“We need to get you some shoes.”
“I’m fine.”
I tore the bandages away and lifted her foot, inspecting some minor cuts and several blisters on the bottom of her foot. I picked up her other foot and checked it out, too, angry with myself over the dozen small cuts that covered the tender flesh there.
“You shouldn’t have run away. We could still be in that trailer, safe and comfortable.”
“What was I supposed to do? You admitted to kidnapping me!”
“I never said I kidnapped you.” I got up and carried the soggy, smelly bandages into the trash then ducked into the bathroom to get a wet washcloth. “I said you’d been kidnapped, but I didn’t say by whom.”
“You were holding me in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. What about that said I was free to go?”
I pressed the cloth to her foot, bringing a hiss from between her lips. There was as much dirt as there was blood on her feet. I had to return to the bathroom several times to rinse out the cloth. When her feet were clean, I lifted her right hand out of her lap and forced it open, exposing her palm. A long cut slashed across the center of it, dried blood crusting in several places, but fresh blood still oozing from the deep middle.
“What did you do?”
She shook her head, pulling her hand away from me. “I can tend to my own wounds.”
I stood up, holding out my hands to show her I meant no harm. “You do what you want to do, Dr. Cole,” I said, my voice taking on a hard edge. “You’re going to, anyway.”
“Oliver—”
“I’m going to take a shower. Then I’ll go get some clothes, some food. After that, if you want to take your chances, be my guest.”
I slammed the door to the bathroom a little harder than I’d intended, jerking at the already loose faucet in the narrow tub, allowing the water to pound against the cheap, stained porcelain from the crusty showerhead. I was undressed in a moment, hot and sweaty and feeling as though I hadn’t bathed in weeks. The water pressure could have been better, but it was refreshing just the same. I closed my eyes, my head tilted forward, allowing the water to just rush over me, attempting to wash some of the tension from my shoulders.
I didn’t hear her come in, didn’t realize she was there until the shower curtain moved. I kept my back to her but watched as she joined me, absolutely nothing shy about this woman. The dress was gone, her firm body with those full breasts and that perfect triangle on display like she took showers with strange men all the time. How was I supposed to ignore that, especially since the tub was so small that the only way we could both fit was if she stood so close that our bodies brushed somewhere constantly.
“What are you doing?”
“You told me to take care of myself. My wounds need to be washed properly.”
“There’s only this one sliver of soap.” I gestured to the teeny complimentary bar of soap that I was honestly shocked a hotel like this one would offer at all. “I don’t think there’s enough for one of us to wash up, let alone both.”
“It’ll have to do.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m done with all the teasing and whatever else it is you’ve been doing.”
“We were two consenting adults. I need a shower. I want a shower before you use up all the hot water.”
I glanced up at the showerhead. “I think it’s a little too late for that. The water’s already getting cold.”
“Getting. We’re not there yet.”
I pressed my hand against the wall, leaning forward so that she didn’t keep brushing my back with her bare breasts. After all those kisses, I didn’t want anything more than to turn around and possess her, to finish what she’d started back at the trailer. But this back and forth, this complete bullshit, was beginning to drive me insane. I didn’t even know which end was up anymore.
“It’s okay, Oliver,” she said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m a doctor. I’ve seen plenty of naked men.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Like this is all some sort of clinical experiment or something?”
“Something like that.”
I turned because that pissed me off a little. I knew I hadn’t misread her the last time, knew that she wanted me as desperately as I wanted her. But the moment I saw the amusement on her face, I knew that was exactly what she’d wanted. And suddenly I didn’t want to give this woman anything she wanted.
“I dare you to look at me without any sort of eroticism coming into it.”
Her eyebrows rose. “A dare? All right.” Her eyes slowly began to move over me, starting with the top of my head, moving over my forehead, my nose, my lips, dipping down to my throat and the massive Adam’s apple that stuck out above my collarbones. She hesitated over the La Eme tattoo, some sort of shadow drifting through her eyes at the sight of it, but then her eyes continued on their journey, moving lower over my chest, my abdomen, following the path of dark hair that traveled below my waist. She hesitated again when she found undeniable evidence of what her nakedness did to my body, the tip of her tongue slipping out to run over the length of her bottom lip.
“I believe I said no eroticism.”
“Have you always had that little sore on the end of your penis?”
Panic rushed through me and I glanced down. But then she began to laugh.
“Bitch!” I cried, grabbing her arm and swatting her ass once, then twice with the flat side of my hand. She let out a little scream that was lost in her giggles. And then her giggles became a groan as I wrapped my hands around her head and lifted her mouth for a hard kiss. Just as she had in that narrow space between the buildings, and in the backseat of the taxi, she responded with an eagerness that was the last straw, that took out the last little bit of control I had left. Her arms came around my neck and she practically climbed up the length of my body, forcing me to pick her up. I turned, pulling her away from the wall, hefting her up to the perfect height as her hand reached between our bodies and guided me to her. From nothing to everything in an instant. And it was more than I ever could have dreamt up in my cold, lonely prison fantasies.
