He was being intent, and despite her sass, she didn’t want to defy him, so she did as he said. “Can’t help it. I am usually a pain in the ass, especially if someone kidnaps me then sticks me in a pad that looks like a bear lived in it for a while.” She approached him, extending her bound wrists forward so he could cut the flex cuffs off.
He hooked a finger under the cuffs, drawing her closer slowly. As he watched her, the expression in his eyes warmed up. His grip on the cuffs tightened as she resisted a little.
“You want the cuffs off?” he asked, his voice low. “Well, I want something in return.”
She shivered involuntarily at the look in his eyes. Something had changed, and she knew he was up to something devious. She tugged at his hold on the plastic ties that bound her wrists. “Apart from my credit cards, I only have twenty-six dollars in my wallet, so I’m afraid I can’t help you there, champ. Though, if you take me to town, I guess I can withdraw some cash at the bank.” She knew exactly what he wanted, but she couldn’t help playing a dangerous game with her captor.
In an isolated place. In the mountains. All alone.
He tilted his head slightly, the single finger hold he had on her cuffs easily breakable. “Oh, come on. You’re not that dense. You know I’m not interested in money.” His low voice was like a caress that slid along her spine, stroking the skin with soft fingers. “If I was, I’d have taken the better rate and just killed you.”
Heat had spread through her body the second she saw the change, and him turning up the sexual mega wattage was burning her up. Oh, she knew what he was about, but she was so not going there. If he had been someone else, she’d probably be hitting on him the second she saw him. But she wouldn’t even consider it with the guy who had kidnapped her. A very…sexy…kidnapper.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, what was I supposed to think? It can’t be what you’re trying to insinuate, because I don’t think you’re man enough for me, bucko.”
Liar, liar. Pants on fire.
His eyes darkened, one eyebrow arching. “Is that so?” The pressure on her cuffs increased, pulling her a little nearer.
He only had one finger on the plastic ties, his hold easily broken if she pulled her hands away. But it wasn’t the ties that bound her now. It was the way his eyes looked into hers that held her attention. She was finding it hard to draw a deep breath, and her heart pounded so hard she was afraid he could hear it. What was it about this man and her?
“Oh, you think you’re so smooth, don’t you? ‘Is that so?’ You think that makes you sound sexy? With the eyes and everything? Let me tell you, it doesn’t. Not one bit. And I’m not attracted to you.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t amusement heating his eyes. It was something altogether darker, something that took her breath away. “Prove it then. One kiss, and I’ll free your wrists.”
“Wow, you think I’m so easy, don’t you?” And yet, as she used up the last vestiges of her will to resist, she found her gaze drifting toward his well-shaped mouth and wondering again what would it be like to kiss him. “Okay, fine. I’ll do it. I might get some unknown STD from you and I’ll need to gargle with bleach later, but I’m only doing this to prove to you I’m too hot for you to handle.”
Defiant to the end, she broke the one finger hold he had on her restraints and looped her bound wrists around his neck. Despite the heels, he was tall enough that she had to strain higher on her toes to pull him down by the neck and press her lips to his.
If Rollie thought she was in control of this, then she soon found out differently. As soon as her lips touched his, he took over, his hands sliding around her waist to pull her closer. His lips, warm and firm, slid along hers, seeking and demanding a response.
She knew she was doomed the moment she gave in, the instant her lips touched his. Despite the danger that shrouded him, there was something about him she couldn’t resist. God help her, she liked kissing him. Ardent, demanding, and thorough. He kissed like a dream, and she was no match for him as she gave herself to the kiss completely. Needing to get closer to him, she pressed her body against his and moaned her surrender into his mouth.
His hand slid up her back, cupping the nape of her neck and holding her in place so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue brushed out, flicking the underside of her upper lip as though he were asking permission, wanting access. Although he was a large man, making her feel petite and feminine, and he’d kidnapped her in the first place, in his arms, kissing him, she forgot all about their current situation.
The teasing continued, and she finally let him in, letting him have free access to her mouth as she teased his tongue with hers, inviting him to play. She was dizzy with arousal and didn’t see him as her kidnapper anymore but a captor in another respect. She didn’t think she’d be able to deny anything he requested of her right then. She was a smart woman, but in his arms with him kissing her like this, she didn’t want to rationalize anything. She just wanted to feel.
He groaned, turning them both so she was against the counter, then boosted her up to sit on it. A shiver ran through his big body when she touched his tongue with hers.
This was unbridled lust. An honest reaction. A woman who knew what she wanted and how she wanted it. She moaned as she felt him hard against the softest part of her; the contact sending sparks through her body and exploding through every nerve she had. Greedy for more contact, she ground herself against his hardness and almost fell limp in his arms with the blissful sensation.
