’d lost consciousness, you take me out of the city to a remote cabin in the woods. A cabin which conveniently has brand new clothes and toiletries, all that perfectly suit me. You’re all sweet, but bossy at the same time, and I know your game. You’re not my rescuer. You know I’m wealthy. Name your price, give me your phone, I’ll arrange the money for you, no problem. Then you take me home so I can get on with Christmas and you can go to the beach or find someone else to con.”
He studied her a moment seemingly unperturbed by her understanding of the situation and the blunt way with which she informed him of that fact and replied, “All right, Sonia, now you’ll listen to what’s actually going on.”
“This should be good,” Sonia muttered sarcastically.
“No, it won’t be good,” he returned severely. “It’ll probably freak you out, it’s likely you won’t believe a word I say but it’s also the truth.”
She glared at him.
He sighed.
Then he spoke and committed sin number three.
Furthermore, he was right. What he said freaked her out. But the way he said it made her know he believed it, which made it all the worse.
“Last night, two men broke into your house. I knew they were going to do it because I had intelligence delivered to me eleven hours earlier informing me of the plot. I am, for the sake of you understanding this, the leader of a gang that has hundreds of thousands of members across the world. They were soldiers from another, rival, gang. You, little one, are important to me. They know this and wanted to take you from me. What they did broke a treaty that was fragile at best. Now we’re at war.”
Sonia was no longer glaring at him.
She was gawking.
She wanted to stop the questions from coming. She just couldn’t.
“You’re the leader of a gang?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“That has hundreds of thousands of members?”
“Yes.”
She stared at his handsome face.
He was good-looking. No doubt about it.
But he was crazy as a loon.
For some reason, she carried on, “I’m important to you?”
“Very.”
“Why?” Her voice was getting shrill. “You barely know me.”
“We’ll get to that later.”
She blinked, shocked out of her skull then idiotically continued, “What do you mean they ‘were’ soldiers? What happened to them?”