“You’re hard to read,” he said, reaching for a roll of bread. “I suppose that’s intentional? It makes it more of a challenge to manipulate you?”
Sayeda shrugged. “Or it could be another reason.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m not a book…sir.”
Somehow, she’d gotten him to smile twice. The red-haired she-devil needed to spend time with this woman to learn how to communicate in ways that wouldn’t get her throat slit.
“Please, don’t call me ‘sir.’”
She handed him the platter, turned, and headed for the stove. “Dinner will be ready soon. Try not to fill yourself up on bread.”
“I’m a big boy with a healthy appetite.”
“Flirting already, Mr. Delgano?”
Flirtatiousness was superficial, and seeing as how she was softening him like ice cream held above an open flame, he would need to be superficial with her. If he wasn’t, he might mess around and find himself with a friend, and Pedro was a shining example of what he did to his “friends.”
“I’m not flirting with you. I’m being, for the lack of a better word, a dick. Do you know what that word means?”
The stove ticked, and blue-orange fire sprung up from one of the burners in the front. “I’m familiar with the term,” she said. “Why are you being…one of those?”
“I was abducted and transported across the globe while drugged. Now, I’m trapped somewhere I’m not familiar with, kilometers from home, with guns on me at all times. So far, I’ve met only two women, one who I’m probably going to kill and the other…well, at the moment, I haven’t decided what I want to do to her.”
“I guess I see your point.”
“Why am I here?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“I won’t make you, but you’ll get the same answer if you do.”
He set down the platter and approached her from behind, grabbing a knife from a wooden block. She didn’t flinch, even as he gripped her chin and raised her head, both to expose her neck and so that she could look him in the eyes. Then he held the blade against her throat, and it wasn’t fear that he saw in her eyes. Instead, what he saw was so unexpected, he faltered.
“Do it,” she whispered.
K. Alex Walker 
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