Free Seduced by a Dangerous Man by Cleo Peitsche

and quickly positioned the camera. I didn’t dare leave without checking how well it was camouflaged. My beam of light swept across it. Not bad.
    I hopped down as I heard a door slam. A second slam followed. Henry wasn’t alone. I brushed off the seat of the chair and carefully slid it back under the table.
    “Rob,” I whispered in a hoarse stage whisper. I knew he’d heard the vehicle, so where was he? I started up the stairs but then heard voices along the side of the house. Henry must have parked halfway up the driveway.  
    Not enough time to make it upstairs and then out the front door.
    Remembering the alarm, I ran for the front. My fingers were so slippery, and oh, the beeps sounded loud as firecrackers. The alarm engaged moments before I heard the jingle of keys. The voices outside were still relaxed—or so it seemed, because I was sprinting for the back.
    I wasn’t going to make it. They were going to see me… the house was too freaking big. But I did, somehow, and I stood in the kitchen, waiting for the alarm to disable again so I could sneak out.
    But it didn’t. It kept flashing red.
    And then lights turned on several rooms away. Henry was inside.  
    With a panicked flash of awareness, I realized he must have had it wired so he could disable only one entrance if he wanted.  
    I didn’t dare punch in the code again. Too loud. I crept back as I heard heavy footsteps coming toward me.
    They paused, and Henry said, “I’ll take it.” The footsteps faded.
    I needed to hide. It was like being six years old. I’d hated playing hide-and-go-seek. If I couldn’t see light, I would freak out within seconds.  
    There was the kitchen table, but hiding under there would only work if they didn’t actually look at it. I didn’t dare go into what I assumed was the basement. No way.  
    A narrow door, ajar, was next to the basement door. I eyed it. It was a pantry, likely deep enough to hide me, but I didn’t want to go in there.
    “Wine it is,” Henry said. His smarmy voice spurred me into action.  
    I slid into the narrow pantry and eased the door partially closed after me. A little light came in to keep me company. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Long wooden poles leaned against the wall next to me. Mop and broom, I assumed. I was lucky I hadn’t knocked into them when squeezing in.
    The kitchen light flashed on brightly, throwing too much light into my hiding space. I squinted against the painful burn in my eyes and held my breath.
    Henry stood not far away, looking in the other direction. He straightened the chairs in front of the kitchen table, and I saw him swipe the tabletop with the side of his hand. If he looked this way…  
    But he stepped out of sight. I didn’t heave a sigh of relief because I had simply stopped breathing several minutes earlier. Or at least it felt like I had.  
    And then the door slammed the rest of the way shut.  
    I was so startled that I lurched, and one of the wooden poles slid loudly against the wall, crashing into the shelves behind me.
    This was it. Henry was going to find me. Once he did, it was over. I was going to jail, and it would be legitimate.
    Whatever happened, I needed to keep Rob out of this. Henry wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops on both of us, and I couldn’t allow Rob to go down with me.
    I watched the sliver of light that peeked through the bottom of the closed pantry door—my lifeline, the only thing separating me from a panic attack—and I waited for it to turn dark with Henry’s approaching shadow.  
    But he didn’t open the door. I heard him moving around the room, opening a cabinet, the clink of the bottoms of wineglasses touching a counter, the sound of a cork being wrested from the tight mouth of a wine bottle.
    “You want something to nibble on?” he yelled out.
    A woman’s voice said something incoherent.
    “Can’t hear you!” Henry yelled back. Lazy bastard.  
    Footsteps approached. “Maybe crackers or