Handcuffed by Her Hero (2 page)

She whimpered and struggled at
him. “Zeke!”

“Here,” he assured. “Right here,
Rayna.”

“Zeke!”

He frowned. She’d started to
blink her eyes, but her gaze swept the room without seeing it. Shit. She was
still dreaming—and pleading for
him
from that misty mental realm. His
reaction was a double-edged blade. Hearing his name on her lips brought a jolt
of elation. The panic in it yanked him back to earth. Painfully.

Fuck it.

“Time to wake up, Sleeping
Beauty.” He gave her a gentle shake. A second one, harder and longer. She flailed
at him again.

“Zeke!”

“Honey, I’m
here
.”

Her breath hitched in her throat.
She blinked with slow confusion. Her free hand curled into his tan T-shirt. “You
really are,” she whispered.

Her lips parted on a slow, sweet
smile. The expression fascinated him so much, Zeke wrestled with his reaction.
He liked to smile, right? Then why couldn’t he remember how to do it now? Why
couldn’t he think of
anything
to do right now?

He finally forced his mouth
around one syllable. “Hi.”

Her smile became a full grin.
“Hi.” Jolt of elation, the sequel. “How was the mission?”

Was she kidding?

He already knew the answer to
that. Nope, she wasn’t kidding. The question was typical Rayna, filled with
concern for everyone else despite how the tears from a post-traumatic nightmare
still gleamed on her cheeks. “Time of my fucking life,” he cracked. He wouldn’t
be able to reveal anything beyond his cynical tone, so he squeezed her shoulder
to indicate he was changing the subject whether she liked it or not. “You were
having a pretty shitty episode, honey.”

Rayna pulled her hand from his
top in order to swipe her cheeks. “Yeah. Probably.”

He still held her other hand. If
she thought she was getting that one back, she could also think it snowed in
hell. He squeezed those fingers harder. “The episodes weren’t this bad before I
left.”

“I know.”

“You were also staying on your
meds before I left.”

“Zeke—”

“You don’t have to be on them
forever, Rayna.”

“I
know,
okay?”

“Apparently, you don’t.”

“Stop it.” She tried to jerk free
again. Zeke gripped her tighter. “I don’t want to talk about it. About any of
it.”

He treated that statement like a
badly-hung door on a drug lord’s hut. Kicked it into non-existence. “You went
on about King for a while.”

She sighed. “Yep. Sounds right.”

Strands of her brilliant hair
fell into her eyes. Zeke let her hand go so he could brush them back. Change of
tactic. There were occasions for busting down doors, and there were moments
made for silken ropes—especially when they came before the questions he asked
next.

“Have you ever dreamed about the
bastard’s guards, too?”

Her shoulders wiggled on a semi-shrug.
“Of course.”

“What about them using needles on
you?”

She tensed again. He’d
anticipated that and made sure he had her tucked in tight, but his bird dropped
a shiz of shock on his precautions, turning him inside out by grimacing through
fresh tears. But one thing about her expression dug at him the most. The tremor
of her chin. It said everything. That valiant, determined wobble…fighting back
images that weren’t dreams at all.

His gut writhed in a bath of
acid. “Holy shit.”

She slammed a hand on his chest.
“No. Don’t. Don’t go ‘holy shitting’ me, Zeke. It’s done. It’s in the past. I’m
leaving it there.”

“Right,” he countered. “And
that’s why you’re still having screaming nightmares about it.”

He watched her wrestle with that before
she pushed at him again. This time, Zeke let her roll back to her pillow. A time
and a place for everything—including the silence he allowed to build into
uncomfortable stillness.

Rayna squirmed and huffed. Her
chin didn’t tremble anymore. She was too busy glowering at him. “You going to
sit there and gawk at me until they ship you out again, Sergeant Hayes?”

He let her stew as he got back to
his feet in one precision move. He unzipped his jacket and unlaced his boots
then placed both on the floor near her little reading chaise. On his way back
across the room, he shut the door with a quiet click. “I’m respecting your
request not to talk about it.”

Her eyebrows high-fived her
forehead. “You are?”

“Yep.”

She pushed herself up until she
leaned against the headboard. “Thank you.”

He joined her again on the bed.
“Hmm,” he finally said, stroking the top of one of her feet through a cute bootie
sock. “That may be premature.”

Her foot flinched. He maintained
his grip on it. “Premature?”  The syllables were laced with suspicion. “Why?”

