“You want a piece of the action?” guy number two said lifting his shoulders, and in the process shaking the lifeless form at his side.
Just as Tuck began to worry that they might have given her too much of whatever they dosed her with, her head rolled to the side, and she muttered something inaudible. So at least he had confirmation that she was still alive, for now.
The guys intent on violating her, weren’t so concerned with her wellbeing. “We’ve got to get going. This one’s going to be a fighter, I can tell,” he said, drooling in delirium.
Inhaling sharply through his nose, Tuck tried to be calm, tried to remind himself that calmer heads prevailed, that he could reason, use his intelligence— “Screw it,” he said, throwing a perfect knockout punch on the closest guy, knowing he wasn’t ready for it.
The second guy swore and dropped his prey. Leaping over her, Tuck pushed his opponent off target, and spun on the spot to put himself in front of her motionless body sprawled on the floor.
“Who the fuck are you?” the guy who had dropped her demanded.
The third had disappeared, at least for now. When the speaker came at him, all Tuck had to do was move aside and given the guy’s inertia, he bowled himself face first into the solid wooden column by the doorway. He hit the deck as his friend groaned beside him, apparently regaining consciousness. Tuck didn’t hesitate, he bent and picked her up in one motion, throwing her over his shoulder.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said to Linc, who was still behind the bar, as bemused by the sequence as everyone else.
Tuck carried her out, grateful for her safety, and thankful that he’d been there to ensure it. But those weren’t the strongest of his emotions. Anger pounded in his head, he wanted to spit and scream, what the hell was she doing there? How the hell had she got herself into that position? When had she become so stupid?
But, God, he had to question if he was any better than that pond-scum who had drugged her. While he marched down that dark road, she mumbled again, and his head slanted toward her body of its own accord. Pressing his cheek to her thigh, he groaned to himself. Even fizzing with anger that was aimed at her static form, he wanted her.
There was no way on earth he could ever let her know the strength of that desire. He couldn’t have her, which only made his want intensify. The forbidden fruit was all the more tempting because it was just that… forbidden.
SIX
With what felt like cotton wool in her mouth and her ears, Kadie tried to pry open her scratchy eyes, only to snap them shut at the instant stab of pressure and pain between them. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know how she got here. She couldn’t even remember where she’d been. The blankets around her were stiff. The pillow was so flat that the stuffing had long been worn out, and the place smelled fusty, like old fetid mold meets sweat, and sex, and… something. A long distant memory maybe, a vague recollection of a scent, something precious, safe… loved.
“Tuck,” she whispered through dried lips.
Another dream, it had to be, she couldn’t take much more of it. This wasn’t the first time she’d woken up with him in her senses, with the dream of his hands on her skin on the cusp of her memory. Waking up with the imprint still in her consciousness, it was so vivid that she could feel his fingerprints still all over her. Frequently, she heard his voice in her memory, felt his breath on her neck. Remembered the sweet, tender view of him, of his eyes on her, devoted. The taste of his tongue still tantalized her, warm, slick, enticing, promising her the whole world without uttering a single word.
This wasn’t one of those mornings that she could surrender to the memory, turn herself over to her mind, and her practiced fingers. This place wasn’t safe, or at least she couldn’t establish whether it was or not until she could recall how she got here. She couldn’t. She remembered being in the car, driving, and the bar, he was supposed to be there. Except she didn’t remember the details of the bar, had she gone in? Had she been in an accident? No, this wasn’t a hospital, it smelled too dirty for that, but where was this? Turning onto her back, she took one deep breath and made herself open her eyes, one increment at a time.
To one side there was light, to the other there was dark, and her eyes struggled to adjust to the disparate illumination. Her head hurt, her eyes watered, and her ears were ringing now. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips but her mouth was parched, and it did little good. Taking stock, she noted that her elbow hurt, and her hip too. Certainly, none of the injuries seemed pressing, and although her head hurt she wasn’t lightheaded, so she couldn’t have lost blood, at least not too much of it.
Now if she could just figure out—
“Drink something.”
Her desperate breath blocked her throat. Lifting her head, she couldn’t see him at first, he wasn’t in the light. He was in the darkest corner in a tub chair, his elbows on the arms, his fingers linked under his chin, with one ankle propped on the opposite knee.
“You’ve been out for fourteen hours,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone.
“Tucker,” she wheezed. She couldn’t pick out his features, but she didn’t need to, that voice was like velvet on her skin and she’d recognize it in a heartbeat anywhere.
“There’s water beside you,” he said.
He could be right, but she didn’t take her eyes away from him. This could be another dream and she didn’t want to lose sight of the image of him, not when it felt so real. “What are you doing here?”
“Babysitting,” he said. Leaving the chair, he picked up a small duffel bag that must have been on the floor at the end of the bed. “Drink the water, drink lots of it, slowly. Sleep it off. The room’s paid for the next two nights, but if you can get out of here sooner, do it.”
