by Honor James
“Yes, yes I do. I would want for you to tie me up and have your wicked way with me. That or I could ride you until we are both well sated.” So she was a sex maniac, but with the sexy-ass men that loved her so much they had their bodies permanently marked with her name, who wouldn’t be?
“Or both, who says we have to only stop after one go? Okay, so I might need a small breather these days, but soon enough I’ll be able to regain my title of the horizontal rumba. While Bryce appears to be in the lead currently, it’s only because of this handicap forced upon me by the universe to let him have a hope and a prayer finally.”
“Oh really?” Bryce said.
Both of them whipped around to look over at him in the suddenly open door of the vehicle.
Keagan grinned. The look on Keagan’s face was priceless, as was the smirk on Bryce’s. “Well, so he says. Although as I’ve just learned we should be able to have a bit of playtime with Keagan with me on top. You would just have to be very cautious of his leg, if you are up for it, that is.” She wanted to experience both of them once more, needed to feel both of them loving her, touching her, and having her again.
Bryce had a frown on his face, and she knew he was thinking it through, envisioning and working out the angles. “In theory it’s possible. I’d worry about doing it on the bed, though, too much give I think, and really his leg would need to be in a slightly lowered position to ensure your comfort and his. A few logistics to consider, but I don’t see any major roadblocks. At least not at this moment.”
“Well, I will leave the logistics up to the two of you, two better people for the job I couldn’t imagine.” She watched the way that Bryce looked at her and reached out to stroke a bit of dirt from his face. She refused to cry anymore, not when she realized where the dirt had come from. “Will they ensure that everything is back the way that it should be? Who is going to stick around and talk to the groundskeepers?”
“Markham’s going to stick around,” Bryce told her. “He’s already down here playing nice, and he even gave up his big-ass rifle so that the groundskeeper didn’t get the wrong idea. Or a worse one anyway.”
“He still does have a weapon or two on him should he need them though, right?” Sadie replied with a frown on her face. She didn’t want anything to happen to the men that were helping her, at all.
Both men snickered. “Oh honey, you have so much to learn,” Bryce said. Chuckling, he shook his head. “We’ll be heading out in a few, let me grab the others.” Still laughing softly, he walked off.
Keagan snorted and laughed harder. “You are too cute, Sadie. None of us would give up our primary weapons without having a few backups carefully hidden away. For all intents and purposes he’ll look like a law-abiding citizen. Or as much as Markham can manage given the way he naturally affects people with a single look.”
“He really is scary. I can’t believe that the woman that he calls his isn’t afraid of him. And she’s not. The woman is a force of nature and it’s actually amusing to watch him with her. It’s like he’s a completely different person, and I like that.”
“Why would she be afraid of him? You’re not afraid of me or Bryce, are you? Of course not, because you know damn good and well we’d do anything to keep you safe and happy. You know we’d take a bullet for you. You know that we’d move the moon and the stars if you asked it of us. Same with them. He loves her, she loves him, everyone else is on their own, of course, but with them and Connor it’s a happy little universe.”
“You know, that’s a very good point. I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you.” She leaned in and kissed Keagan again. Mostly because she wanted to. “Now, I should get out of your lap. Right? We need to be able to roll as soon as Bryce gets back.”
“Yes, you should. I don’t want you to, but I somehow don’t see the local police department letting me get away with driving while you’re perched so daintily in my lap. Besides, if they spot the brace, and it’s a cranky cop, it could go sideways. Especially given the number of firearms we carry around in the vehicle and on our persons. So, sadly, my sweet, you must return to the passenger side and buckle up.”
“Okay, but will you be able to hold my hand while we drive?” She needed that physical connection to either him or Bryce right now. They were her anchors in the emotional storm she was in and they knew it, she knew it, hell, the whole team likely knew it.
“Absolutely,” he said. Giving her another kiss, he helped her to slide back over the console and into her seat. Once she was buckled in, he took her hand in his. Squeezing her fingers, Keagan rubbed his thumb slowly over her knuckles while they waited.
