by B. J Daniels
A tear slipped out, and then another, and she felt so stupid for crying in front of him, but everything ached in a way she hadn’t let it for a very long time.
He brushed one tear off with his thumb then he leaned forward, his mouth so close she inhaled sharply, drowning a little in his dark eyes, wanting to get lost in the warm strength of his body.
“Don’t cry,” he said on a whisper before he brushed his mouth against another tear, wiping it from her jaw with his mouth.
He pulled his face away from hers, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t—”
But she didn’t want his shouldn’ts and she didn’t want him to pull away, so she tugged him closer and covered his mouth with hers.
* * *
He’d dreamed of this. Gabby’s mouth under his again. Not because he was trying to be someone else. Not because he was trying to convince anyone he was taking what he wanted.
No, he’d dreamed of her mouth touching his because they’d both wanted it, not from anything born of this place. On the outside. Free. Themselves. He’d imagined it, unable to help himself.
Even having dreamed of it, even in the midst of allowing it to happen in the here and now, he knew it was wrong. Not just against everything he’d ever been taught in his law-enforcement training, but against things he believed.
She was a victim. No matter how strong she was. No matter how much he felt for her. She was still a victim of this place. Kissing her, drowning in it, was like taking advantage of her. It was wrong. It flew in the face of who he was as an FBI agent, as a law-enforcement agent.
But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Because while it went against all those things he was, it didn’t go against who he was. Deep down, this was all he wanted.
Her tongue traced his mouth and she sighed against him. Melting, leaning. Crawling under all the defenses he wound around himself. False identities. Badges and pledges. Weapons and uniforms and lies.
He should pull away. He should stop this madness.
He curled his fingers into her soft hair. He angled her head so that he could taste her better. He ignored every last voice in his head telling him to stop. Because she was touching him. Tracing the line of his shoulders. Pressing her hand to his heart. She scooted closer, brushing her chest against his.
She whispered his name against his mouth. His real name. And he wanted to be able to be that. He wanted to be able to be the man who could give her everything she wanted and everything she deserved.
But he wasn’t that man. Not here. Not now. He couldn’t even let her have fantasies of ending The Stallion’s life.
He mustered all of his strength and all of his righteous rightness. Somehow...somehow he did the thing he least wanted to do and pulled away from her.
Her breath was coming in heavy pants, as was his. Her dark eyes were unfathomably warm, her lips wet from his mouth. He wanted to sink himself there again and again until they thought of nothing but each other.
“Jaime,” she said on a whisper.
“We can’t do this. I can’t...” He tried to pull away but her arms were strong around him.
“Do you know how long it’s been since someone’s kissed me? Since I wanted someone to kiss me?”
“Gabby,” he returned, pained. Desperate—for her and a way this could be right.
“I know it isn’t the time or the place. I know it isn’t prudent or whatever, but I have lived here for eight years without anything I wanted. I survived here without anyone touching me kindly, comfortingly or wanting to. Without anyone seeing me as anything other than a thing. If I’m going to believe in an end, I have to believe I can go back to being something real, not just this...ghost of a person.”
“Getting involved with the victim is not an acceptable—”
She pulled away from him quickly and with absolutely no hesitation. She turned her head away, shaking it. He’d stepped in it, badly.
“I know you don’t want to see yourself as a victim,” he began, trying to resist the impulse to reach for her. “But in my line of work—”
“I understand.”
But she didn’t understand. She was angry and she didn’t understand at all. “I do know how you feel,” he offered softly.
She rolled her eyes.
“It hasn’t been eight years, but two years is a long time to go without anyone seeing you for who you are. There aren’t a lot of hugs and nice words for the bad guy, Gabby. Even the other bad guys don’t like me because I’ve been slowly taking them down so that I could be the one next to The Stallion. It isn’t all fun and games over here.”
“Are you asking me to feel sorry for you?” she asked incredulously.
“Of course not.” He raked a hand through his hair, trying to figure out what he was trying to ask of her. “I’m saying that I understand. I’m saying that I would love to give you what you want. I would...”
“I’m just a victim. And you can’t get involved with the victim. I get it.”
“You don’t, because if you thought it was that simple... I have never in my entire career even considered kissing someone who was involved with a case I was part of. I have never once been unable to stop thinking about a woman who had anything to do with work. I have never been remotely—remotely—tempted to go against everything I believe. Until you.”
That seemed to dilute at least some of her anger. She still didn’t look at him, which was maybe for the best. He wasn’t sure if she looked at him that he’d be able to stay noble.
Because her soft lips tempted him. And the defiant look in her eyes... Everything about her was very near impossible to resist.
He hadn’t been lying that he’d never wanted someone the way he wanted her. Even if he took the police part out of it. No woman, no matter how short or long a period of time they had been in his life, had made him feel the way Gabby made him feel.
He wondered if that wasn’t why she was upset. Not that he’d stopped the kiss, but that she thought he didn’t see her the way he did.