He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed toward the door, which was next to a curtained window that was doing a poor job of keeping the daylight out. Shoving onto her elbows, she managed to sit up. “Wait,” she called, and he halted a few feet from the door, but he didn’t turn around. “You can’t just walk out on me.”
Excruciatingly slowly, he looked back over his shoulder. “Watch me,” he growled. “And this time don’t come looking for me.”
The truth of her actions and motivations was too much to cover in the next few seconds and if he was heading out, that was all the time they had. “I wasn’t looking for you last night,” she said. Ignoring the pain in her eyes, she pushed herself back to lean on the headboard that was nailed to the wall. That wasn’t a lie, she hadn’t been looking for Tuck last night. Her mission to seek him out was a distant memory. In her predicament, she tried to think of Tuck as little as possible. “Dempsey didn’t send you?”
She’d guessed it was only a matter of time before her cousin figured out she and Tuck weren’t together. Given how hard she’d tried to find Tuck for so many months, it seemed unlikely that a coincidence had brought them together. Her ex hadn’t sought her out, so someone must have prompted this connection.
The question brought his confusion into line with hers. “Dempsey?” he said, turning his body towards her. “I left you with Dempsey, why would he…”
Establishing whether or not he’d been home would give her an idea of what he knew about what she’d been up to. Knowing how this man worked was her greatest advantage, she wouldn’t give him the chance to block her out. Kadie was trying to get herself and her friend out of a dangerous position, Tuck’s involvement would endanger them all further and the situation was volatile enough. She had to get him out of here, get him away from her, it was the only way she could continue working towards freeing Howie.
If Tuck knew where she had been and who she’d been with, he’d demand that she never go back. Kadie had made Howie a promise, the kid was infuriating in his naivety sometimes, but he’d been there for her, had risked his safety for her, she wouldn’t abandon him.
“You’re right,” she said, watching the cogs turn behind his blank gaze that signaled his mental cras
h, a state that accompanied him putting puzzle pieces together. “You should get going. Thanks for… whatever, and I’ll figure it out myself. It was good to see you.”
Taking the plastic tumbler from the bedside, she drank all of the liquid in it in one go without realizing how thirsty she’d been. When dizziness grasped for her, she pushed it away, and turned her legs out of the bed. Wriggling to the edge, her feet found the floor. Now she had her back to him, but he hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound.
Swallowing her apprehension, she closed her eyes, and prayed her legs would hold her when she stood up. Propelling upward, her hand jumped out in front of her, and she planted it on the wall to steady herself. The other joined it, and she took a deep breath, willing herself to maintain consciousness while darkness clawed at her.
“Lie down,” he demanded from his side of the room. His words echoed in her skull like he was screaming them in her ear.
“No,” she whispered.
“Do you want to pass out again?” he barked.
Her head swam and her eyes wouldn’t open yet. There was something pleasant about the disorientation. The haze softened the harsh edges of her gray life. With the dizziness came nausea, and she shuffled a step to the side, then another. She swayed on her feet, her hands hadn’t left the wall because she needed something to hold her up.
“Get into bed!” he said, in much closer proximity this time.
“No,” she said again, unable to muster anything over a murmur. “You were leaving… You should… leave. Yeah, Hotshot just… you go, just go.”
His first contact was to sweep her hair from in front of her shoulder to behind it. Still, she was unable to open her eyes despite his presence looming at her side, hard, stable… terrifying. “Please get into bed,” he said.
If he was willing to soften, then she had to be too. “I need to pee,” she answered.
“Ok,” he said. “Let me help you.”
Yeah, because that wouldn’t be mortifying. “You were going, you—”
He didn’t heed her protests. “I’m going to unzip your skirt. It’s too tight to lift. I’m not getting ideas. This isn’t going anywhere.”
That, she didn’t need to be reminded of. “You’ve undressed me more times than I can count,” she said, pressing her forehead into the wall between her hands. Putting up a fight with him wouldn’t occur to her when she was fully with it. Half out of it as she was now, he could do whatever he wanted to and she wouldn’t hinder him.
He didn’t reply. The sound of her zip was stark in the silently fizzing room. Every atom of air crackled, scorching the depth between them. His actions and proximity boosted her flagging consciousness.
“Where is the bathroom?” she asked when he pushed the skirt away from her hips.
She couldn’t see properly, her ears rang, and her head pounded in a solitary, long-forgotten lake of fog. Her body wasn’t in control of itself, yet she was aware of him. Every fiber of her being knew him, knew this, remembered. Where he was, his expression, his mood. She knew, and she’d barely looked at him.
Her question went unanswered. In a swooping move, he had her feet out from under her, and she curled into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Yes, this was the man she knew. Her mind, her body, her soul, he was everything to her. And for the first time in months, she got to relax.
“I’m going to sit you down,” he said. “You’ve got the sink to hold onto on one side, and the bathtub on the other. Will you be ok?”
