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My captive spread her knees wide, silently daring me to look. It was a bold move for someone dressed in a fluffy, pink crop-top and shorts pajama set, complete with bunny ears on the hood. I gave her a derisive blink. “Comfy?”
Mattie twirled a long bunny ear around her finger, her wrists zip tied together. It forced her to tilt her head to the side to reach the ear on her hoodie. “If I say yes, are you going to zip tie my ankles together?”
“Do you want me to?” I challenged.
She grinned, chewing her gum obnoxiously loud and snapping it between her straight, white teeth. Her almond eyes shimmered with mirth. “Do you want me to want you to?”
My gaze flicked from her mischievous features down to her fluffy crop-top hoodie, over her flat belly, and to her open legs where her bare inner thighs led up to the strip of fabric between her legs. She wanted me to look, so why was I looking?
With a saint-worthy effort, I returned my attention to her eyes. “I want you to sit still and behave.”
We were seated across from one another at the rental house I’d secured after finding her, and even though her wrists were bound and the exits firmly locked, I kept a wary eye on my prisoner. We had an hour left until my operatives transported us in a secure vehicle to a small, personal plane that waited on the tarmac at Denver International.
Mattie manipulated the bubblegum in her mouth and then blew until it formed an impressively large bubble. It popped somewhere around her eyeline, and she sucked it back in noisily. “I am behaving.”
She was up to something. I could feel it. She’d escaped me twice before already, which for me was unheard of. Literally. If I let word of that get out, my reputation would be ruined. If it wasn’t for the hefty paycheck on her head, I would have given up on her after the first time she’d escaped. She’d thrown a bowl of spicy shrimp in my face, kicked my chair out from under me, and then disappeared into a busy mall.
Not this time. I had her now, and I wasn’t taking any chances with my 800K payout. If she wanted to escape me now, it would be her slight build against 190 pounds of determined muscle. And my taser. I had no problem taking her down to the beige carpet with a well-aimed shock to her fluffy bunny body.
Sighing, she slumped on the brown microfiber couch, pushing her knees further apart and bringing her neck to a cinched position. She was practically hanging off the couch cushions. I rolled my eyes.
The house we were staying in couldn’t be more nondescript if I’d tried. Tucked away in the suburbs, the townhouse had been styled in early-aughts beige with a side of IKEA flair. Not that I felt the need to hide Mattie in a safe house, but it was better to choose something discreet, regardless. If she wasn’t such a pain in the ass, this would have been easy money. Her parents wanted her home with them—that was it. Nothing insidious. No crime lords or shady drug deals. Just a runaway twenty-six-year-old heiress with tenacious parents.
Mattie’s bronze eyes flicked back to me. “How long are we going to sit here?”
“Until we leave,” I intoned. I wasn’t wearing any tactical gear to handle Little Bunny Foo Foo, so I folded my arms comfortably over my white T-shirt and sat back in the armchair.
She shoved her long body back up the couch and sat up straight with her zip tied hands resting on her thighs. “You haven’t fed me all day.”
I flicked a piece of lint off my jeans. “Not my problem.”
“How much are they paying you?” she asked with a speculative eye squint. “Pretty sure a… one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize should be fed?” She surveyed my expression. “Three?”
“Eight,” I corrected.
“Damn,” Mattie muttered. “Anyway, pretty sure they wouldn’t be happy if I showed up with a growly tummy.” She patted her flat stomach, emphasizing the bare area.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. Truth be told, once we boarded the aircraft, there wouldn’t be any in-flight meals or complimentary pretzels. It was just her and me for four hours until we reached New York. I didn’t mind missing a few meals, but no matter how much I disliked Matilda Thorne, I figured I should feed her. “Fine, get up.” I motioned for her to stand, reaching out a hand for her arm.
She refused my help and popped up from the couch a little too enthusiastically. “What are you making me?”
“I’m not making you anything,” I countered. I couldn’t cook anyway. Never had been my forte. “I think the team bought us hoagies.”
“Not even coffee?” she asked, outrage pulling her voice up an octave. “I’ve never gone this long without coffee. I might start seizing.” I had abducted her somewhere around four in the morning, so that made two of us.
I led her to the kitchen with a firm grip on her upper arm. “Your file didn’t say anything about epileptic conditions. I’m sure you’ll survive.”
“… like foaming at the mouth, snarling opossum-level seizing…”
“I’m not making you coffee.” I yanked her over to a round, honey oak table set back in a breakfast nook.
“… and I think I had a medical bracelet made for it once. Like, caffeine-dependent rodent…”
“Mattie,” I warned as a headache started between my eyes.
“… who bites when she doesn’t get enough coffee in her blood strea—”
“Fine.” I shot her an irritated scowl, hands on my hips and looming over her as she primly lowered herself to a chair.
