Barry watched Drake tensely. They could hear Selena’s screams. Through his underground spies, Andrew knew they were out there and he enjoyed baiting his enemies.
Drake started to scale the wall. Barry expected that and went after him.
“Drake. Dammit. Get a grip. You can’t help her right now.”
Drake threw a punch.
Barry shoved Drake against the wall, throwing a right cross. At Barry’s signal, a colleague hit Drake from behind.
Drake hit the ground, face down.
A man dressed in fatigues, his face hidden by the dark and paint, grabbed Drake’s arms while Barry took hold of his feet. Both men dragged him over to the wall, propping him against it. Barry signaled. The man crouched next to Drake, his rifle between his legs.
Barry hated hearing any woman crying, but if Drake ran in there with his heart instead of his head, they’d all die. He had a date when this was all over. Damned if Drake was going to ruin it a second time.
• • •
Selena felt every vibration run through her. Her body couldn’t react. It was exhausted and close to giving out.
“I see you’re still with me. How remiss of me not to offer you a drink.” Andrew poured water into a glass. He held it to her lips. “Would you like some?”
She couldn’t answer. She could only wait to see what he would do next. It wasn’t long. She felt the glass at lips. Water came sparingly. She opened her mouth wider to accept more.
The glass disappeared. She received more water. Just not in her mouth. He threw it at the chains on her wrists. Pain engulfed her with each shock. He waited. The pain lessened when the water dried.
Until he did it again.
She didn’t hear the door open.
Or see Andrew falling on the floor.
Someone soothed her pain with soft strokes across her forehead. “Shhh. It’s okay. Your man will be here shortly. I need to take care of Andrew before he does something he regrets even more. I made a promise to him and I intend to keep it.”
• • •
Selena needed to use the bathroom but if she asked to go, Andrew would only delight in watching her urinate all over herself, laughing at the double effect it would cause with the electrical current.
“Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
Selena rolled away from the voice but rolled back when she remembered the pain the movement could bring. It was then it was noticed the chains had been taken off. She curled up in a ball, lifting her head to put a face to the words.
“You’re one helluva lady,” Barry said. “Even though you ruined my date, I’d pick you to back me up any day.”
A door shut across the room.
Selena lay there not caring she was naked. A blanket covered her body.
“I’ll take her to the bathroom.”
Drake.
“I can do it myself,” she told him. It dawned on her they were no longer in Andrew’s home, but another place entirely.
When Barry left, Drake leaned over. “You scared the hell out of me. Do you know they had to sedate me with the butt of a rifle to stop me from coming in after you?” He uncovered her arms, inspected the damage, then covered them up, switching to her legs. He took her into the bathroom and set her on the commode. Turning his head to give her privacy, she used his body as a crutch, unwillingly. When she finished, he set her in a waiting tub of warm, scented water.
She began to cry, the tears and pain racked her body.
He picked up a wash cloth and poured lavender scented soap on it. He gently held her arm at the elbow, cradling it with his arm. He washed it and then the other. He did the same with her legs.
She stopped shaking, though the tears still fell silently, as she allowed him to take care of her. He guided her deeper into the tub as he held her neck, washing her hair with the same scented soap. When he was sure she could cry no more, he washed her face.
He opened a large towel and enfolded her into it and into his arms. He cradled her in his lap, gently drying her. Carrying her back to the bed, he laid her down and covered her back up.
• • •
It didn’t take long for Selena to fall asleep. Leaning up on his elbow, Drake watched her sleep. He brushed the hair away from her eyes, the hair slightly damp from her tears. Her killer smile wasn’t the first thing he’d noticed about her that day in the coffee shop. It was the long eyelashes and the way she stared straight through him as if she were sizing him up. Then she walked away from him, declining the coffee and the date.
The men standing around at the newspaper counter had smirked. The moment he’d arrived in that forsaken town, rumors floated around about the ice in her veins. The men, who’d tried and been shot down, placed bets on those who were making a move to ask her out. He never gave credence to rumors, but he had been willing to put it to the test.
