Stolen Lust

by Charmaine Pauls

  Ian turns back to face me. His lips quirk as if my words are funny. “No.”

  The steel sink under my palms suddenly feels colder. “Have you hurt someone?”

  He holds my gaze squarely. “No.”

  “What have you done?”

  Transferring the gun from one hand to the other, he pulls his arms free from the sleeves of his T-shirt and carelessly flicks the garment aside. It lands on a chair. His pecs bunch as he flexes his arms. He’s still clutching the gun, and my gaze is drawn to it as he says in the same careless way he discarded his T-shirt, “Bad things.”

  There’s a glint in his eyes. No remorse. A silent challenge.

  He’s right. I don’t want to know. The less I know, the better are my chances of getting out of here alive.

  My heartbeat doesn’t equalize. It still pumps eratically, doing its best to supply oxygen to my adrenaline-drenched body. Yet a part of me, a very small part, is reassured. That’s why he took me with the getaway car. That’s why he chose me and not Mint. He didn’t bring me here to do wicked, bad things. I was simply the safer option. In Ian’s wounded condition, Mint might have been able to fight him off. Although he still looks pretty much in fighting shape.

  “Under the sink,” he says.

  My gaze locks onto his. I follow it down the path he rakes over my body to my calves. For a moment, I’m disoriented, but then I understand what he wants.

  Stepping aside, I pull open the cupboard door. It smells musty inside. Yellow watermarks stain the shelf. A first aid kit is pushed to the back. I take it out and hand it to him with a shaking hand.

  “Thank you.” He gives me a soft smile before putting the box on the table and rummaging through it with one hand, all the while holding the gun in the other.

  After placing a few items on the table, he walks to the sink with that gun in his hand and clasps my hips between his palms. My heart skips a beat. The misfunctioning is minute, but that little is enough to make me suffer from a lack of breath. His palms are warm, burning through the fabric of my jeans. The hard metal of the pistol presses against my hipbone. A sharp point digs into my skin. It hurts a little, but much more disconcerting is the attentiveness in his wise, brown eyes as he assesses my face.

  My lungs protest at the irregular beat of my heart, and my breath catches on a hitch. His gaze slips from my lips to the vein I can feel pulsing in my neck. Lower still, he’s watching my chest rising and falling under the feeble protection of my jacket.

  When he looks back at me, something sparks in his eyes. Amusement? No, victory. I’m grappling for words, but anything I’ll say right now will be a lie. This isn’t the kind of man who can be fooled. He’s too experienced, too worldly, too jaded. He’ll smell a lie like a lion smells blood.

  My heart stutters as he drags the gun over my skin, caressing my hipbone with the barrel, but he gently sets me aside and takes two plastic dishes from the drip rack.

  I suck in air as if I’ve just surfaced from the bottom of the ocean, doing so quietly, but it’s too late. He’s seen my reaction already, how his hands both terrified and excited me. Tingles still run over my skin where he’s touched me.

  He fills the dishes with water from a flask and adds a generous amount of liquid soap. He gives each a stir with his finger and carries them to the table.

  “Come,” he says.

  My legs carry me closer despite the fact that my brain screams at me to find a weapon, stab him in his wounded shoulder, grab the keys, and get the hell out of here.

  “Can you handle blood?” he asks. “You’re not the type who faints, are you?”

  The words could be condescending, but there’s no mocking in his tone. There’s only concern.

  “I’m fine,” I manage through dry lips.

  His smile is appraising, weirdly warming my stomach when he says, “My kind of girl.”

  He turns a chair around and straddles it. Crossing his arms on the chairback, he says, “Wash it out with the water first. I’ll walk you through it.”

  I stare at his broad back. Every muscle, the way he’s built underneath that tanned skin, is visible when he moves. A mere twitch reveals how perfectly his male form is cut.

  There are no scars, no evidence of other bad things he’s done. There’s only that hole in his shoulder. The blood runs in a thin trickle down his flank and into the denim of his jeans. Here, in the light, I can see the dark patch that makes the blue seem black. How much blood has he lost? It must be hurting like hell. How can he sit there and act like it’s nothing but a bee sting?

