by Nicole Helm
So she sucked in a breath as though Jaime’s fingers in her hair hurt and stared at the floor as if he was forcing her. She stumbled a little as he nudged her forward, trying to make it appear as if he’d pushed her. She put everything into the performance of making it look like he was being rough with her when he was being anything but.
“I will come to give you a full report when I’m done, senor.”
“Excellent.” The Stallion sounded pleased with himself. Satisfied.
Jaime continued to nudge her all the way to her room, and she let out a little squeak of faked pain. When Jaime finally gave her a light push into her room, she could only sag with relief.
Jaime closed the door and flicked the lock. Before she had a moment to breathe, to say a thing, she was being bundled into his arms and gently cradled against his hard chest and the weapons there.
She relaxed into him, letting him hold her up. She was shaking more now, oddly, but it was such an amazing thing to be cradled and comforted after everything that had just happened, she couldn’t even wonder over it.
“We need to get you cleaned up,” Jaime said, his voice low and sounding pained.
She waved him away, wanting to stay right there, cradled against him. “Leave it. Maybe it’ll convince him you were suitably rough with me if we let it bleed more.”
“He’s not going to see you again,” Jaime said fiercely, his arms tightening around her briefly. “You’re under lock and key now, and if he tries to come in here, I will kill him myself.”
She looked up at him curiously. He was... He’d avoided her for days, and Gabby couldn’t blame him because she knew he was trying to do something noble. Still, she didn’t quite understand his anger.
Frustration or fear, maybe even annoyance, she might have understood, but the beating fury in his eyes, completely opposite to the gentle way he held her, was something she couldn’t unwind.
“What was the other woman’s problem?” he asked, studying her nose.
“She hit the two-year mark,” Gabby stated with a tired sigh.
“What does that mean?”
Gabby sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. It just seems that around two years in here you start to realize how stuck you are. How no one’s going to come and save you. I think we all have a little bit of a meltdown at two years.”
“Did your two-year meltdown include punching another woman in the face?”
“No. I was alone. I did try to use a butter knife to stab a guard,” she offered almost cheerfully.
His mouth almost...almost quirked at that.
“I was desperate,” she continued. “With that desperation comes a kind of insanity. Alyssa’s hitting that same wall. Losing it. Wondering what it’s worth being stuck in this horrible place. Of course, she has the worst possible timing, but what can we do? We just have to try and end it as soon as we can.”
“You hugged her.” Jaime’s voice was soft, awe-filled.
Gabby turned away from him and his comforting, strong arms, uncomfortable with the way he said it as though she’d done something special. But she hadn’t. Not really.
“You forget sometimes, when you’re in here, that a simple hug can be reassuring. She needed someone to be kind. You...you reminded me of that. Humanity. Compassion. So, I did what you’ve done to me.”
“You did it after she punched you in the nose,” he pointed out.
“I let her punch me. I thought it would help her get some of the rage out of her system. I’m hoping getting some of it out will stop her from just...losing it completely.”
“You are a marvel,” he said, like she was some kind of genius superhero. It shouldn’t have warmed her. She should tell him she wasn’t.
But she wanted to believe there was something marvelous about her.
“I’m washing you up,” he said, taking her arm and pulling her into the little nook that acted as a bathroom. There was a toilet and a sink, but no door, no privacy. Still, Jaime grabbed a washcloth from the little pile she kept neatly stacked in the corner.
He flicked on the tap and soaked the cloth in warm water. He squeezed it out before holding it up to her face gently. Ever so gently, he wiped away the blood that had started dribbling out of her nose after Alyssa had hit her.
“You’re lucky she didn’t break it,” he muttered.
Gabby rolled her eyes. “I let her hit me, and I pulled back a bit. I’m a lot stronger than all that bluster.”
He cupped her face with his hands, long fingers brushing at her hairline. “That you are,” he said with a kind of fervency that had a lump burning in her throat.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she rasped.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“What about instead of doing the right thing, you do what I want? How about you give me something I want?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know how I ever thought I’d resist you.” Then his mouth was on hers.
Potent and hot. Not quite so gentle. Gabby reveled in the fact that he could be both. That he could give her everything and anything she wanted.
“Tell me if I hurt your nose,” he murmured against her mouth, never breaking contact. His hands trailing through her hair, his body pressed hard and tight against hers.
She could barely feel the ache in her nose. Not with Jaime’s tongue sliding against hers. Not with the smell of him and leather and what might be outside if she even remembered what outside smelled like.
She realized whatever this was, it was frantic and needy. It was also something that could be temporary all too easily. The chances she’d have to touch him, to be with him...
She needed to grasp and enjoy and lose herself in this moment, in the having of it. She molded her hands against his strong shoulders, slid them down his biceps and his forearms. Everything about him was honed muscle, so strong. He could’ve been brutal with someone else’s heart, but Jaime was anything but that.
