Holiday Hostage

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

E ven with the much-needed distraction from Bryce, as the sun sets and Eli and Koda aren't back, I'm more nervous than I ever thought I'd be. Bryce is sitting on the couch in the living room next to me, flipping through the TV channels to look for something for both of us to watch. He ends up landing on some cop show, and I sit next to him and try to watch it.

What could be taking them so long? They were just going to town to get a few supplies.

The front door opens with one loud bang, and I jolt from my seat. Eli and Koda are standing with paper bags in their arms as they walk into the room. Maybe it's my complete and utter lack of muscle tone, but seeing how they each lift several heavy bags with ease is weirdly a turn-on.

“What took the two of you so long?” Bryce asks, not bothering to get up to help them with the bags. The two of us remain seated on the couch, and I try to make it look like I wasn't worrying about them.

I'm in a weird situation with the three of them right now, to say the least. I'm not supposed to be here, and it's been made very clear that I'm not here long-term. On top of that, I have fully slept with Bryce and fooled around with Eli. I don't know how either of them will feel about that when they find out the truth.

I at least think that I can hide it for a while. Well, maybe I did before Eli and Koda walked in and stared Bryce and me down. I can see in their eyes they're suspicious, and I don't know how.

“You got to be fucking kidding me?” Koda whispers under his breath, dropping a bag on the ground as he glares at me. “Is that why you were so insistent about bringing her here? You just wanted to fuck her?”

My face turns hot, and I look between Bryce and Koda quickly, waiting for Bryce to say something about it. I don't know if I want him to deny that we slept together or deny that that's why he brought me here. All I know is that I would rather be anywhere else on earth.

“What are you talking about?” I say with a forced laugh as Eli stares at me with raised eyebrows.

“I can see it on your face,” Koda says, his eyes grazing my entire body as he looks me up and down. “What did you two do? Did you let him fuck you, or did you just suck his cock too?”

I'm at a complete loss for words. I look between Eli and Bryce, desperate for some kind of explanation as to how Koda knows about all of this now. They both know he doesn't like me, so I don't understand why they would tell him. Then again, I am the odd man out here. They’ve been best friends for God only knows how long. How can I expect them to take my side?

“I don't see how that's any of your business,” I finally say, crossing my arms and glaring at Koda. He steps forward and looks down at me, his eyes smoldering with frustration behind them. The longer I stare into his black eyes, the more I swear I can see something else behind them. Something soft, betraying everything I know about his cold exterior. I know that he doesn't want me to see it either.

“Bringing you here was a mistake, and you're nothing but a liability.” He stands up straight and picks up the bag he dropped on the ground. He turns to walk toward the kitchen to unpack everything, stopping just before he reaches the table to set the bag down. “By the way, you'll be joining me in bed tonight. These two can't seem to think with anything but their dicks, and I can't trust them.”

I turn to Bryce to see a mildly annoyed look on his face, but he doesn't protest. A part of me was looking forward to going to bed with Bryce tonight after what we just did. I thought that maybe we could go for another round, but now I'll be trying to avoid Koda at all costs.

“We've already been over this. There is nowhere for me to escape to . I'm not going to try to run,” I argue, turning around and looking at Koda while he unpacks some bags. “I can just sleep right here on the couch. Put a motion sensor or something on me if you have to. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Nonnegotiable,” Koda says, smirking at me before letting the fake smile fall.

A couple of hours pass, and I'm too preoccupied thinking about my upcoming night with Koda to focus on anything else. The three of them all chat, reminiscing about times they've spent together while I stare blankly at the TV screen. I don't even realize that much time has passed when Koda nudges me on the arm and gestures for me to stand and follow him.

I stay seated for a moment with my arms crossed in front of me. I stare up at him with a pleading look in my eyes, silently begging for one last opportunity to prove to him that he can trust me. He shakes his head, the stoic look on his face never once cracking.

“Would you hurry up? I really don't want to stand here all night.” He reaches down and grabs my arm, pulling me out of the seat to drag me down the hall.

I reluctantly follow, knowing that tonight will be unbearable. What is he going to say to berate me now? Last time I checked, I didn't willingly get in the car with the three of them. There was a gun pointed at my head, and I was being taken hostage. I don't know why the hell he seems to blame me for the situation, but his blame is very misplaced.

Koda's room is slightly larger than Eli's, once again with its own bathroom off to the side. Eli's room was sparsely decorated, but Koda’s is barren. There's absolutely nothing on the walls to even indicate somebody lives in this room. No pictures or posters from things that he likes. There are no books or decorative accents lining the walls, not even any shelves for air fresheners or candles. The place could use a woman's touch.

“Am I permitted to shower?” I ask Koda, standing in front of the door to the bathroom with my arms crossed. He opens a closet door and grabs a towel, tossing it to me before handing me a clean pair of sweats and a new T-shirt.

