“Nah, it’ll be more fun to watch you fumble,” he said with a nasty laugh. “Chair’s right in the middle of the room. Find it.”
Carmen stood and felt for the edge of the table. Moving as slowly as she could manage, she made her way around it. “My name is Carmen,” she told him. Wasn’t she supposed to try to make him see her as a person? She’d heard that on one cop show or another that her sister watched.
“Like I care, bitch. Now shut the fuck up and move faster before I decide to shoot you first and tie you up later.”
So much for that idea. Letting go of the table, she took cautious steps out into the center of the room, her hands out in front of her. A few seconds later, her fingers grazed the back of a wooden chair.
“Sit.”
She did.
“Hands behind your back.”
Carmen didn’t know what else to do, so she complied, still moving in slow motion. There was a dark blur beside her head, and she could smell the machine oil and gunpowder of his pistol.
A pair of handcuffs snicked closed around her wrists, cold and metallic, binding her arms behind her. The position was a strain since her arms were barely long enough to meet behind the frame of the chair. A quick tug proved he’d tucked the chain of the cuffs through one of the spindles, giving her even less possibility of movement. Thug he might be, but apparently he wasn’t stupid.
Once she was secured, she heard him open the back door and drag something inside. More footsteps followed, along with a series of sloshes and splashes. The acrid odor of gasoline filled her nostrils.
Carmen fought to keep from vomiting as she realized he meant to burn the cabin down—with her in it. That was the bait for Dash—not just her, but her on fire. She knew he still had issues with flames. She’d seen it tonight. Watching her burn would be his worst nightmare come true.
While Arroyo was distracted, she tried to scoot her chair backward, just a few inches, toward the table. If she could eventually make it to the back door, she might get out of this alive. Someone should have warned Dash by now, surely.
When the killer went into the bedroom to dump more gasoline, she scooted back another foot or so. And then she heard it—a soft, gentle whine. Silver was alive!
Before she could move any farther, Arroyo returned. “I’ll just wait out here on the porch where it smells better,” he said, laughing again. “Can’t wait ’til your boyfriend shows up so we can start the party.”
* * * * *
Dash was confused when he reached Carmen’s house and she wasn’t home. Had she gone to her grandfather’s after all? It didn’t seem like a good idea to try to call Ken and find out. Disappointed, he returned to his truck and headed for the line shack.
He was out on the main road, about halfway between his place and Carmen’s when his cell phone rang, and he knew, somehow, that something was terribly wrong.
“Arroyo is at your place,” Shane announced without preamble. “And he’s got Carmen.”
The bottom fell out of Dash’s stomach and he had to stop his truck for a minute while he heaved onto the side of the road. As soon as he was done, he reached into the back of his truck for his bullet-proof vest. He’d worn it riding out today, after hearing that Arroyo might be on the loose.
“Sheriff is maybe ten minutes out,” Shane replied. “Ken, the hands and I should be there in five.”
“Two for me,” Dash told them. “I’m the one he wants. I’ll go in and see if I can trade myself for her.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Ken’s voice came on the line. “Take care of my granddaughter—but take care of yourself too.”
“I’ll do my best,” Dash assured them. “That’s all I can promise.” He climbed back into the cab and floored it for home.
* * * * *
Carmen heard the truck coming up the road before her captor. Since he’d moved out onto the porch, she’d managed to inch back to the table. At the sound of his delighted roar, she jerked back, tipping her chair sideways and slamming her head into the floor as she fell. Her leg rattled the table and something fell off onto her cheek.
The carved eagle. Once again she could feel Dash’s love in every line. With renewed determination she tucked it under her chin and used her legs to push herself under the table and toward the back door. Meanwhile Silver inched toward her, whimpering as his claws scrabbled on the wood floor.
“So, pendejo, you finally show your fucking face.” Arroyo’s voice was harsh and loaded with manic violence.
Carmen heard footsteps as Dash approached. She momentarily stopped her efforts to scoot toward the back door. “Where’s my woman, motherfucker?” Even amidst all this, she couldn’t help a moment of warmth at hearing him call her his.
“In the house. Take this, asshole.” Arroyo jumped off the porch and sent his lit cigarette through the door. Carmen couldn’t see it, but she’d smelled him smoking, and she heard the whoosh as the butt ignited the gasoline poured over the floor and furniture. Her scream erupted even as she forced herself to move. She had to get out of there fast—he’d poured some on her as well. She’d burn as quickly as everything else.
Her hands found Silver and she touched his head, searching mentally for his wound. When she found it, she poured all her healing power into him, mending it as best as she could. The bullet was still lodged in his hip—Shane would have to dig that out later if they lived through this.
Silver struggled to his feet and took the wooden chair back into his powerful jaws, pulling Carmen toward the back door as the flames erupted around them.
Over it all, she heard Arroyo laugh then Dash’s beloved voice as he shouted something at their attacker. Then there was the sound of a gunshot, more laughter and the door of the truck closing as the vehicle roared off into the night.
The laughter had been Arroyo’s. Dash was shot.
