When I Fall For My Kidnapper

Chapter 30 (last chapter of book 1)

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay to you?" Landon snaps, his tone grave and angered. Geeze. Just wondering. Someone's on their man-period.

"You look like a wimp," I finally decide, narrowing my eyes at the side of Landon's head. We are currently making our way up the stairs to my hotel room, since the rest of Trevor's unit ditched me with a beat up and grouchy Landon. Okay, yes, I admit that he can pull the whole bloody-soldier look extremely well, but I'm not letting that distract me from my hatred for the guy. Even if he looks helplessly adorable with the permanent scowl and bloody face and busted lip. If Landon were to be almost anyone else, I would be falling head over heels while I clean him up.

But I'm not doing that this time. Screw Landon.

"And you look like a fucking priss," Landon retorts under his breath, proving my thoughts of hatred towards him true. "Not that there is a change there, though."

"Someone has a dick in his personality," I mutter in the same mocking, miserable tone he is using. He rolls his eyes as I reach for my key in my back pocket, and I push the door open. He follows in closely behind me, the tips of his feet scraping painfully against the back of my heels repeatedly. What a freaking jerk. Take the hint and walk slower.

I hate that about people. When they walk right on your heels, all up in your personal space, and literally step on you. Unless the person is incredibly wasted and is too drunk to judge distances, there is absolutely no excuse to walk so close to someone that you are forcing yourself to inflict pain on them. Just another one of my annoyances. Unless you look and smell like Trevor, do not walk close enough behind me to make my heels bleed.

I storm straight for the closest bed, where I collapse upon it. Landon does the same, but thankfully on the other bed. A heavy, suffocating silence then clouds over us, and it gets so bad, I really think my breathing is too loud. Because Landon's breathing definitely is. Extremely loud. Maybe it's the pain he's in, but really, it's bad. Like, shut up or jump off the balcony. That bad.

Minutes pass in a thickened silence, a dark prescence looming over us to the point where I consider striking up a conversation with the man I hate. But I refrain from giving in, and I keep my mouth shut. Instead, I replay memories in my head of the many encounters I've had with the oh-so-lovely Landon.

I remember the first time I met Landon. It was when Trevor had been shot in our escape from some psycho-maniac, and Trevor was bleeding in the streets. Landon and Channing had been there to help him, and Landon knew exactly what to do. Even then, Landon hadn't liked me very much. He had been repulsed at the idea of letting me enter the San Francisco Headquarters, but I did anyway, thanks to Trevor's request and pained weakness that had destroyed my heart in pity.

I remember Landon getting annoyed at the cabin in Tahoe, and I ended up pouring my beer on him. And during the game of truth or dare, I had to sit on his lap after that. I remember taking that crazy night swim in the freezing water, and Landon taking off my bikini top, and then him snatching my towel to reveal my naked body to Trevor's entire unit.

And then, of course, when he attacked me in the mountains when we were in hiding in the forest. That memory is as vivid as they come. The panic still feels so close to the surface, the weakness in me still fresh and not healed. I remember the threats, the hateful sneering, the growling words...

Good times. Just the best of my life.

"I'm going to clean up," Landon announces, breaking my thoughts and letting them shatter into millions of pieces as I exit the memories. The memories that are so precious, especially with Reno in three days. When I don't even know what to expect.