Steal My Heart (6 page)

“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s impolite to stare?” he asked without looking up.

The deep voice reined in her wayward thoughts, and she felt her skin prickle with heat, then anger. She looked into the dark eyes now regarding her with veiled amusement.

“Didn’t
your
mother tell you not to kidnap innocent women and have your way with them?”

She watched a slow grin creep across his handsome face. “I’ve yet begun to have my way with you, Maggie.”

His words made her breath catch and caused shivers to ripple beneath her skin, but she stared resolutely.

“Listen, why don’t you just leave? I promise I won’t call the police. I don’t even know your name.”

“Gabe.”

She blinked. ‘Gabe’ didn’t suit him.
Maybe…Atilla or Caligula
.

“Now that we’re properly introduced, you can tell me the whereabouts of my drive.”

“I don’t have your flash drive.”

Silence ticked by as his gaze probed hers. “Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t!” She huffed in frustration. “And how would I’ve gotten it?”

“I slipped it into the pocket of your uniform on the train when I was indisposed.”

“You mean when you were
pretending
to be at death’s door? I helped you despite my better judgment!” She scowled at him. “Did you really stop breathing? Did you even need mouth to mouth?”

“No. But it was nice to get it.”

Her nails dug into her palms. She gritted her teeth and had to count slowly.
She hated this man! Really, she did!
He drove her so crazy! She couldn’t believe the germs he’d subjected her to, all for nothing. The train had been filthy. He’d been a walking infection. And, on top of that, he’d slipped something in her pocket?

“The flash drive is about this big, gray.” He held up his thumb and index finger to denote the few inches.

“I still don’t know what…” She suddenly remembered getting undressed in the foyer. David had said there was still something in her pocket. Maggie bit her bottom lip, worrying it slowly as she tried to recall their exchange. She’d been so piqued after her harried experience that she hadn’t known which way was up.
Hmmm, maybe…what would David have done with it?
She’d told him to take it out. She took the time to cogitate while he stared hopefully. What was on that drive? Had he killed three men for it? Should she be giving it to him? Could it mean more deaths? She snorted in answer to her last question.
Yes, hers
!

Would he kill her to get it? But, he’d been so gentle with her before. He’d kissed her. He’d rubbed her toes.
Stockholm, stupid!
She needed to get him out of there. She’d give it to him and then call the police. This was not her problem. Look at what happened the last time she got involved! She rose from her chair and skirted furniture as she made her way to the small desk in the foyer. His eyes tracked her intently. She was rooting through the drawer for the second time when she sensed him close behind her.

“Well?” he said impatiently when she turned to him.

She leveled him a blank stare and shrugged cautiously. “It should be in there. That’s the only place I can think of.”

His previously relaxed face morphed into a scowl. “What are you saying?”

Maggie cringed at his steely tone. She waved an arm into her apartment. “It’s got to be somewhere in here. I just don’t know where.”

Anger simmered in his bottomless dark eyes and she saw his jaw clench. “You mean to tell me that in this neurotically tidy apartment you don’t know where the flash drive is? I’d bet you know where every speck of dust and fur ball resides.”

“I don’t have dust or fur balls!” She couldn’t help responding. “Find my damn drive!”

She visibly startled at his last words. He was hovering so menacingly close she couldn’t think. She regarded his intimidating size and massaged her temples with her fingers, trying to stimulate her memory. Okay…
David had given her a plastic bag for her clothing. She’d folded them…

“Well?”

She chafed and turned away. “I’m thinking, you big bully!”

David must have dropped it in the bag with her clothes!
Although, it hadn’t ended up in the wash. So…

She heard his audible breath of surprise at her words, but ignored him as she started to retrace her steps to her washing machine in the kitchen.

“It was in the pocket of my shirt,” she explained slowly. “My shirt was extremely dirty...”

He followed closely behind, arms folded across his broad chest. She could sense the tension mount in his big body the closer they got to the washer. She stopped directly in front of it and turned to him, noticing his breath hitch and his nostrils flare in alarm. He squeezed his eyes shut and she could tell he was struggling to control his anger. She almost smiled.
Big bully!