Zeke carefully schooled his
features before looking up from her ankles. He’d honed the talent since the age
of ten. When he was a teen on the streets, his facial wall saved his hide
countless times. As a sensual and sexual Dominant, it had submissives taking
numbers for sessions with him. As a Special Forces mission leader, it came in
handy so many ways, the team gave him a new callsign: Zsycho.

Right now, it bought him a
much-needed ten seconds. He used them well. By the time he issued his reply,
he’d swung all the way up on the mattress and gotten both her feet beneath his
hands. He leaned closer, his jaw hovering over her knees, in order to let her see
two truths in his gaze. One, for the sake of her well-being alone, he wouldn’t
accept her refusal again. Two, he was more than ready to back that assertion up,
even if it meant waiting her out all night.

“Because you’re not going to like
what you’ll do in place of talking, Ray-bird.”

Comprehension began to shimmer
against the forest depths of her eyes. Her lips pursed, and she flattened
harder against the headboard. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Zeke didn’t move. He kept his
hands atop her feet in a gentle but firm embrace. He barely blinked as he
willed her stare toward him with equal command. She curled in her arms, surely
sensing what he was about to say. And dreading it. And probably hating him a
little for it. Like that was going to change one word of what he ordered.  

“Show me, Rayna. I need to see
what they did to you.”

Rayna didn’t know whether to
laugh or cry.

She would have taken the laughter
option in an instant, if she thought Zeke was joking about this. No way. We
would have been sweating drops of pure serious—if he was sweating. Instead,
every pore in
her
body erupted in flows that battled in hot and cold
rushes beneath the stare of the man who occupied every inch of her vision. Her
breaths escaped her in ragged increments.

She wrote off part of that effect
to sheer shock. She still barely believed he was here, living and breathing, a
few feet away from her. When his “in and out” mission to Korea had turned into
more than that, she’d forced herself to get over it and re-set her mind to
expect him back well after Christmas. But his towering presence and his
radiating warmth confirmed the truth. All he touched were her feet, but the
rays of heat from that contact spread up, well past her knees. Damn, it was
really him. Damn, she really couldn’t see the rest of the room past him.

Damn, she was really scared.

Okay, it wasn’t all him. She needed
perspective when it came to Zeke Hayes. A
ton
of perspective. She’d
known that from the moment he’d carried her out of King’s lair in Thailand,
sheltering her in his strength, making her feel safe as a sparrow cuddled by a
grizzly. The mountain-sized man with the ocean-wide smile fast became her rock
and her friend, clicking into place in her life as if it was always meant to be.
When they’d gotten back home, he’d rescued her from King a second time, even
taking the man’s knife to his gut in doing so.

During Z’s recovery from that
episode, Rayna had gazed at him one night from his hospital bedside, and
realized she wanted to expand that “friend” definition. Again, so natural.
Again, so right. Those thoughts picked up speed through the weeks after
that—until the moment she’d learned how a man like Zeke defined “more.”

Her stomach clenched with the
not-so-subtle reminder. Sage had innocently spilled the truth to her over lunch
one day, throwing it into the conversation as if Rayna already knew about
Zeke’s not-so-secret identity.
Master Z.
Not just a lifestyle Dominant
but a damn
Master
at it. A “name” in the Seattle “scene,” with
submissives wait-listing themselves for sessions with him, and
standing-room-only status when he gave training sessions for other Doms. Sage’s
fiancé and Dom, Garrett, was going to such a lesson that week. “Rope Bondage as
Foreplay.”

Rope bondage? Foreplay? So they
also liked playing with oxymorons at those Dominance/submission dungeons, huh?

Thanks to sipping a lot of iced
tea, Rayna had cloaked her astonishment from her friend. Turned out it was easy
to keep up the ruse for Zeke, too. It wasn’t like she avoided the subject. She
just needed the right chance, she’d assured herself. Time to find the right
moment. Time to find the right words.

Time hadn’t been on her side. The
text had come from Zeke’s CO, Franzen. The orders were clear. Get his ass back
to the base double time with his gun cleaned, his pack in order and a shitload
of mosquito wipes. They were bugging out right away.

The perfect moment had never
come.

Rayna admitted her relief to no
one but herself. For the next two months, she pretended the lunch with Sage had
never happened. Instead, she clung to the impression Zeke gave her over
sporadic texts and satellite phone calls. He was always tired but stalwart, happy
to make contact, promising he was thinking of her. She refused to feel anything
but grateful for the connections. Guys like him didn’t get the chance to call
home often, and he always used his opportunities to reach out to her. Not the
waiting list.
Her.

