And now that she wasn’t scared anymore…
Lucas grabbed the soap and worked up a good lather before pressing her more firmly against him and gliding his wet, slick, soapy hands over her skin. All over her skin.
She moaned when he slid one hand between her legs and cupped her breast with the other. “Lucas,” she murmured, throwing her head back against his shoulder again.
“Mmm. Nothing in this world sounds sexier than you moaning my name.”
In less time than it took to relax her initially, she came hard, hips bucking, body jolting, until her legs gave out and he had to wrap an arm around her ribs to hold her up.
When she was steady on her feet again, he turned her around to face him, making sure his back was blocking the majority of the spray. She tipped her head back and looked up him, eyes glazed with lust. It was an exceptionally good look on her.
“And that,” he told her, “is a shower.”
“Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve really been missing out.”
“This is what I’m saying.”
“I still don’t think I could’ve done that on my own, though,” she warned. “I’ll probably need your help. You know, tomorrow. And probably…every day after that.”
He grinned down at her when he realized she was teasing. She was starting to develop a decidedly quirky, wicked sense of humor as she settled into civilian life, and he fucking loved it.
“Well,” he said, injecting as much seriousness into his voice as possible, “a lot of water gets wasted in America, which is bad for the environment. So, I think we owe it to ourselves, and to nature, of course, to share a shower every morning. And maybe every night, too.”
She bit her lower lip before returning his grin as she grabbed the soap from the rack behind him and lathered up her hands. “I do like to live as green as possible.”
Her soapy hands slid over his chest and down over his abs before grabbing his dick, which all but wept with joy at finally having her full attention.
“God bless green living,” he said on a groan.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two hours later, Lucas and Seven were sitting in Violet’s waiting room, ready for Seven’s standing weekly appointment.
They were also exceedingly clean.
Seven could definitely get used to taking showers with Lucas every morning. Particularly if they included a “happy ending,” as he had called it.
And in her case, it had been a very happy ending.
What she wasn’t really looking forward to was her upcoming conversation with Violet. She didn’t expect Vi to be supportive of her relationship with Lucas. After all, Lucas had told her that part of the reason he’d put up so many emotional walls between them was because Violet had advised him about getting too involved with her.
She’d just have to convince her therapist that being with Lucas wasn’t going to break her. If anything, it was fixing her. And if that didn’t work…well, maybe she’d have to find another therapist.
Now that she had Lucas, there was no one that was going to take him from her. Just the thought of anyone trying made her want to hit something. The metal arms of her chair groaned under the weight of the death grip she had on them.
Lucas reached over, grabbed her hand, and brushed his lips over her knuckles. It was an easy, thoughtless gesture, as if they’d been together for decades instead of hours.
And just like that, her tension evaporated. Which was exactly the reaction he’d expected, she realized. He knew she was anxious, and he knew what would help her.
He was a miracle. And he was all hers.
“I love you,” she said.
He winked at her. “I know.”
She was about to reply when Violet’s receptionist, Lexa, barreled into the room, phone to her ear.
Lexa was one of the most put-together people Seven had ever seen. She ran Violet’s office with an iron fist. Seven had once seen Lexa—who was a tiny human, barely five-two, weighing no more than a hundred pounds—stand toe-to-toe with an irate vampire who’d shown up an hour late for his appointment and tell him he not only had to leave, but also pay a fine for the missed session. And when she narrowed her misty gray eyes on him, he backed down, apologized, and paid the fine. Seven had been impressed.
On a normal day, no matter how many calls she was fielding or how many clients were sitting in the waiting room, Lexa remained poised and professional, always looking perfect in her stylish pencil skirts, tailored button-down blouses, and humidity-impervious auburn curls.
But today obviously wasn’t a normal day.
Lexa’s hair was half up and half down, her clothes looked slept in, and she was wearing a haggard expression the likes of which Seven had never seen.
The whole wrongness of it raised a red flag in Seven’s mind. A queasy feeling—the kind she only got when shit was about to hit the fan—hit her gut.
Lexa let out a frustrated growl and tossed her phone down on the reception desk.
Lucas leaned forward in his seat. “What’s going on, Lex?”
She looked like she was barely holding back tears when her eyes lifted to his. “Lucas, I don’t know what to do. Violet isn’t here and she’s not answering her phone. I haven’t heard from her since yesterday afternoon when she left the office. She’s missed three appointments.”
To anyone on the outside listening in, they might not have been too concerned. After all, everyone missed appointments from time to time, right? Nope. Not Violet Marchand.
Seven’s queasy feeling intensified.
Beside her, Lucas tensed. “Violet doesn’t miss appointments,” he murmured.
Lexa threw her hands up. “That’s what I told the cops! In the eight years I’ve worked for her, Violet has never taken a sick day or missed an appointment. Hell, she’s never so much as been late for an appointment. But the cops say a missing person’s report can’t even be filled out until she’s been gone for twenty-four hours.” She shook her head. “And she’s not answering her home phone or her cell phone. I even tried calling her mom and her sister, and she’s not with them. I’m telling you, Lucas, something is wrong. Like, really wrong.”
