by Theresa Weir
Dressed in nothing but his own faded jeans, jeans that Claire had been grudgingly domestic enough to wash, he’d padded barefoot to the bedroom. Later, Claire had managed to dig out an oversized T-shirt of her own for him to put on, but now, with his arms raised above his head, the shirt crept up to reveal a flat abdomen.
Libby was right. Claire had been holed up in the boonies too long. With that theme in mind, she said, “Maybe I’ll keep you a while before I turn you in.” Why was she teasing him? “I have a lot of stuff around here I could use help with.”
“Kind of a bondage thing?” He seemed intrigued with the idea. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s do it. Right now. You can leave the handcuffs on.”
“I thought I wasn’t your type,” she said, backpedaling as fast as she could.
He shrugged. “I’m bored. And it could be an interesting diversion. I thought that’s what you mountain people did up here all winter.”
She crossed her arms. “Ha, ha.”
“You know something?”
“What?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
She stared.
Was he kidding?
“My whole system didn’t shut down just because you have me strung up. Unlock these things.” He squirmed. “Hurry.”
This was certainly messing up her schedule. “I can’t.”
“I won’t try to get away. You’ve got my word.”
“Weren’t you into fraud? Isn’t fraud based on lies?”
“Come on, Claire. Have some mercy here.”
She left to return with a plastic jar that had originally contained generic peanut butter. Claire remembered what it had once held because Libby’d had a fit when she spotted it in the cupboard, claiming that the inferior peanuts used in the generic product contained more carcinogens.
Claire placed the jar on the bed beside him. “Use that.”
“With my hands bound?”
She really wasn’t sure how he was going to go about it. “You probably figure something out.”
“You can either do the honors for me, or unhook my hands.”
“I brushed your teeth and shaved you, but I’m not going to help you pee.”
“Then come on. Unlock me. One hand. Just one hand. The other one will still be locked. I won’t be able to get away with one hand still in cuffs.”
She chewed her bottom lip. If she unlocked the cuff, he might try to grab her. If he grabbed her, he could get the key. But if she moved fast enough, if she unlocked it and jumped away, out of his reach ...
“This is inhumane.”
He was right.
“They wouldn’t treat a prisoner like this."
He was right.
“What’ll it going to be next? Water torture? Bamboo shoots under my fingernails?”
“I’ll unlock one hand, but just one.”
“That’s all I need.”
She had the advantage. She hadn’t had a concussion or whatever his problem had been. She hadn’t almost died in a blizzard. Plus his circulation couldn’t be good with his hands above his head like that. His reflexes would be slow. She could move faster. And that’s all it would take: speed.
She slipped the key from the front pocket of her jeans and crossed the room. With her left hand, she twisted the cuff, so the lock was exposed, all the while aware that he was staring at her. She stuck the key in the hole. Then, prepared to jump away, she turned the key.
He was so fast she didn’t even have a chance to move, or a chance to take a breath, or a chance to fully comprehend what was happening.
The only thing she realized was that he’d gotten the better of her.
One moment, she was turning the key in the lock, the next his fingers were wrapped around her wrist.
He smiled at her in the most alarming, self-satisfied way.
“Well,” he said, smiling, smiling. The guy had a hundred smiles in him. A million smiles.
“You’re fast,” was the only thing she could think of.
“No,” he said, continuing to smile. “You’re just slow.”
He was holding her left hand. The key was in her right.
She smiled back. And gave the key a toss.
The key sailed through the open door, landing with a ping somewhere out of sight. “Now you have to let me go so I can get the key,” she told him, her face just inches from his.
Why was he still smiling?
She had the advantage. She had the upper hand.
Didn’t she?
He just kept smiling, perfect white teeth in a perfectly handsome face.
She heard the click of the handcuff at the same time she felt metal, still warm from his body, latch around her wrist.
“You know what this is called?” he asked calmly, and, just perhaps, sensually.
“W-What?” she asked, stupefied by the boldness of his idiocy.
“Leveling the playing field.”
“But I never wanted to play in the first place.”
“Oh, I think you did.”
Chapter 11
“How can you do this to me?” Claire demanded. “I saved your life.”
“Just goes to show that you should stop while you're ahead. You messed up twice. Once when you rescued me, and again when you unlocked the handcuffs.”
“Are you saying I should have left you out there to freeze to death?”
“I've heard it's not a bad way to go. Rather pleasant after you get past the cold part.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
No.
He stared at her, his eyes moving from her face, roaming down her body to come back to where her breasts were pressed against the nubby cloth of her shirt. He brought up a hand to cup the weight of her breast.
She froze.
“If we're going to die here together, we may as well have a little fun before we get too weak to enjoy ourselves.”
“Don’t.”
His eyes were just inches from hers. She could see the intricate patterns in his irises, see the dilation of his pupils.
Outside, tires crunched over cold snow.
His pupils shrank.
Car doors slammed.
Footsteps.
Voices.
Claire opened her mouth to shout.
