cheap professionals almost certain to cure her when she hadn’t brought them up again. But Erin had neither forgotten them nor was she taking a straitlaced approach. She’d had Claire scheduled into their books. And they’d come for her, just as her sister promised they would—with that ominous note in her voice.
If Claire survived this night, Erin was going to die.
The arm at her back tightened. A second one slid under her legs. Together they lifted her away from the safety of her bed. Against a hard body. A body that started moving from nearly the second she was settled in its owner’s arms.
Claire’s breath wheezed out, leaving her mouth dry and her throat achy and tight. He was moving toward the bedroom door. Moving through it. Down the hall. Her heart kicked lightning fast against her ribs. Tears stormed to the backs of her eyes.
She tried to move again, to struggle. Such a futile effort. She was so powerless. Not just an innocent bystander this time, but an immediate victim to be killed softly, slowly. One step at a time.
How could you, Erin? “Plea…don…”
“Shhh…” Soft lips feathered across her forehead. “Close your eyes and sleep, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be all better real soon.”
No, dammit, it would not be all better! Because he was still moving. And she wasn’t. She could barely think now. Barely breathe. Barely hear Hot Stud’s hissing and her captor’s not-nearly-so-gentle curses that followed.
Good boy, Claire thought groggily, maliciously. Tonight, you bite his balls off. Tomorrow, I’ll feed you Erin, one rotten inch at a time.
2
Erin had tricked her into agreeing to the kind of professional help that forced her out of her apartment in the dead of night. Claire could be sensible about it and understand that, in her own special way, her sister believed the kind of help that involved kidnapping was help all the same. She didn’t have to scream or cry. Or puke her guts out over the idea someone had rendered her so completely out of it—to cart her from her apartment, to wherever the bed she’d just woken up in was, without her knowledge—that anything could have happened to her.
Might have happened to her.
No. She wasn’t going to play the paranoia game. She was going to sit up, breathe deep, and take stock of her surroundings. The doublewide oak dresser butting up against an eggshell-white wall on her left. The cozy little breakfast table and chairs and the floor-to-ceiling vertical blind that let through the faintest of sunlight and invariably hid a sliding glass door to a deck or balcony on her right.
The half-naked man leaning casually against the bedroom’s doorframe as he eyed her in a way that was anything but casual.
His gaze lifted from where the sheets and covers pooled at Claire’s waist. Sliding his attention upward, he did the kind of slow-burn examination of her breasts that left the full mounds tingling and her feeling naked despite her shorty PJ set.
Bringing his gaze the rest of the way up, he stepped inside the bedroom. “How you feeling?”
Like screaming, crying, and puking. “Pissed.”
A small smile quirked his lips. “Can’t say that I blame you.”
What about aroused, could he blame her for feeling aroused?
She wasn’t dripping-wet-with-desire aroused, but her body was definitely aware it was within ten feet of a member of the opposite sex for the first time in months. A member of the opposite sex with the kind of raspy voice that made her panties want to instantly evaporate. That he was dressed only in faded jeans that rode dangerously low on his lean hips and not exactly what you would call hard to look at didn’t help the desire.
With disheveled dark blond hair, nearly translucent blue eyes, and a body sculpted with just the right amount of muscle guaranteed to feel good rocking against hers without feeling bad, he had that rough-around-the-edges thing working well in his favor.
And she had that far-too-long-horny thing working well against her better judgment.
Pretending like her pulse wasn’t racing for all the wrong reasons, Claire scooted back against what was presumably his headboard. The room had certain elements, like the spray of pink dogwoods in a vase on the dresser, that reminded her of a woman’s touch, but the wildlife scene depicted on the green comforter and framed pictures of the same on the wall shouted masculine. “Is this your place?”
His smile deepened with the heat of sensuality. “My bed, yeah.”
Her nipples pinged to life with how intimate his smile made this situation feel. How intimate was it? Had he had her naked last night? Had he done all sorts of wickedly carnal things with her body? Did she care if he had?
Hell, yeah, she cared. If not because it was the logical thing to do, then because she wasn’t having her first post-incident man-supplied orgasm when she was too doped up to remember.
Claire winced with the memory the thought triggered. She couldn’t recall being stuck with a needle or having a pill forced down her throat. Something had obviously been done to her last night though, to render both her body and voice all but useless.
His smile vanished. “Head hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Truthfully, the verdict was still out, but she couldn’t exactly rail into him for doing the job Erin had paid him to do.
“Want to take a walk along the beach?”
Instantly tense, she hugged her arms around her chest. “God, no!”
“The wind’s a little brisk, but nothing we can’t handle.”
Wind? Was he nuts to think that wind was the problem, or just not in the know? “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Yeah.” He sobered. “And I also know you’re not fine.” Moving to the dresser, he pulled out one of the top drawers to reveal bras and panties in an array of vibrant colors. “The left-side drawers are yours. Breakfast is ready, so get over the whole pissed thing, accept that you’re here for a reason, and join me in the kitchen.” With a last glance in her direction, he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Claire hurried out of bed and yanked a coral bra and matching boy-cut underwear out of the dresser. There was no telling how long he would stay away. If he hadn’t seen her naked already, she wasn’t going to give him that opportunity. Not when the uneven pitch of her breathing and the swollen state of her nipples suggested two things.
One, she wasn’t exactly as pissed as she let on, or probably should be. And two, if he caught her in the buff and liked what he saw, she was liable to let her deprived pussy do the driving.
After grabbing a pair of jeans and a black sweater from the second drawer—at least Erin had the good sense to pack for comfort—she moved into the attached bathroom. A visual search while she dressed found her toothbrush and lotion on the sink basin and a makeup bag of odds and ends on the toilet tank. A more thorough check of the medicine cabinet revealed her deodorant and a box of tampons. He might not fit her imagined profile of a psychologist—between his buff body and not looking much older than her twenty-seven—but the guy was obviously a professional not to rebel against having her female products invading his personal space.
