All I was met with was a tightening around his eyes, a ticking in his jaw. He looked almost... angry.

“You really ain't got shit to live for?” he asked, his voice low.

I felt my shoulder shrug. “I really don't have shit to live for,” I affirmed. “I mean... I'm not exactly happy about dying before I even reach my thirtieth birthday. But I get to choose how to go. Better at my own hands than being scraped off the pavement after a drunk driver hits me while I was crossing the street. Or choking on the horse pill sized vitamins I take alone in my apartment, not to be found for days until my landlord comes looking for rent.”

“Jesus Christ you're dark.”

At this, I felt my lips quirk up. “You kidnap and hold people hostage and probably kill them. And I'm dark?”

“Yeah, doll. You're dark. I work in darkness. I don't live it. I don't wrap it around myself like a blanket, hiding from the fuckin' world.”

“I don't hide from the world!” I objected, though I knew it was true.

“I sat on your apartment for three days and you didn't come out once. Not even to get food. Not to talk to another person. Not to get laid. Nothing.”

“I was working,” I objected.

“On what? Ratting out porn-addicted men to their suspicious spouses?”

Okay. I was getting a little bit angry.

Unfortunately for me, there was no such thing as a little bit angry. One kind of angry was just as bad as the next. And when I was pissed, there seemed to be a disconnect between my lips and my sensor.

“Trying to bring down a friggen criminal empire you asshole!”

Oops.

That was the wrong thing to say.

His brow quirked, his eyes got curious.

And I knew there was no way he was going to let that one go.

“Come again?” he asked, his voice deceptively mild.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“That ain't gonna cut it.”

“Well, too bad. Because I'm not telling you.”

“Doll...”

“No. And you can't make me.”

That probably was another wrong thing to say.

I knew that because of the smile that seemed to touch his eyes, but not his lips.

“Wanna bet?”

“Are you going to hit me?”

To this, he flinched. And I knew he wouldn't. He wasn't one of those men.

“No. I'm not going to hit you.”

“Then I don't see how you can make me tell you anything.”

“No?” he asked, the smile finally catching the side of his lips as he ever so slowly started moving toward me.

Better sense told me to stand my ground. But my body wasn't listening. I was just as slowly moving backward, away from him. But then my back hit the wall. And he was still coming.

My heart was hammering hard, my chest feeling oddly constricted. And part of it was fear- fear of the unknown. But part of it was something else. Something I didn't quite recognize or understand.

There was only a foot between us, his ice blue eyes focused on mine, his face giving nothing of his intentions away.

Of their own volition, my hands went up, palms out, pressing into his abs as he started to close the small gap between us.

His eyes slid down to my hands, then back up to my face.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice a little shaky. Weak.

What the hell was going on?

He pushed closer, making my hands press harder into his abdominal muscles. And I realized I was right back in my apartment when I thought he was strong under his clothes. He was like a brick wall beneath my palms.

My eyes slid back up to his, a strange fluid sensation swirling around in my belly when they landed, finding him watching me.

One of his hands went up, caging me in from the side. The other rose more slowly, hovering in the air for a second, before skimming his fingertips lightly across my jaw.

And my whole body shuddered.

Hard.

Because the butterfly-light touch felt like it skipped over every inch of my skin.

His head dipped slightly, his warm breath tickling my cheekbone. But his eyes never left mine.

“Breaker...” I tried, not sure what I was asking, what I was feeling, what he was trying to do.

“Ain't gonna hurt you, doll,” he said, his voice low and rumbling.

Then his eyes finally left mine as his head tilted lower.

The fluid sensation in my belly intensified and twisted in an almost sickening swirl... just a second before his lips closed over my earlobe.

The air flew out of my lungs and my hands dug into the muscles of his stomach instinctively.

I wasn't a scared little virgin. As fate would have it, that flew out the door ten days after my mother went in the ground.

That being said, I wasn't exactly experienced either. Mostly because I stayed away from people like they were possible carriers of bubonic plague. And also because I was pretty sure I had some kind of medical condition that made a normal twenty-something female libido just... disappear.

I didn't crave sex.

I barely even thought about it save for the times I was grimacing at the porn sites clients unwittingly made me visit.

But there was no mistaking it.

It was in the weird, fluttery heartbeat. In the hypersensitivity of my nerve endings. In the way goosebumps were rising on my neck and chest and arms. In the fierce, almost painful tightening deep in my core.

I was turned on.

By my god damn kidnapper.

Holy crap.

What was wrong with me?

“What crime lord?” Breaker's voice asked, making a shiver run through my body, his teeth nipping into my earlobe.

“Lex,” my voice breathed out. To me, it was barely even audible.

But Breaker responded like I had shouted it through a megaphone.

His other hand slammed down beside my head, completely caging me in, his head moving backward, his eyes pinning me in place.

“You fuckin' serious?”

Shit.

His tone pulled the desire backward, leaving me feeling shaky and cold and unfulfilled.

And maybe a little, just a tiny bit, disappointed.

What can I say? It had been a long, long time since I knew what desire felt like. And I kind of liked it. And I wanted to see where it led. That may have made me a slut, but I was okay with that.

But the fact of the matter was- he used me.

He used my body against me.

And that was pretty messed up.

Especially considering I was his damn prisoner.

“I can't believe you just did that,” I accused, my voice almost a little squeaky with a mix of indignation and humiliation.

“Did what?” he asked, looking confused.

“Used... used... sex to get an answer!”

At this, his head fell backward and he let out a laugh that boomed off the train walls and sent another shot of desire to my poor, underused nether regions.

His face dropped to mine again, still smiling, but it had turned a little more condescending. “I guess it's been a while for you,” he started and I felt my spine straightening, “but that wasn't sex, doll. That was me kissing your ear. Though if you want me to try using sex as a interrogation method...” he trailed off, his hands moving from the wall and sliding intimately down my sides.

And damn if it didn't feel all kinds of good.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was he was having fun at my expense.

I was already a freaking prisoner.

That was just... so not okay.

Before I thought it through, truly before I even realized it was happening, my hand swung back, then flew forward, landing with a satisfying crack to the side of his face.

Surprise registered in his eyes for a second. Then the condescending smile took a turn toward the mischievous and I knew I had, yet again, screwed up.

“Like it rough, huh?” he asked, running a hand over his cheek which was a nice shade of red.

“Go fuck yourself,” I said, ducking under his arm, and darting past him.