“Move.” Someone shoved his back.
He didn’t budge.
When the next shove came, he ducked, spun, and slammed his knuckles into the face behind him, willfully initiating an explosive chain reaction of violence and fury.
He hammered his fists, connecting with flesh, but no amount of skill or training could defeat their numbers. Within seconds, his back hit the concrete, his ribs taking the brunt of the blows as men fell upon him, weapons aimed, and mouths grinning through the blood.
They didn’t want to shoot him. They wanted to beat him to a pulp.
Manic energy surged through him, clouding his vision. Octane pumped his heart. Blood and sweat slicked his face. His knuckles throbbed, and his eyes burned from the impact of raining fists. Still, he kept punching, fighting, and roaring through the bone-crunching agony of their strikes.
Until the report of gunfire shuddered the air. A single shot, fired from across the warehouse. Everyone froze.
His pulse thundered, and his lungs crashed together. Then, one by one, the weight of ten men lifted off his body.
He lay on his back, staring at the rafters through blood-soaked eyelashes. Everything hurt, and he relished it—the madness of the pain, the rush of adrenaline, and the utter freedom in unleashing his temper. He savored it almost as much as the sound of her clicking heels heading toward him.
Fucking finally.
“Tie him up.” She handed off her rifle to a guard while motioning at the rest of them. “Put him on that pallet.”
Christ, she was a vision. He wiped the blood from his eyes to steal a better look, and holy fuck, he couldn’t stop looking.
Black combat boots, a tiny skirt checked in white and black, fishnet stockings to her thighs, silk-ribbon garters over skin like fine china, tits spilling from a black corset, and that hair. God, that hair. It hung in rippling waves of fire, as bright as the red swallow tattooed on her chest.
Pressure tightened between his legs, swelling against his zipper. She glared, and he grinned, no doubt resembling a feral, blood-spattered animal.
“I’m gone for five days, and all hell breaks loose.” She held her spine ramrod straight, her little hands clenching in fists at her sides. “Goddamn children. The whole lot of you!”
The men, smeared in their own share of blood, shot death looks in her direction. Some of them pressed their lips tight as if biting back scathing retorts. If she wasn’t careful, she might have an insurrection among them.
But for now, they followed her orders without argument. Hands fell upon him, hauling him up and dragging him across the factory floor.
They dumped his ass on a stack of wood pallets. Another stack leaned on its side between the wall and his back. Rope bound the platforms together, forming a makeshift L-shaped chair, perfect for restraining a crazed man.
He gave them hell, struggling and spitting as they tied his arms, neck, and waist to the pallets at his back. But much like the fight he’d just lost, one against many proved to be a wasted effort.
Thirty yards away, Lydia stood close to Mike, their heads bowed together, talking, touching, paying no attention to his useless thrashing.
When the guards finished trussing him to the platform, her voice snapped through the room. “Everyone out.”
She didn’t spare the room a glance, her gaze still fixed on Mike as she returned to their conversation.
The factory floor echoed with the tread of retreating footfalls. Mike vanished with the guards, and when the door slammed shut, only Lydia remained.
A thrill ran through him. At last, he would have some time with her, and he needed to make every second count.
She turned to him, her gaze as vibrant as the colorful ink on her arms. An abundance of cleavage decorated her corset, the view goddamn distracting as she pulled in a long breath and slowly released it.
Fucking hell, she was killing him. More painful than a fist, more lethal than a bullet, more formidable than an army of men, she brandished beauty like a mythical weapon, gaining the advantage by merely standing before him, looking like that.
Soft auburn brows arched above eyes that sparkled with the luster of polished emeralds. Supple red lips gracefully curved downward, unreasonably sensual. Deadly. Like cherries soaked in poison.
He knew she wasn’t real. The hair, the garters, the heat in her gaze—all of it was a honey trap to lure him under her spell. He knew this, and yet, he wanted to risk it. He wanted to risk his whole goddamn existence for a taste.
His body burned for her, restrained as it was beneath the rope, his zipper, and the plight of his circumstances. He would be lying to himself if he thought he could fight the intensity swarming through his system.
There was sexual attraction. Then there was this. He had nothing to compare it to. Not his relationship with Danni. Not the countless women who had come before her. He’d never felt this hungry, this captivated, this fucking petrified of his own lust.