Six

Grace woke to darkness.

Everything felt wrong. The feel of the bed; the quiet sounds and smells. The air felt different on her skin, heavy and vaporous as fog. She felt disconnected. Almost like she was inside someone else’s body. As though it wasn’t her lying there, but another person.

There was a prolonged moment of confusion as her mind floundered, trying to grasp where she was.

She was chest down, her cheek pressed flat into a mattress, her breath a persistent scratch against a wall of cotton. She flexed her fingers, feathering the tips, verifying the bed under her. She shifted, stretching her torso, a little startled at the sensation of sheets against her bare skin, rasping her breasts and pebbling her nipples awake.

A warm weight covered her hip. She shifted again, testing its pressure, too uncertain to reach out and touch it for herself.

Then it moved. Fingers. A hand. She wasn’t alone in the bed.

Everything flooded back in a blazing rush. Her stomach bottomed out.

She’d been abducted and was in bed with one of her kidnappers. Reid. The good-looking one who claimed he would keep her safe. Good-looking. Ha. That was a tame description for him. He looked like he’d stepped right out of Sons of Anarchy. She watched the television series in hotel rooms and on the plane, escaping the grinding routine of events and functions Holly dragged her to one after another.

It was dangerous thinking. Comparing him to a hot actor on a television show. He was real. And dangerous. She didn’t need to confuse him with some fictional character. He might be sexy, but he didn’t possess some hidden code of honor. If he were truly good, he would get her out of this awful place—or at least promise that he would help her escape. None of those reassurances were forthcoming. He’d rather vaguely said he would keep her safe, but she was still here. How safe could she be?

His voice rolled across the space between them and hit the back of her neck like tendrils of hot smoke. “How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

She exhaled and rolled flat on her back, accepting that she couldn’t feign unconsciousness. He could probably hear the pounding drum of her heart.

He didn’t move his hand. It stayed on her hip.

“What time is it?” she whispered.

“Close to dawn.” His hand felt like a searing brand even without exerting any pressure.

“What’s going to happen now?” Her voice was a scratchy whisper in the darkness. It sounded like another woman speaking . . . someone afraid and broken. That wasn’t her. She wasn’t beaten.

“I’ll come up with something.”

“That doesn’t sound very . . . heartening.” It would be daylight soon and then she would have to face those other men again. Nothing good could come of that. The promise of pain twisted their lips and lighted their eyes. She needed to get out of here.

“Heartening,” he echoed.

“Yes, it means—”

“I know what it means,” he replied flatly. “I love the way you talk, college girl.” Only he didn’t sound like he loved it.

She shivered slightly. His hand started to pull away and before she knew what she was doing she leaned in, closer, as though chasing that touch. A moth hunting flame. She stopped, catching herself. Her mind worked, trying to rationalize her actions. It had to be natural. This seeking of comfort when she was in such an unsafe, tenuous situation.

He paused. She realized then that it might appear that she wanted his touch.

And then it occurred to her that maybe she did. Or maybe she should.

If she was trying to win him over and make certain she lived through this, maybe being nice and allowing him certain liberties in order to survive wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world? Bottom line, this was about survival. Sometimes dire actions needed to happen in order to guarantee that. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made for survival.

After a moment’s hesitation, he inched back in again, splaying his hand over her hip, his blunt-tipped fingers spreading wide, pressing into a stomach she had long bemoaned as not nearly flat enough. She forgot about that, though. His touch sparked her skin. All self-consciousness fled as a warm fire licked though her.

Her breath hitched. This was okay. If she experienced a little pleasure in submitting to him, that was better than flinching in revulsion or terror. At least that’s what she told herself. Those were the desperate words that wove like a serpent through her mind as her stomach heaved with nausea at his closeness, at his breath against her neck, his touch on her bare skin . . .

The mattress creaked slightly as he propped up on an elbow over her. Her chest squeezed. Even in the darkness she felt the size of him, the muscled breadth hovering over her like a great shadow.

His fingers flexed against her skin, the pads of his fingers rough, palms callused. They felt nothing like Charles’s smooth hands, which she had held innumerable times for the well-calculated photo op.

“This okay?” His deep voice rumbled on the air, as dark as the ink of night all around them. Those two simple words were a gravelly utterance. Only two words and yet she could hardly make sense of them in her spinning head.

Now was the time. If she didn’t want to go through with this, she needed to speak up. She needed to find her voice and say: No, stop, don’t.

A whisper scudded across her mind. It’s the only way. He’s the only way.

She needed to play nice. “Yes,” she breathed.