He kissed along her jaw, the softest of tugs on her hair pulling her head back and revealing the softness of her throat to him. She whimpered as he found the sensitive spot under her ear, her body nearly melting into a puddle and slithering off the counter. Then he stopped, going still.
Rollie took a few more moments to realize he had stopped abruptly. Dazed with arousal, she needed a second to see he’d been distracted by something on the TV, and she stopped to listen as well.
“…was fatally wounded in a shooting earlier today. Gavilan Tech spokesperson Bryan Westwood said to media during a press conference that prior to the shooting, Doctor Gavilan was scheduled to make an appearance at the Geneva Energy Summit next week …”
Then, as she heard more, she quickly disengaged from him and ran to see more of the newscast.
“No,” she cried out as she saw her double, her friend Marie Deline, carried by paramedics to an awaiting ambulance.
“…died a few hours later while undergoing surgery after being shot several times at close range by, as of yet, an unidentified assailant. Authorities have yet to determine the motives for the horrific shooting and are currently looking for witnesses to shed light on the incident. However, given the lack of forensic evidence, police are having difficulty in proceeding with the investigation…”
She was frozen on the spot as she stared at the screen, tears streaming down in earnest. She couldn’t believe that she was seeing this. Hearing this. Marie was dead? It couldn’t be…
Her captor’s arms wrapped around her, holding her tight as she tried to wriggle free, pain and disbelief surging through her.
He pulled the switchblade from his pocket and cut through the plastic of her cuffs like a hot knife through butter. He left the cuffs on the floor where they fell. “We have to leave. Now.”
As soon as her hands were free, she came swinging at him. The arousal she’d felt turned into rage and then fury as she remembered how easily she fell victim to his charms.
“You sonofabitch,” she screamed through her tears as she swung one punch after the other, most missing by a mile. “You already had me. Why did she have to die too?”
“Whoa! Whoa! It wasn’t me.” He put his hands up to defend himself and easily caught her flailing fists. A quick move, and he spun her around, trapping her with her own folded arms, her back to his chest.
“No, it wasn’t you, but you sure as hell are part of it.” she snarled as she struggled to get loose. The arm lock he had her in was effective and painful, but she ignored the pain and kept struggling, all she wanted to do was land a good punch on his face. Marie’s death, her ordeal, the kiss…it was all too much.
She broke down and cried. “Why?” she wailed. “She wasn’t a threat to anyone. She didn’t know anything. Oh my God. It was all me. It was my fault,” she said, realizing the implications. “She died because of me.”
She’d sagged against him, her body racked with sobs. Forcing her to stand upright, he turned her around and slid gentle fingers under her chin to make her look up at him.
“Rollie, look at me. I had nothing to do with that, I promise you,” he said, his voice urgent. “I need you to pull yourself together.” He looked up, sharp gaze narrowing on the window. “We have company, and I don’t think they’re here to borrow a cup of sugar.”
It took Rollie a few more seconds to snap out of it and understand what he was saying. An experienced soldier she wasn’t. She hadn’t noticed anything wrong. However, the self-preservation programming innate in every human kicked in, and she recognized the tension in his body.
But why should she trust him? The company he was referring to could be the police or the FBI coming to her rescue.
Before she could say or do anything else, the windows in the far wall exploded, sending glass and wooden splinters flying all over the place.
Chapter Four
Day wrapped her into his arms, shielding her with his larger body. The sound of the explosion had barely finished, and he was moving. The black-swathed figures that clambered through the ruined windows were obviously not friendly as small red dots and faint dancing beams pierced the dust in the room. They settled on her shoulder for a second, shocking her into motionlessness, before he shoved her out the way, kicking the fridge door open as meager cover as bullets began flying.
Within a heartbeat, his weapon was in his hand. He pulled the trigger, the gun seeming like an extension of his being. Methodically, he cut them down before the dust could fully clear, then he turned to her where she crouched behind the refrigerator door.
He spun the gun in his hand and offered it to her grip first from his open hand. “I presume they at least put you through basic range drill?”
Rollie was genuinely shocked, even more than she had been by the flash grenades. He was giving her his weapon? And how the hell did he know she knew how to shoot? The men he had killed wore civvies and looked meaner than the offensive line of a losing football team. They obviously weren’t cops or FBI. These guys were killers.
This wasn’t the time to contemplate. Not asking any more questions, she took the gun and positioned herself behind one of the thick oak pillars running down the center of the cabin as she’d been taught.
Once in a while, when she didn’t think of engineering or physics, she’d contemplate her personal philosophy. Would she be able to take a life even if her own was on the line? If the time came, would she be able to stab a man with a knife or shoot one with a gun? She didn’t come up with any clear answers then. But as the front door caved in and a mean-looking ogre with an M16 started shooting the second he stepped past the threshold, she got her answer.