She looks up at me, wary. Maybe she can read my thoughts. “Drink all of it. It'll help you feel better.” She drinks it down like I tell her, tilting back her pale throat.
She has an abrasion where those thugs stuck a needle in her. Motherfuckers. I feel the blood pounding through my veins as anger surges through me.
“Stay right there.” I head to the bathroom, wet the corner of a towel, swipe it across the bar of soap and grab a Band-Aid.
“Tilt back,” I order, by her side again. “I need to see your neck where they jabbed you.” Slowly, she tilts her head back, giving me access to her throat. It stirs something primal in me. Gently, I wash her throat, taking my time with the towel. Then I carefully dry her and place a Band-Aid over her sore spot. Smoothing my fingers along her throat, she’s so delicate, her skin like spun silk. I'll see to it that no one ever hurts her again.
When I look into her eyes, I see she's growing sleepy. I lulled her with my care. It makes my chest swell with pride, the way she's already starting to trust me, even if she doesn't want to. Even if she shouldn't.
“You need to sleep, Olivia.” I like the way her name rolls off my tongue. I like the name, too. I guessed most people called her Liv. I’d call her Olivia. “We both need to sleep.”
Her eyes bolt wide open. “No, I'm fine.” She tenses right up. She's frightened of sharing the bed with me. Smart girl.
“I've been awake all night,” I explain to her, patient but firm. “You've been drugged and rest will help you recover.”
“I can sleep on the floor.” She’s stubborn. Soon she’ll learn that’s not going to fly with me.
“You think I’ll let you sleep on the cold, hard wooden planks?”
“I'll be fine.”
“No, you will not.” The cabin is cold. I’ll make a fire once we both wake up. For now, we’ll both be fine under the same wool blanket in the same bed. My body radiates heat. In fact, it might be worth taking off the blanket to see if she'll press up against me in her sleep.
She glances at the bed, looking at it longingly like a kid pressing her nose against the glass of the candy shop. She's exhausted. No wonder, the night she's had.
I take a quick piss, wash up and brush my teeth, all while keeping an eye on her. She’s standing like a statue by the side of the bed.
I decide to make up her mind for her. I grab a pair handcuffs out of a drawer. Her eyes get big again when she sees them.
“Yeah, they give me all kinds of ideas, too.” I circle them around my finger and she watches them move.
“I didn't mean…” She swallows and blushes. Making her skin pink up is becoming one of my favorite pastimes.
“Tonight I'll just use them to keep you safe.” I pull us both onto the bed, lying her down on her side. I untie her, slip her out of her little jacket so she’ll be more comfortable, then click one cuff over her wrist, the other through a belt loop on my hip. Lying side by side, she can stay comfortable, but can’t move a damn inch off the bed.
“This way I’ll feel it if you try to leave.” And I’ll have to sleep with my jeans on. Because I’ve thought more than once or twice about taking them off and freeing the beast.
“This is crazy,” she murmurs, but I can hear it in her voice. She’s already halfway asleep. I listen to her breathing slow down, soon becoming deep and rhythmic.
I let my gaze roam her generous curves. She’s so beautiful. Does she know it? She’s built for a man my size. She’s much smaller than me, but not too small, around 5’7” if I had to guess. She’s rounded and full, enough to her that I could sink my teeth into, grab hold and plow into her deep.
Fuck, there I am again, hard as a rock. This girl’s my kryptonite. I lie there, unable to get to sleep for over an hour. What is it about her?
She calls to something in me that I thought I’d lost. My inner caveman growls to take her and make her mine. But I also want to protect her and keep her safe. I burn with fury, thinking of the assholes who tried to hurt her. The father who didn’t look out for her, leaving her vulnerable to his bad decisions. The goons who almost stole her right out from under my nose.
She needs someone to watch over her. I’d played that role many years of my life. I’d practically raised my sister. She was why I’d come to Chicago after my final deployment. She’d moved there while I was overseas. She’s 26 now, but I still had to check in on her first thing after I got back. She’s still my responsibility.
Except she’s not any more. She’s doing fine, shacked up with a regular Joe. The kind who’ll make her a happy home.
The kind of man I’ll never be. SEAL training went deep, sitting watch, knowing how to blend into the shadows, then strike with sudden and lethal force. I’d been out four months, but as a fellow ex-SEAL had told me, you’re never really out. The killer instinct ran through my blood for good.
