Handcuffed by Her Hero (19 page)

“Arah,” she pleaded after her
brother’s vexed snort, “you have to trust me on this. And you have to tell
everyone else that, too. I’m completely safe. Zeke is hiding me, not abducting
me.”

Her brother let a tense pause go
by. She could hear the airport behind him with its paging system, rolling
suitcases, and beeping courtesy carts. It was all so normal yet it sounded
surreal and distant from the high wire act that her life had become—again.

“If you want me to trust you,
Ray, then tell me where you are.”

She grimaced. Z noticed and took
her free hand. His firm, unflinching strength suffused her. “I can’t do that
either.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Jeez, Hamilton.” Yeah, it was
time to go for the undercut of the middle name. “Is douchebag fusion the new
musical trend right now?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She swallowed and squeezed Z’s
fingers harder. “Because there’s a better than half chance he’s listening to us
even now, Arah.”

“Rayna, for the love of—”

“I’ve already been on too long.”
Z’s darkening frown told her that much. “I can’t run the risk of him tracking
this signal, okay?”

“Rayna!”

“I love you.”

She ended the call, shutting the
real world off once again.

For a long moment, neither she nor
Zeke said a thing. The room began to warm. She wasn’t sure if it was the
heating ducts, the Scotch, or the proximity of the man who once again had
transported her to a place of refuge and safety. She needed to thank him. She
yearned to hold him. Instead, she jabbed a toe at the carpet and muttered, “So
what now?”

Z let his hand slip from hers.
She told herself that she was imagining his reluctance about the move. “I’ll
get the first aid shit out. You can go to town on my neck, candy striper. Sound
good?”

Despite her exhaustion, his
indulgent tone made her feel safe enough to giggle. Maybe they actually could
work their way back to being friends again…

“Yeah,” she murmured. “That
sounds real good. Thank you.”

His mien stiffened a little. “But
right after that, you get into the shower—or a bath if you prefer. While you’re
cleaning up, I need to call Hawk and Captain Franzen. I’ll get the run on how
they’re tracking Mua and make sure both of us are pulled off AWOL status for as
long as possible.”

“Damn. I’d forgotten about that
not-so-little slice of red tape.”

One side of his mouth quirked. “It
helps to have kidnappers in high places, honey.”

She shot him another laugh. Zeke,
clearly pleased with himself for inciting it, sauntered toward the stairs. She
gave herself the privilege of watching him for a second. Sweet shitloads of
sexy, the man was captivating. His leather club pants moved with his Sequoia
tree legs like a second skin. His biceps and pecs fought the constraints of
Max’s T-shirt. Nothing in any of his movements betrayed that he had a
three-inch gash in his back, let alone hadn’t slept in over twenty hours.

And all she wanted to do, even in
her own sleep-deprived state, was get her hands all over him again.

Not a good plan,
Ray.
Not at all. She fished through the fuzziness in her head to get back the words
he’d issued in the car, after that toe-curling kiss they’d shared.
Shouldn’t
have happened. And it won’t happen again.
So the man was beautiful
and
smart, especially about this. No matter how perfectly their bodies fit, they simply
weren’t going to snap right when it came to the same sexual “Like” button.

She prodded her brain to agree.
Shoved at the damn thing. Submissiveness? On a regular basis?
Her?
Right. And tofu was a great side dish for steak.

Tonight, she’d seen in glorious,
living color exactly what that term meant. She closed her eyes and willed
herself to pull up the images. She recalled what Luna looked like when Tait
brought her in after the session with Z. The marks on the woman’s back…the limp
languor of her body…the sparse rasps off her lips…

She blinked and all those
memories vanished like magic act doves—all but the most disconcerting one. The
expression that had blanketed Luna’s face. The peace in it. The adoration in
it. The connection in it, reflected in Z’s own face as he’d knelt to her…

“Rayna?”