Dylan jerked her down on top of him, pushing her face into the crook of neck. “Shh,” he warned, his hand tight against the back of her head. “Not a word.”
She could feel his fingers against her skin, feel the threatening pressure of his fingertips.
Minutes passed. There was another sound. Then voices, too far off to hear what they were saying.
More footsteps.
Someone was walking around the house. Just outside the bedroom window, Hallie barked a friendly greeting to the visitors.
Minutes passed.
Then Claire heard the sound of car doors, heard the sound of a vehicle moving away.
Dylan released her.
She let out her breath, her body going limp against his.
“That may have been our only way out of this mess,” she said. “It could be weeks, months before anybody comes back. We'll both rot here.”
It was obvious to Dylan that she was trying to sound tough, but she wasn't having much luck keeping her voice steady.
Now that the danger was over, he became aware of the way her body was sprawled across him, aware of the soft weight of her, the way her breasts were crushed to his chest. He could feel her hipbones beneath the fabric of her jeans. Her legs were tangled up with his, so that she was riding his thigh.
He'd been half-teasing her earlier about having some fun before they died. She wasn't his type. Not that he knew what his type was. But now, with Claire sprawled across him, her body pressed so sweetly to his, her eyes flashing just inches from his face, her lips red, as if he'd just spent a good ten minutes kissing her, he felt himself harden.
She must have felt it, too, because her eyes widened. First in
awareness, then alarm.
He smiled and slid his hand down her back to cup her bottom. Her body was hard, from physical labor, but soft at the same time.
Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifted his hips in a suggestive movement.
Her eyes widened even more, but this time not in alarm but panic.
He sighed and removed his hand from her bottom. They wouldn’t be doing anything interesting to pass the time.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, waiting for his heartbeat to slow, waiting for his breathing to return to normal.
She maneuvered so she was lying beside him on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “You know how to pick a lock, right? That’s the first thing you guys learn, isn’t it?”
“I think I was absent the day they were teaching lock-picking 101 at the UPC.”
“UPC?”
“University of Petty Crime. What’s this in your hair?” He pulled out a wood shaving. “Been playing in the hamster cage again?”
“This isn’t the time to joke around. If you don’t know how to get these cuffs off, we’re in big trouble.”
This was nothing. He’d been in big trouble all his life. The last couple of years had been boring as hell. He’d needed something like this. He loved a challenge. And at the moment, he didn't know which was going to be more of a challenge. Getting out of the handcuffs, or wooing Claire.
He had the feeling it would be wooing Claire.
Chapter 12
It seemed impossible that just days ago Claire had been sitting in The Brewery, bemoaning the dullness of her life. Now, here she was, handcuffed to a felon, both of them lying side by side in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
Good times.
It would have been funny if the situation weren't so serious.
“I take it you really didn't have to go to the bathroom,” she said, the jar she'd given him earlier pressing against her hip, reminding her of her own weak bladder.
“That's not to say we won't be needing it before we get out of here,” he said.
What a lovely idea. One she wouldn't allow herself to linger on. There was no way she would pee in a jar in front of this guy.
Winter days in the mountains were short. Daylight was already fading. In another hour, it would be dark. “I wasn't kidding when I said we could both rot here. If those men come back, we’d better thank God and scream as loudly as we can.”
“I thought this might be an opportunity for us to get to know each other. You’re always rushing in and out, never sticking around long enough for us to talk.”
“This is a game to you, isn’t it?”
“Everything’s a game. Life’s a game.”
“Is that how you justify the bad things you do? By telling yourself it’s nothing but a game?” A shiver ran through her.
“Cold?”
“Yes, I’m cold! My clothes are damp from sweat. The fire is dying—-and I’m freezing!”
With his free hand, he felt the neckline of her shirt. “You’d better get out of that.”
“Yeah, right.”
She would no more strip in front of him than pee in front of him.
“Here.”
Using his foot, he flipped the quilt close enough to grab it with his hand. He pulled it over them both, tucking it around their bodies. “There. Isn’t this cozy?”
They lay there in silence for a while, with Dylan perusing a stack of books on the bedside dresser. “How about some reading?” he asked. “What have we got here? Let’s see ... Gardening Made Easy. Passive Solar Heat. Ah, what’s this?” He pulled out a small paperback. “ The Art of the Extended Orgasm. Hmm. This looks interesting.”
“Give me that!” She tried to grab the book from him, but he lifted it out of her reach.
Until then, she’d forgotten she even owned such a thing. It was an irritating gift presented to her by Anton, most likely to make her feel ineffectual in the lovemaking department. When she'd asked him why he'd given it to her, he told her it might teach her a few new tricks. Tricks! He'd called them tricks!
With one hand, Dylan fingered open the book. “Targeting the body's most erotic parts,” he read, holding it at the top, his wrist against the spine. “The best strokes, pressures, speeds, and much, much more. How about if I read you a little bedtime story? Let's check out chapter six, 'The Erotic Kiss.' Wonder what that's all about.”
