Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,18

a deserted access road that was all cracked asphalt, I threw the SUV into Park.

“I asked you a question, damn it!” Frantic, she looked around us. “What the hell are you doing? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

I didn’t answer.

Getting out of the Escalade, I rounded the front and yanked her door open. “Out,” I ordered.

“What?” Disdain mixed with fear in her tone, and I fed off it.

“Out,” I repeated with more force.

“No.” She reached for the door.

I was quicker.

Unlatching her seat belt, I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out of the SUV. When her feet hit the ground, she stumbled, and her tits mashed into my chest.

Gripping a handful of her thick hair, I yanked her head back and spun her around to face the access road.

Then I leaned down and whispered a single word in her ear. “Run.”

Turning, she lit into me. “What the fuck do you think you’re—”

“Run,” I ordered.

Her face morphed into shock. “Are you insane?”

“RUN.”

Fear ate up the shock, and that was all it took.

She fucking took off.

Arms pumping, hair blowing behind her, keeping her balance on the balls of her feet, she ran.

Goddamn, she ran. In high-heeled boots no less, and fuck if it wasn’t sexy. But the real turn-on was when she looked over her shoulder.

“That’s it, sweetheart, look back for me,” I murmured under my breath before raising my voice. “Run.”

Her gaze cutting forward again, she picked up speed.

Staring at her ass, I counted down from ten.

Then I took off after her.

HIS EYES HARDENED TO THE point of cruelty then he let loose. “RUN.”

Fear licked up my spine, and I didn’t question his bullshit again. I didn’t even think.

I pivoted and ran.

If there were two things I knew how to do besides drugs, it was wear heels as high as my net worth and run. Because you didn’t grow up in Miami Beach and not know how to wear heels, and you sure as fuck didn’t let yourself get fat when you were Leo Amherst’s daughter and dear ole daddy told you, starting at age twelve, to keep your ass tight.

So, I knew how to run and wear heels, but until this very moment, I didn’t know I could do both at once.

Apparently a six-and-a-half-foot alpha monster of ink and muscle yelling in my face was all the motivation I needed.

I didn’t even question the insanity of what was happening… until my foot landed unevenly on a cracked piece of the shitty excuse for a road and my step faltered. Then I glanced over my shoulder.

“Run,” he bellowed.

A single command in his dominating voice, and I picked up the pace.

The cold burning my lungs, my feet screaming for mercy, fight-or-flight instinct pumping adrenaline through my veins, I was running as fast as I could.

Then I heard his footsteps behind me.

My heart slammed against my laboring lungs, and irrational panic robbed me of air. I knew he was a bodyguard. I knew the quickening thuds of his boots against pavement behind me weren’t life threatening. I knew he wouldn’t kill me.

But the panic in my veins wasn’t listening to reason, and the neglected muscles in my legs burned as they tried to work faster. My fingers digging into my palms, my arms pumping harder, my head filled with a hyperawareness of every single thing around me. The air, the road, the sounds of the highway a half mile away, his gaining footsteps—I kept running.

Running and praying I kept my balance while I sprinted as fast as humanly possible.

But in the next instant, I felt him.

The air shifted, the sound of his boots on the pavement was right next to me, and he was on me.

Except he wasn’t.

Suddenly beside me, he kept pace.

His mouth closed, his eyes focused straight ahead, he ran next to me.

Not even breathing hard, no strain on his face, his expression locked, the fucker just ran with me.

The adrenaline spiking my system crashed, and I stumbled.

Pitching forward, my mouth opened on a gasp, and my arms flew out in front of me to brace for the inevitable contact with shitty fucking asphalt.

Except I didn’t fall.

A strong arm snaked across my waist as a hard body slammed into my back, and then I was in his arms.

But I wasn’t simply in his arms.

Cradling me, he lifted me to his chest and held me there tight. Not panting, not making a sound, he turned and started back toward the Escalade.

My head spinning, a hundred questions burning, a thousand more