His hands smoothed down her neck and, for the first time, he dared to touch more than just her face or her shoulders. The fingers of one hand traced across her collarbone over her T-shirt. His other hand slid down her back, strong as he held her against him.
She could feel him, hot and hard against her stomach. It had been a long time since she’d done this, and it was possibly the most inappropriate moment, but there wasn’t time to think.
She didn’t want to think. She wanted to sink into good feelings and let those take over for once.
She arched against him and the fingertips tracing her collarbone stilled. Then lowered. He palmed one of her breasts and she moaned against his mouth.
“We can stop whenever,” he said, so serious and noble and wrong.
“I don’t ever want to stop.” She wanted to live in a moment where she had some power. Where she had some hope. “Take off your guns, Jaime.”
He stilled briefly and then reached up to the shoulder of the harness and unbuckled it. He pulled the strand of weapons off his body, his eyes never leaving hers. He hesitated only a moment before he laid the weapons down next to her bed.
He took a gun from his waistband she hadn’t known was there and placed it on the little table next to her bed. Something almost resembling a smile graced his mouth as he reached to his boots and pulled a knife out of each.
There was something not just weighty about watching him disarm, but something intimate. She watched him strip himself of all the things he used to protect himself. All the things he used to portray another man. To do his job, his duty.
“I think that’s all of them,” he said in a husky voice.
She didn’t have any weapons to surrender, so she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it off. She moved her hands to unbutton her pants, but Jaime made a sound.
“Stop,” he
ordered.
She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
He crossed back to her, a hand splaying against her stomach, the other sliding down her arm. “Let me.”
She swallowed the nerves fluttering to the surface. No, nerves wasn’t the right word. It was something more fundamental than that. Would he like what he saw? Would he still be as enamored with her when they were naked? When it was over?
She wanted to laugh at her momentary worry about such things. But, like so many other thoughts, it was a comforting reaction—a real-life response. That she could still be a woman. That she could still care about such things.
His hands were rough against her skin. Tanned against how pale she was with no access to sunlight. She watched as he traced the strangest parts of her, as if fascinated by her belly button or the curve of her waist. But he was still fully clothed, though he’d surrendered all his weapons.
She gave the hem of his shirt a little tug. “Take this off,” she ordered, because it was nice to order. More than nice to have someone obey. Power. Equality, really. He could order her and she could order him, and they could each get what they wanted.
He pulled his shirt off from the back, lifting it over his head and letting it hit the floor. He really was perfection. Tall and lithe and beautiful. He had scars and smooth patches of skin. Dark hair that drew a line from his chest to the waistband of his jeans.
She moved forward and traced the longest scar on his side. A white line against his golden skin.
“How did you get this?” she asked.
“Knife fight.”
She raised her gaze to his eyes, but his expression was serious, not silly. “You were in a knife fight?”
He shrugged. “When I first started out as Rodriguez, I was doing some drug running for one of his lower-level operations. Unfortunately a lot of those guys try to double-cross each other. I was caught in the cross...well, cross-stabbing as it were.”
He said it so cavalierly, as if that was just part of his job. Getting stabbed. Horribly enough to leave a long, white scar.
“Did you go to the hospital?”
Again he smiled, almost indulgently now. “There was a man who did the stitching back at our home base.”
“A man? Not a doctor?” she demanded.
“Doctors were saved from more...life-threatening injuries. Even then, only if you were important. At that point, I wasn’t very important.”
Gabby tried to make sense of it as Jaime shook his head.
“It’s a nonsensical world. None of it makes sense if you have a conscience, if you’ve known love or joy. Because it’s not about anything but greed and power and desperation.”
She traced the jagged line and then bent to press a kiss to it. He sucked in a breath.
“I bet there was no one to kiss it better,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted even though tears were threatening.
“Ah, no.”
“Then let me.” She raised to her tiptoes to kiss him. To press her chest to his. She still wore a bra, but the rest of her upper body was exposed and she tried to press every bare spot of her to every bare spot of him.
She tasted his mouth, his tongue, and she wanted the kiss to go deep enough and mean enough to ease some of those old hurts, some of that old loneliness.
For both of them.
* * *
THERE WERE THINGS Jaime should do. Things he should stop from happening. But Gabby’s kiss, Gabby’s heart, was a balm to all the cruelties he’d suffered and administered in the past two years. She was sweetness and she was light. She was warmth and she was hope.
At this point he could no longer keep it from himself, let alone her. She wanted this. Perhaps she needed it as much as he did. Regardless, there was no going back. There was only going forward.
Her skin was velvet, her mouth honey. Her heart beating against his heart, the cadence of a million wonderful things he’d forgotten existed.
Her fingertips were curious and gentle as they explored him, bold as though it never occurred to her she shouldn’t.