Carmen was devastated, but she still wanted to live. If he wasn’t dead, maybe she could help him as she had Silver. Once she was out of the cabin, there’d at least be hope. She used her feet to help Silver move her toward the door just as she heard footsteps run up to the porch.
“Carmen!”
It was Dash’s voice she heard just as Silver pulled her out the back. Joy surged through her just before her head hit the step and she blacked out. She couldn’t even tell Dash that she was safe.
* * * * *
Dash saw the dark shadow of a man with the burning dot of a cigarette on his front porch as soon as he drove up to the line shack. There was no sign of Carmen. Please, god, let him not have already killed her. Anything but that. His hands in the air, he had his pistol tucked into the back of his belt.
“So, pendejo, you finally show your fucking face.” Arroyo’s Puerto Rican accent was stronger than it should have been considering the man had been born and reared in Chicago. Some of the gangs liked to exaggerate their speech, just to make themselves stand out.
Dash approached the porch slowly and saw the pistol in the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette. “Where’s my woman, motherfucker?”
“In the house.” With a flick of his fingers, Arroyo sent the cigarette butt arcing through the open doorway. “Take this, asshole.”
Dash’s world about ended when he saw the flames erupt and heard Carmen’s scream. Then he heard the shot just a second before he felt the impact in his gut that sent him flying back onto his ass in the gravel drive. “Son of a bitch!”
“Watch her burn as you bleed out, cabron.” With that, Arroyo walked toward Dash’s truck, aiming a hard kick at Dash’s head as he moved past and spitting down into Dash’s face. “That was for my brother. Die slowly.” With one more kick, he stepped over Dash’s stunned figure and got in the truck, which Dash had left running. Before Dash could catch his breath, the vehicle slammed into gear and peeled out of the drive, spewing a rain of gravel into Dash’s face.
“Carmen!” he roared as soon as his breath returned. Being shot in the vest kept him from dying, but it still knocked the wind out
of him, and it took him way too damn long to regain his feet.
Fire. Instinctively he cringed away from the heat of the orange and yellow flames flickering out the open front door of the shack. It was his worst nightmare come back to haunt him, only this time the nightmare was for real. Dash wanted more than anything to run as far and fast as his gimpy leg could carry him.
But Carmen was in there.
And she’d become more important to him than anything else in the world.
He staggered up into the house, looking for her. The flames licked at his clothes as he pushed through the smoke-filled room. Then he heard Silverfoot bark.
“Where is she, boy?” Dash followed the sound of the barking to the back door, beating out embers that landed on his clothing as he went.
When he reached the door, he sighed with relief as he saw that she was outside, though still far too close to the inferno that had briefly been his home. She was also cuffed to a chair and ominously still. He jumped down onto the packed dirt, ignoring the stabbing pain in his bad leg, and grabbed the chair, pulling her out into the horse paddock, well away from the house.
Just then he heard the sounds of other vehicles coming up the road. He slumped onto the grass beside Carmen and laid his head next to her face. Her breath was shallow, but nothing had ever felt better against his cheek.
He pulled her, chair and all, onto his lap and held on tight while Silver stood beside them and licked each of their faces alternately. There was something under her chin and he lifted it away, recognizing it as the eagle he’d just finished carving for her. Tears filled his eyes that she’d worked so hard to save such a simple gift. Damn, why wouldn’t she wake up? She had to be all right. She simply had to or Dash wasn’t sure he could survive.
“Dash!”
“Carmen!”
Shane and Ken yelled at once from the front of the cabin, though Dash could barely hear them over the roar of the flames.
“Around back,” he shouted, not sure whether they could hear. “We’re safe.”
Silverfoot got up and limped his way around the house, barking loudly.
A few seconds later, the sound of running footsteps heralded the arrival of Ken, Shane and Mick, followed by several of the hands.
“Everybody out?” Ken barked as Shane knelt beside them to feel Carmen’s pulse.
“Yeah,” Dash wheezed, still reeling a bit from being shot in the stomach and kicked in the head, as well as the after burn of an adrenaline rush. “Silver pulled her out. Don’t know why she’s unconscious.”
A soft moan from Carmen was one of the sweetest things he’d ever heard. “Dash? You okay?”
He buried his face in her hair while somebody went running for a pair of bolt cutters to get her out of the chair. “I’m fine, sweetheart. It’s you we’re worried about.”
“Hit my head when Silver pulled me out the door,” she muttered. “You…you ran into a fire to save me.”
“Yeah. Turned out the furball here had already gotten you out.”
“But you hate fire.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
She blinked up at him and smiled. “I love you too.”
Ken cleared his throat. “I know you’ve better things to talk about, but are either of you hurt?”
Dash shook his head, though he coughed, having inhaled just a little bit of smoke.
“Just a bump on the head,” Carmen assured them. “I think I blacked out mostly from overusing my healing ability.” Her eyes flew wider as she looked around at Silver. “Shane—check Silver’s hip. I think I healed the bullet inside it.”
“We’ll take care of our four-legged hero,” Shane assured her. “I just hope the police caught Arroyo. He zipped past us, but since we saw the flames, we were more worried about getting here than stopping him.”