She was a tease and a frustration and a stubborn woman who got under my skin in a way no other woman had ever done. This was supposed to be so easy, in and out, just a few days’ effort. But now… a few days wasn’t going to be long enough to satisfy the needs she’d caused to sprout in me.
I was in trouble. But I didn’t really care.
Chapter 16
Scott
“When did she go missing?”
I shook my head, pressing my fingernails into the palms of my hands as I tried to resist jumping to my feet and wrapping my hands around the man’s throat.
“I told you. She disappeared yesterday afternoon, somewhere around noon or one o’clock.”
“Why didn’t you make a report with the cops down in Oaxaca?”
“Because they wouldn’t listen!”
The man looked up from the paper where he was making notes, his eyes moving calmly over my face despite the rise in tone with which I’d answered his last question. “I realize this is difficult, Mr. Powell,” he said in the same tone he’d used to ask about Valerie’s disappearance, “but there is a protocol to this sort of thing.”
“I’ve already talked to four people! Why aren’t you out there looking for her instead of asking me the same questions over and over again?”
“We are looking for her. The police in Pochutla have been notified and they’ve sent a man to the clinic. We’re waiting to hear what he finds there.”
“He’s not going to find anything! She’s gone! Aren’t you listening?”
“She might have gone back. Have you thought of that, Mr. Powell? What if she just went for a coffee, or decided to go back to your rental to have a nap? It could all be a misunderstanding and she might be at the clinic wondering where you’ve gotten off to.”
I shook my head so hard that it began to ache. “Valerie’s not like that. She would
n’t go anywhere in a foreign country without telling someone. She knows better!”
“What makes you think that?”
I sighed, growing more and more exasperated. “She’s volunteered for GME before.”
“GME? The nonprofit you work for—right?”
“Yes. Generation Millennial Endowment. We open free clinics in places where medical care is not readily available.”
“And the missing woman, Valerie Cole, is a doctor.”
“A pediatrician.”
The man nodded, making a note on his paper. “I understand her father is Jacob Cole.”
I’d been waiting for this. I crossed my arms over my chest and regarded the man with a hard look. “He is. He just happens to be one of the most important Americans in the oil business. He has friends in the White House who appointed you to this position. I guarantee you people won’t be interrogating him four and five times over the moment he arrives.”
“No, because he wasn’t on the premises when his daughter disappeared.”
My eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No, sir,” he said, his tone still the same calm that it had been before. “We’re just trying to understand what happened here.”
“What happened is my sister disappeared and no one seems to want to help us find her!”
I stood up, finally hitting that wall, the one that said I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to get out of that room, or I was going to do something that was going to see me living out the rest of my life in a Mexican jail.
The consulate employee—I never did hear what his title was—didn’t try to stop me as I walked out the door. I headed down the hall, leaning against the big picture window at the end of the corridor, resting my forehead against the cool pane.
I was there for only a few minutes, my thoughts scattered and rushing all over the place. I checked my phone as I tried to calm myself, but the string of text messages that awaited me gave me no peace.
“What did you do, Scott?”
I turned to find my mother standing there, as beautiful as she’d been since the moment she met Jacob Cole. There was something about him that had turned my plain-Jane mother into a Cinderella, transforming everything about her, even the way she was with me. We’d never been what one would consider close when I was a kid. Not until Jacob came along, not until he took away the worry and the loneliness, not until he moved us into the fairytale that had always been their marriage. That look was still there to this day, that attitude, even with the tension that was clearly written in every line of her body.
“Where’s Jake?”
“Talking to the consul.”
I shook my head, turning to look out the window again. “We were talking. She was laughing and smiling, telling me what an asshole I was at the same time she told me how much she loved me.” My voice broke a little on the final words. “And then she was just gone.”
“We both know that isn’t how this went, Scott.”
I glanced at her, shocked at the accusation in her voice. “Mom, Valerie is my sister! I adore her!”
“She knows that, son,” Jake said as he suddenly appeared at the head of the stairs, striding over to us in his confident, master-of-the-world sort of walk. He offered me a hug, holding me tighter than he’d done in years, for a long moment. When he stepped back, he tried to slip an arm around my mother, but she sidestepped him.
“The consul promised me that they’d do all they can to find her as quickly as they can,” he continued. They believe she was probably taken by some low-level criminals hoping to get a little money for their trouble. Once we make it public that we’re looking for her and offering a reward for her return, they’ll probably come forward.”
“Has a ransom demand been made?” I asked.
Jake shook his head. “Not yet, but we’re expecting it will happen soon enough.”
I dropped my head, swallowing a small sob. “I’m sorry, Jake. I never meant for this to happen! I never imagined anyone would want to hurt Valerie!”
