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Riley froze. She looked around desperately, as if seeking any other avenue of escape, but the doors were already being secured by my men.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Riley, you’re coming with me,” I stated, the firmness in my voice leaving no room for argument.
Her gaze leveled with mine, delicious wildfire burning in her eyes.
“The fuck I am,” she snarled.
CHAPTER 3
Riley
The man standing in front of me was a terrifying beast, but there was something about him that seemed to draw me in anyway. Whatever it was, it made me want to trust him, to lean into the danger rather than run from it. Maybe it was the way he looked at me, not just as a problem to be solved, but as an actual person. Or maybe it was the way my name sounded on his lips.
I couldn’t be certain, but a part of me didn’t care.
As I stood before him, I couldn’t help but feel the gravitational pull emanating from him. It was as if he exuded a silent promise of protection and peril all at once. Yet, as our eyes met and held one another’s, a shiver of excitement ran through me, the kind that you feel when you’re on the edge of a cliff, both fearing and anticipating the inevitable fall.
I knew men like him were dangerous, but I was always drawn to danger like a moth to flame.
It was something about myself that I wasn’t particularly proud of, but I’d made it this far, so I figured I was doing something right.
I’d survive him, whatever this was.
I swallowed hard as I gazed into Maxim’s stormy steel blue eyes, sparkling with cold calculation and yet somehow, they still glinted with a fiery passion that seemed to simmer just beneath the surface.
He towered over me. Standing well over six feet tall, he had the broad shoulders and lean, muscular build of someone accustomed to being in charge. His dark hair was just long enough to run my fingers through, and that did nothing to diminish the sharp angles of his strikingly handsome face.
His nose was slightly crooked, like it had been broken in the past and not set quite right. It just made him that much more attractive.
When I looked closer, I noticed a faint scar that ran down his left cheek, possibly from a past altercation that ended in bloodshed just like the one that had happened right in front of me just a few seconds ago.
I’d never seen a man die before, but Gregor had dug his own grave and who was I to grieve him burying himself in it all on his own.
He didn’t mean anything to me, and this Maxim wouldn’t either.
I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders back. No matter how drawn to this man I was, I wasn’t going to go anywhere with him. There was something about him that told me that I couldn’t get away with what I wanted with him, and that was distinctly different than Gregor.
Gregor was a giant Neanderthal with a pea-sized brain.
I could tell that Maxim was not.
But at the end of the day, he was still a man, and men were simple creatures. Maxim might not be as easy of a mark as Gregor had been, but he was a man, and he had a cock just like they all had.
I just had to figure out how to lead him around by it, at least until I could make my escape.
He took a deliberate step toward me, his movements fluid and confident.
I instinctively stepped back, my heels hitting the cool wall behind me. The sudden barrier felt both comforting and confining in the same breath. My heart pounded in my chest, not just from fear, but also from the tumultuous mix of emotions that this man seemed to stir within me simply by meeting my gaze.
“Riley,” Maxim began again, his voice softer now, but still laced with an iron resolve, “you’re coming with me.”
I squared my jaw, meeting his intense gaze with one of my own. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I asserted, my voice steady despite the raw adrenaline coursing through me.
Maxim sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of the world. He took another step closer, effectively trapping me against the wall. His presence was overwhelming, enveloping, yet somehow still far too enticing.
I didn’t like how it made me feel, out of control and out of my element.
