• Thirty-One •

Anyone who abducted a person was not mentally well.

Capri

Opening my eyes, I stared at the foreign wall. It was made of logs. Where was I? When had I gone to sleep? I dropped my gaze to the covers over me. They smelled clean. Like laundry detergent and sunshine. The sheets were so soft and smooth that I wasn’t sure this was real. I didn’t feel right. Maybe I was still asleep. But I didn’t remember going to bed.

Slipping my hand out of the covers, I ran my fingertips over the luxurious white down comforter, then turned on my back to take in the rest of the room. High ceilings, a fireplace, and a window. The floor-to-ceiling curtains were a heavy, raw silk fabric that were in dark jewel tones and drawn closed. I sat up and tossed the covers back. I needed to look out that window.

Pausing, I looked down at my bare legs and the black T-shirt I was wearing. It was all I was wearing, I realized. Slipping it up higher, I checked to see that I was correct in the fact that I had on no panties. I looked at the shirt, rubbing the cotton between my fingers. This belonged to a man.

Thatcher.

My head snapped up, and I stared at the closed door beside the fireplace. Thatcher had taken me. I’d been in his truck. I didn’t remember going to sleep. The last thing … I had drunk the water.

The door opened, and I sucked in a breath as he filled the doorway. If my dad was right and there was a god, then he had some explaining to do. Like why he had created someone who was ridiculously sexy, impossible not to want, and completely insane. It wasn’t a fair combination.

“You slept longer than I’d anticipated,” he said, walking into the room.

His jeans hung low on his hips, and he was shirtless. It seemed he’d just taken a shower since his hair was damp and haphazardly curled around his neck and face.

“You put something in the water,” I replied. My voice was scratchy from sleep. How long had I been out?

He smirked as he stopped in front of me. “I had to. You were gonna hurt your wrists. I couldn’t have that.”

That wasn’t a reason to drug someone, but this man, beautiful as he was, had clearly gotten off his medication. I didn’t need to push. The others would come looking for him. My missing would be noticeable. Would he be charged with abducting me? I didn’t want that. The thought of him in prison—

No! Dammit, Capri. This man gagged you, took you against your will, then drugged you. And you are in a log cabin—albeit it a nice one, it seems.

“Once you were asleep, I was able to untie your wrists, lean your seat back, and make sure you were comfortable.”

How considerate. I tried not to roll my eyes.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“The mountains.”

“Blue Ridge?” I needed him to be more specific. If I could get outside and take off running, I had to have an idea of where I was.

“Smoky.”

How far had he taken me?

“You need to eat. It’s been eight hours,” he told me, reaching down and picking up my hand.

He held it in his as he began to inspect my wrists. They weren’t marked much. There was one small area that seemed red. I watched his expression as he ran his thumb over that spot. He really did seem unhappy about it. He could tie me up and drug me, but he didn’t want to hurt me. It was so odd. All of this.

“Why me?” I blurted out.

He had sex with countless women. Why had he chosen me to haul off to his cabin in the mountains? Was it because we hadn’t had sex? Was he needing to finish the deed with me before he could move on to someone else?

His eyes lifted from my wrist to meet my gaze. “You need me.”

I blinked, staring at him, trying to figure out how he thought that was the case. I hadn’t ever needed him, except when he was doing wonderful things with his head between my legs. Sure, I wanted him. Most women did even if they wouldn’t admit it. He was that dark, mysterious, possibly dangerous man that made your pulse quicken with just one glance. It was like … like Elena when she looked at Damon the first time on The Vampire Diaries. She knew all the bad, but she still felt something.

But this was not a hundred-seventy-something-year-old vampire. This was the real world, and Thatcher was truly not okay. Anyone who abducted a person was not mentally well. That meant he could hurt me. Just because he was worried about my wrists didn’t mean, at any moment, he couldn’t snap and … and do something bad to me.

For the first time since opening my eyes, fear trickled in. Why was I here if he meant me no harm? He knew he couldn’t keep me here forever. Someone would find me. But what if his plans weren’t forever? What if he would go back home, but … but I didn’t?

I swallowed as I looked at his painfully handsome face. As sinister as I had known he was and as twisted his soul must be, I had let him get close to me. He’d been in my house in the middle of the night, for God’s sake, and I’d never asked him how he’d gotten inside. I had let him in my bed. Between my legs. Was I in need of counseling? What was wrong in my head?

“Let’s go eat. I don’t have your favorites, but I didn’t plan on this. You forced my hand. If I had known I needed to prepare the cabin for you, then it would have been stocked properly.”

His large hand wrapped around my much smaller one, and he pulled me up. I went willingly. Fighting him seemed like a bad idea. I didn’t want to die up here. I didn’t want to die at all. Did he have that in him? To kill me?

“You’re trembling, little doll,” he said, studying me.

Yes, I was trembling. I was in a cabin up in mountains I had never been to, and no one knew where I was. Oh, and I was alone with a psycho.