She nodded and he bent to sit her down. Clutching at the sink, she had to let him go, and a part of her screamed so loud even the silence was erased. Opening her eyes gradually, she saw the door close and wished she’d managed to look a second sooner. This would be his last memory of her, taking her for a pee because she was too out of it to do it herself.
As humiliating as the moment was, she was more unsettled because she didn’t know how she’d gotten into this state, what had happened last night, and how she would protect herself from it happening again. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was just after three, that gave her time to get it together, she had to get it together.
Managing to wriggle out of her underwear, she answered the call of nature, and took off her top and bra before leaving the toilet. Now naked, she shoved the shower curtain to the side while she held onto the sink with the other hand. Stretching herself to the limit, she reached the shower and turned it on.
While she gave it time to heat, she closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. As the room fogged, her mind spun again. She’d hoped the sweltering steam would soothe her, but it was the cold she needed to enliven her. Reaching through the water she switched it to cold. Without giving herself time to adjust, she clambered over the edge of the bath into the shower. Remaining on her knees initially, her hands sought the solid base of the tub. The water was hammering her spine, soaking her hair, and her body shuddered in the cold.
Pain and shock awakened her. “This is helping,” she said aloud, but didn’t know if she was right.
There was no time to be sick. Giving in to weakness like this was ridiculous. All she had to do was stand up. Pushing up on her hands, she managed to get her weight onto her soles. Crouching under the thunderous jets, she closed her eyes again and counted to three out loud, then forced her legs to straighten.
She wobbled and clutched for anything within reach that could steady her. Her stomach revolted and after a few dry heaves, she planted her hands on the wall and opened her eyes. She could do this, get washed, then she could lie down again, just for a little while, before she had to think about the next round.
The whole process took quadruple the time it normally would. But eventually, she turned off the water. Very slowly and carefully, she climbed out of the tub. The only towel in the room was too small to be a bath towel. With the cold freezing her skin, she rubbed off the residual water she could reach and towel dried her hair. Except the rapid movement of that made her dizzy again, so she settled for wrapping her hair in the towel. It would do until she got back to the bed and could sit down.
A yawn made her cover her mouth, and she tried to calculate if she would have time for a nap. If she had her phone… where was her phone?
Her phone would be in her purse, she thought to herself upon leaving the damp bathroom. The air in the bedroom was warmer, which was an odd juxtaposition, opposite to the norm. But where was her purse? She stopped when she came around the corner to the bed because there he was, under the window this time.
His presence was unexpected, she was sure he’d have bailed by now. If the last time he’d left her was any indication, Tuck was desperate to be away from her. “You’re still here,” she said.
“You’re naked,” he said.
Because he was in front of the window, the light behind him concealed his features, so she could only see his silhouette. Not that she needed to see his features, his tone said it all.
Her body had been his to play with for so long that she couldn’t bring herself to be modest about it. “Only had a hand towel,” she said, pointing to her head. “I never realized how much energy it takes to have a shower.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t collapse and knock yourself out.”
Maybe his conscience hadn’t given up on her after all. “Is that why you waited?” she asked, flopping onto the bed on her back, she closed her eyes in the joyful embrace of its cradle.
“I was waiting for the crash.”
“No crash,” she said. “I took my time. I’m a clever girl, not as clever as…” Tuck was street smart and a brainbox to boot. She opened her eyes and rolled her head to look at him, he was out of the chair, standing next to the bed, looking down at her. “Well, you know, I’m not as smart as you… Believe it or not, it’s not my goal to injure myself.”
“What is your goal?” he asked.
“Uh-oh,” she said, closing her eyes again. “Please don’t tell me I’ve piqued the famous Tucker Holt curiosity.”
But how could he not be curious. She was curious about why he was here with her and what his intentions were. “What were you doing in that bar last night?”
His questioning might give her the chance to piece together the fuzzy parts of her night. Getting rid of him hadn’t been as simple as she thought, so she considered taking advantage of his memory. “So I did get that far,” she muttered to herself and stretched her hands over her head to the headboard. “Did we leave together…? We didn’t have sex, did we?”
“What do you remember?” he asked.
It would be a cruel irony having dreamt of his body so often in the time they’d been apart, that she would blackout during her chance to experience him again. “I asked you first,” she said.
“We didn’t have sex,” he said. “Why would Dempsey send someone after you?”
Answering his questions would increase the chances that he’d bail on her and she had wanted him to leave. The shower had helped to clear her mind and she had to put together last night’s timeline because if anyone had seen her and Tuck together, the damage may already have been done. Since he was still here anyway, she pushed for an explanation.
“We left the bar together,” she said. “But we didn’t have sex… I find that hard to believe.” After being separated, sex was inevitable between them, at least, it had been while they were together. Flirting, or god forbid, making out, wouldn’t have gone over well with her new employer. Any witnesses to that would have passed on the gossip to him by now, she just hoped Howie wasn’t paying the price for her inability to control herself—drugs or not.
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