She blinked and looked up. He’d
stopped on the landing halfway up to the second floor. His features didn’t hold
a shred of that intense stare he’d exchanged with Luna. He’d even dropped the
smirk of five minutes ago. Now he regarded her only with friendly, even
pragmatic, expectation. 

Ugh.

“Huh?”

“First aid kit’s up here.”

“Uh…okay.”

She followed him up the stairs.
At the top, there was a large area that was just as comfortable as the ground
floor. One side was lined by the balcony-style overlook into the living room.
Tucked into the far corner was a window seat with plush pillows and a chenille
lap blanket. But occupying most of the eye’s attention was the entrance that
beckoned into the bedroom. Correction: the straight-out-of-her-wildest-dreams
bedroom.

There was no way any person, let
alone a linens lover like her, could avoid gaping at the bed. The clean angles
of its Mission-style headboard were balanced by a dozen huge pillows in butter
and honey tones. They were stacked horizontally down the center of a puff
comforter that looked soft as fawn skin, and colored the same rich hue. The room’s
drapes matched it, as did the cushions on a semi-circle shaped couch that was
positioned in front of the stacked stone fireplace. A flat screen TV took up
the space over the mantel.

“Holy…wow.”

Zeke walked ahead of her into the
room. “At the risk of redundancy, good wow or bad wow?”

She glared in irritation that
wasn’t entirely a joke. When he tossed a snicker back at her, she stomped over
and punched the meat of his shoulder.

“Hey!” His expression became a
glower. “What the hell?”

“You had that coming,” she
accused. “And stop looking at me like that. I didn’t even knick you.”

His response seemed a humorous
move at first, too. As he backed her up against the wall, Rayna let out more giggles—until
he actually had her pinned there. One direct hit from his focused copper gaze
and her laughter petered out.

“You only think that because I
hide the knicks well.” Though they were likely the only human life for miles, he
said it at a volume solely for her ears. “But I have them, Ray-bird.”

“I know.” Her trembling whisper
blended with the damp musk of the rain in his hair, on his skin, dripping down
his leathers. “Believe me, I
know.
” With her stare still locked in his,
she scooped one hand around the side of his neck. “Zeke, there’s really
something that I have to—”

“Shower,” he cut in.

She blinked. “Huh?”

His intimate murmur was gone. So
was the crack, however infinitesimal, that he’d opened into the core of himself…only
for her. Not the easygoing soldier-on-leave self she normally saw, or even the dungeon-leather-and-chains-Dom
self of earlier tonight. For a few seconds, she’d beheld the guts and heart of
the man who lived far beneath all that. The man who’d once been a teen, gazing
at her with those intense eyes on a stormy afternoon in a park tunnel.

Did he remember, too? And if so,
why did he keep shutting her off like this?

“Huh?” she repeated in an even
dumber blurt.

“My neck can wait,” he declared,
“but you’re shivering like a can of pop that’s been used for soccer practice.”
He looked down at her soaked, dirty clothes. “And all this is getting washed.
Twice.” His brow knitted tight. “Shit. Now there’s a cluster of what-to-do,
huh?”

“A…cluster? Of…what?” She sounded
idiotic. Confusion and exhaustion were making her brain a puddle. She swayed on
her feet during the minute he took to fish through the drawers of the dresser
next to the bed. Nothing was any clearer when he turned back with a
long-sleeved flannel shirt that had red and yellow parrots printed all over it.
They were depicted in flight across fields of bright turquoise flowers. She
almost let out a manic snicker. It was hideous.

“This’ll keep you warm. It’s one
of my favorites. The socks are great, too. They’re designed for high mountain
hiking, but I’ve broken them in. Really soft.”

She held the shirt up. It was
going to fit her like a tent on a sapling. “This is yours.”

He flashed her a visual
duh.
“Were you expecting something different?”