She’d asked what he knew about her, and he’d been completely honest and open about all the things he knew she was. Maybe he shouldn’t have been, but she was everything he’d said, and he knew being attracted to her, caring about her, wasn’t as simple as whatever label a therapist would likely put on it.
It was Gabby, not the situation, that called to him. But the situation was what made everything far too complicated.
“I can’t give you a weapon,” he offered into her stubborn silence.
“All right,” she said, and she didn’t sound angry. She sounded tired. Very close to giving up. But then she straightened her shoulders and inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then she met his gaze, fierce and strong.
“I have to have a story for the girls... I have to... They want out, Jaime.” Something in her face changed, a kind of empathetic pain. “I used to be able to tell them it wasn’t any use to think about getting out, but we can’t keep doing this. Alyssa is right. Staying here isn’t worth being alive for.”
“So what kept you alive for so long?” he asked because he couldn’t imagine. He couldn’t fathom.
“My family, I guess. Daddy died because of his guilt over me. The least I could do was still be alive. The least I could do was get back somehow.” She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “I thought I’d given up that hope, but I don’t know. Maybe I just convinced myself I had.”
He covered her clenched fists with his own. “I’m going to get you back to your family.” God, he’d do it. Come hell or high water. If he had to die first, he would do it.
“Not so long ago you said you couldn’t promise me that.”
“Not so long ago I was doing everything by the book.” He believed in the book, but he also...he also believed in this woman. “You’re right. Things can’t stand. It’s been too long. We can’t keep waiting around. We have to make
something happen.”
She finally looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“As soon as we get word that your sister has escaped Layne and Wallace, we’ll...” It was against everything he’d been taught, everything he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t keep telling Gabby to wait when he could be getting her out.
“Once we know your sister is safe, we’ll figure out an escape plan. You can’t tell the others who I am but... Maybe you can tell them I’m sympathetic, if you trust them to keep that to themselves. Tell them that if you work on me for a few days, you might actually be able to get a weapon from me. If anything slips up to The Stallion or anyone else, I’ll tell him it’s part of my plan. If you get the girls to stand down a few days. I don’t want to risk getting out and something happening to your sister.”
“Why?” she asked, still studying him, her forehead creased.
“Because you love her.”
Something in her face changed and he couldn’t read it. But she moved. Closer to him. No matter that he should absolutely avoid it, he let her kiss him again.
Slow and leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world. As if it was just the two of them. Gabby and Jaime. As if that were possible.
And because the thought was so tempting, so comforting in this world of dark, horrible things, he let it linger far too long.
Chapter 10
Gabby had kissed four men in her life. Ricky, of course. Corey Gentry on a dare in eighth grade. A guy at a frat party—she didn’t know his name—and now Jaime.
In the past eight years she would’ve considered this part of her dead. The part that could care about kissing and touching. The part of her brain that could go from that to sex.
It was a miracle and a joy to still have the same kind of desire she’d had before. It was a miracle and a joy to be kissing Jaime, his lips so soft, his touch nearly reverent. As though she were something of a miracle to him.
Ricky had never kissed her like this and she’d been convinced she loved him. But he’d been a boy and she’d been a girl. They’d been selfish and Jaime... Jaime was anything but selfish. A good man. A strong and honorable man.
That somehow made the kiss more exciting, knowing he thought it was wrong but couldn’t quite help himself. Knowing he felt the same simmering feelings and that he didn’t think it was because of their situation. It was because of who they were.
Gabby. Jaime.
She thought she hadn’t known who she was anymore, but she was learning. Jaime was showing her pieces of herself she’d forgotten. He was bending his strict moral code for her and that, above all else, spoke to a feeling most people wouldn’t believe could happen in three days. She herself wasn’t sure she’d believed something like this could grow in three days.
But here she was feeling things for a man that she’d never felt before. She wanted to be able to make sacrifices for him, and she wanted him safe, and she wanted him hers.
He pulled away slightly and it was another wondrous thing that every time he pulled away she could feel how hard it was for him to do so.
“I have a meeting with The Stallion,” he said, his voice very nearly hoarse. “I can’t be late again or things could get ugly.” He tried to smile, probably to make it sound less intimidating, but it didn’t work.
She clutched him harder. “Come back,” she blurted. She said it spontaneously, but she still meant it. She wanted him to come back. She wanted more than a kiss.
“So we can...” He cleared his throat. “Plan, right?”
She smiled at him because it was cute he would even think that. “We can plan, too.” She watched him swallow as though he were nervous. She didn’t mind that the least little bit.
“Gabby.”
“Come back tonight. Spend the night with me.”
It was a wonderful thing to know he wanted to. That though he was resisting, something deep inside him wanted to or he wouldn’t question it at all. It was so against his inner sense of right and wrong, but he wouldn’t fight with that if he didn’t truly want her.
“It wouldn’t be right. To... It would be taking advantage,” he said, as though trying to convince himself.