  He glances over his shoulder, looking like he’s taking stock of me, probably wondering if he’d need to threaten me with the gun to get me to cooperate. “Ready when you are.”

  On closer inspection, I notice the thin layer of perspiration on his forehead. That’s why his hair looks wet. It’s not soaking wet but drizzling wet. He’s sweating. He’s feeling that gunshot, and it’s taking its toll. Yet he doesn’t as much as flinch when I soak a gauze pad in the soapy water and press it on the wound.

  “Wash it until it runs clean,” he says.

  I do my best, squeezing the water over the hole in his back until the bleeding is a pink dilution of blood mixed with water.

  He hands me a pair of tweezers. “You’re going to have to pull out the bullet. It’s going to bleed a shitload when it comes out.” He shifts stacks of gauzes in packets labelled sterilized to the side. “Use this to press on the wound.”

  Shit. Okay. I can do this. I mean, I could refuse and hope he’ll bleed out, but it looks like it’ll take a long time before he keels over, and he may just decide to shoot me before then.

  He tears one of the packages with the gauzes open with his teeth and gives me a tilted, sideways smile. “You okay?”

  My answer is faint. The sound scrapes in my throat. “Yeah.”

  “You’re doing great, baby doll.”

  I let the encouragement sink in as he gives me a bottle of disinfectant. I drench my hands and the tweezers and briefly close my eyes before stretching his broken skin between my thumb and forefinger.

  “Can you see it?” he asks.

  It’s there, a flash of copper buried inside red flesh. “Yes.”

  “Good. That means you don’t have to cut me to get it out. Don’t be afraid to get a good grip.”

  I try, but he sucks air through his teeth as the levers of the tweezers slip off the metal.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “It’s all right,” he says in a strained voice. “Keep going.”

  It takes a few tries before my hand starts shaking too much to get a good grip. I’m not going to manage. I’m being too gentle.

  Gritting my teeth, I stop being careful and wiggle the tweezers deeper. I’m hurting him, but I keep going like he ordered until there’s a soft suction sound and the bullet pops free. In reflex, I catch it in my palm.

  I stare at it. It feels unreal—that this tiny chunk of metal can kill a man, that I’m doing this, and that I’m here, held hostage to play nurse for my kidnapper. Opening my fingers, I let the bullet drop onto the table.

  Like he said, blood pumps from the wound. The sight spurs me back into action. I grab the gauze, breathing as hard as I’m pressing it against his back.

  “Here.” He hands me a toothbrush still in its wrapping and a bottle of saline solution. “Scrub it well. Make sure there’s no gunpowder left.”

  The gritty tone of his voice speeds my actions. I rip open the toothbrush with one hand and drench it with the saline solution to do as he said.

  It’s gory work, but what jars me more than his shredded skin and muscle is the pain I must be causing. Through it all, he doesn’t make a sound, not even a grunt.

  I work as fast as I can. The quicker I do this, the sooner the agony will be over for both of us. As much as this must be physical agony for him, it’s mental agony for me to cause any living creature pain, even a hijacker and kidnapper.

  When I’ve scrubbed as well as
I could, I wash the wound with the clean water from the second dish and press another gauze on it.

  He hands me a needle already prepared with surgical suture. “Do you sew?”

  My fingers tremble as I take it from him. “My mother tried to teach me, but it never grew on me.”

  “Damn,” he says, laughing softly. “I guess it’s going to leave a scar.”

  “Probably.” I take a deep breath and jab the needle through his skin. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. At least I’ll have a souvenir from you.”

  His attempt at humor helps. My heartbeat settles slightly as I stitch him up, wincing for his sake every time I pull the needle through his skin.

  Five stitches and I’m done. I step back to inspect my work. The bleeding has stopped. I clean the wound again and apply an antibiotic ointment before sticking a gauze over it.

  I’m wrung out from the traumatic experience but high on adrenaline. I’m jittery, feeling like I’ve downed a liter of caffeine on an empty stomach.

  He uncaps a bottle, shakes out a pill, and swallows it dry.