“Thank you.” For not asking her why, for not giving her issues about needing to be held onto. She was grateful that he did it simply because he knew she needed it.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day…
Sadie’s nerves were at a breaking point and they all knew it. When they had arrived home the night before there had been a package left for Sadie, and it had been the piece of the headstone that they hadn’t been able to find. The names of her children. On the stone, the names Harker and Bradley had been scraped with what looked like a chisel and across it there were the words again, The sins of the father…which made no sense to Sadie at all. Instead of going to bed loving on her men, she had went to bed with a sedative thanks to a physician that the guys knew that came and gave her something that knocked her ass out completely.
When she woke the following morning her eyes hurt, her head hurt, and her heart ached. Every single fiber of her being was destroyed because of the hurt she had suffered. She had never done anything to anyone and god only knew that her children hadn’t, so why someone destroyed her babies’ graves and marble stone was beyond her. She turned in on herself on the bed and bit back a sob. She pulled the covers up and over her head and was surprised when she felt the bed dip at her side and a large hand covering her head, tugging the blanket down slightly.
In a quick move she found herself rolled up in the blanket, her arms trapped and unable to move. A moment later she was lifted and tossed over something hard, a shoulder likely. With an oomph, she lost most of the air in her lungs. They were moving, pounding down the stairs quickly, enough so she was bouncing up and down on the shoulder.
She didn’t know what was happening, her arms were trapped, her legs were trapped, and she tried desperately to get out of the roll but couldn’t. Her mouth was even covered tightly, but she wiggled her face, moved her head from left to right and then began to scream when her mouth was free. What happened? How could someone have gotten her? If this was one of the guys playing a trick she was going to knee them in the balls because this wasn’t funny. At all.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs she was dropped onto the floor. Whoever was there, she could hear digging around in something, there was clanging, and something else. Something was soon wound tightly around her lower legs and tied tightly enough she knew she’d soon lose feeling. Another band of whatever it was wound around her torso. The person had sat her up to do that, the blanket slipping enough she could look around. She couldn’t see who it was, they were behind her, but she could see Keagan. He was on the floor, face down, drooling even from the looks of things with a small object sticking out of his shoulder.
“Oh god.” She tried to move to get to Keagan but couldn’t. She was held tightly. “Who the fuck are you?” she demanded and wiggled, moving as best she could. She was rewarded with tape across her mouth which had her nearly gagging. She was pissed and hurting but more than that she was scared shitless for Keagan.
The blanket was tossed back over her head, and she was hoisted off the floor. Back over the shoulder again. She listened, about all she could do, as the person made their way through the house. They were going out the back, she knew that squeak of hinges very well, it was her kitchen door out into the yard.
She couldn’t let this be easy on him. If she was removed from the property she knew she would nev
er be found alive. She began to fight, struggling as best she could and making it as hard for him to carry her as possible. She couldn’t scream, but she could wiggle her body as best she could.
A curse was followed by something crashing to the pavers of her walkway. Two hands were on her legs, fighting to hold onto her. Then she began to slip. The individual, who had to be a man given the strength, fought to hang onto her. In the end she did fall, but his struggles to hold her kept her from crashing too hard onto the stones. Not that she wouldn’t feel that landing later.
She began to wiggle away like a worm. She licked at the tape over and over, the taste enough to make her gag, but she tried to keep from throwing up. She was hoping to get the tape off, hoping to get the blankets from around her body as she crawled away. When a hand touched her ankles, she turned to her back and kicked blindly, determined to fight back as best as she could.
“Sadie, stop,” a familiar voice said. “Damn it, easy woman. Mother fucker! Watch where the hell you’re kicking, I’d like to have kids one day you know.” The blanket was pulled from her head and her hair shoved back. She met the cold eyes of Markham as he glowered at her. “Stop. Wiggling.”
Her eyes were wide and she sobbed. When he gently pulled the tape from her lips, she was crying, “Thank you,” she whispered and then looked wildly around. “Where’s he at? Someone took me, tied me up, where? Where is he? Oh god, Keagan.” She looked toward the house. “He’s hurt. Please.”
“One thing at a time,” he told her. From one of his many pockets he pulled out something, and with a flick of his wrist he had a deadly looking blade. “Don’t move, all right? I’m going to cut the cording, and then you can get untangled from this mess. The bad guy is currently nursing what I’m hoping will be a hell of a concussion.” He moved slightly and she could see the man slumped against her house, unconscious.
“Thank god,” she whispered and looked up at him. “How the hell did he get into the house?” She wanted to know, badly. “Jesus. I thought we were safe in there.” She now would never feel safe anywhere. She would never find safety anywhere.
