Love the Way You Lie (Stripped 1)

Ivan strides from the room, leaving us alone.

I swallow hard. Kip may have won this round over Ivan, but I can’t trust that. And no wonder, considering what happened to my mother. I have issues. But I can’t leave Kip either. Can’t do anything but stand beside him. He defended me from Ivan. He’s protected me all along.

And now he’s claimed me.

* * *

There’s a motorcycle waiting a few yards away. Kip walks over and picks up the helmet.

He holds it out. “Let’s go.”

It doesn’t even occur to me to walk

away. He came for me; I’m going with him. I can’t offer him any kind of relationship or commitment. At some point I’ll have to explain that, but not now—not so soon after he stalked into the Grand and shielded me with his own body. Not right after he said I was his. He’s won this. He’s earned me. It’s a fantasy we can live together for one night, an hourglass with each kernel of sand bringing my enemies closer to me, one more breath facing the open mouth of a gun.

“Where?” I ask, already taking the helmet anyway, because it doesn’t matter where we go. Anywhere. “I need to be back by sunrise.”

The corner of his lips lifts, and I’m riveted by the scruff that frames them. The whiskers that are sharp against my skin, leaving red marks. The mouth so soft and talented. “Already planning to get rid of me?”

The truth is we were always bound to end. The truth is we should never have started. “I want every second I can get with you,” I tell him honestly. To prove my point, I put the helmet on.

Take me away.

And though I can’t voice my desire, he seems to know. He grabs my hand and steadies me as I hook my leg over the bike. It’s bigger than I expected—taller and wider. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before. I was more likely to ride in the back of my father’s Rolls. At least when I was allowed to leave the house. My feet come off the ground. Between the helmet and his broad back, I can’t see anything. I’m completely at his mercy like this.

“Hold on.” The words are more a rumble through his body—and into mine—than a sound.

I wrap my arms around his waist, soaking up his solidity like a cat in the sun. It’s been missing from my life, only coming in my dreams: safety. Stability. I take it all into my body, store it deep, hoarding the feeling for the time when I’m on the run again.

He’s wrong for me. Dangerous.

Desire doesn’t ask questions. Neither does love.

The roar of the engine is deafening—almost blinding, like the lights onstage. There’s a moment. There’s a shiver down my spine. There’s a doorway into a new place. But this isn’t a stage. These aren’t hands to grope me. This place is the rush of air over my skin as we take off. It’s the steady rumble of the machine beneath my legs, the hard body of the man I’m holding.

I don’t know how long we ride, but I never want it to end. When it stops, the clock will start ticking again. Ticking down the time I have with him, another grain of sand dropped. But while we’re on the bike, racing down a street I don’t even recognize, headed nowhere and everywhere, I feel the freedom I’ve been searching for.

I look to the side, but the buildings are gone. In their place are streaks of rust and gray. Brushstrokes in every drab color, made mysterious by night. This is the way he sees the world every day, I realize. As art.

The painting turns to green and brown, and I know we’ve left the city.

Anxiety shivers through me. What if he’s taking me out here for some darker purpose? What if he doesn’t bring me back? I almost laugh, though it’s a macabre amusement. What if I’ve escaped one monster only to find another?

But then I realize Clara will run if I don’t come back. She promised.

She’ll be safe. Alive. Not like my mother.

Not like me.

And I let my worries go. I paint them on the canvas we make, like bread crumbs I could use to find my way home.

Chapter Thirteen

The sky has turned a muted blue by the time we arrive. I look around. There are only trees and grass and a winding road that led us here. I don’t know why he’s brought me to this place. There is a reason, though. I read the secret in the tension of his body. He’s got a little half smile too, the kind that hides a surprise. It makes my heart thump a little too hard, that smile—sexy and impossibly sweet.

“Where are we?” I ask, musing. I don’t think he’ll tell me.

And he doesn’t. “Nowhere that’s on a map.”