“Umm, Doc, I wouldn’t worry about that,” said one of the hands, who had just trudged up to the crowd as another couple of truckloads of men arrived. By now, most of the hands were working with buckets and the sirens grew closer, but Dash knew they wouldn’t be in time to save the shack. It didn’t matter, not as long as Carmen was safe.
“Saw his truck coming toward us, like a bat outta hell.” The hand jerked his thumb toward Dash, to indicate that it was his pickup. “Was about to hit the ditch just to get out of his way when the damnedest thing happened. Big ol’ eagle swooped right down in front of the pickup and screamed louder than anything I ever heard. Bastard ran right off the road into a tree. We stopped to pull him out, but he was deader ’n a doornail.”
“But eagles don’t fly at night,” Carmen whispered.
Ken sighed. “You know that, granddaughter, and so do I. But apparently your feathered friend forgot to read the textbook.”
Chapter Nine
By the time the paramedics had pronounced both of them more or less fit, and the sheriff had gotten all the information he needed, it was close to dawn when Dash and Carmen limped together into her house and up the stairs. Silverfoot was spending the night in Shane’s clinic. Carmen could barely put one foot in front of the other, but when Dash drew her into the shower with him and tenderly washed her from head to toe, she returned the favor, running her hands over the smooth skin and taut muscle she’d never thought she’d have the chance to touch again.
Finally, they dried each other off then tumbled into bed in a warm tangle of limbs.
“I want to make love to you more than anything in the world,” Dash murmured. “But I don’t think either of us can stay awake long enough.”
“I’ll take a rain check,” she replied, settling back against his chest, her bottom pressed against his groin. The warmth and strength of his arms wrapped around her made her feel safer than she’d ever felt, even after all they’d been through tonight. “As soon as we wake up though, you’re all mine.”
“Honey, I’m all yours, period,” he said against her hair. The last words she heard before she drifted off into exhausted slumber were, “Love you.”
* * * * *
When she woke several hours later, the sun was streaming in through her window and Dash was still holding her.
“Good morning,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “How are you feeling?”
“A little bruised and battered, but lucky as hell that we’re both alive. You?”
“The same. Leg hurts like a bitch, but it’s been worse.”
She knew he had an enormous bruise on his stomach where he’d been shot. Thank god for his bullet-proof vest. There was another on his cheekbone where Arroyo had kicked him. Rolling over, she looked up at him then leaned up to kiss the bruise on the side of his face. “I almost died myself when I heard him shoot you.”
“I know. How do you think I felt when he set the damn house on fire with you inside it?”
His lips crushed down on hers, fierce and hungry and Carmen didn’t want to talk anymore. All that mattered was they were here, together. Dash seemed to feel the same. He’d never been like this, so urgent he was almost rough, though he still took care not to hurt her. As their mouths tangled, he slid one hand between her legs, finding her pussy already soaked. Waking up with him always made her wet. With a low moan of approval into her mouth, he rolled her onto her back, settled between her splayed legs and replaced his hand with the blunt crest of his cock.
Carmen wasn’t interested in preliminaries either, not this time. She was the one moaning as he took her with one strong thrust, stabbing deep into her core. He held himself there for a bit, not moving as they continued to eat at each other’s lips. Digging her fingers into the strong muscles of his shoulder, she held him close. His weight pressing her into the mattress was wonderful, and she canted her hips, wrapping her calves around his thighs to take him even deeper.
Finally, he ended the kiss and began to move. She couldn’t exactly see him gazing into her eyes, but she knew he was. “I love you, Carmen Whitefeather.” His tone was hushed, almost reverent. “I know it’s soon but I can’t help it. What I feel for you
is more than I ever thought I could feel.”
She slid a hand up to his cheek. “I love you too, Dash. Timing doesn’t matter. Loving does.”
“God, sweetheart, you’re so damn tight.” He slid in and out of her channel, dragging against her tender clit with every stroke. Carmen pressed upward to meet each thrust, mindless in her need to meld with Dash. There was no sweetness in this coupling, just mating, raw, mindless and primitive. Carmen loved it. She didn’t even try to stifle her cries of pleasure or hide the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. She just stared up at him and let her love for the man flow through her body as they strained together.
Just as her muscles clenched around him and her body detonated in mindless pleasure, she felt the hot, wet spurt of his release inside her cunt. They were protected, so she wasn’t worried, but the lack of a latex barrier somehow added to the intimacy of the moment. When their orgasms subsided, Dash rolled them to their sides, his softening cock still tucked inside her.
“I’m never letting you go, you know,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. This had been the first time in his life he’d had sex without a condom, but with Carmen, it just felt like coming home. “Can you live with that?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest, the softness of her skin amazing him all over again.
“So, I guess I have to go ahead and build a house…” he began, letting his voice trail off.
“Or,” she interrupted, “we could just add on to this one.”
“I was thinking about that too,” he admitted. “Add an office for me and a studio for you on the first floor then a couple extra bedrooms upstairs.”
“And what would we do with all that extra space?” Her voice was teasing and she tickled his spine lightly.
“Well, I was thinking maybe in a year or two we could think about filling the extra bedrooms with a couple of kids.” There it was, he’d laid his dream of the future open for her to accept or reject, and he held his breath, waiting for her response.
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