by Amber Bardan
My shoulders shook, and I took another deep breath. Okay—I’m okay. The worst thing hadn’t happened. There were several terrible things that can happen to a person, but this one had been waking to my own personal nightmare.
I shuddered. But I was all right, apparently unraped, and not chained up or injured. And also not in a basement.
All good things, considering I’d been drugged and taken.
Which also told me two things about my abductor—he was most likely demented in the less horror movie, torturer, kind of way.
And the fact I was not chained up also meant he’d grossly underestimated me.
Both, again, good things given the circumstances.
I rolled my gaze around the room, and it landed shakily with a twitching double-take on a face I knew.
Avner reclined in an armchair by the windows, chin to his chest, eyes closed, face soft and gentle with sleep.
I bit back the pained gasp that tore through me, and pressed a fist to my pounding chest. “When he goes after something, he doesn’t give up until it’s completely and totally caught.” The warning rang through my mind like a siren. “Maybe you’re not playing in the way you think, but you won’t be prepared for the game you do get. Tonight for the first time, I saw Avner look at a woman like she’s something he intends to catch.”
Haithem tried to warn me—specifically, it turned out. Why didn’t I listen? I glanced between Avner and the rest of the room. How could I have known Haithem was being literal. Literal. Who literally hunts down and drugs women?
I shifted my legs against the mattress.
Furious disappointment put steam back into my muscles. I scooted sideways, and slid out of the bed. Unfortunately, the farther-away-from-the-crazed-kidnapper side was also the farther-away-from-the-door side. I crouched at the mattress and scanned the floor and bedside table for possible weapon choices.
I tugged the alarm clock cord from the wall and tucked the entire appliance under my arm, then looked at him. Dammit. His eyelashes rested all innocently on his cheeks. On his cheeks, on his face—that was a face that I’d liked. Now I’d have to literally break his stupid, crazy kidnapper face.
I rose to my feet, and crept around the bed toward the door. Plush carpet insulated my steps. I drew closer to Avner and the door. His chest rose and fell evenly under his crossed forearms. My gaze caught at the fold of his arms. His shirt collar hung open, and his sleeves bunched at his elbows. My vision swarmed with the tan expanses of his muscled skin. I shifted the alarm clock to hold it in front of me and swallowed, then glanced through the open bedroom door. The unmistakable styling and layout of a hotel suite stretched outside.
Really?
He was a terrible kidnapper. My pulse skipped. I glanced back to Avner while shifting sideways toward the doorway, keeping my attention pinned on him. The side of my foot bumped the closed half of the double door.
His eyes flew open.
My shriek filled the room. He stood, and my arms swung down. The alarm clock met his forehead with a plastic crunch.
He thumped back into the chair. I ran for the door. Footsteps closed behind me. I jumped on and over a fancy couch, grabbing the vase from the side table on my way up. My feet hit the ground on the other side with a thud. I spun, the couch between me and his lunging brawn.
I threw the vase. He dodged. The vase shattered against the floor. He kept coming. I ran to the table, tipping chairs.
“Emma—” he roared behind me.
I grabbed an upturned chair, hauling it to my chest, then brandished it at him. “Stay the fuck back.”
Avner stalked me, stepping over chairs and furniture without even looking. “Listen to me, Emma.”
Blood oozed from a gash on his eyebrow. Fuck, I’d hurt him—not badly enough to do me any good. Maybe badly enough to do me some harm.
Dammit.
I waved the chair in his direction. “No, you listen. Come any closer and I’ll scream bloody-blue-murder and everyone in this hotel will come running and you’ll go to jail.”
“Just listen—” He held out his hands all innocently. Yet the tilt of his chin and the look in his eyes struck me as completely Machiavellian.
“I’ll listen when there’s bars and security glass between us.”
He stepped in, inching closer.
I thrust the chair legs at him. “I said back.”
“Hear me out.”
“For drugging and abducting me?” I snorted. “There’s no possible explanation, so fuck off and let me leave.”
He advanced. “If I’d intended to abduct you, I guarantee I’d have done a damn-sight better job of it.”
My eyes flared. Was that supposed to be reassuring? I rammed him with the chair.
He grabbed the legs, jerking the chair out of my grasp, and flung it aside. I made another dash for the door, filling my lungs to let loose the mother of all screams. The sound pierced the air for less than a second before a massive hand closed over my mouth, cutting off the noise.
I yelled into his palm. He hauled me against him. I stomped my heel on top of his foot, jammed my elbow into his middle, jerked my chin up then closed my teeth over the space between his thumb and index finger.
Sinew crunched.
A copper tang filled my mouth. His pained growl vibrated into my back. He gripped me tighter, pushing his hand into my mouth until there was no choice but to open my teeth. He pulled his hand free, then flipped me around to face him.
A scowl ripped across his features. He took a breath to speak, but I wrapped my legs around his waist and leveraged my entire bodyweight into a head-butt to his bleeding brow. Pain exploded behind my eyes. My head spun.
We fell.