His hand shifted, fingers sliding over her panties, arrowing down the V of her crotch with honed precision.

Her breath quickened. She flung her hands up by her ears and grabbed fistfuls of sheet. They weren’t even skin-to-skin, but his hand brushing against her panties burned her up.

He cupped her then, his hand molded to her sex, fingers pressing into her seam.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” he murmured, his voice like smoke near her ear. “Your pulse. It’s racing.”

Oh God. Her legs parted slightly, the muscles too lax to support their weight. His hand dipped deeper between her legs, never slipping under the cotton fabric but exerting enough pressure to make her traitor sex clench and throb.

He started rubbing, creating friction that heated her core and spread outward, singeing every nerve. Her face burned at the sudden moisture rushing between her legs, dampening the crotch of her panties. He must feel that. He must know. Hot humiliation lashed her face. OhGodOhGodOhGod.

She shouldn’t enjoy this so much. She was awful. Wanton and depraved.

She whimpered, her hips moving of their own accord, pumping in rhythm to his stroking. She bit her lip and arched, forgetting everything except how good he was making her feel between her legs.

He brought his face close to hers, his jaw scratching her cheek as his lips moved against her ear. “Is that for me, princess?”

She stilled. His voice . . . those words, washed through her in a bitter trail. No. This was wrong. She was not actually turned on. She was just faking it, pretending to go along for her survival. She wouldn’t enjoy this. She. Would. Not.

His hand stilled and she blinked up at those eyes glowing down at her. “You want this, Grace?” There was something in his voice, a strange heavy quality to the question, but she was too far gone to make sense of it.

“Y-Yes,” she answered, still telling herself she wanted this because it was the smart thing. Not because she wanted wanted it. She wasn’t that depraved. In all her fantasies (yes, she had her share), getting kidnapped and seduced by her abductor was not one of them.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just continued to stare down at her with his hand covering her throbbing sex. She felt him like a brand there, hot and possessive, and she resisted the urge to writhe against him.

He gently squeezed her sex, brushing a finger along her seam, so close but not quite hitting that spot. “You offering me this?” Again there was a strange gruffness to his voice.

She tried to speak but choked out a strangled sound. She nodded as much as she could manage.

“You think you need to use this as a bargaining chip, Grace?” The question was biting. He didn’t wait for her answer. “Well, you can keep it.” He pulled his hand away and clambered off her. “I told you I’d keep you safe. You don’t need to bribe me with a fuck.”

She flinched. He shrugged into his clothes, leaving her gasping on the bed, her body humming and aching, unfulfilled. Shame washed over her. She’d watched plenty of Lifetime movies in a lonely hotel room. It was too soon for Stockholm syndrome to kick in, so there was no excuse for her reaction. There should only be terror. She shouldn’t feel this aroused.

She sat up on the bed and buried her face in her hands, pretty certain this was what rock bottom looked like.

 

She was hotter than fire.

He never would have thought such a thing possible. He never thought anything about her exceptional the few times he’d seen her on the TV. She’d just been . . . wallpaper.

But he’d seen the fire tonight. He felt it.

And he wanted to dive straight into those flames and finish where he left off. He blamed it on his years in prison. Eleven years in a cage. Eleven years without a woman. That would cloud any man’s judgment.

He snatched up his clothes. With a muttered curse, he struggled into them, less than graceful. He turned for the door, but halfway there her soft voice stopped him.

“Reid?”

She said his name as though testing it . . . testing herself maybe.

With a sigh, he peered through the gloom of the room. He could see she was sitting up in bed now. He inhaled a ragged breath. He had no doubt he could do every filthy thing his long-denied body craved. She’d let him. As though she had no choice. A sick little feeling wormed through him.

Maybe she would even enjoy it, but she would still count it as a necessary sacrifice. She’d still hate that it happened . . . and later hate him for it.

Silence stretched between them until he finally answered. “Stay in the room if you know what’s good for you.”

He wasn’t sure that she did know what was good for her. She let him put his hands on her, after all. Somehow, in her mind, she had thought that was a good idea. That such a thing might work out to her benefit.

She didn’t know who . . . what she was dealing with. She had no clue.

With another foul curse, he yanked open the door and stepped out into the hall. Shutting the door behind him, he stood there for a moment, breathing in and out of his nose until he felt a measure of calm. Until his raging erection subsided.

Satisfied, he advanced into the kitchen and living room area. Bodies were strewn everywhere, passed out in positions that didn’t look comfortable. One guy near the door was sleeping beside a pool of vomit that was already stinking up the room. They would all be hurting when they woke up. That is, until they drowned their aches in booze and drugs again.