“Tell me you didn’t wash it,” he growled between clenched teeth.

She stared up at him with wide innocent blue eyes.
Hmmm
… He’d made her parade around half naked, taped her up, left her stranded, made her kiss him,
and
he’d fondled her breast and toes! All reprehensible acts. Ok, so maybe the kissing and fondling part wasn’t so bad…
Stockholm!

“Maggie!” he snapped harshly when she didn’t answer.

She jerked to awareness, and seeing the feral look in his angry eyes, quickly foraged under the sink and produced the plastic bag that still held the small gray flash drive tucked into it. She smiled innocently as she handed it over, but his dark rebuking gaze never left her face.

In one sudden move he had her pinned hard against the washing machine, his thighs holding her firm, his pelvis crushing hers. She could feel heat emanating from him and she shrank back against the cold metal. She tried to twist away, but his large hand shot up to grip her chin tight and hold her head fixed in place. His face came within inches of hers, and his warm breath fanned against her cheek. She didn’t dare look into the storm she knew was brewing in his eyes, so instead focused on the deep groove in his chin.

“You knew it was there the entire time, didn’t you?” His words were whispered so softly that Maggie wasn’t sure she’d heard them. “Yet, you lead me to believe otherwise.”

Well, she hadn’t been a hundred percent sure…
She tried to shake her head, but knew he could already sense the prevarication. His big hand anchored her in a crushing hold. She watched the tight line of his lips pull into a slow hedonistic smile.

“I will deal with you later. And enjoy every minute of it,” he promised, and then abruptly released her.

Those words produced a cacophony of emotion.
A warmth that was darkly irresistible shivered along her nerve endings, causing heat to delicately blotch her skin. Desire seeped from her body and wet her panties. At the same time her stomach clenched nervously, almost spilling her dinner.
Oh God...what had she been thinking?
Why provoke the beast? Just because he was now a beauty, it didn’t make him less savage. Did she secretly
want
his attentions?
No
, she protested sternly. She was just tired of being a victim and wanted some control over her life. She’d simply wanted to get back at him. She could conjure no explanation for the way her body seemed to respond to him.

He motioned her back into the bedroom and flipped on an overhead light. Her legs trembled as she watched him warily from the corner of her eye. He sat at her small reading desk that held a computer and inserted the flash drive. She lowered herself to the corner of her bed behind him.

The Cryostar company symbol was the first thing to pop on the screen, drawing her curious gaze. There was some writing she couldn’t make out from her position, then some complicated symbols and pages and pages of mathematical equations and strange geometric figures. He sat so eerily still that she wondered if he’d forgotten about her. Her gaze darted to the door, and she wondered if she could quietly slip away. She was just contemplating her escape when she saw him scroll through a series of screens. She frowned at the sequence of drawings and pictures that kindled recognition in her brain.

“Why are you looking at drawings for the Sonic Scalpel?”

He swiveled in his chair and his brows drew up sharply. “What did you say?”

Maggie hesitated, uncomfortable with the acute keenness of his gaze. “The—the Sonic Scalpel. It’s a surgical device that theoretically uses antigen recognition technology to distinguish between cancerous tissue and normal tissue.”

She squirmed on the edge of the bed as his forehead creased. He stared silently and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. A look of surprise skimmed his eyes, but it was obvious he was also impressed. She chewed her lip as he gave her that funny puzzled look again. “Go on.”

She swallowed at the sudden knot in her throat. “The antigen is a receptor on the cell. Imagine it as a key hole. The Sonic Scalpel can supposedly recognize these receptors or keyholes and tell which cells are cancerous and which cells are not. It supposedly will make the CyborgKnife obsolete.”

“I thought CyborgKnife technology was revolutionary.” he stated thoughtfully.