Her smile knocked everyone for a loop with the attitude attached to it. When she’d directed it his way, he was hit hard. He knew she had a penchant for caramel mocha lattes from the weeks he’d been there. When he’d ordered it at the counter and carried it over, he’d caught the slight hesitation.
He had never seen her do that with anyone. When he looked closer, he saw the reaction he had on her. The slight dilation of her pupils, the slight hitch of breath. The biting of her lip.
She’d eyed the caramel oozing out of the cup, her tongue caressing the edge of her lips.
He had longed to taste her lips, her mouth.
It had taken him two weeks for her to accept a cup of coffee from him. Now they were back to square one.
She didn’t trust anyone.
Especially him.
He never thought he’d hurt the way he had the day she’d left him. It wasn’t the wedding night he was after like she’d thought. It was the idea of watching her sleep next to him. Her laughter. Her teasing. Her determination. She had never experienced his determination. He’d enjoyed the bantering, the sexual overtones, but if he really hadn’t wanted to wait for their wedding night, he could’ve put on the charm. Out of respect for her, he’d waited, goading her into the playfulness.
Hearing the terror-filled screams in the night winds from her room would haunt him forever. After he’d found his brother, he’d thought the hate boiling inside had been the worst he could feel. Until Andrew hurt her. He didn’t know why Selena was with Andrew, but he bet Larry knew.
Drake reached for his phone.
Taking him by surprise, Selena rolled over and latched her arms around his chest, sighing as she rubbed her cheek against his chest.
He decided Larry could wait.
• • •
Selena woke in the darkness and froze. A man’s arm held her. Terror rose, cutting off her breath, then stilled at the memory of Drake bathing her.
“I can’t believe you even think you’re going back there.” He drew her on top of him.
She made circular motions on his chest with her fingertips. She didn’t have a choice in looking at him, not when he held her by the shoulders, stalling her attempts at avoidance.
“Drake, what do you want me to say?”
“You can say whatever you want but it doesn’t matter. You’re not thinking straight, so one of us has to be rational.”
She rolled from him. “You don’t know what’s at stake,” she hissed at him. “If I don’t do this, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Seeing you in those chains, drenched from Andrew’s warped sense of foreplay with electrical current will haunt me. You don’t have a clue how bad things were going to get. He had cameras in the room, webcamming for his private buyers, and while you fought and hung on, the numbers on the website skyrocketed each time you screamed. Each time you woke up. Each time you threatened to kick his ass. And when you cried out to him that you would never give in, the numbers tripled.”
“You were out there.”
“Everyone at the Agency thinks you’re a traitor. If Mary hadn’t helped, you would be dead.”
• • •
For two days Selena had slept and for the first time since she’d left him on their wedding day, Drake relaxed. He was tired of not having a normal life. And most of all he wanted his wife safe in his arms for the next fifty years. He could only imagine Larry, grieving for his daughter who’d disappeared. He had Selena back. He had no intention of letting her go again.
Her long legs were twisted in the sheet. Bruises had appeared around her wrists and ankles from the chains.
“Don’t look at me like that. I had to do it. It’s the only way.” She stretched cat-like, pulling the sheet around for modesty.
“Am I to understand that you intend to go back?” he asked, placing his drink on the nightstand.
She cradled her head in her hand, slightly grimacing as she added weight to her wrist. “I was told I had to play this all the way through. There is no other way. I’m branded in more ways than one.”
“We’ll see about that. I want a name,” he demanded, stilling the tracing her free hand was making on the bed.
He tipped her chin up and waited.
“Why?”
“So I can kill him.”
She moved, but he held firmly. “Then I wouldn’t have a husband.”
“I’ll always be your husband.”
“Not if the Agency sentences you to death for killing Larry.”
A murderous expression briefly crossed over him. The silence deadly.
“What are you saying?”
“I have my orders,” she said. She rolled to the other side before he could stop her, wrapping the sheet around her as she did.
“There’s a side of me you haven’t seen. I will not have my wife placing herself in danger.” He gave her a look as she started to speak. “Your involvement in the Agency is in the past and it will stay in the past from here on out. Screw the Agency.”
She brushed past him. Intentionally.
It wasn’t a dare but a battle of wills. It was her way of announcing he hadn’t seen a certain side of her either.