He rolled sideways, taking the impact, but I showed him no such mercy—wrapping my arm around his throat on the way down. We hit the ground on our sides with me now behind him. I tightened the chokehold, holding one arm over his windpipe by grabbing onto my other bicep, then using my other hand to push his head forward.
He stiffened in my grip. I braced, locking my legs around his waist, and focused every ounce of my strength on squeezing in a move I’d perfected dozens of times.
My heart pounded and my muscles shook. I leaned back with everything—everything I had. He grabbed my foot, yanking it up at an odd angle. I screamed, grip loosening around his throat. He lurched free. In a heartbeat, my hands twisted over my head, my head knocked against the ground and Avner loomed above me.
I gasped, shock seizing my lungs.
My vision hazed with rage. Avner’s face did too, and that possibly was the thing that sent fear piercing through my anger shield.
He had me pinned.
I struggled uselessly. He was bigger, stronger and by the look of him meaner. I wouldn’t give up. My muscles curled-ready. All he had to do was shift his grip and I’d claw his eyes out, remove his groin—kill him dead.
Then he did. He scooped my wrists up in one hand and I twisted, except it got me nowhere. His grip was inflexible. His hold so many times stronger than mine.
I went numb from the inside out.
He could hit me now and I’d survive it. Wouldn’t even feel it. I was ready. Been here before. Give me your worst. I braced. His free hand moved to my face and I didn’t blink or flinch.
Except his touch was light, something I was unprepared for.
My head spun.
He brushed my mouth with his thumb, then turned his hand between us. His thumb glistened with blood—his blood. From my mouth where I’d bit him like a savage animal.
What would he do to me now?
“Fucking hell, baby,” he whispered, then turned his gaze on me. This time it was heated not with rage but something else. His voice almost reverent, like I’d done something great, something amazing that filled
him with awe.
Me.
My head spun again, differently. I tied to ignore it—the way my chest lifted, my entire body lighting up with glee at the way he’d looked at me. The way he’d called me baby. Like I was his. His baby.
He laughed, and I felt every ripple of his laugh against my belly. My core clenched, igniting with unfamiliar longings.
“Next time,” he said, and rubbed the blood between his fingers, “go for the temple not the brow.” He gestured to the side of his head. “Much more effective.”
Of course he was correct.
If I’d been in my right mind that’s exactly what I’d have done. Except I hadn’t been in my right mind. I still wasn’t in my right mind. Not at all. Because even now, after everything, I was riveted by his voice, his words and everything he told me.
When I should be recoiling.
I wasn’t recoiling—I leaned in, my chest pushing out against his without my mind’s consent. My nipples hard and seeking—somehow aching with need. How’d that happen? His gaze shifted, darkening. His body responded, leaning heavier into mine. My awareness shrunk around the touch of our bodies. The way he was so perfectly hard. So meanly male. So beautifully strong.
So capably in charge.
Almost, almost, like I could surrender and have him catch me. Give up everything because he could hold everything. Because this didn’t hurt.
The friction between us was pure bliss.
My tongue darted between my lips tasting of his blood.
His gaze flew there. Fixed on my mouth. His body flexed against me. My feet pressed to the floor. I held my knees still, because they wanted to wrap around him again. Not in fight.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Emma,” he said, snapping the tension. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t drug you.”
The drugs must’ve still been in my system, messing with my logic, tampering with my self-control.
I almost believed him.
“You called me.” His grip lightened on my wrists. “Don’t you remember?”
My mind flicked back to blackness. No, I didn’t remember that.
“You called me for help.” His eyebrows pulled together, a fierce possessive look seizing him. “I heard the struggle and you called for help.”
An image of the hallway at Barney’s flashed—a whisper in my ear, shoving the phone into my bra and my weak pathetic yell for help.
“So I found you.” His voice went hard, a million things lingering in that statement.
My fingers and toes tingled. I’d had his contact selected. His contact had been selected on my phone when I unlocked it and shoved it into my bra.
I’d boob-dialed him, and he’d rushed to help me.
I moaned. Suddenly the blood in my mouth burned. His eyebrow had stopped bleeding but I stared at the bloody smear.
What had I done?
He let go of my wrists, then leaned back, releasing the pressure on my ribs.
My eyes stung. “Oh god.”
He rolled off me but stayed beside me and took my hand. “Emma, someone tried to take you. I found them carrying you through an alley next to the pub to a van.”
I slapped my other hand over my mouth.
“I got to you, but they escaped.” He squeezed my hand in his still-injured one. “But I will find them.”
My teeth marks glistened an angry red on his skin.
Not nearly as angry as his vow. His vow to protect me after everything I’d just done.
“Shit, Avner, I’m sorry.” I swallowed and met his intense gaze. “I woke up, and assumed...”
He smiled, but nowhere into his eyes. “I meant what I said, we’re friends. Next time try to remember that.” His grip tightened. “And I never begrudge a good fight. Especially when it’s so unexpectedly fierce.”