“Do you have any idea where she was going when she left yesterday afternoon?” Seven asked.
Lexa immediately said, “She was going to the mall to pick out a new dress for her date.”
Seven wrapped an arm around her middle and leaned forward to control the wave of nausea that now tore through her.
Lucas put his hand on her back. “Are you OK, beautiful? You look a little green.”
“It’s him. Her date,” she said quietly. “He has her.”
Lexa’s gaze shot to hers. “How do you know that?”
Because of the acid that’s currently eating a hole in my gut? “Gut feeling,” she mumbled.
“I don’t know,” Lexa said. “She’s been out with him a few times. If he was going to do anything to her, wouldn’t he have done it before now?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what he was after. Maybe he was studying her.” After all, that’s what you did when you were targeting someone. You studied their every move, learned their every thought and desire. Seven should know. She’d had many, many targets back in her Sentry days.
And she’d be willing to bet that Violet had been targeted.
Her gut had never been wrong before. Why distrust it now?
Lucas rubbed her back soothingly and frowned at Lexa. “Who is this guy?”
Lexa sighed. “She was really tight-lipped about him. I don’t know much.”
“Anything you can remember might be helpful,” Lucas told her.
“Well, he called here for her once and I answered, talked to him for a minute or two. He had an accent. It wasn’t thick, but it definitely came out on certain words. Sounded like…Russian, maybe.”
Lucas’s hand still on Seven’s back. “What else?”
Lexa rubbed her temples. “He came here to pick her up once, too. I only caught a glimpse of
him as he was leaving, but I’d say he was about six-two, maybe one-eighty, dark hair. Kind of muscle-y.”
Why did that physical description sound so familiar? Seven thought. Looking up to catch Lucas’s eye, she saw the same question in his eyes.
“Oh,” Lexa blurted, “he had a weird tattoo on his forearm. It looked like some kind of…bar code.”
Seven’s blood ran cold.
“Motherfucker,” Lucas ground out. “I’m gonna find this guy and I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”
Lexa’s eyes widened in alarm, but Seven ignored her. Grabbing Lucas’s arm, she said, “You didn’t tell me that the guy who shot at me had a bar code tattoo on his forearm.”
His brow furrowed. “Why? Does that mean something to you?”
Her throat suddenly felt as dry as Sahara sand. “Yeah. I know who he is.”
A muscle in Lucas’s jaw jumped. “Who is he?”
Seven swallowed hard. “He’s just like me.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Violet Marchand was an excellent ex-girlfriend.
She was, in her own humble opinion, the best, most understanding ex-girlfriend ever. When her high school boyfriend, the one she gave her V-card to, came out of the closet and dumped her for the captain of the football team? She didn’t get angry and carve her name into the seats of his tricked-out F-150 pickup à la Carrie Underwood. No way. That would be uncivilized and would serve no one. Instead, she stepped aside gracefully and let them have their happiness.
When the happy couple had their commitment ceremony ten years later, they had her full blessing. She even did a lovely poetry reading at their reception.
When her college boyfriend cheated on her with her roommate, she didn’t cause any drama for them. She quietly moved out and never looked back.
Her sister was marrying Violet’s grad school boyfriend in a few months, too. No hard feelings. She’d already agreed to be matron of honor. And in all honesty, he’d always been kind of a pompous douchebag, anyway. Bullet dodged, she supposed, even if he was still going to be her brother-in-law.
Did she hold onto a grudge when she discovered Lucas had a thing for Harper? Heck no. Onward and upward, that was her motto. Lucas wasn’t the right man for her. Her Prince Charming would arrive eventually.
But something told her that her excellent ex-girlfriend status was about to be seriously tested by her latest mistake.
If he let her live, that is.
Vi really should’ve realized something was wrong with Nik—Nikolai Aleyev—long ago. He was just too…perfect. Gentlemanly, attentive, not too forward, stunningly gorgeous, interested in her work, insanely gorgeous, funny in a desert-dry kind of way (did she mention he was sex-on-a-stick crazy-gorgeous?)…that kind of guy had never shown any interest in her before.
But she’d had hope. Hope that maybe this man was the reason none of her other relationships had worked out. Hope that this man was The One.
And, God, hope was addictive. Allow just a little of it to creep into your heart and before long, you’ll find yourself tranquilized and zip-tied to a chair in an abandoned machine shop.
Or at least, that was Vi’s current experience.
“Fucking hope,” she muttered.
Vi closed her eyes and took a few steadying breaths as she struggled to remember exactly what had happened the night before.
She’d met Nik at her favorite Mexican restaurant, El Padre’s, because they had the best salsa anywhere within a forty-mile radius of Whispering Hope and served burritos as big as her head. And what could be better than a warm, spicy burrito with…
Focus, she chastised herself.
Nik had arrived before her, and had a margarita waiting for her. Margaritas were her favorite. At the time, she’d thought, oh, how sweet. He remembers me ordering a margarita on our first date and me telling him how much I enjoyed them. He’d even remembered that she preferred the bartender to line the rim with sugar instead of salt. But now she realized that what she’d taken as sweet was really quite strategic.