  “Painkiller?” I ask, looking around for a glass to give him some water.

  “Antibiotic.” He pushes to his feet and faces me. Other than looking a little pale, he shows no signs of just having gone through rookie surgery. “I try not to take pills unless it’s absolutely necessary. Chemicals aren’t good for the body.”

  Right. The kind of pain he must be in doesn’t count as an absolute necessity.

  “Wash your hands,” he says, nodding at the flask on the sink.

  I squirt soap into my palm while he unscrews the flask and pours water over my hands. There’s no towel, so I dry them on my jeans.

  He catches me off guard when he cups my cheek and asks, “How are you doing?” His gaze is piercing, searching mine, reminding me he won’t settle for lies.

  “I’m fine.”

  I inhale again, dragging in the air like a nicotine addict drags on a cigarette, but it’s to no avail. There’s not enough oxygen for all my cells. It’s not my lungs that fail me. It’s the distributor. It’s my heart.

  “Hey.” He takes my face between his hands, the gun now resting against my temple. “Easy. Breathe. Deep breaths, baby doll.”

  It fills me, the panic of suffocation. “Can’t.”

  His expression shifts. He’s no longer gentle or accommodating. He’s no longer friendly. He’s collected and calm. He’s deadly. Serious. I catch a glimpse of the bad man who does bad things as the mask drops and he takes control.

  “Lungs?” he asks in a terse voice, tilting my head back to examine my eyes.

  I shake my head. “Heart.” I point at my bag hanging over the chairback. “Pills.”

  He steers me to the clean chair and lowers me gently. “You’re going to be fine.”

  He says it with so much certainty it’s difficult not to believe him. He leaves the gun to unzip my bag and go through the content. He acts fast, but he doesn’t fumble. He works confidently, efficiently.

  He takes out the brown bottle and holds it up to the light. After reading the label, he uncaps it and takes out two pills. “Open.”

  When I open my mouth, he places the pills on my tongue. I swallow. He guards me for a moment, maybe making sure I don’t fall down and die on his floor, before he takes a bottle of water from a cooler box next to the table. He uncaps the bottle and holds it to my lips.

  “Better?” he asks when I’ve taken a few sips.

  The pills will take time to have an effect, but I already feel calmer. Psychologically, I know I’ll survive my heart. Him, I’m not so sure. Maybe he lied. Maybe he is a killer after all. Maybe he’s keeping me alive for sinister purposes. “Yeah, thanks.”

  When he scoops me up, lifting me into his arms, I don’t have the energy to protest. I barely have enough fuel left for my body to function. I suddenly feel tired, horribly so, which must be the low after the high from the adrenaline.

  He carries me down a dark hallway to the end. Strangely, I feel better in his arms. I should be afraid, but I can’t even manage that much. I’m simply too exhausted. It’s hard enough to just exist. It’s warm in the cocoon of his arms and comfortable against his chest. I haven’t realized how cold I was until the heat of his body wrapped around me. He smells of disinfectant now, of hospitals and accidents, and in a distant part of my mind that is already disconnected from reality, I mourn the smell of leather and tobacco.

  He kicks open a door and balances me in one arm on his uninjured side as he turns on a lamp. Two single beds are pushed against the far wall under the shuttered window. He lowers me onto one. The room smells dusty, but the blanket smells of laundry detergent.

  Gently, he unzips my jacket and helps me into a sitting position. I’m reluctant to let him remove the jacket. It’s thin and not much protection against the cold, but I chose it as a fashion statement, not for practicality. I wasn’t going to take it off tonight. Leaving it open to show a glimpse of the camisole I wear underneath was as far as I was planning on undressing, but he doesn’t look at the purple lace covering my breasts as he brushes the leather over my shoulders and down my arms.

  With a palm on my chest, he pushes me back down. My skin contracts with goosebumps. He works like earlier, when he was hunting for my pills, removing my heels with the quiet efficiency of a man who knows what he’s doing. He leaves my shoes neatly next to the bed and pulls the blanket over me. It’s soft and warm. The clean smell lures me into relaxing, letting my muscles sag into the lumpy mattress.

