Tempted by love

Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

I was held firm against the wall unable to escape.

I blinked my eyes and the figure that stood before me was none other than the soldier. His face was pure fury under a beautiful mask of perfection. He proved to be much stronger than I was while I tried to squirm away.   

“Who the hell are you?” he shouted out. His tone was blunt and fury blared. A furiously murderous death glare hung on his face as he met my bottle green eyes with death set in them.

He had no idea who I was and as an unknown stranger, I was a threat to him. I flinched at the decibel level of his voice. He was scary. The soldier’s bloodshot eyes pierced into me angrily and he stared, waiting for an answer. He attempted to extort the confession by shaking me and remorselessly crushing my slight arms in the grip of his powerful fingers.

“Tell me now!” he exclaimed with another shake and a squeeze that made me draw my breath and bite my lip to suppress a cry of pain.

“Ari,” I gasped out, shaken by his terror, “Ari Hale, you idiot!”  

The soldier seemed confused for a moment, but the hesitation vanished in a second when his hard stare grew softer in recognition as his General’s daughter.

“Can you please back off with the knife, now?” I asked pleadingly petrified, wincing at how the cold sharp edge was pressing into my skin without piercing the tender layer.

The soldier looked down to where the knife forced its threat and his grip on the handle tightened; nonetheless, he cautiously moved it away. The asshole didn’t even apologize.

Instead he had the nerve to grin sheepishly as he leaned back against the island countertop and his arm swung across his stomach as if he was in pain, but he tried not to show any signs of it. His tousled bed hair made him seem boyish, but I knew he was older, probably a few years older than me.             

“Where is your father?” he asked gruffly in a deep dark voice that was unexpected. His temper rose, but concealed under his impassive expression as his gray cloudy eyes examined me from head to toe.                                                  

I shrugged, nonchalantly.                           

I was wondering that too. I wish I knew where my father was. It would help put my head to ease. Instead, I was hushed in a constant upheaval of wonder to where his location was. “I don’t know. All he said was to stay put and not leave the house until he got back. He never said where he was going.”  

The soldier nodded. “When will he be coming back?”  

I frowned. This guy was full of questions. Ones that I didn’t know the answer to.

“Again, I don’t know. He didn’t say much at all, kept rambling like a crazy person.”        

“So then what did your father say to you?” he countered in a low voice full of authority.

“He said it was no longer safe, that there was danger everywhere. The location had been comprised and…blah blah.”       

The soldier grunted. He seemed upset for something I said when his eyes narrowed in on my words.

My eyes gazed over his lean, tall stature. Meanwhile, I realized he was hiding the pain from his injuries and it was starting to make him weak again. Soon he would need to retire to the bed again, but he didn’t look like he was about to do just that anytime soon.