It was the perfect opportunity to slip drugs into her drink without her knowledge.
Rule number one of frat parties: never let your drink out of your sight.
It’d been her damn motto in college. She let out a harsh laugh. Just look at me now.
At some point during their meal (after the burrito, before cinnamon churros), Vi remembered getting tired. Not the regular kind of I-stayed-up-a-little-too-late-reading-the-night-before tired she was used to experiencing, but a kind of bone-deep fatigue that made her eyelids so heavy she doubted her ability to drive herself home. It was at that point that Nik checked his watch and said he needed to leave. He said he’d walk her to her car.
She remembered thinking that she liked that. He didn’t ask if she wanted him to walk her to her car like her last boyfriend had. Like it’d be an imposition, but he’d do it if he had to. No, not Nik. Nik pretty much insisted he walk her to her car. So manly and protective.
She now knew that too had been strategic.
On their way to the car, he’d put his hand on the small of her back, which sent heat waves up and down her spine. She hadn’t wanted him to put her in her car and leave. She wanted him to run those big, warm, work-roughened hands all over her body. At that point she’d known that if he asked, she was going home with him. They hadn’t even kissed yet, but she was more than willing to put out on their fourth date.
“Stupid,” she hissed, squirming in the chair, trying to break the zip ties at her wrists and ankles. “So fucking stupid.”
The ties didn’t budge, except to cut into the delicate skin of her wrists. Awesome, she thought as she felt a trickle of blood ease from her torn wrist up into the sleeve of her slinky black dress.
Yet another indignity. She’d actually purchased a new outfit for this date. A beautiful, silk outfit fit for a, well, kidnapping, as it turned out. And the best part? It had cost her as much as a month’s rent. So, if by some miracle she actually lived through this day, she’d most likely spend the next month eating ramen noodles so she could afford the rent on her apartment and office building.
But if that’s where the indignities ended, she could survive it. What really irked her, made her wish she could disappear in a puff of misery, was the kiss.
They’d been on their way to her car when her heel slipped out from under her. Nik had caught her before she could fall and scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest.
“It’s OK, kotehok,” he whispered in a soothing voice. “I’ve got you.”
She had no idea what kotehok meant, but the way his deep, slightly accented voice caressed the word was hot as hell. Honestly, he could probably call her whatever he wanted in that voice and she’d be OK with it.
Even as a wave of dizziness washed over her, she remembered wrapping her arms around his neck, and being acutely aware of just how much of her body was touching his. He was so warm—hot even—despite the chill in the air, and his skin smelled so good. Like laundry detergent and some kind of masculine soap, not expensive cologne or aftershave. He was real and so strong and solid, and in that moment, she wanted nothing more than his mouth on hers.
So, in her hazy mind, lifting her head and pressing her lips to his seemed like a perfectly reasonable move.
He stumbled to a stop and went perfectly still for a moment, stunned, muscles tightly coiled. But just when she was starting to feel embarrassed for being so forward, he recovered and kissed her back. And…wow. What a kiss it was.
Kissing Nik was nothing like kissing any of her exes. He tasted warm and sweet, like the wine he’d had with dinner, which had reminded her that she probably tasted like a giant burrito. Probably not at all sexy, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d growled low in his throat as their tongues tangled, and his hands tightened on her reflexively.
Vi remembered moaning and shifting in his arms, pressing herself against him tighter, feeling like she wanted to crawl inside him. Like she’d never get cl
ose enough. He’d responded by deepening the kiss.
It hadn’t been a movie-perfect kiss—it was too hot and fast and wild for that—but it was so much better than any kiss she’d ever had, so intimate. For the first time in, well, way too long, Vi actually felt connected to someone. It had felt like a lost part of herself had just clicked back into place, making her whole once again.
“Get a room!” someone shouted, completely ruining the moment.
Nik pulled back and rested his forehead on hers, muttering something under his breath in Russian.
That’s when her head was suddenly too heavy to hold up anymore. A moment later, Nik tucked her into the passenger seat of her car and buckled her belt.
When he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, he said, “Just rest, kotehok. I’m not going to hurt you. Everything will be just fine.”
That’s when she’d finally figured it out. Nik had drugged her and was taking her somewhere.
He was taking her here, as it turned out. She glanced around ruefully. Wherever the fuck here was.
OK, Marchand, time to get serious. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure out how you’re going to get out of this.
Now that her mind was clear and all the details of the previous day had fallen back into place, she made note of her surroundings.
The warehouse was huge, probably the size of a football field. Grime—either from decades of use or years of abandonment, she couldn’t be sure which—coated every flat surface. Dust motes in the air tickled her sinuses, reminding her that she’d forgotten to take a Claritin before her date. Her seasonal allergies were a bitch this time of year.
Sunlight flooded in through the huge, half-busted out windows that were situated all around the room, high up by the ceiling, which was nearly as tall as the space was long. Getting to those windows wouldn’t be easy, even if she wasn’t tied to a chair.
Rusted-out machinery she couldn’t even begin to identify cluttered the space. Maybe, if she could get to some of it, she could break off a piece to use as a weapon.
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