  “Rest,” he says, dragging a thumb over my jaw. “Close your eyes. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Chapter 4

  Cas

  I wake with a start. It’s pitch-black. The lamp is off, and the door is closed.

  I listen. The house is quiet. It could be morning or night. With the wooden board nailed over the window, I can’t tell. What I do know is that the old, abandoned farmhouse is a hideout.

  Quietly, I take stock of my situation. I feel stronger. The pain in my chest is gone. The physical symptoms of my heart condition have vanished, but the fear is still there. The fear is a smoldering coal in my stomach.

  If Ian wanted to kill me, he could’ve simply let my heart to do job, unless he has other plans for me, a terrifying factor I haven’t eliminated yet.

  Even wounded, he’s a gladiator compared to me. He’s proven that much when he hijacked a car and made me drive us out here with a bullet in his shoulder. I can’t beat him in strength. I’ll have to fight clever. I’ll do like a grasshopper that plays dead when a frog strikes. I’ll fake a heart-attack if he tries anything. Hopefully, he’ll leave me here for dead. Hopefully, he won’t burn down the house with my undead body inside.

  Oh, God. I scrub my eyes with the heels of my palms. Stupid idea. Of course he’ll know if I’m not dead.

  I can’t lie here for a moment longer working myself up by imagining what he has in store for me. Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he took the car and left me here.

  Throwing the blanket aside, I swing my legs over the bed. My bare feet hit the floor. Sand tickles my soles. The concrete floor is dirty, but I don’t put on my shoes. My high heels are too loud. I tiptoe to the door by feeling my way along the wall.

  To my dismay, the door creaks when I open it. My stomach knots with tension. Light spills from the kitchen, but no sounds come from anywhere in the house. In the light that pours into the room, I scan the bed for my jacket, but it’s not there.

  With my heart beating in my throat, I make my way down the hallway. The two other doors stand open. On the left is another bedroom, this one empty, and on the right a bathroom. There’s no way out but through the kitchen.

  I pause in the frame. Disappointment slams like a fist into my ribs. Ian sits at the kitchen table, reading a book. He’s shirtless, wearing a pair of faded jeans and his boots. The medical supplies have been cleared, and the table, chair, and floor are clean of blood. The air smells of bl
each. He must’ve scrubbed the room.

  I hover, uncertain when he doesn’t react. Did he notice me?

  He finishes the page he’s reading, closes the book, and lifts his head. His assessment of me is quick but thorough. I get the impression he takes everything in with the blink of an eye, that he can tell a stranger’s secrets with one look.

  “Come here,” he says, leaning back in the chair. Under the table, his legs are stretched out wide in front of him, but the relaxed pose doesn’t fool me. He’s alert, ready to strike at any moment.

  At my hesitation, the corner of his mouth lifts. “There’s nowhere to run, baby doll.”

  He’s not only assessing. He’s also predicting. Whatever move I may make, I’ve lost before I’ve tried. That’s what he’s telling me with that semblance of a smile.

  I look around for the gun, but it’s nowhere in sight. Still, I don’t move.

  “Already told you,” he says, “I’m not going to bite.” The feet of the chair scrape over the floor as he pushes away from the table. His words are more pronounced, the command in them a little stronger when he says, “Come here.”

  He won’t tell me again. Holding my breath, I lift my chin and pad over, stopping at the corner of the table.

  He points at the space in front of him. “Here.”

  I step closer, trying not to show him how standing in the vise of his legs makes me feel like a rabbit that’s stepped into a snare.

  Tipping back his head, he studies my face. “Feeling better?”

  Unable to help myself, I wring my fingers together. “Yes.” My gaze slips to the words inked on his skin, but everything blurs together.

  “You’ve got some color back in your cheeks. How’s your breathing?”

  “Fine.”

  He drags his gaze to my chest, and this time, he openly stares at my breasts. A spark of heat flashes in his brown eyes. He could’ve easily concealed it, but he lets me see. I can only guess for what reason.

  “Hungry?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I lie, crossing my arms over my chest. Anything to keep him otherwise occupied.