She didn’t feel like crowing in triumph
anymore. Time to feel exposed as a sparrow again, only Zeke didn’t look like he
wanted to be protective papa bear anymore. With his dark chestnut hair longer
due to the deployment, his beard grown to a rough scruff, and his eyes glittering
even in the dim room, he was definitely giving in to the instincts of another
creature inside his psyche tonight. A creature called puma.

Hungry, assessing puma.

“Rayna Eleanor?” Both of his dark
brows raised expectantly, another expression she’d never seen before tonight. “Did
you hear what I said?”

A glower burned its way out
before she could stop it. “Really? Five minutes in the door and you’re using the
middle name on me, Hayes? What the hell?”

He slipped his hands up beneath
her sweats, locking on the backs of her calves. She didn’t want to admit how
wonderful his long fingers felt on her skin. She didn’t want to admit how this
new version of him was affecting her, period. Her heartbeat stuttered. Her skin
went clammy then steamy. Her thoughts broke apart like peanuts in a blender. In
just a couple of minutes, he’d wrenched her far, far out of her comfort zone.

She yearned for the Zeke who’d
cracked a thousand jokes a minute after the hell of Thailand, who firmly held her
through all the nightmares. She yearned for the friend who understood about her
lapses into the painful memories, yet welcomed her back to reality with an easy
grin and a tight hug. She wanted the Zeke she’d had in sunshine and summer, not
this sinewy shadow of October night, swallowing her with his gaze and
overpowering her with his presence.

Did he use that look with anyone
on the list, too?

“You’re stalling.” The words were
low but dripped with command. He leaned even closer.

Rayna tried to look away. Like
that
was going to be possible. “No, I’m not.” She swallowed. “I’m just refusing
you, period.”

“Not an option.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“
Not
an option, Rayna.”

She pushed out a grunt. “Says you
and that invisible army behind you?”

His whiskers undulated as he
clenched his jaw. “Says the friend who’s worried about your piercing being
infected.”

Dread twisted her chest. How did
he know? How
much
did he know? A deeper stare into his eyes gave her the
answers. Those hazel depths had a new tint to them, flecks of brilliant green
that always told her he understood way more than he ever said. Damn it. He knew
enough, didn’t he? The realization burned awkward heat up her neck and into her
face.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“That’s better than ‘no.’” he
drawled.

She grimaced. “I spilled the
beans in my sleep?”

Zeke didn’t answer that one,
though his grip on her calves gentled. He grazed the back of her knees with the
tips of his fingers.
Hell,
that felt good. Such a deceiving prelude for
what he was asking—demanding—she do.

“God.” She pressed her hands over
her cheeks and slammed her eyes closed. “How much of it
did
I spill?”

“Enough.” Though his voice still
rumbled with its subwoofer of command, he reined back on the imperious edge. “Enough
that I’m concerned, bird. If those assholes didn’t disinfect their needle or know
exactly what part they had to aim for—”

“Stop.” She flung her hand to his
mouth. The scrape of his whiskers on her fingers was oddly soothing compared to
the images that laid siege to her brain. She was back in King’s warehouse in
Thailand again. The cement floor was cold on her back as the bastard’s guards
held her down, getting ready to spread her legs before they bade the little
woman forward, the needle gleaming in her gloved hands.

“Stop.
Stop.
I can’t,
Zeke. I won’t!”

She tried again to kick him away but
damn it, the man was nearly twice her size, and impaled her with a stare so
determined, he didn’t blink.

“Rayna,” he ordered evenly, “look
at me. Come back to me. You’re not there anymore. You’re right here.
I’m
right
here.” His gaze intensified, the green hues dissolving beneath a flood of deep
gold command. “I know this isn’t easy. I just need to make sure—” His jaw
stiffened. “If they gave you an infection, we need to know about it now.”

Her reaction was surprising, even
to her. She actually rolled her eyes while reaching to the dog tags on her
nightstand. “Medical corps, Sergeant, remember? I think I’d know if I had an
infection.”

Zeke barely flinched. “So you’ve
been checking the piercing site every day?” he countered. “Examining it closely
for any redness, swelling, discharge?”

She dropped the tags and grimaced.
“Thank you. That officially killed my appetite for the next two days.”

“You’re stalling again.”

