All I had to do is make it past him. Just make it past the hot, dangerous mob guy and start screaming for help, and I’d be out of this whole nightmare in a second.
His eyes burned into me, making me shiver with their intensity.
“Are— Where…” I blinked, trying to look as disoriented as possible as I looked wildly around the truck. I saw his shoulder relax, his guard down.
…Big mistake.
I screamed as I charged him swinging my fists. The man moved a step back, hands up and those eyes blazing into me before suddenly, I jerked my knee up as I came flying out of the back of the truck. The man grunted, doubling over as I caught him right in balls before I lunged past him…
…And into snow up to my fucking waist.
I gasped, shock and cold ripping my breath away and sending warning sirens blaring through my brain. My body trembled, clenching, trying to shut down at the sudden cold. And when I glanced around, my heart sank.
No, there was not going to be anyone running up to rescue me. Because we were in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Blinding white snow howled and whistled around me, and I cried out as the sharp swirls of icy sleet stung my bare skin. But when I glanced back and saw the man with the piercing blue eyes and the gun swear as he slowly got to his feet, I knew I couldn’t wait.
It was now or never.
I screamed, lunging with my arms and trying to swim my way through the waist-high snow. My breath came panting out in thick white clouds, my throat burning with cold and my body aching from the snow and the adrenaline.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
The man’s booming baritone voice carried into me over the wind.
“Get away from me!” I screamed, not daring to turn to see how close he was.
I could feel my body shutting down, my tired, sore muscles slowing, my lungs slowly freezing, until suddenly, his hands were on me.
I screamed, trying to wrench away from him, but those hands were so fucking strong. He yanked, and when I found myself being lifted up in the air and flung over his damn shoulder, I swore and kicked. My knee jerked up, but this time, he was ready for me. Big, powerfully strong arms held me tight, pinning me across his shoulder with one wrapped tight around my thighs.
He turned, swearing as my fists rained down on his back, and started marching back towards the truck.
“Let me go! Let me go! Let me—!”
“You want to die out here?” he roared, making me gasp as he suddenly slung me off his shoulder and pushed me back, pinning me to the side of the truck. My breath caught as those gorgeous diamond-blue eyes burned right into me, sending a tremor through my core that had nothing to do with the snow.
“I’d rather that than you…” I shook my head, glaring at him defiantly.
“Than me what?” he growled, his big hands holding me tight, pressing me into the cold metal of the truck.
“Whatever you’re going to do to me!”
He frowned, his brow knitting as he shook his head. “I’m not—” he growled, and suddenly, his hand shot past me and yanked open the side door to the back seat of the big truck cab.
“How about get your ass in there and keep you warm and we make sure you don’t fucking freeze to death.”
His look hardened, burning right into me as I swallowed, shivering but trying not to show it. My teeth chattered, and I could feel my toes going numb as we stared each other down.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled, his eyes darting over me.
“Says the man who was just trafficking me!”
His brow furrowed. “I didn’t know—” he growled. “Look, get the fuck in the truck, princess. You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine!” I spat back petulantly through chattering teeth.
“Get in or I’m picking that bratty ass up and throwing you in.”
“Don’t you fucking touch — asshole!”
Big, strong hands grabbed me, lifting me as he swung the door wide before tossing me across the bench back seat of the truck. He climbed in after me, ignoring my swears and kicks as he slammed the door shut.
A rumbling suddenly shook the whole truck, and just as the both of us turned to glance out the window, the avalanche wave of pure ice and snow came crashing down the hillside, burying us in pale white darkness.
And just like that, I was trapped. Half naked, frozen, wet, and trapped in the backseat of a pickup truck with the gorgeous, rough criminal who’d kidnapped me.
Now what?
3
Dane
“I didn’t fucking know you were back there.”
She was glaring at me from the far side of bench seat, the whole cab dimly glowing with the white snow burying us. It wasn’t that bad. That I could see light through the snow burying the truck was a good sign. Total darkness would have meant who the fuck knows how much snow on top of us. But light meant it was dig-able.