All of it was solace wrapped in pleasure and passion. That someone would want to touch him with reverence or care. That he wasn’t the hideous monster he’d pretended to be for two years. He was still a man made of flesh and bone, justice and right.
And despite her time here as a victim, she was still a woman. Made of flesh and bone. Made of heart and soul.
He smoothed his hands up and down her back, absorbing the strength of her. Carefully leashed, carefully honed.
He reached behind her and unsnapped her bra, slowly pulling it off her and down her arms. It meant he had to put space between them. It meant he had to wrestle his mouth from hers. But if anything was worth that separation, it was the sight before him. Gabby’s curly hair tumbled around her face. Her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed.
The soft swell of her breasts, dark nipples sharp points because she was as excited as he was. As needy as he was. He palmed both breasts with his too-rough hands and was rewarded by her soft moan.
Of course this amazingly strong and brave woman before him was not content to simply let him look or touch. She reached out and touched him, as well, her hands trailing down his chest all the way to his waistband. She flipped the button and unzipped the piece of clothing with no preamble at all.
He continued to explore her breasts with his hands. Memorizing the weight and the shape and the warmth, the amazing softness her body offered to him. And it was more than just that. So much more than just the body. A heart. A soul. Neither of them would be at this point if it wasn’t so much more than physical. It was an underlying tie, a cord of inexplicable connection.
She tugged his jeans down, his boxers with them. And then those slim, strong hands were grasping him. Stroking his erection and nearly bringing him to his knees.
He needed to find some sort of center. Not necessarily of control but of reason. Sense and responsibility. This was neither sensible nor responsible, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take care of her. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t.
Gently he pulled her hand off him. “I need to go get something. I’ll be right back.”
She blinked up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Beautiful and naked from the waist up.
He pressed his mouth to hers as he pulled his jeans up, drowning in it a minute, forgetting what he’d been about to do. It was only when she touched him again that he remembered.
“Stay put. I will be right back.” When she opened her mouth, he shook his head. “I promise,” he repeated, his gaze steady on hers. He needed her to understand, and he needed her to believe him.
She pouted a little bit, beautiful and sulky, but she nodded.
“Right back,” he repeated and then he was rushing to his room, caring far too little about the things he should care about. If The Stallion was around... If the other girls were okay... But it hardly mattered with Gabby’s soul entwined with his.
He went to his closet of a room and grabbed the box that had been given to him. The box was still wrapped and he had no doubt about the safety of its contents.
And he would keep Gabby safe. No matter what.
With a very quick glance toward the back door, Jaime very nearly scurried back to Gabby. That back door was clearly shut and locked. Surely The Stallion had disappeared into his lair to obsess over Layne and Wallace’s progress.
Jaime entered Gabby’s room once again, closing and locking the door behind him quickly. She wasn’t standing anymore. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and she was still shirtless.
He walked over and placed the box of condoms on the nightstand next to his smaller gun. He watched her face carefully, something flickering there he didn’t recognize as she glanced at the box.
“We still don’t have to,” he offered, wondering if it w
as reticence or something close to it.
Her glance flicked from the box to him. “Why do you have these?”
“If you haven’t noticed The Stallion is a little convinced women have—”
“Cooties?” Gabby supplied for him.
Jaime laughed. “I was going to say diseases. But, yes, essentially, cooties.”
“So he gave those to you?”
“When I convinced him that only female payment would do, he insisted I take the necessary precautions.”
She frowned, puzzling over the box. He didn’t know what to say to make her okay. But eventually she grabbed the box and ran her nail around the edge. Pulling the wrapping off, she ripped open the box and took out a packet.
She studied him from beneath her lashes and then smirked. “I think this is where you drop your pants.”
He laughed again. Laughing. It was amazing considering he couldn’t think of the last time he’d laughed. With Gabby he felt like he wasn’t just a machine. He wasn’t simply a tool to bring The Stallion down or a tool to help The Stallion out. He’d been nothing but a weapon for so long it was hard to remember that he was also real. Capable of laughing. Capable of humor. Capable of feeling.
Capable of caring. Perhaps even loving.
He’d never been a romantic man who believed in flights of fancy and yet this woman had changed his life. She’d changed his heart and he didn’t have to know how she’d done it to know that it had happened.
He pushed his jeans the remainder of the way down, watching her the entire time. Her gaze remained bold and appraising on his erection.
She scooted forward on the bed, tearing the condom packet open before rolling it on him. Finally she looked up at him. Her gaze never left his as she lay back on the bed and undid the fastenings of her pants. She shimmied out of her remaining clothes and then lay there, naked and beautiful before him.
He took a minute to drink her in. Because who knew how much time they would have after the next couple of days. He would save her—he would do anything to save her—and he did not know what lay ahead. He did know he had to absorb all of this, commit it to memory, connect it to his heart.