Warmth filled my cheeks. Fierce like a perfectly executed Rear Naked Choke, and drawing blood with my teeth. Oh, I was proud of those things. I wasn’t ever going to hold back in my own defense again, but you’re not supposed to bite innocent friends.
I sat up, and examined his hand. The blood slowed, but he looked like he’d met with a rabid animal. “Does it hurt?”
He laughed again, and removed his hand. “I’m fine.”
I stood, and took in the state of the luxury hotel room. Mayhem. I’d trashed the place. I really hoped that vase wasn’t too expensive. I began righting furniture and sliding the chairs back into the table. Avner helped, then collected the broken pieces of the vase.
I watched him bend to collect them.
Why’d I jump to conclusions that way? Avner was a friend. Haithem’s friend. Angelina’s friend. Would I always assume the worst of people? He’d saved me. Even with my inner pep-talk, suspicions blistered.
“How’d you find me?”
His movements slowed.
“How’d you find me?” I wandered toward him.
He rose and deposited the broken fragments in the bin, then looked at me. “You called me. Try to remember that. You came to me for help.”
“How did you find me, Avner?” I stalked to him, examining his face even as his expression closed. “You tracked my phone, didn’t you?”
His eyes flickered.
“Who the hell are you?” I shook my head. Even someone involved in a technology company like Guardian shouldn’t be able to do something like that so instantaneously. “What is it you actually do?”
“I did what I had to do to find you in time.” He faced me, chin notching. “That’s all that matters.”
My mind turned over and over and over, with everything I’d ever heard about Avner—not much. He and Haithem had been friends since college. They’d worked together since graduation. Haithem more with physical inventions, and Avner specialized in the programming side of things. He’d created a good portion of the best apps on my phone, from what I’d heard.
Could he just know how to do something like track a phone, and then done it spontaneously for me? My chest tightened. I’d never been naive.
“Why didn’t you take me to the hospital when you found me?” I stepped back. Away from him. “You didn’t know what drug I’d been given. You didn’t think maybe I’d need medical attention?”
“Of course.” He frowned, hard and sharp, his nose crinkling as though he’d smelled something bad. As though my accusation stunk. “Which is why Emilio, who is a trained medic, was here.”
“Oh,” I said, my chest loosening but embarrassment rising back up. Hadn’t I learned in the last half hour to at least offer the benefit of the doubt? I breathed in. That didn’t mean I had to adopt ignorance. I lowered my voice, and approached him again. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to take me to hospital and notify the authorities?”
“No, Emma.” His voice flattened. “The authorities would only slow me down and impede my investigations.”
“Your investigations?” I pressed my palm to his chest, and stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“What needs to be done.” He touched me in return, swiftly, as though he’d been braced to touch me all along. He grabbed my shoulders with both hands. “And I promise, I will protect you better than any authorities.”
“What do you do, Avner?” I whispered. “Unofficially, what do you really do?”
His grip tightened, then loosened on my skin. “I won’t lie to you—I’ve done many things I shouldn’t, and all the things that I must.”
He licked his lips, his eyelids heavy as he stared down at me, giving me as much of an answer as I could see I was ever going to get.
My pulse skipped. I remembered his eyes like this. “If it were dangerous would you still have helped her?” And I remembered a million more things, like the fact Haithem had been on the run for his life. Like he’d had to fake
his own death.
That Avner had a part in helping and saving my best friend and her husband, in ways no one ever explained. And as much as my mind revolted with suspicions, one thing I’d learned is there’s so little clarity when it comes to right and wrong, or danger and safety.
Because he’d been correct—I’d have risked everything to help my friends.
I’d have broken laws in a heartbeat.
So maybe Avner had learned to do just that. I wouldn’t and couldn’t judge him for any of it, no matter what he’d done.
“Thank you,” I said, and my tongue tingled. I didn’t know what I thanked him for—helping me or telling me the truth. Both. And I was hungry for more.
I wanted to know everything about him and everything he did.
Chapter Eight
Emma
My stomach announced itself with a squelching gurgle that cut through the expanding silence. I laughed.
Avner glanced at my belly. “Room service?”
I put a hand over my middle, only just noticing the gnawing ache. It wasn’t only knowledge I was hungry for, apparently. But mushy, lukewarm room service eggs? “Don’t want room service.” Nope. I was hangover-hungry. Eat-my-own-leg-off hungry. “What I need is something hot—” I took a breath, and I’m not gonna lie, I trailed my gaze over Avner like he was on the breakfast menu. “And I want it directly from the grill to my plate.”
Avner’s gaze sharpened. He hadn’t missed a beat. Maybe I’d come-to frantic. Maybe I’d almost knocked him out. But we’d made up, and wasn’t it better to kiss and make up? But he didn’t strip down and offer himself up.
“Of course.” He nodded to me in a cute overly formal way. “I’ll wash up and we’ll go out.”
“Okay.”
He went into the bedroom. I madly dragged my hands through my hair and straightened my dress. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about Avner like this again so soon after everything. But hadn’t the guy saved me? Hadn’t I been thinking about him for an entire month?