Not everyone was asleep, however. His brother sat at the kitchen table nursing a longneck, with Rowdy sitting across from him. Dirty dishes littered the table, and Rowdy picked at the scraps, stabbing at various bits of food with the end of his knife.

Zane’s eyes lighted on him. “Up early, bro.”

Rowdy leered. “Have you even slept? Figure you put her to good use. Still not up for sharing?”

Everything inside him tensed, but he trained his face into a neutral expression. “Sorry. Not quite done with her.”

Zane grinned, momentarily looking like the boy Reid remembered. “Well, you might want to go back in there and get her out of your system. We got plans for her.”

“What would those be?” he asked, trying to sound casual. The food they had cooked earlier sat out on the counter. Rather than eat anything that had spoiled hours ago, he reached for a bag of potato chips.

“Sullivan wants us to keep her alive for a while and make her suffer. Really stick it to Reeves, you know?”

Reid bit into a chip, struggling to show no reaction to this information.

“I think we need to move her,” Zane said. “Too many people know about this place and come in and out of here for business.” He gestured around them. Business as in drug deals. “FBI, local law enforcement . . . Texas Rangers. They’re crawling everywhere.”

“We should just hurry it up and get rid of her,” Rowdy supplied. “Been saying it from the start. Sullivan wants her dead in the end. We should just do it and be done with her.”

Reid stopped chewing for a moment. It was the only outward sign he gave that Rowdy’s words affected him. He knew his brother. He knew these men. At least he thought he did. He’d known them eleven years ago. Granted, a lot could change over the years—he certainly had—but he never thought they were killers. He never thought his brother could become that.

“I told you,” Zane grumbled, as though he could read Reid’s mind, “I ain’t a woman killer.”

That was good to hear. He knew what kind of man Sullivan was. He was without a code. Nothing was off-limits for him. But Reid had thought his brother was better than that. Their grandfather had been a good man. Reid had thought they spent enough time with him for some of his goodness to rub off on Zane.

Rowdy kicked his boots up on the seat of a neighboring chair. “Man, you need to grow up. What did you think was going to happen? You were standing right next to me when Sullivan said what he wanted done to her. Besides, she’s seen all of our faces. We just gonna hand her back at the end of this and call it good?”

Reid already had that same thought. They weren’t acting like men who were trying to protect their identities around her.

Zane gave a reluctant nod and scratched his scraggly attempt at a beard.

Rowdy cracked open a jar of queso and swirled his finger inside the orange goop. Sucking his finger clean, he looked at Reid. “If you want another go at her, you better hurry up, man. Looks like I’ll have to do it. Zane has never had the stomach for this.”

Reid knew Rowdy wouldn’t blink over ending her life, especially if that’s what Sullivan wanted. That guy always followed Sullivan’s dictates. For all that, it felt like he had swallowed a box of rocks. Reid kept munching on chips, clinging to his poker face and acting like this didn’t touch him.

His mind raced, groping, searching for something to say to knock Rowdy off this path. “She’s the president’s daughter. You really want to off her? That’ll get you the chair.”

Rowdy’s lips curled. “I’m not scared.”

His brother went pale. “I don’t know. I’m having second thoughts, man.”

“There ain’t no going back now. Might as well go rough her up like Sullivan wanted.” Rowdy started forward.

Reid’s hand shot out to push on his chest, stopping him. “He wanted her abused for days. If her body turns up later today, he’ll know you didn’t listen to him.”

“What do you suggest?” Rowdy demanded, thrusting his chin out at a belligerent angle.

“Take her someplace else . . . go to ground with her. Head west.” Reid nodded at his brother. “Our grandfather had that house in the mountains. Use it,” he suggested, still trying to act like he didn’t care that much. Right now his goal was simple: delay them from killing her.

Rowdy glanced around the house, his gaze pausing on the guy near the door snoring beside his own vomit. “Guess we could send Mike off with her.”

Thankfully, his brother snorted at that proposition. “Mike? He can hardly take care of himself. Even with a map he probably couldn’t find the place.”

The two of them started debating who should go, who should take the First Daughter out west. To the middle of nowhere. Isolated from the world. Which dangerous, drugged-out criminal among them would be alone with her and have her totally at his mercy?

A bitter taste coated his mouth. The promise he’d made to Grace ran over and over in his head as he stood there holding a bag of chips in his hands. Before he could even think about what he was saying, he heard himself speak. “I’ll do it. I’ll take her.”