as she’d tried to minimize any further damage to his very damaged self.
His eyes had been glassy, overly bright, and his smile far too sexy, as he’d sprawled on his back in her bed, keeping her pinned on top of him with a fist of her shirt in his hand. He’d used it as leverage, but hadn’t released it—or her—even when he didn’t need leverage any longer. She’d been an inch from his face, had clearly seen the unfocused look in his eyes…and yet her skin had gone all tingly, her nipples hard as rocks, and the muscles between her thighs tight to the point of aching.
She’d levered herself off of him immediately, or as immediately as she could, while simultaneously disengaging his fisted hold on her shirt and trying not to hurt him any further. It was ridiculous, letting herself get jumpy over a guy who was clearly half out of his mind and saying things he’d never remember, much less ever mean.
He wasn’t glassy-eyed now, despite still sounding a bit groggy. He seemed to know where he was, and who she was. Which would hopefully preclude his ever discussing any fantasy that involved taste tests of any kind. If he did remember. Which she hoped he didn’t.
“How long have I been out?”
Her gaze darted from his mouth back to his eyes. “You arrived in a heap on my foyer floor approximately thirteen hours ago. That was around three in the morning, which makes it almost four o’clock now.” She stepped closer. “Your turn. How long have you been watching my cabin?” Watching me.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them, blinked twice, then slowly shifted his head until his gaze found hers. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday. Twentieth of May.”
She saw his jaw tighten, and his throat work. “Ten days, then.”
He was angry, upset, she assumed with himself. Get in line, she wanted to tell him. “And how many of those did you spend drugged, unconscious, and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey?” She’d asked him before, but, as a gauge, she wanted to see how accurate his assessment had been when he’d been mostly out of it.
His gaze narrowed on hers then, but he didn’t otherwise react. “I was tranq-darted approximately sixty hours ago.” He cleared his throat again, trying to get the rest of the gravel out.
She could have offered him more water, and she would, but now that he was more awake and alert, she wasn’t approaching him that closely. Yet. She was close enough to see the frustration in his eyes as clearly as she could hear it in his voice. A man like Derek Cole was rarely, if ever, caught with his guard down. It made her wonder how they’d found him. And who the hell “they” were. At least his assessment of the length of time that had passed while still fighting the effects of the drugs had been spot on, which was good. She hoped his other training had been working subconsciously as well. “Of that time, how long did whoever tranq’d you have you?”
“Can’t be sure. But not very long. If they’d had time, they’d have kept me clearheaded and worked me that way. Tortured what they needed out of me, make sure it was the truth.”
“Looks like they did a pretty good number on you anyway. Maybe you weren’t all that responsive, even drugged.”
“I think the method they used and the act itself was as much a message being delivered as whatever they got out of me, or really wanted to know.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t escape as, given your condition and being bound, you wouldn’t have been that hard to retrieve. So, why do you think they left you alive, but trussed up?”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he asked, “Have you been outside? Tracked?”
She shook her head. “You haven’t exactly been stable. It took me awhile to assess your injuries, get you out of sight. I’m still not sure I can really assess how bad off you are.”
He turned his head very slowly, just enough to take in the room around him. “Yours?”
She wanted to ask him if he was being disingenuous. He’d mentioned being here. Perhaps he hadn’t been inside the cabin itself, which made her feel slightly better, both from a security position—though that was clearly an illusion—and, pride forced her to admit, from a personal one of having had someone in her home and not detected it. “I only have one. Don’t get used to it.”
His gaze tracked back to hers, but again he remained enigmatically silent. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure about anything.
“I found the dart mark on the back of your left shoulder. Pressure syringe marks on your neck.”
“Plural?”
“Yes.”
He just grunted at that. “Explains why it’s taking so long.”
She assumed he meant to get over the effects of the drugs. “Apparently you’re just as hard-headed drugged as you are lucid.”
He gingerly moved his legs, then immediately stopped. “Apparently,” he ground out. “How bad off am I? What do you know? I assumed you did some kind of check before moving me.”
“Given my lack of X-ray vision, I don’t know what the internal situation is, but you’re not running a fever and you seem to be recovering rather than getting worse, so my guess is whatever damage you sustained, you’ll live.”
“Until you kick my ass, anyway.” The corner of his mouth kicked up the tiniest of fractions, which still made him wince.
“True.”
He held her gaze for a moment longer, then let his head relax back into the pillow more deeply, and closed his eyes. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Possibly run over by one as well. And that’s not counting the pharmaceutical fun I’m having.”
“Well, I wouldn’t rule out the run-over part, but there were no tread marks, so maybe they stopped just shy of that. I think you have some bruised ribs, a seriously wrenched shoulder at best—”
“Dislocated. It happens. They didn’t dislocate it. I did, trying to loosen my bonds. I got it back in. Sort of like a trick knee.”
“Yeah,” she said, staring dubiously at him. “You’re tricky all right.” She had to actively keep from rubbing her own shoulder, as she imagined the contortions he’d put himself in, trying to regain his freedom. “If they’d broken a rib, you could have punctured something, trying that stunt.”
“Considering I’d been left for dead, I figured it was a risk worth taking.” He opened his eyes again, turned his head so he could look at her directly. “I would have done whatever I had to. I knew I had to get here.”
“You give me too much credit if you assumed I’d give you safe haven. You’re only still here because I don’t know why you were watching me in the first place.”
“I told you. At least, I think I did.”
She folded her arms, resisting the urge to rub at the gooseflesh that now covered them. But she waited for him to say it again.
“I told you, about CJ.”
All she could do was nod.
“Tate,