“I know.” Jake moved up beside me to look out the window as well. His eyes lingered for a second on the gathering of media representatives at the gate. “I won’t pretend that I’m not livid. I begged her not to come, knew there could be trouble because of everything going on at GME.” He glanced at me, lowering his head slightly. “Yeah, I know about that. I know your boss was arrested, that there’s more than four million dollars missing from their books. And I know that there have been threats against GME and their employees since the Attorney General began looking into it. That’s why I didn’t want her to come down here. I didn’t want some crazy to set off a bomb in the clinic while she was there. But I never imagined something like this would happen!”
I gestured toward the media. “This is only going to make things worse for Damon.”
“We can’t worry about that now. It’s something we’ll have to address when Valerie is back here with us, where she belongs. Safe and sound.”
I nodded, but in the reflection of the glass I could see my mother glaring at me, could see doubt and anger in her expression. I didn’t understand what that was about. All that mattered now was getting Valerie back. Right?
Everything else would fall into place soon enough.
Chapter 17
Valerie
I don’t remember when he carried me to the bed. Was it before or after he did that thing with his tongue, that thing that sent shivers of joy from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair? Or maybe it was after he whispered my name, the sound so melodious that I never wanted to hear it any other way again.
Whenever it was, we were curled up in a clutch, our hands exploring places that no one but a trusted partner ought to touch. My fingers danced over his pale skin, along the ridges of his bones, the long, thick chords of his muscles. His seemed to like to take their time memorizing the curves of my face, the silky curve of my hips. And he liked to dive deep between my legs, doing things that made me utter sounds I didn’t realize my throat was capable of.
There had been men in my life, boyfriends and friends with benefits, guys whose idea of a lingering afternoon in bed was more about watching the football game on the television or napping the day away after a long shift. I had come to a point where I’d decided men like Oliver didn’t exist: a man who took so much pleasure in touching a feminine body that he didn’t care about his own needs, that all he could think about was prolonging the pleasure, of bringing me to heights over and over again so that he could watch the bliss dance in my eyes.
He brought me to the edge so many times that I lost count. If I’d known how incredible he could be, I might have crossed the street the first time I saw him instead of behaving like the good little doctor. So much time I’d wasted, being a good girl. If this was what bad girls got, I wanted to be the baddest there was.
I loved the feel of him, the taste of him. When he lingered, I was torn between needing satisfaction and wanting him to keep doing it all day long. How he could touch me the way he did and not drive himself insane, I had no clue. But I knew he was driving me crazy in a way that I would never recover from.
I wanted to touch every inch of him, wanted to taste everything he had to offer. I did things with my hands, my body, my mouth that I’d never done before. Just looking into his dark eyes made me forget all the inhibitions that had built inside of me over the years, inhibitions whose origins were as mysterious to me as the source of their destruction. I was a doctor who knew the human anatomy inside and out, but I couldn’t figure out why his lips brushing against my skin made the edges of my vision grow dark, why the feel of his fingers in my hair made me want to melt right there in his arms.
“You’re so damn beautiful!” he whispered against my ear for what must have been the millionth time. Somehow I didn’t think that the sound of it would ever grow old.
“Do you do this with all your captives?” I asked playfully, running a finger down the curve of one cheek. “How many he
arts have you broken?”
“You deeply underestimate my charm, Dr. Cole.”
“No. I’m sure there are dozens of broken hearts in your past. Girls you smiled at once or twice, but never asked out. Women you took into your bed, then never called again. I bet you devastated more women than you can ever imagine.”
He kissed the tip of my nose lightly, his lips moving down over mine very briefly before he buried his mouth against my throat.
“You are a ball of contradictions, Oliver.”
“Am I?”
“I don’t even know your real name. Is it really Oliver?”
He pulled back slightly, his eyes darkening as they moved over my face. “Oliver is my given name. Oliver James, after my father.”
I nodded slightly, my own eyes growing a little misty. “I was named for my mother, too. Valerie Elizabeth. She was Elizabeth Kay.”
“She died when you were young.”
“Yeah. I was only a toddler. I have no real memory of her.”
“I’m sorry.” He slid his hand over my face, brushing my hair from my eyes. “My father died when I was in high school.”
He didn’t elaborate, but the look in his eyes seemed to suggest a story that wasn’t pleasant to tell. I let him keep it to himself, not interested in packing up this relaxed, almost happy Oliver in exchange for the darker, sadder man who might take his place under questioning.
Oliver lay back against the pillows, one hand resting almost unintentionally on my arm. I rolled toward him and pressed my cheek to his chest, running my hand slowly over his ripped abdomen, my fingertips teasing the curly hairs that dotted his flesh sparsely here and there.
“You know a lot about me, don’t you?” I asked into the silence after a bit.
“I do. It was part of the deal.”
“The deal?”
“This whole situation. I had to know what you looked like and the right things to say once you were in my care.”
“In your care? Is that what I am?”
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