Excerpt from All Tied Up ©

Even in slumber, my body sensed the danger. The other presence in the room. Knowledge that I wasn’t alone. It was my racing heart that jolted me awake. Fixing my eyes on the ceiling, I tried to calm my breathing while disoriented and confused. Had I been having a nightmare?

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. On instinct, I turned to get the bottle of water I left beside my bed at night.

A shadow in the darkness moved from the far-right corner and sent me bolting upright in the bed as a scream tore from my chest. The thought that I might still be dreaming, locked inside of a nightmare, crossed my mind. Regardless, this felt real. My eyes scanned quickly for anything other than a water bottle and my cell phone to use as a weapon, but went right back to the figure drawing closer. I had nothing. No way to defend myself.

I’d had nightmares since the encounter on the street with Ransom. The man he’d stabbed kept showing up in my dreams to finish what he’d started. Blood dripping from his mouth as he came to seek his vengeance. Those awful dreams hadn’t felt like this, however. Even while sleeping, I had realized they weren’t real. This … this felt very real.

The sound of my heart thundered in my ears, and I scrambled back, tangling myself further in the covers.

The intruder stepped into the moonlight spilling through the curtains, and his face was illuminated. For a moment, the world froze. I stopped slapping at the covers and simply stared. No longer praying this was my imagination or a fleeting terror in my sleep. But rather the opposite.

“Ransom.” His name fell from my lips in something akin to a prayer.

If this were a nightmare, it had taken a very pleasant turn.

“Who else has access to your apartment?” His husky voice filled the room, and I let out a relieved laugh.

He was here. I wasn’t about to die from some stranger in the shadows. But he did hold the power to rip my heart out.

Was he here to continue causing me pain? Shred what was left of my soul?

Stiffening, I straightened, and the smile on my face vanished. He didn’t get to do this. Show up in the night. Coming into my apartment, uninvited.

I had stayed up until dawn that night waiting on him. Believing that he’d come here after showing up and saving me. That he was in town to see me. He’d been following me, hadn’t he? I sat on the sofa, fully dressed, and watched the sun rise through the window the following morning. But he didn’t come. He vanished without another word. And then I saw the picture of him with another woman on Instagram the next day. I had sobbed for this man, on the floor, in the fetal position.

“Is this your thing now? Ignore me and only show up for brief moments to mess with my head, then poof,” I said bitterly, “disappear from my life again until you get bored and want to show back up?” I hated that my voice cracked as I said it. But in my defense, I’d just woken up, and I’d gone to sleep, crying on my pillow over the damn man.

His silence only made me angrier.

“Or were you just here to watch me sleep like some creeper, then leave without me knowing you had been here?”

The realization that a part of me wanted him to have snuck in to watch me sleep probably meant I was deranged. At least we had that in common. We both needed our sanity checked.

He had been with another woman! Her photo was on their Instagram account. She wasn’t some random hookup.

“I was going to wake you,” he replied. “Eventually.”

I watched as he stopped at the edge of the bed, and as much as I wanted to fling myself at him, I had enough pride to jerk the covers up over my body and scoot farther away.

“No. You don’t get to do this. Show up in my room at night. Show up on the street like … like Superman and save the day, then vanish!” I shouted the last part, then sucked in a breath. And go home to another female. I wanted to shout that at him, too, but I wasn’t sure I could say it without breaking down in front of him, and I’d be damned if he saw me cry.

His deep chuckle sent a shiver through me, and, God, I really hated that. The way he could make my body react to him. I wanted to rip him from my heart. It would make my life so much easier.

“Thank fuck,” he replied. “I always thought he lacked edge. Clark Kent was a pussy. I much preferred Lex Luthor. His ruthlessness, power that was realistic, his drive, and his self-perseverance.”

I frowned. “Lex Luthor was manipulative and selfish. He lacked morals,” I argued. But then I was beginning to think perhaps Ransom did too. Lack morals, that was.

He tilted his head slightly and grinned wickedly. “Exactly.”

Oh, how I wished that smile didn’t make my heart race the way it did. But it seemed that Ransom Carver was my kryptonite. I reacted to him even when I knew the danger to my heart.

“What are you doing here, Ransom?” I demanded. I wasn’t going to go back and forth with him about some stupid comic hero or villain.

“Watching you sleep. Calming the shit in my head. Soaking in your scent.”

The darkness in his tone sounded tortured. Or perhaps that was my imagination. He had no reason to be tortured unless he was dealing with guilt. Man-whore guilt. I was the one who was being hurt. The one being cast aside.

“Liar,” I spat. “You don’t want to see me awake or asleep. Your silence made that very clear.”

He leaned down just enough to reach out and grab my ankle. Before I could try and pull it free, he tugged it hard enough that it slid me to the edge of the bed. Toward him. His face was so close to mine that his breath warmed my skin.

“You’re all I fucking think about from the moment I open my eyes until they finally close from exhaustion,” he growled, tightening his grip on me. “Don’t think for a second that this isn’t killing me. It’s goddamn torture. It’s why I’m here, in your room, watching you. It’s why I’ve been here four other times, doing the same thing. Needing to be near you.”

I swallowed hard. Emotion caused my throat to feel thick. I didn’t understand any of this. Why was he suffering? Why was he sneaking into my apartment at night when he had chosen to stay away and shut me out? Why was he with another woman?

“No! You don’t!” I shouted, shoving at him, although he didn’t budge. “You don’t get to touch me, Ransom, or feed me your bullshit. I saw the distillery’s Instagram post. The one where you’re all wrapped around little Miss Daisy Dukes! While I was here, worrying about you! Afraid you’d been arrested for murder!” A tear slid down my face as my brokenness began to seep through the wall I had tried to build around it.

His brows drew together, as if he was confused, and then I watched as realization hit him. Jesus, had he already forgotten about the woman? What, had he fucked her, too, and then tossed her aside for the next in line?

He cupped the side of my face, and I jerked away from it. There was a flash of humor in his golden depths as he used the back of his finger to wipe away the tear from my cheek.

“Wrapped around her is a bit of a reach, Shakespeare,” he said softly.

Did he think this was funny? I tried again to move back from him, but his hand on my ankle tightened, and he tugged me even closer.

“You’re feisty when jealous.”

My hand moved then, and the crack that sounded across his cheek startled me more than it did him. I froze in horror. I’d slapped him. I’d never slapped anyone in my life.