The Vigilante's Lover: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (The Vigilantes Book 1) by Annie Winters, Tony West

jerk my head toward the back. “The lady has the jacket.”
    He nods knowingly. “Understood. Shoe size?”
    I glance to the backseat. Mia’s slender foot is tucked under her knee, the Croc about to fall off. “I’d guess a seven.”
    “All right. It will be ready for you when you arrive. ETA?”
    I glance at the map still projected on the lower dash. “A little less than an hour.”
    “We’ll get it done.”  
    “Thank you, Armond.”
    “It’s a pleasure, as always.” He nods and the screen blips out.
    “Six hookers?” Mia’s voice is full of sleep.
    “It’s code,” I say, even though that one isn’t.
    She sits up, her hair falling around her shoulders like a cloud. Damn, she’s sexy. The innocence paired with the attitude. I’ve never met anyone like her.
    “We’re almost to the city,” I say. “I have reserved a hotel.”
    She glances down at the suit jacket and frowns at how much she’s revealing. “I don’t think they’re going to approve of my walking through the lobby in red rope and a man’s jacket.”
    “I have my own entrance,” I say.
    “Of course,” she mutters. She shakes her head, trying to get her hair to fall back. “Am I going to be tied up like this for long?”
    I set the car back into controlled drive and turn to look at her. The suit jacket splits at her thighs, pale and slender on the black leather seat. Her knees are pressed tightly together. She wears no makeup, so nothing about her is smudged or used up. Other than the wild tangle of her hair, she’s like an angel. The urge to unbutton the jacket and look at her again is powerful. It’s the dry spell, I tell myself. I never fall for Phase One seductress Trainees.
    When I raise my eyes to hers, I feel like she knows the direction of my thoughts. As if the innocent act is gone completely and she knows what I want. I wait for those knees to part, for her to open wide in invitation, her chest arching toward me.
    But she just shifts on the seat, fighting against the ties on her wrists so that she’s less uncomfortable.
    “How long you’re tied up depends on how well you cooperate,” I say and turn around, both for her sake and mine.
    I need to be back under control again, and this girl is not helping.

12: Mia

    This must be how celebrities do it.
    Jax pulls the car up to some strange little back entrance to the hotel. It has a tiny covered canopy and a doorman who must get an eyeful of all sorts of rich and famous people.
    The doors are whisked open and nobody blinks an eye at me in my suit jacket with the red ropes trailing from the back. In fact, I think I may have caught the doorman winking at Jax!
    Unbelievable.
    Jax told me as we arrived at the Ritz-Carlton that if I promised not to scream or yell, he wouldn’t gag me. Rich men bringing in beautiful women dressed as fetish girls in bondage was common and nobody would pay attention to my insisting I was kidnapped.
    I am not sure I believe him, but being seen in this getup is humiliating enough. So I agree to go without a gag. Besides, Jax put some Band-Aid-looking device on my throat that he claims will warn him if I am about to scream. It will give him time to do something. What that might be, he doesn’t say.
    So here I am, passing through some secret door and immediately getting turned down a silent hall and up a small elevator. Within seconds, a white door with a gold handle is opened wide, and I’m ushered into the poshest hotel room that quite possibly has ever existed.
    I’m dumbstruck. There’s a fountain. A fountain in the middle of a hotel room.
    White sofas face big French windows. The curtains are gold. There are fresh flowers in vases on every surface. An enormous marble fireplace contains a crackling log.
    I step farther inside. Jax drops the red rope and it trails behind me out the bottom of the suit jacket. I walk across the soft carpet and spot doors to the bedroom. I halt instantly. I’m not going in there.
    But then I see another door