Page 61 of My Sweet Poison
I backed away. I was still close to the cliff's edge. I hadn't tracked the distance. My foot slipped, dislodging several rocks and sending them spiraling down the cliff face.
Pierce lunged and snatched the front of my shirt. He yanked, pulling my shivering body flush with his. Twisting the wet hair at the nape of my neck in his hand, he bent close. "No, babygirl, you won't escape me. Not even in death."
The cold was cutting right through me. Giving me one last hard look, Pierce firmly gripped my neck and marched me across the rain-soaked grass of the clearing to the trail that cut through the forest.
We were barely under the trees when a peal of thunder shook the ground, punctuating every step.
He bent low and swept me into his arms.
I objected, but a hard glare from his pale gray eyes quelled any rebellion in me.
"Put your head on my shoulder," he murmured against my forehead.
My head fell against the crook of his neck, my cheek pressed to the wet hollow above his collarbone.
The protective canopy of the forest evergreen trees shielded us from the worst of the rain. The thick branches of pines, red cedars, and magnolias broke the downpour into a steady drip that muffled the storm. We were surrounded by the earthy scent of damp moss and decaying wildflowers.
The forest closed behind us. Every few steps, a branch groaned under the weight of the rain, and the canopy shifted, spilling cold water down the back of my neck. I flinched, and Pierce's arms tightened. He didn't speak. Neither did I. There was only the crunch of wet ground under his boots and the low, constant breathing between us.
No one would come looking for me out here. No one ever had. That was the particular cruelty of being an orphan. You could vanish from the world and the world just kept turning.
No, that wasn’t true. I had friends. People who cared about me. I wasn’t truly alone. Hailey would care. Eventually she would learn about what happened at the courthouse and that I wasn’tsafelybehind bars and come looking for me.
But for now I was alone with him. In a forest. In a storm. Being carried toward a house I'd never seen by a man who had destroyed my life and then saved it in the same breath.
It would have been so easy to close my eyes and pretend he was something other than the most dangerous man I'd ever known.
Every detective story I'd ever shelved, every criminal profile I'd ever devoured in my 221B nook, had taught me to recognize when I was being played.
Moriarty never looked like a monster.
He looked like a gentleman carrying you out of the rain.
CHAPTER 29
HAILEY
Igripped the chair back so hard my knuckles turned white.
My gaze scanned the room, already knowing the only door was behind Greyson.
This kind of stuff only happened to women in Lifetime movies or the heroines of romance books. It didn’t happen in modern-day Virginia, for fuck’s sake!
A person couldn’t just kidnap another person in broad daylight, off the courthouse steps no less, and get away with it. Greyson didn’t get a second set of laws to follow just because he had money and audacity.
Right?
All those stupid true crime marathons I used to devour alongside a bowl of popcorn on Saturday nights with Madison flashed before my eyes. Each one damning what I just said. Yup. It turned out a personcouldactually kidnap someone and totally get away with it.
Especially if that person was an uber-rich, well-connected, incredibly handsome, arrogant asshole. He could probably walk into a courtroom covered in my blood and still have that handsome smirk on his face when he walked out a free man.
Greyson chuckled as he took another step toward me. “At least you called me handsome.”
My eyes widened.Fuck.Did he just read my mind?
Was I going crazy or had I just said all that out loud?
Greyson’s lips curled up at the corner. “Yes, you said all of that out loud, though I’d like to think I can read your mind. You have very expressive eyes that tell me all the dirty things going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