She closed her eyes. It was the only
way to close him out. Even then, it wasn’t completely possible. He’d shifted
even closer, turning his closeness into damn near an embrace. She breathed in
his oaky, earthy scent; her inner calves brushed the ridges of his rib cage. “I’ll
check it later, okay? I—I promise.”

“And the sun’ll come out
tomorrow, Little Orphan Annie?” His grunt wasn’t so gentle this time.

“Yeah. You wanna be my sidekick
mutt?”

The softness fled his gaze. “Damn
it, Rayna. I’m not messing around.”

“And I’m not one of your submissives!”

She longed to yank the words back
the second they left her lips. She hated the remorse they brought to Zeke’s
eyes, the dark resignation sweeping across the rest of his face. This wasn’t
how she’d wanted to broach this subject with him. From the new dip to his
shoulders, she guessed it wasn’t his preferred scenario, either.

“I expected you’d get to that
page sooner or later.”

“It was sooner. I just didn’t
know how to—” More heat washed her face. “Or
what
to—” When she lifted
her gaze, his was waiting for her…searching her. He’d studied her like that a
hundred times before. So why did the stare make her heartbeat falter now? “It
wasn’t like it changed anything for me, Zeke. You’re one of my best friends
now.” She added a tiny smile, trying to help the sad edge of her tone. “Actually,
other than Sage, you’re my best friend.”

He gave her a lopsided smile in
return. Though the look turned his bold features into an irresistible sight, it
hardly revealed what he was thinking. His puma side again stomped on the
grizzly when he was like this, making her guess at what he’d say or do next.
She hoped her confession would yield her one of his engulfing hugs, along with
an invitation to go downstairs for some Bailey’s and cocoa, and
no
more
talk about the illicit “souvenir” she’d brought home from Thailand between her
thighs.

“Best friend,” he finally
murmured. “Thanks, Ray-bird. That makes me feel good.”

Her taste buds tingled in
anticipation of the cocoa. She smiled a little wider. “I’m glad.”

“You know what they say about
best friends, don’t you?”

“What?”

“They’re the perfect person to
share a new piercing with.”

She rammed her knee into his
shoulder. “Asshat.”

The blow didn’t stop him by a
single inch. He leaned ever closer, cocking a dark brow with unnerving
confidence. “Okay, then. If you don’t want to be friends anymore, I’m sure Trevor
will want to hang. I think I just heard him open some chips. Fuck, I miss
chips. I’ll bet they’re those good salty ones you keep around too, huh? They’ll
go so good with hearing about how your sister might have a piercing infection
from her overseas captivity, not to mention how she’s been ignoring her meds
and her general emotional well-being. That’s bound to be way more interesting
than the latest Seahawks news, yeah?”

“Aggghh!” She tossed up both her
hands. “Fine, okay? You win.”

Not that she was going to make it
easy for him. She glared when he pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a rough
kiss to her knuckles. Nervy shithead. The Mr. Darcy act didn’t eclipse his George
Wickham maneuver. “Just get it over with,” she muttered, closing her eyes
again.

Zeke didn’t reply to that, and
she was grateful. With commanding efficiency, he moved his hands to her hips in
order to pull her down to a prone position. Rayna kept her eyes shut. Maybe it
was more like
squeezed
her eyes shut. Just being in this physical
position was enough to pull the trigger on the panic bullets again. She pulled
in deep breaths, visualizing Wonder Woman bracelets on her wrists to deflect
them. That wasn’t as effective as remembering Zeke’s words. She was safe. She
wasn’t in Thailand anymore. These were her sheets at her back, not a concrete
floor. Nobody was going to trap her, or do anything she didn’t want, or make
her feel—

Supremely unnerved. And more than
a little terrified.

Her mouth went dry as he tugged
at the waistband of her sweats. They came down easily for him, making her
wonder just how many times he’d performed the move. He made her panties follow
with even more practiced speed, coming off in his grip with a trio of soft
thwicks
.
 

Rayna pressed her lips together
as the cool air brushed her naked skin. For every slick move he pulled, her
body broke out in mortified goose bumps—though she’d spill her savings account
before revealing this was the first time she’d ever been bare like this for a
man’s gaze. She wasn’t a prude. Virginity and she had parted ways the summer
after she’d graduated from high school, but it had happened in a pitch-dark
room. That was just fine for a girl who’d grown up fighting off her brothers so
much, she often had better muscles than her lovers. She’d fast made friends
with the shadows when it came to sex.