“Maybe,” she answered, then
amended, “Probably.” When his
duh
twisted into a
what-the-hell
,
she explained, “C’mon, Z. You don’t have a stitch of anything that
other…ermm…houseguests might’ve left behind?”

As understanding entered his
features so did a soft smile. Hell, she loved getting that look from him. It
lit up everything including his eyes and made her feel she was the only one who
put it there.

“If you’re referring to Garrett, then
I’m afraid none of his threads will fit you much better.” He fingered some
stray tendrils off her forehead. “He’s the only ‘houseguest’ I’ve had besides
you.”

 She blamed her fatigue for how
her whole body reacted to that little brush of his fingertips. Still, she
managed to quip, “Your mask is slipping, Darth Vader. Better come clean now.”

“And your ass is begging for a
good blush for that, little bird.”

The rain suddenly stopped. Maybe
it was just as stunned as she was—though Rayna wondered if the astonishment on
her face came close to the wonderment on Zeke’s. No, she was pretty certain her
bewilderment outweighed his, for in that moment, three insane realizations hit
her.

She’d loved what he growled at
her.

She’d loved how it stopped her
breath.

She was terrified at the image it
burst in her mind. Because she loved that the most of all.

Her ass beneath his hand. Her
naked flesh, blooming for his touch. Her screams feeding his soul.

“Yeah. Maybe I’d better get in
the shower.”

He reacted to her rasp with a
clipped nod. His gaze had gone dark as burnt copper. His bottom lip was shoved
against its mate, and his jaw was a hard square. “Damn good idea.”

He left the bedroom before she
could say anything else, disappearing down the stairs. He pounded the steps so
hard, the decorative reeds in the urn at the top rattled each other. Rayna
glared at them.

“Hey, kids,” she grumbled. “Looks
like the word of the day is going to be ‘awkward.’”

*
* * * *

Things went from bad to worse
after she got out of the shower. She headed downstairs to find Zeke throwing a
couple of blankets and a pillow across the sleeper bed into which the living
room couch converted. When she’d thanked him and gratefully sank onto the
mattress, sleep encroaching fast now that she was warm, he’d given her a string
of snarled “No”s before snatching her up, blanket and all, and carrying her
back upstairs. She’d gotten out no more than three words of protest before he’d
cut her off with a sharp, “Good
night,
Rayna.”

As he’d shut the door on her, she’d
fumed, punched a pillow, and muttered, “Next time, just cut to the chase and
tell me to fuck off, Hayes.”

Before sleep torpedoed the rest
of her consciousness, she promised herself a good long meditation session
tomorrow—or more correctly, later on today. She needed to lob a shitload of
mental detangler on this mess called Zeke Hayes. The fact that he was now her
roommate for a few days only hastened the urgency, especially the not-so-little
part about thinking of his hand on her backside—or any other part of her body.
He’d made all of that clear, hadn’t he? His kinky world wasn’t hers to tread
on. She needed to stay in her own box with him. It was probably better that way
for them both.

On that thought, she’d passed
out.

That was when, even from hundreds
of miles away, Mua had gotten to her again.

In the dream, she was walking
through thick midnight mist again. But this time, she wasn’t in the city. Her
surroundings looked like a canyon, stark and steep, the high walls making each
of her steps resonate in frightening emptiness. Mua materialized from the gloom
just as he had before, with Round Face and Chain Man by his sides. Rayna backed
away but was stopped from behind by arms that curled around her neck and waist
with greasy surety. A camera floated in the air in front of them. A tongue slid
along the curve of her ear before a seedy voice commanded, “Smile, little
bitch.”

King.

Her legs buckled. Her lungs
seized. Her heart stopped. Her mind turned to paralyzed ice.

No. No. No!

One simple syllable.
Say it.
Scream it.
But she couldn’t. She…couldn’t. Her throat was glued shut,
strangled by terror. Her mouth struggled to move, to simply process air.
What
air?
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. He was going to get her. He
was going to sell her. He was going to make her disappear forever.