Captured Miracle by Alannah Carbonneau

unclenched his fists, the veins in his arms raised up beneath his skin in thick blue rivers. His chest was hard and defined and his stomach sported washboard abs. This man worked hard to accumulate the utter perfection that was his body.
    No matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from his form. He was captivatingly beautiful. I’d always thought I would be attracted to a man who was lean - a runner, maybe. But Calix was all muscle - he was a fighter. I sensed the will to fight within this man the same way I sensed that very will in a feral dog. It was animalistic. Primal. Calix.
    “Do you like what you see, love?” Calix’s deep voice interrupted my study of him and I blushed. I felt the heat of my embarrassment tint my skin from my toes to the tip of my head. It swooped through my body in a rush of warmth that made me feel almost dizzy.
    I didn’t say anything as I stared up at him from where he’d thrown me onto the bed. Bending at the waist, Calix planted both hands on either side of my head. Leaning over me in such a way made my insides clench in fear - and something else. Awareness?
    His voice was gruff, “Did you want me to continue, love? Maybe you really do want me to punish you?”
    I scowled up at him. “No.”
    He chuckled. “Did you enjoy my punishment so much last time?” I watched as his eyes moved from where they had trained themselves on my face to flicker down over my throat, my heaving chest, my stomach - and lower. “You’re not nearly as indifferent to me as you’d like me to believe.”
    He looked back up to meet my eyes and I spoke. “Then you’re an idiot. Because I hate you with everything inside of me.”
    He grunted. “Nova, I think you’re the fool. You’re attracted to me. You can’t help it, much less fight it.”
    “I’d like to go to bed, now.”
    His lip curled at the corner, sliding into a coy half-grin. “So eager.”
    “Screw you.” I bit out the words, wiggling from beneath him across the bed.
    He pointed to the side of the bed he was standing on. “This is your side, Nova.”
    I looked at him incredulously. “You’re picking sides?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t want you near the door.”
    “Seriously?” I scoffed. “You think I’m going to try and escape?”
    “No.” His eyes met mine. “You couldn’t even if you tried.”
    “Why is that?”
    Calix grinned. “Door’s locked. I have the key.”
    I hadn’t seen him lock the door, but it figures. He wouldn’t want to take the chance of little old me running through his house in the dead of the night. No, that could be bad. “If you’ve locked the door, I won’t be able to get out. Why don’t you want me sleeping next to it?”
    He shrugged, “Someone else might find a way in.”
    “Someone like who?”
    “Does it matter?” Calix asked pointedly. “I don’t want you sleeping by the door as a precaution.”
    “You think I’d hurt someone who came in here?” Wow, he might have been watching me for two years - but he knew nothing about me if he thought I was capable of hurting another living creature.
    He sighed, running a hand through his inked hair. “I don’t think you’ll hurt anyone, Nova. I don’t want to take the chance of someone hurting you .”
    I was stunned and it took me a moment to utter, “You would protect me?”
    “With my life.” His tone was resolute.
    It sent chills travelling over my spine. Calix confused the hell out of me! I just didn’t understand him, his motives, his actions, his mind. Nothing about him made any sense to me. And I didn’t like that. It made me severely uncomfortable. I’d always been studious - I worked every angle of my mind until I understood something that puzzled me, but I doubted, no matter how many angles I considered in regards to Calix, that I would ever understand him. Hell, I wouldn’t even scratch the surface of understanding this man - my captor.
    “But,” I paused. “But you took me. I don’t understand