“The door stays open.” I know better than to object to him. But the small smirk playing on his lips makes me want to fight him on it. Something tells me he'd like that too.

“Seriously? Again, I don't know how many times we have to go over this—there isn't anywhere for me to go,” I say, rolling my eyes while I look at the standing shower with clear glass walls. With the door open, nothing will shield my body from Koda's eyes.

He steps toward me, just a few inches away as he stares down at me and narrows his eyes. “I don't know why you think this is up for discussion, but it's not. If you want to shower, go take one. But the door stays open.”

I take a deep breath and turn away from him, walking into the bathroom to shower. Over my shoulder, I can see that he sits on the bed and kicks his feet up, watching me with an emotionless gaze. I don't want him to think that I'm too affected by what he says, so I take off my clothes as calmly as I can and step into the shower.

I force my eyes away from him, trying to focus on the task at hand. The sooner I finish showering, the sooner I can get dressed and pretend this never happened. Even though I try to focus on anything else, Koda's eyes don't leave me. I can feel them on my skin, and I don't know how to interpret it.

A part of me feels titillated knowing he's watching. If this is anything like what happened with Eli in the shower, I can only imagine he's sitting there getting aroused by the situation. But then again, Koda hates me more than anybody I've ever met in my entire life. In fact, I don't think I've ever met anybody who hates me before.

When I step out of the shower, I look into the room to see that he is still watching. No surprise there. He refuses to let anything slip by him because he's a massive control freak.

I slip into my clothes and immediately make my way over to the bed, trying to look as unashamed as I possibly can even though I feel humiliated. The bed is big enough that the two of us can sleep comfortably away from each other. That's my plan anyway. I lie down on the bed as far away as I possibly can from Koda, turned to the side with a small sliver of the blankets wrapped around my waist.

My eyes are closed, and Koda is silent beside me. I'm acutely aware of every movement in the bed as he shifts around beside me. I try to focus on something other than him. What's my life going to look like when all of this is over? Am I going back to the bakery? Will there even be a bakery to go back to?

It's strange to realize, but everything that happened yesterday is almost a relief to me. Running the bakery was never my dream. The only thing I ever really liked about working with Grammy was spending time with her. If I wasn't good at cooking, I would always draw up the flyers for the sales she would have or help design things to put on the cakes. She would always tell me my little doodles were special, and she hung them up all around the bakery to show them off.

The warm and fuzzy memories of Grammy that I planned on carrying me through the night are interrupted when an arm snakes around my waist. My body stiffens, and I look over my shoulder at Koda as he stares at me with his eyes lingering on my hips.

“What are you doing?” I ask, trying to lift his arm and push it away from me. He's far too big, and his grip is too strong for me to even budge him a little.

“Can't have you running off in the middle of the night, can we?” He takes a deep breath and rests his head on the pillow, not taking any argument about the matter. I shake my head and close my eyes, knowing there's no use in trying to persuade him of anything else. He's far too hardheaded for that.

Any sleepiness in my body is completely gone. All I can think about is the awkward tension between the two of us and how badly I want it to disappear.

“Why do you hate me?” I find myself saying before I have the better judgment in my brain to stop myself. I know it's a mistake right away, but the diarrhea of the mouth gets the better of me once again.

“I don't hate you,” Koda says, taking a deep breath and talking into the back of my head. I roll around slightly, looking him in the eye with both of my eyebrows raised at the answer. Everything that's happened between us so far tells me a much different story. “I think bringing you here was a mistake, but that's not because I hate you. If things had gone according to plan in that bank, we would have been in and out without having to use any of you. I know you being here isn't your fault, either.”

“Then why won't you cut me some slack?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders and staring deep into his dark eyes.

“You're a liability, and the others aren't treating you like one.” He takes a deep breath and looks away from me briefly before staring straight in my eyes once again. The same softness I saw in them when he came back from town is there again. It makes me want to reach out and touch his face, but I restrain myself. “Someone around here has to have a level head. We can't all be thinking with our dicks, even if it's hard not to.”

I can't help but blush at the comment, and I turn to look away from him once again. I stare at the window on the opposite side of the bed and watch as snowflakes fall outside. What did he mean by that? Obviously, I know that Eli and Bryce both have a thing for me, but is he insinuating that he does too?

“Plus, if there's a reward on our head, how am I supposed to trust that you won't squeal?” he adds, pulling me close to him once again as he takes a deep breath.

“Koda, I'm not telling the police anything.” I turn to look around at him one last time, forcing him to make eye contact with me. “I swear it. I don't break my promises.”

“Go to sleep,” Koda says, nodding for me to turn back around while he settles in behind me. “You have to understand I can't just take you at your word. I have to look out for the three of us.”

There's nothing left to say between us, so I close my eyes and try not to think about how good the warmth from his body feels against mine. I also try to ignore how chiseled his body is and how much I want to trace my fingers over the bulges in his arms. After a few minutes, sleep finally takes me.