“Why? Was the kiss not to your standards? I’d be happy to try again. As many times as you want.”
God, he was fucking incorrigible. I’d just slapped him, and he was right back to teasing me. He didn’t so much as glare at me for slapping him. If anything, he watched me with even more interest.
Maybe he was a masochist.
We stared at each other. The air was bitterly cold, but my lips still tingled from his kiss. I bet his face still tingled from my slap.
Had I overreacted? Now I couldn’t decide. Did I enjoy the kiss? And if I had…what did that mean?
MaybeIwas the masochist.
I turned on my heel, intending to head back inside. I was angry, confused, and feeling guilty about my reactions to him. The way his kiss had warmed my lips and stirred my blood… Feeling desire for him was totally inappropriate, but as hard as I wanted to deny it, there was something there.
He’d kissed me, and the truth was, I’d kissed him back.
I only managed to take a single step before he reached out, quick as a cat, and caught my hand.
“Sofia,” he said. “Don’t go. Please.”
The wordpleasestopped me. I would’ve sworn he was incapable of speaking the word. But it was the urgency in his voice that truly undid me. I was torn between staying and leaving to prove I wasn’t his plaything.
But there was something different about this side of him. Not that cold and focused predator I’d first seen in the penthouse. Not the sarcastic jerk who delighted in taunting me with “Princess.” But someone who actually seemed to care about something.
I waited, half in anticipation, half in dread of what he would do next. From the beginning, I hadn’t been able to read him. He’d always kept me off-balance. I wanted a man I could trust in my life. I wanted a man who made me feel safe. Leon wasn’t that man.
Still…I didn’t leave.
“I want you to change your mind, Sofia,” he said. “Come with me to the cabin. Only until I can get to the bottom of this and make sure you’re safe. Please.”
That word again. Did he know the effect it had on me? “Why do you care what happens to me?”
“Because you’re a good person, and you don’t deserve to be hurt by this.”
I made a disbelieving noise in my throat. “You hate my family. You hate me.”
“I don’t kiss people I hate.”
My attempt to find a comeback for that failed miserably. My thoughts were reeling, but I had a decision to make.
Did I trust an assassin, or did I run back to my father? Back to my father…to the man who had the USB drive with all the stolen crypto keys slipped into my luggage.
I could no longer deny the cold facts—and I no longer wanted to. Whose idea had it been for me to go on a Caribbean vacation when my classes ended for the holidays? Who was paying for it and had made all the arrangements? Who’d offered to pay for three of my friends to go because he wanted the girls to stick together in a group? Who’d sent two of his men to drive me to the airport just to make sure I got there on time and didn’t need to leave my car in long-term parking?
My father. That’s who.
“I’ll go with you.” I looked Leon straight in the eyes, my mind replaying our kiss and leaving me wondering if I was making a terrible mistake. “For now.”
CHAPTER NINE
LEON
It was official: I had lost my mind.
Yesterday, I’d had a pistol aimed in Sofia’s face. Today, I was kissing her. And right now, I was driving her to hide out with me in backwoods New Jersey.
I’d kissed her. But who could blame me? She’d been intensely beautiful with her cheeks pink from the cold, with those big dark eyes and long lashes, and her full lips that were a damn temptation. Sofia was gorgeous, sure, but I wasn’t a slave to my cock. But when she was standing there, looking so beautiful, vulnerable, and yet determined to be strong, even to the point of defying me, I’d had no choice but to kiss her.
This was all kinds of wrong. She’d been right to slap me. I’d deserved it. It was fucked up to kidnap a woman and then kiss her. It was even more fucked up to kiss the daughter of the man who’d ordered your older brother’s murder.
