I let my eyes go round—full doe mode—and peered up at him. I had to look up to see into his face anyway. I sucked only the corner of my bottom lip beneath my teeth. "Why are you so obsessed with me, Daddy?"
A growl rumbled through his chest. Fuck, I liked that more than I should, especially since I'd never met another person who could growl like Knox. The sound wasn't an angry man's approximation of a growl; it was real, deep, and sank into my bones.
"The hissing kitten finally wants to purr?" His strong jaw and sharp cheeks loomed closer. Knox had the type of face that always looked ready for a shave. He never had a beard, but I wouldn't call him clean-shaven. His cheeks were as rough as the rest of him.
"I can do more than purr—" The rest of my taunt dried in my throat the moment my brain pointed out how close Knox's face was, how close his lips were. He watched my eyes, occasionally glancing lower to my mouth. He was fucking with me, I knew that, but my stomach flipped all the same.
My body didn't care who was touching it, just that it was being touched.
His lips drew closer, filling each of my senses with him. His scent wasn't as much comforting as it was wild. When I inhaled, I pictured a huge dark cloud rolling ominously over a dark blue ocean. He smelled like a storm, but there was more to it. I detected a hint of leather and the sharp freshness of cut cedar. His wasn't a scent that came from a bottle, but from his life.
Instantly, I was curious about the version of Knox that wasn't chasing me. Where did he live that he smelled like this? What did he do there? Did the five of them live and work together? I had questions—a dangerous thing when coupled with my relentless curiosity.
But even my questions were silences as his lips hovered even closer. I could've stretched my head forward and bridged the gap, press my mouth against his.
Just because I could didn't mean I should. A kiss from this man would only make running away from him that much more difficult. Already, alarm bells sounded in my brain. The mission wasn't as much to get out of his grasp but to stop the kiss that would surely turn my life into a tailspin I wouldn't be able to pull out of.
I did the opposite of what my brain told me to do. Annoyingly, it was also what my body wanted. Those two jerks didn't see eye to eye when it came to Knox. I went loose, limp, and pliant. Knox's grip tightened to accommodate for the way I sagged into him. I licked my lips and angled my face higher, allowing Knox open access to my mouth.
For a split second, I thought I saw something flash in his gaze. Not mean or taunting, nor arrogant or domineering. Something possessive.
But the look was gone as quickly as it had come, and Knox's mouth inched closer. He'd loosed his grip on one wrist; that would have to be enough. I sighed into him, but the moment our lips should've touched, my knee collided with his groin.
He didn't let go as I'd hoped, but he grunted and jerked back, giving me enough room to duck under his arms. I spun my wrists, grimacing at the burn, but it was necessary to twist my arms so the narrowest part lined up directly behind his thumbs. I yanked like they'd explained to do on the self defense video I'd watched a few days ago.
Amazingly, it worked. My wrists slipped free, stinging from the force of his hold but my own to move as I liked.
He snarled and made a swipe for my waist. I jumped back, evading his grasp but also tucking myself further down the alley and away from the street. Unlike the alley a little farther down the sidewalk, this one didn't go all the way through. I was stuck. An angry, sexy beast stood between me and freedom.
Even now, tense and stiff with irritation, he made my insides quiver. I had a type: nice, fun-loving guys who weren't interested in anything that wasn't surface level. Knox wasn't a surface-level kind of guy. He was the type of man that would burrow under your skin and wrap himself around your bones.
He was hired to capture you.
Thankfully, my brain chose that moment to speak up before I did something stupidly insane, like fall back into his arms a second time.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the sheet of paper, fashioned it into a gun behind my back, and stuck the barrel against my temple.
Knox froze, his hands outstretched. "That isn't real, brat," he growled, his nostrils flaring.
"Isn't it?" I found his gaze. "Are you certain?"
He may have been watching and figuring things about me, but he couldn't know everything. He couldn't know that while the gun was nothing but paper, it would smell like a real gun. If I pulled the trigger, it would sound like a real gun.
His uncertainty kept him from lunging forward, but he remained between me and the exit. "You'd never do it," he taunted. "You love your own pretty face too much."
That stung in an unusual way. He'd called my face pretty, which I enjoyed, but he'd also implied I was some sort of vapid kid. Little more than an unruly child throwing a tantrum.
I cocked the gun. The click of the hammer sliding into place was deafening in the muted alley. Something that looked like actual fear danced behind his eyes, gone in the next moment. My finger rested against the trigger. Though I knew the gun was fake—I'd made it— I'd begun to believe I could feel it against my head. A thrill of fear skittered up my spine.
"Do you want to risk it?" I asked softly. "Do you think you'll get paid by my father if you drop me off with a hole in my head?"
His entire body coiled like a spring poised to leap into action.
I stared him down, unsure of what I would do if he called my bluff. I wasn't in danger; he couldn't be one hundred percent sure of that. He would be next time, that was for sure. Every trick I used on Knox and his team, only ever worked once.
He'd made a decision, clear by the way Knox's body relaxed. He stepped back, placing his hands against the wall.
I stumbled forward in my haste to get free. The gun to my head, his hands on my wrists, his scent in my head—I was disoriented by nothing but him. This day would be a lesson in nothing but how important it was that I keep my distance. Maybe I'd been toying with them a little, lingering these passed months mostly in the Portland area. I got attached and almost got caught because of it.
I didn't breathe as I crossed Knox. Nothing stopped him from reaching for me a second time except his uncertainty. He didn't move, though, and I made it to the mouth of the alley, peeking up and down the sidewalk before I planned my getaway route.
"Jazz." Knox let my name linger on his tongue.
Don't turn. Don't listen. Just go. You don't want to hear it.
That was what my brain thought. My body grabbed the corner of the building and lingered.
"Next time I see you, I want your hair back to how it was. And you put another gun to your head, conjured or not, and I'll paddle that ass."
Chapter Two
Knox
My cock throbbed watching the little flirt scamper out the mouth of the alley. I knew the gun hadn't been real and was reasonably positive pulling the trigger would've done nothing more than produce a loud sound, but seeing Jazz with that gun to his head had done something to me I wasn't prepared to face.
Not while standing in a rancid alley surrounded by the smells of urine and trash. We'd been chasing Jazz for months. How could any of us have suspected five mercenary alphas who had completed missions in the world's shittiest nations would have trouble picking up a twenty-three-year-old guy on his own?