“It is. It’s been around since nineteen ninety-five—”

“Though wasn’t approved by the FDA until two thousand and two for
all
body tumors. Since then it’s treated hundreds of thousands of people. The New England Journal of Medicine had an article about it a few years ago.”

Now it was Maggie’s turn to look impressed. Not many people knew about cyborg technology or cared about the non-invasive way of treating cancerous body tumors. The CyborgKnife delivered a beam of high dose radiation to tumors that were often inoperable or too complex for traditional surgical techniques. She’d seen many cases—or miracles as she called them—performed using this extraordinary technique.

“CyborgKnife technology
is
revolutionary,” she agreed. “It’s painless, non-invasive, and has little side effects.”

“Have you seen it used?”

“Yeah, it rapidly disintegrates cancerous tumors,
but
it also can destroy normal cells in the process. It can’t tell the difference between the cells. Imagine if there was a similar device that could distinguish between normal cells and cancerous cells. Now that would be revolutionary!” she stated excitedly.

Gabe scrubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You mean a device that targets just the tumor and no surrounding tissue?”

“Yes!” She grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “The Sonic Scalpel is supposed to use sound waves to get data from the cells, then the device interprets the data and only targets the bad cells. There’s no room for human error. That’s what Dr. Rollins postulates anyway. I have no idea how it knows which cells are cancer and which are not. It has to do with the antigens on the cells.”

His eyes flared with interest. “Do you know Dr. Rollins?”

Maggie snorted. “I wish! As a nurse I have to do a certain amount of continuing medical education.” At his puzzled look, she continued, “It means I have to keep abreast of what’s going on in my field. I’ve attended practically every one of Victoria Rollins lectures. She’s brilliant! Been talking about this technology for years.”

Maggie stood and approached the desk. She punched a button on the keyboard, scrolling through the pictures again. She was shocked at what she saw. There were detailed pictures of the device in various stages of design. “Oh my God. How did you get these?”

He ignored her question, his inquisitive gaze lingering on her face. “How do you know so much about the Sonic Scalpel?”

“It’s quite the buzz in the medical community. The surgical oncologists I work with have been in a tizzy the last few months awaiting data from the latest clinical trials. It’s all they talk about. I listen to them for hours during surgery. I’ve only seen one picture of the prototype. It’s all that’s been released so far.”

She watched his sinfully thick lashes lower and his gaze focus somewhere in the distance. She frowned deeply, apprehension starting to beat behind her breast. Even one of the physicians she worked with who had been involved in preclinical studies and who claimed to have ties to the NIH couldn’t produce further evidence of the Scalpel. How could this man have access to such privileged data?

She shot him a furtive glance and scrolled to the top of the page, her eyes scanning the screen. She started reading a section labeled
Clinical trial protocol.
She didn’t know much about clinical research, but from what she could tell, this document catalogued every step of Cryostar’s research. She saw more documents that detailed a hypotheses and pilot experiments, to the perfection of the prototype and results of clinical trial studies. Curious, she bypassed a file label
Sponsors
to open a file labeled
Miscellaneous,
but felt his steady gaze on her.

With dread snaking through her, she faced him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you get this?”

She watched life flicker behind his stoic eyes. “I stole it.”

Maggie gasped, feeling the color drain from her face. But before she could respond, a loud banging echoed through her living room.

“Mag? Mag? It’s me David!”

Hope and alarm pounded through her like a galloping herd. Unthinkingly, she took a step towards the door, her limbs slackening with relief. It was the iron arm circling her waist that halted her steps, reminding her of the yoke of her subjugation. She tried to pry the band of muscle from around her waist, but the thick arm held her tight and drew her up against a body that felt like a brick wall.

“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered harshly.

She shrieked and pounded her fist against his meaty forearm, hoping to dislodge herself. It was the dull glint of the metal object that rendered her stock still. Her eyes rounded at the sight of the gun he waved in front of her.
What the fuck? Where did that come from? Oh God…
Her body started to shake
uncontrollably.

“Come on, Mag,
open up!
” David whined.