Page 21 of Cold-Blooded Captor
I am not stripping in front of this motherfucker.
I shake my head. “No.”
He shrugs. “No shower, then.”
I want a shower more than I want anything else right now. For a clean freak who sometimes showers twice a day, going without has been torture.
“Wait,” I say. “There has to be another way.”
“My way or no way.”
I clench my jaw, trying to hold in my rising fury and frustration. Trying to play nice. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in situations like this? Humanize yourself to your captor. Be nice. Sympathetic. Stroke his ego.
“Can’t I just close the door and get down to business?”
He’s looking at me like I’m a speck of dirt on his expensive Italian loafers. An annoyance. A bug he can swat so I stop flying around his head.
“No, you can’t,” he says, gesturing at me with the Glock. “Everything has to come off first, and then I’m going to handcuff you to me.”
“I’m not taking a shower with you,zasranets,” I blurt.
“Not what I had in mind, but I see where that dirty mind of yours was taking you.”
I grind my teeth. “Believe me, that’s the last thing I’m thinking of.”
“I don’t blame you.” He smirks. “I do have a way about me.”
“That makes everyone in your presence fantasize about bashing your skull in with a blunt object?”
His cool gaze is assessing. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll sheathe your claws, hellcat.”
“I’d rather put them to good use.”
“I can think of better uses for them.”
That shuts me up, because his words instantly trigger a mental image of him naked on top of me, my nails raking down his back. Damn him. He brings out the worst in me, in every possible way.
“Fine,” I tell him before I can change my mind.
Then I unzip my jeans and pull them down my hips, taking my panties with them. In another second, I whip my tee over my head and toss it to the floor. Holding his stare, I reach behind me, unhook my bra, and drop it.
“There,” I say, standing naked in front of him. “Happy now?”
His eyes flick down over me, but his face remains an expressionless mask of indifference. “Give me your wrist.”
With an exasperated sigh, I hold out my right hand.
He closes the cuff on it and then quickly snaps the other on his own wrist. He undoes the button at his wrist and rolls up his sleeve while I watch, trying not to notice the way Andriani gives a whole new meaning to the term forearm porn. And acting like I’m not standing in the chill air, completely naked.
“Get in,” he orders me. “Don’t take too long, and don’t try anything stupid.”
With that, he rests his uncuffed hand on the pistol at his side. The sooner I can shower and get back into clothing—even dirty clothing—the better. I swallow my pride and comply, moving into the narrow fiberglass shower.
It’s not going to be easy washing with one hand that’s not my dominant, but I don’t really care at the moment. I crank on the shower and water emerges with less pressure and a bit cooler than I’d like, but it’s not brown. Thank heavens for small mercies. The only soap in here is men’s shower gel and shampoo, so I make use of it, trying not to notice that it smells like him.
He doesn’t utter a word as I wash as quickly as I can.
I wonder how long the hot water will last. Can I just stay in here for the rest of the day and never come out? Not likely. But facing him again, while I’m naked and soaked, isn’t exactly what I’m dying to do.