“Thatcher,” I said softly, not wanting to ask things to set him off. “Are you planning on … on hurting me?” I couldn’t bring myself to say murder or kill.

He tilted his head to the side slightly, and the corner of his lips quirked, but he didn’t smile. “I’ve been punishing those who hurt you for years. I protect you. I’d never hurt you.”

Okay, yep, he was crazy. That was not a sane thing for someone to say. He’d been punishing those who hurt me? What? He barely knew me. Until two months ago, I hadn’t seen him in seven years. Then, he was everywhere.

He reached up and ran a finger under my chin, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a flutter in my stomach from his caress. I had to keep my head on straight. Nothing about this was okay.

“You need food.”

I didn’t argue with him. I let him lead me out of the bedroom and into a wide hallway with three more doors before we made it to a spacious, open area. To the right was a living area with a massive bearskin rug that I really hoped wasn’t real, two oversized brown leather sofas, and burgundy recliners, along with a flat screen on the wall. To the left was the kitchen. A long bar separated the two. Black marble countertops and grayish-blue cabinets. A table that could sit six with a fridge that seemed big enough to keep enough food to feed an army.

“I made your burger the way you like it,” he told me, motioning at the table, where two plates were already filled.

How did he know how I liked my burger? It wasn’t normal, and I doubted he could guess. I tried to think of a time I’d eaten one in front of him, and I couldn’t.

“The ice water is free of any sedatives. I promise.”

“And the food?” I asked because it was a legit concern.

He chuckled. “And the food as well. I have you all to myself now. I don’t want to sedate you, but if you pass out from multiple orgasms, I can’t help that.”

I swung my focus from the table to look up at him. He was grinning as he walked over to pull out a chair for me. I stood there, staring at him. I wasn’t letting him give me any orgasms. Even if hearing him say it made me slightly damp. My body did not understand that he was insane. It just wanted to feel what it knew he could do to it.

“Sit down, little doll,” he said.

“Why do you call me that?” I asked instead. “And how did you get into my house?”

These were questions I should have asked him before. Maybe I wouldn’t be here if I’d been more aware of the things he’d done that were red flags. Him calling me little doll had made me feel special. But it was an odd thing to call someone.

He moved the hair from my shoulder back as his gaze drifted over my neck until it made its way up to meet my eyes. “You don’t like it when I call you that?” he asked in a deep voice.

Well, yes, I had liked it a lot, but now that I knew the rumors about him were more accurate than I’d realized, I wasn’t sure I was okay with the nickname he’d given me. Even if the way he was looking at me right now with his dark eyes, hooded by long, thick lashes, like he was thinking naughty things, made warmth in my body spread and breathing a little difficult.

I swallowed hard and tensed as he ran a knuckle over my lips. “I’ve been watching you sleep for a while. I wanted to make sure you were okay, but then you were so fascinating while you dreamed that I kept coming back.”

Oh my God. He had been in my room more than once? I blinked, staring up at him, mixed with horror and—unfortunately—arousal. While I should be more concerned about his being in my house at night, there seemed to be a part of me that liked it.

“How?” I choked out.

The corners of his mouth curled as a devilish gleam lit his eyes. “Sweet little doll, I told you I’d been protecting you for years. You wanted your own place, and your mother took that from you. I fixed it.”

Hold up. I stepped back away from the warmth of his body and his touch. They were distracting. I had to get this straight because if he was saying what I think he was—no, I had to be misunderstanding.

“How did you fix it?” I asked him.

“I gave you a house.”

Shock was not the word I needed here. There was so much more happening right now inside me that I had no way to define it.

“You GAVE me a house?”

He chuckled then, and the sound was both unnerving and darkly addictive. “Well, maybe not gave. Maeme wouldn’t have been on board with that. I presented you with a house you could afford.”

Maeme. How did he know the lady I rented from?

“I don’t understand. I need more.”

He took a step in my direction. “Maeme owns the house—or rather, the Salazar family controls the homes on that side of town. She made that one available for rent—for you only.”

My eyes widened. Maeme was a Salazar. She’d never given me a last name. I paid my rent to G & M Properties via an electric withdrawal every month.

“Maeme is related to King?”

He nodded once. “His grandmother. Her husband bought up most of that section of town years ago. She leases properties under the corporation he set up to handle it—G & M,” he said with a touch of amusement. He knew I’d recognize where I sent my monthly rent money. “Gabriel and Maeme,” he added. “Her late husband’s name and hers.”

Did King know this? Was he letting me be … stalked? Was that what this would be considered? I shook my head. I couldn’t make sense of this. Why would Thatcher do all this? If he was going to stalk someone, then wouldn’t he have chosen some female that was … well, not me? I wasn’t his type.

“Can we eat now?” he asked.

Eat? How was I supposed to eat? I’d been living in a house for seven years that he had access too. How many times had he been inside?