But I’d try to hold off. Even as Olivia’s curves called out to me, everything in my blood urging me to mate, I force myself to wait. I can do it. I’ll let her melt into me. Then I’ll take her with all the pent-up force deep in my soul.
5. Olivia
I’m having an amazing dream. I’m pressed up against a hard, hot man. He smells so good, like wood and soap and something else so male I want to bury myself in him and lick every inch. He’s spooning me, his heavy arm along my side, a large hand spread against my hip.
I lean back, pressing against him, my rear right up against a rock-hard bulge. It feels so good, so solid and right. I arch back, wanting more. I’ve never felt this way before. I ache for him in ways I don’t understand, but I move against him in an instinctive rhythm. Yes, that feels good, so good.
His hand travels to my stomach, running along my skin and I almost awaken. Almost. I can feel consciousness threatening at the surface, trying to end this luxurious fantasy, but I won’t let it. It feels better than anything ever has in my life. His hand, calloused and rough, possessive and strong, travels up under my shirt and up to cup my breast.
I feel a rumble in his chest and I sigh with pleasure, giving myself to him, wanting this so much, wanting his fingers roaming my breast, taking and massaging. I cling to him, my legs wrapped around his, my ass backed up into his groin. I want more, I don’t even know what, but more.
That heat building between my legs is burning me up. It feels like he’s teasing, tormenting me, only touching me over my bra, through the cloth. I want more, skin on skin. I whine with need, grinding on him, pushing his hardness right where I want it. It hits me just right, still over my panties but where I can feel my wet heat, right where I’m so sensitive.
It’s when his fingers find my nipple that I wake up. Knox pushes my bra down and takes my tender tip between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it. I’m too shocked to say anything, my eyes flying open, my mouth open, too. And then he pinches, trapping my nipple between his fingers in a hard clamp.
I cry out, pain mixing with pleasure, shame blending with desire as I realize what I’ve been doing in my sleep. I’ve been rubbing up against my captor, wantonly asking for his cock against my ass, angling to get his hard-on against my clit.
My body goes rigid. I pull away. As much as I can. I remember we’re bound together. I’m cuffed to him. “I didn’t mean...” I stammer. “I wasn’t awake.”
“Hmmm.” He gives a doubtful grumble, but removes his hand, giving me the dista
nce I seek. I can’t get away any further with my wrist cuffed to his belt loop. I lie on my back, my free hand covering my eyes, a deep blush creeping up over my face.
Sneaking a peek at him, I see he’s propping himself up on his elbow, resting his head on his palm. His bicep bulges. His chest is enormous. His lips are full and look soft, in stark contrast to the rough stubble along his jaw. Knox may be the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.
“You were asleep?” he drawls, clearly not buying it. He reaches out a hand again to my hip. I tense in a panic. My body responded to him, there’s no denying it. But I do not want this. He has to know. I’m not the woman he thinks I am, the woman he’s just been fooling around with in bed.
“I’m a virgin,” I blurt out.
“What?” He draws away his hand as if it’s been burned.
“I’m a virgin,” I repeat and I keep on going, the words coming out of me in a torrent. “I only turned 20 last week and I’ve never had sex and you won’t get anything from me. Nothing you’ll like, anyway, because I have no idea what I’m doing. And nothing I want to do because I want nothing to do with you. At all.”
With a deep groan, he turns and flips on his back, his hand up to his forehead. “You’re virgin.”
“That’s right.” Well, that seemed to do the trick. Now he’s turned off. He must think I’m frigid. That’s good, right? Why does part of me feel disappointed?
He gets a key out of his jeans pocket and unlocks the cuffs. I bring my hand to my wrist and rub it. The metal chafed while I slept, leaving a red mark against my sensitive skin. He sees it and swears, then rolls off the bed.
He doesn't tell me not to run when he goes to the bathroom. He must be so confident he could chase me down and get me back if I did. I'm starting to realize he's right. If what he was saying earlier this morning is true, I won't be safe even if I do manage to make it back home. The Chicago mafia? It sounds like something out of a gory movie, the kind I don't like to watch. I like it light and fluffy, romantic comedies on the Hallmark Channel, or specials on the world's cutest cats on Animal Planet. I'm way out of my depth.