Claire had had enough. She tossed off the blanket, and jumped to her feet.
“Get up,” she commanded.
He just lay there looking at her, one leg bent, as if perfectly content to stay where he was for the rest of his life—which could be of short duration if they didn't figure something out. The arm with the book had relaxed so that his wrist was resting against his knee. She reached out and jerked the book from his limp fingers, then tossed it across the room where it hit the wall and fell to the floor.
“Get up!” she repeated. “I'm not staying in this bed with you another second.”
She shoved at his thigh, urging him to get to his feet. For someone who’d taken her hostage, who’d tied her up and was running from the law, he certainly didn’t seem very Type A. He seemed more a sitting-under-a-tree, chewing-on-a-blade- of-grass-while-the-world-went-by type of person.
He swung his feet to the floor. “I thought we were getting nice and cozy here,” he griped. “I don’t know why you’re suddenly in such a hurry.”
“I want to change clothes, and I have to go to the bathroom. So get up. We’re going to pull the bed across the room. Maybe one of us can reach the key from the door.”
“Lemme sit here a minute.” He rubbed his shaved face. “Get my bearings.”
Maybe it was due to the room’s increasing darkness, but now that he was upright, he didn’t look so good.
She waited while he sat there, her left hand, his right, linked through the bed rail.
“Who’s Olivia?”
Had the last ray of sunlight dropped below the horizon? It suddenly seemed as if the lights had gone out, as if any color he’d regained had drained from his face.
“W-What?"
“Olivia.”
She was staring at his arm, at the strange tattoo. Now, with it just inches from her face, she could see that below what looked like a horse were the words OLIVIA FOREVER, written in ornate letters. “Your tattoo says ‘Olivia’.”
His gaze dropped past her inquiring eyes to fall on his ink-stained flesh. He stared at it for a long while, as if he’d never seen it before or had forgotten it was there.
In fact, he seemed to have forgotten that she’d asked him a question until he looked up to see that she was still waiting for an answer.
“It’s just a name.”
“Nobody has just any name tattooed on his arm.”
Dylan had been enjoying himself until Claire mentioned the tattoo. Why didn’t she let it go? His flip answer diminished what Olivia had been to him, but he couldn’t talk about Olivia. Not to this woman. Not to anybody. And anyway, no words could convey what she’d meant to him. No words could convey the hole her absence had left in his life. No words could convey the depths of his pain.
“She was someone you loved,” Claire said, her perception catching him completely off guard.
“Yes.”
“But she moved on.”
“You could say that,” he said, playing for time, stunned by the direction the conversation had taken. How was it this woman with her mothball smell had gone straight to his ache, straight to his hurt. He laughed, trying hard for bitterness. He looked past her. “Don’t mention her again.”
“What happened? Did she dump you?”
She was pissing him off. She was really pissing him off.
“I wouldn’t blame her if she had. You being a criminal and all.”
“Shut up,” he warned, his voice level and low.
“I wouldn’t want to have a relationship with a criminal. I can’t imagine going out with someone, let alone being touched and kisse
d and made love to by someone who’d done bad things.”
She was egging him on. She was doing this on purpose. An age-old frustration pumped through his veins. “Can’t you?”
She stood in front of him, one leg brushing against his knee. There was a smug expression on her face, one that said that they might have both been trapped, but she had the upper hand. She’d stumbled upon his weak spot, his Achilles’ heel.
“Don’t you know any better than to tease a trapped animal?”
He wrapped his legs around hers and grasped her arm with his free hand, supremely satisfied to see the smugness in her eyes replaced by fear. He pulled her down on top of him, keeping his legs wrapped around hers, his thighs pressing her into his groin. He released her just long enough to shift his hand from her arm to the back of her neck. “You have no idea what it feels like to be kissed by a criminal? That sounded like an invitation, Max. Was that supposed to be an invitation?”
“Don’t call me that.” She squirmed in his grip, shoving against his chest with her one free hand.
He laughed at the futility of her struggle. “Is this the way you like it, Max? Are you into bondage?” With his hand splayed against the back of her neck, he brought her closer, her mouth just inches from his. He lifted his head, lifted his face to meet hers. He heard her soft indrawn breath, saw her eyelids flutter closed. Saw her fill lips tremble in the sweetest of invitations. And then, just as his lips brushed hers, she spoke one word.
“Olivia.”
Like someone stung, he released his hold on the back of her neck. Her eyes flew open and she pushed away from him, as much as she could with her hips still crushed between his thighs.
He let out a cry of frustrated anger. “Damn you! How can you do this? You don’t even know me. You don’t know anything about me. And yet you do. You know everything about me. Are you a psychic? Are you reading my mind right now?”
She squirmed against him, shoving at his chest with one hand.
“Come on. Tell me what I’m thinking.”
“No.”
“I’m thinking that you feel good. Really good.”
“Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Not particularly.”
Anger flared in her eyes. “I’m thinking how lucky Olivia was to get rid of you.”