I took the chair he’d pulled out and sat down. The burger smelled good, but the emotional chaos going on in my head was controlling my appetite. I wasn’t hungry. I was … leaning more on the side of terrified.

“Thatcher?”

“Yes?”

“Do you stalk me?”

He sat down across from me, grinning as if I’d just told him a joke. The question did seem absurd, considering who he was and who I was, but still. It was a valid one.

“I protect you.”

He seemed to be big on that description. Protecting me was something he truly thought he had been doing.

“Why?” I asked. “Why protect me?”

He picked up his glass and met my gaze. “You’re the only one who eases me. I need you safe.”

Eases him? Was I ever going to get a direct answer that I understood from this man?

“How do I ease you?”

He took a drink from his glass, then set it down. “My entire life, I’ve had little emotion. I see others have it, but that never came for me. My own mother rarely comes around me. When I did feel, it was always heavy, uncomfortable, often brutal. But you … you settle the stirrings in my chest that I don’t want. When you’re near, I get peace.”

My hands clenched and unclenched in my lap. I took a deep breath and held his gaze.

For a moment, he’d looked like a lost boy. When he’d spoken of his mother, there had been a pain that flickered in his eyes even though I knew he wouldn’t want me to notice it. The man sitting across from me looked nothing like a boy, and thinking of the fact that he had once been a kid, a child, I saw him differently.

He had been struggling with things all his life, but no one seemed to care or take notice that he might need help. They knew. King knew. His own brother knew. They’d all warned me. But why did they not help him? Why was it they acted fearful of him if they cared for him? The women he brought in and fucked, then tossed out, did they not see this? Question why he was this way?

“I heard you—or rather her,” I told him. “It’s why I left. I had come to look for you and talk about the night before. In my room. But you were with someone else. Already. The very next day. I can’t do that. You were right. I am boring and unexperienced. I can’t do things with you like we did, then watch you turn around and screw some other woman. Bringing me here won’t change that. Eventually, we will have to go back, or they will find us.”

He leaned back in his chair as he listened to me. Like most times, it was hard to read what he was thinking. He had the ability to close off his expressions so well that you thought he felt nothing. But he did. I knew he did.

“You shouldn’t have left me.”

“You were fucking another woman.”

He shoved back his chair and stood up. I watched as he stalked around the table, then towered over me before leaning down and grabbing my chin.

“You shouldn’t have pushed me. You ran. I chased. I won’t let you get far. Ever. You let me between your legs. Gave me a taste of that sweet pussy. Now, I need it. I need it like I need the ease you give me. I crave the way you taste. It’s mine. It will always be mine. I’ll kill anyone else who thinks they can touch you.” He released my face and pointed to my plate. “Eat!”

I jumped, startled by his sharp command. My heart was beating against my chest so hard that I was sure he could hear it. I stared at the food on my plate. Panic and desire whirled inside me. Reaching for my burger, I saw the mac and cheese oozing from underneath the bun. I picked up the top, and there it was. My favorite burger toppings. Mac and cheese and mustard with a pickle. No one I knew liked their burgers this way. I had been made fun of it for years. Esther refused to watch me eat burgers, claiming I was gross.

How had he known?

Because he’d been stalking me.

I put the bun back and lifted my eyes to look at him. He was seated across from me again, and his dark eyes were watching me.

“Did I do it correctly?” he asked.

I nodded.

He smirked and picked up his burger to take a bite. He didn’t take his eyes off me, and I knew he wasn’t going to until I ate something. I knew he didn’t intend to kill me. That was a good thing. But he also had decided no other man could touch me but him.

I took a bite and chewed my food. His shoulders seemed to relax as he watched me. Was my eating really that important to him?

“I fuck hard,” he said. “And I can’t hurt you. So, I fucked someone who I didn’t care about hurting. She didn’t mean anything. They never do.”

That might be so, but it was still not enough. I couldn’t accept it. I’d already let him in enough that I cared. I felt things. I didn’t want him to be in any trouble. He wanted to protect me, and I realized I wanted to do the same for him. This path he was forcing me down would end up shattering me. What if I fell in love with him? What then? I’d know he had sex with other women? He’d keep me as some fragile virgin for the rest of my life. I wanted kids one day. I wanted a family. Yes, there was a very messed-up part of me that wanted Thatcher Shephard, but he couldn’t give me the other things.

“I can’t,” I said, trying to think of the right way to say this. “If you aren’t going to fuck me but you want to keep me all to yourself, then that means I’ll die a virgin. I don’t want that. I want to get to live a real life. A full one. Where I have sex, even kids one day. I want a husband. A family. You care about me. So, why don’t you see that I would need those things?”

He said nothing as he stared at me. No emotion flickered in his eyes. I knew he was thinking this through, but he didn’t let on how he felt about it. I wanted to save him from whatever darkness haunted him. But I couldn’t do that at the expense of my heart.