Right now there was no chance in hell that Izzy would want to help them, especially with the way he’d been treating her. Since he really didn’t think there was a chance in hell that he could do anything to change the way she felt about him, he decided that he wouldn’t even bother trying. Not that he would tell Eric that. He wouldn’t.

No, the best thing for both of them was to continue to be the ass**le she expected and use the time he was stuck with her to either convince her to do whatever the hell Eric needed her to do or simply scare the shit out of her.

Either way he was pretty sure he’d find a way to get what he needed. Once he did her ass was going to be on a plane to Europe and out of his hair.

“Okay,” he said, knowing he had very little choice in the matter, but they were going to do things his way. She was going to be quiet, stay the hell out of his way and keep her little hands away from him, because he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t doom them both to a lifetime of misery by f**king her

“Good. I have to go. Call if you run into any problems.”

“Wait,” Chris said, stopping him from hanging up.

“Have you heard from my family? I can’t seem to reach them.”

“They’re fine as far as I know.”

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem. Stay safe and remember what I said, make her happy,” Eric said before hanging up.

Keep her happy? Not a chance in hell at this point. But he could keep her safe and make her willing to give up her program. For his job and his family he’d do whatever the hell he had to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to purposely hurt her even when she pissed him off.

But he could definitely spank her beautiful ass, he thought seconds later when his smiling little mate pushed an overflowing shopping cart towards him, which was actually kind of impressive since she’d only been in the store for twenty minutes.

“What the hell is all that shit?” he demanded.

She looked up at him, blinking innocently as she said, “Necessities.”

He cocked a brow as he picked up one of her “necessities” and held it up. “You really need a five pound bag of Hershey’s kisses?”

She nodded solemnly. “I really do.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t buy me chocolate I’m probably going to take my misery out on your balls,” she said with a sweet innocent smile that he found both hot and a little frightening.

Chapter 30

“Ow! Stop slapping my hand!” Chris bit out even as he reached across the table, again.

She didn’t even hesitate in slapping his hand again.

“Don’t touch my bacon,” she said simply as she pointed her butter knife at him, more than willing to use it if he came between her the only food she’d had in days.

“It’s not like you’re going to be able to eat it all, Munchkin,” he grumbled.

“That’s what you think,” she said, narrowing her eyes on him in warning before she returned her attention back to the large plate of pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns.

It was so good, she thought, moaning around a large bite of maple syrup soaked pancake. When she saw Chris’ hand edge towards her plate again she raised the knife. His eyes shot to the knife and then back to her before he reached out and snatched up a sausage link.

He chuckled when she kicked him under the small table and threw her a wink as he snatched her plate of extra bacon she’d ordered and dug in.

“Why did you order just coffee if you were hungry?” she demanded, pulling the rest of her plates closer so that she could protect them from the big jerk, but there really wasn’t much room to move anything on the small table in their hotel room so she settled on warning him off with a glare.

“I wasn’t hungry then,” he said simply, reaching out once again, but this time snatching one of her large thick pancakes.

“Then order your own damn food!” she snapped, reaching out to rescue her poor pancake only to have the jerk roll it up and stuff it into his mouth.

“Why when I can just steal your food?” he asked with a chuckle and a carefree smile that she liked. So she allowed him to steal another pancake while she focused her attention on her hash browns.

She couldn’t remember ever being this hungry before.

Granted it had been more than twentyfour hours since the last time she ate, but she’d done that before and never felt like she’d be sick if she didn’t eat something.

Sometimes when she worked she forgot to do simple things like sleep or eat. She usually became too focused on whatever program she was working on at the time and forgot about everything else around her except emergency runs to the bathroom, which she usually put off as long as possible and her never ending supply of Coke.

Speaking of Coke……

After she shoveled five huge bites of food in her mouth she stood up, snatched the sausage link from Chris’ lips and headed to the waist high dark oak bureau and snatched up the loose change and crumbled one dollar bills that Chris tossed there an hour ago.

“Where are we going, Munchkin?” Chris asked, getting up from the table, but not before shoving the last pancake in his mouth.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” she said as she sat down on the edge of the tan loveseat to pull on her new shoes.

“I’m going downstairs to hit the vending machines and get a Coke.”

He folded his arms over his bare chest and she nearly forgot what she was doing. Did he not realize that she found his bare chest a bit distracting? She licked her lips, remembering how good it felt to touch him. It was too bad there was never going to be a chance to do it again.

Not that the sex hadn’t been great it had even if it had been quick…..really quick. If it hadn’t been so damn good and still had her toes curling every time she thought about it she might have felt bad for Chris. It was his first time, well according to him and she’d admit that she hadn’t really believed him, but after that performance there was no doubt left in her mind.

It was probably the reason why he’d been such a surly bastard afterwards. He was probably mortified that he’d come so quickly and hadn’t even got in a single thrust in. She wanted to comfort him, explain that with practice he’d get better, but she didn’t think he’d appreciate her mentioning it since he sure as hell hadn’t. Then of course there was the problem she was having with controlling her jealously and rage at the thought of him with any other women.

She really didn’t like the idea of another woman looking at him, never mind touching him. Every time she thought about him being with another woman she felt like killing something which actually really frightened her since she really wasn’t a violent person. The crazy thing was that she didn’t even like Chris.

Okay, she liked him, enjoyed being with him when he wasn’t being a jerk and felt safe with him. He was her captor and she should flat out hate him, but she couldn’t.

The way she felt about him, the way her body responded at just the sight of him and the panic she felt when she was away from him only backed up his claims that they were connected. Hell, she felt connected to him, even more so since they’d had sex. It was frightening and just another reason for her to get the hell away from him.