“What do you think?” she snapped, pouring sarcasm into her voice. “You just carried me through the lobby of a luxury hotel in a sleeping bag.”

His hand shifted from her thighs to her butt. She felt his palm right through the material of the sleeping bag. Her breath caught in her throat. She was furious. And scared. The way he had his fingers splayed wide over her bottom affected her more than she cared to admit. She was so aware of him it was a sin.

“I did give you a choice. I told you that you could get dressed and come with me or I was carrying you out.” There was no remorse at all in his voice.

“God. Seriously, Stefano? That wasn’t a choice.” She wanted to pinch him really hard or sink her teeth into him, but he’d already smacked her on the butt once; she wasn’t going for a second time. Mostly because she had a strange reaction to his hand connecting with her even through the thin layers of material. Heat had rushed through her, arcing straight to her sex. Every cell came alive. Between her legs she felt damp and needy. She had a difficult time pulling in air. All from that brief contact.

“I don’t argue, Francesca. It’s a waste of time. You were in danger there. I told you when I had you safe, I’d tell you what was going on but you clearly decided to argue.”

“Do you think you could put me down?” It was sheer hell to be hanging upside down and trying to sound as if she were reasonable when all she wanted to do was bash him one.

“Are you going to hop like a bunny?”

Amusement tinged his voice and brought color spreading over her body. Her face was already red from hanging upside down. She couldn’t see what floor he was going to, but the elevator ride was smooth and long. That meant they went up a lot of floors. The one thing she held on to was that he had carried her publicly through the lobby. “People may have witnessed my most embarrassing moment, but they aren’t going to forget it. If you plan on selling me to some human-trafficking ring, someone will remember.”

“Good to know.” Sarcasm dripped.

It wasn’t as if she really thought he was going to sell her to the highest bidder, but he didn’t have to sound so patronizing.

The elevator doors glided open and he stepped into a foyer. It was quite large and opulent. She caught a glimpse of a mahogany table with a huge vase that looked like cut crystal with an enormous fresh flower arrangement in it. The floor was polished and seemed to be marble. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see any more. This was a nightmare. When Stefano put her on his black leather couch, he did so very gently.

She swept back her hair with one hand, holding on to the sleeping bag with the other. Her hair was wild from sleeping without braiding it, but she’d just been too tired. Mostly, she was exhausted from thinking about Stefano, having ridiculous, impossible, erotic thoughts about him that sent blood rushing hotly through her veins straight to her core. Her dreams had been worse, images she had no experience or knowledge of, but all with him.

It was his fault she hadn’t been able to fall asleep easily. His fault that her hair was a big mess, after sleeping on it and then being hung upside down. She glared at him, and if there was any justice in the world, he would have withered on the spot. Clearly there wasn’t because he paced across the room, completely unaffected, like a caged tiger, poured himself a couple of fingers of liquor from a crystal decanter and threw it back as if it was water.

Francesca licked her lips. Something about the set of his shoulders, the line of his jaw and the fluid pacing took her breath. “Are you angry with me?”

His blue gaze jumped to her face. Slid over her and went back up to hold hers. Oh yeah. He was angry.

“What the hell were you thinking, living in a place like that?” His voice was low. Venomous. Packed with menace.

She winced and studied him from under her lashes, trying not to look as if she was staring. He was really, really good-looking, but she’d seen attractive men before and her body had never responded quite so eagerly. He was totally confident in himself, bordering on arrogance and that alone should have put her off of him. Not to mention he was filthy rich and she totally detested that sort of person—a man with so much money that he clearly felt the rules didn’t apply to him. With all of that, she couldn’t stop her body from going into full-blown meltdown.

“I don’t see how that’s your business.” She wasn’t going to tell him it was that horrible apartment or a cardboard box in an alley somewhere.

Stefano opened his jacket, took out several DVDs, prowled across the floor and held them out to her. She kept her gaze on his face. He was angry. Really angry. He smoldered with a kind of rage she couldn’t begin to imagine. Very slowly she allowed her gaze to drop to the DVDs in his hand. They were homemade, recorded off a machine. She took them reluctantly and turned them over to look at the labels. Her name was scrawled across the front of two of them. The third had no name, and the fourth was labeled Vicki Wants It.