“You’re worried about me taking advantage of you?” she asked as innocently as she could manage.
He laughed, low and rumbly. It struck her that this was the first time she’d heard it, possibly one of the very few times she’d heard nice laughter in years.
“Gabby, you’ve been through hell for eight years.”
As if she needed the reminder. “I guess that’s all the more reason to know exactly what I want,” she said resolutely. She knew what she wanted and if she could have it... If she could have him... She’d do it now. She wouldn’t waste time. “I want you, Jaime.”
He inhaled sharply, but he didn’t say anything. “I have to go,” he said, getting to his feet.
She gave him a nod, but she thought he’d be back. She really thought he’d return to her. Because he felt it, too. He had to feel it, too. No matter how warped she sometimes felt, this was the most real she’d felt in eight years. The most honest and the most true. The most certain she could survive getting out of this hell. That she wanted to.
That settled inside her like some weird evangelical itch. She wanted to be able to give that same feeling to the other girls. They deserved something, too. Something to believe in. They hadn’t spent as much time as her, no, but they had spent enough. They had all spent enough.
Jaime was willing to break the rules and get them there, as soon as Natalie was safe. Not because that helped him any, but because she loved her sister and he knew that meant something to her.
Gabby left her room. She didn’t know where exactly Jaime had gone, but she wasn’t after him quite now. First, she wanted to find Alyssa. She wanted everyone to know that she was on board, maybe not in the way they thought, but regardless. They were going to find a way out of this.
She walked into the common room, which was basically their workroom opposite the kitchen and dining area.
Tabitha and Jasmine were sitting on the dilapidated couch working on a project The Stallion had assigned them a few days ago. Gabby realized she’d forgotten all about the project and what her role in it was supposed to have been. But ever since Jaime had arrived, it hadn’t even occurred to her. Then again, she supposed to The Stallion her job now was to be payment to Jaime. Though she was surprised the girls hadn’t asked her for help.
Jasmine looked at her first, eyes wide. She looked from Alyssa, who was riffling through drawers frantically in the kitchen, back to Gabby.
“Did you...?” she whispered then trailed off.
Gabby nodded. “I didn’t get a gun or anything, but I think I can. If you give me some time.” There was hope. She needed to give them hope.
Alyssa slammed a cabinet door closed and stormed over to them. “What does that mean?” she demanded.
“It means I couldn’t quite sneak a weapon off of him, but he seemed a little...sympathetic almost. Like if I keep feeding him our sob story he might...”
“What you really need to do is willingly sleep with him, not fight him off,” Alyssa said flatly, giving her a once-over. “When he thinks you’re not fighting him, it’ll give you time to grab his gun and shoot him.”
Gabby couldn’t hide a shudder. Maybe if they’d been talking about any of the other men, she wouldn’t have felt an icy horror over Alyssa’s words. But this was Jaime. Still, she couldn’t let even the other girls think he’d gotten to her.
She forced herself to look at Alyssa evenly. “And then what?”
“What do you mean and then what?” Alyssa demanded.
“There are at least three other men here almost at all times. What do you suggest I do after I shoot him? I’m pretty sure gunshots can be heard somewhere else in this little compound, then one of them is going
to come running to shoot me. They’ve got a little more experience with guns and killing people than I do.”
Alyssa pressed her lips together, neither mollified nor understanding.
“You just have to give me some time,” Gabby said, trying for calm and in charge. “If not to convince him to give me a weapon, then at least time to find a way to sneak one off him without him noticing right away. We do this without a plan, without thinking everything through, then we’re all dead. You can’t just...”
Alyssa’s face was even more mutinous, turning red almost. Gabby tried for conciliatory, though it grated at her a bit. “I know we all want out.” She looked at Tabitha and Jasmine, who were watching everything play out from where they sewed on the couch. “And I know once you start thinking about all of the things you could do once you got out of here that it builds inside you and everything feels... Too much. You start to panic. But if we are going to survive getting out of here, we have to be smart. Okay?”
“Does it matter if we survive?” Alyssa asked, all but snarling at Gabby.
Jasmine gasped and Tabitha straightened.
“Of course it matters,” Tabitha shouted from the couch. She took in a deep, tremulous breath, calming herself as Jasmine patted her arm. “I’d rather be alive and here for the next ten years than die and never get a chance to see my family again.” Her voice wavered but she kept going. “We have to have patience, and we have to do this smart. This is the first time any of us has access to a weapon, and we can’t waste the chance. It won’t happen again. At least, not for a very long time.”
Alyssa scoffed, but she didn’t pose any more arguments. “I’m going crazy in this place,” she muttered, hugging herself.
“Why don’t you help us work?” Jasmine offered. “I know it isn’t any fun, but it’ll at least keep your mind busy.”
“You two can be his slave. I have no interest.”
Tabitha and Jasmine exchanged an eye-roll and Alyssa stomped back to the kitchen. She riffled through the drawers again, inspecting butter knives and forks.