“He cut the main power into the house. But he forgot to account for the battery backups on the entry points. They don’t sound in the house, just to the main system. I was heading over here when Timmons called, freaking out. I figured if I was a bad guy trying to get an uncooperative female to leave when she didn’t want to, I wouldn’t take her out the front door. So I came around the back. Lucky for me, and you, I was right.”
“I could just kiss you right now,” she whispered and nodded. “I wasn’t planning on making it easy for him, too. I knew that if I did I would die, without a question. I was certain that I was going to have to fight in order to live. No questions about it.” Once her hands and feet were finally free, she tried to stand, falling down from lack of blood in her extremities. “Oh God.” She would crawl to Keagan if she had to.
“Good thing you didn’t make it easy on him. Gave me the time I needed to get close and deck him when he turned to go for his bag.” Lifting her up in his arms, he carried her back into the house and stopped. “Shit,” he muttered, starting straight over to Keagan. Depositing her on the sofa, he knelt down, putting two fingers against his throat. “He’ll be fine, some sort of tranquilizer I’m guessing.”
“Thank god.” She slid from the couch and down to Keagan’s side. It took her several moments to finally pull Keagan’s head into her lap and began to stroke his hair. “Please wake up,” she whispered. “Please wake up. Come on, baby, I need to see your beautiful eyes.”
Markham pulled the dart from Keagan’s shoulder and dropped it on the coffee table. “Hold his head. I’ll roll him onto his back, and then prop his legs up. Hopefully it was a low dose, otherwise he could be out for a few hours. Stay put, I’m going to collect your friend, tie his ass up, and then let the others know we’re secure for the moment.” He eased Keagan’s body over slowly, then using one of the sofa cushions, propped his legs up slightly. When he went to leave he paused, then pulled a small handgun from a holster on his ankle. “Hopefully this guy was working alone, but on the off chance he wasn’t, you should have this while I’m attending things. Do you know how to shoot a weapon?”
“I do.” She was a military brat, of course she did. She put the weapon at her side, the safety off, though. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt anyone that doesn’t deserve it,” she muttered. “Please, go. Call the cops or do whatever it is that you have to, okay?”
“We’ll call them, later, though,” he told her. “We still need to ask him some very pointed questions that likely would be frowned on by the cops.” He left her alone then, and disappeared into her kitchen. A short while later she heard a thumping noise, and he reappeared, dragging the guy behind him by a foot. Collecting one of her dining room chairs, he hefted the guy into it, then scrounged in the bag she hadn’t noticed he’d also brought inside. “Ah, duct tape, so many uses.”
“I don’t think that tying people up is one. Then again, the fucker used it on my mouth, so I say wrap it around his head until you have to poke holes for him to breathe.” Yes, she was vindictive, but son of a bitch she was missing the top layer of skin around her mouth and on her lips thanks to this fucking asshole.
Markham shot her a look, and then he smiled. “I like you,” he said, shaking his head. He began to tape the man to the chair, not just his ankles, and wrists, but up around the entire leg and arm. Then he did around the man’s torso enough times he ran out of tape. “Well, hell. I guess it’s not a bad thing, we do need to talk to him.” Digging into a pocket, he pulled out a phone and placed the call to the rest of the guys.
Sadie sat there and just rocked Keagan in her lap. She continued to run her hands over his hair. She couldn’t feel her fingertips, but that was okay. She would feel them soon and knew it. It was going to suck, but she would survive the pins-and-needles pain.
“The others are on their way over,” Markham told her. He settled onto the sofa near her, before picking up and holstering the gun she’d left next to her hip. “How are you doing? Do you need some water? Something stronger, maybe?”
“Soon, right now I can’t feel my fingers or toes. I’m sure when the pins and needles start I will be ready for something very strong.” She looked up at Markham and sighed. “Please tell me that this son of a bitch will be able to tell us who it is that’s doing this?”
“He’ll tell us,” he said. “He won’t like it, but he will give us every piece of information we ask for. We’ll take him to the offices for that discussion, no need to mess your house up any more than it already is.”
“Thank you for that.” She looked up when the front door practically crashed open and jumped. “Holy Christ, Bryce, you scared the crap out of me,” she whispered and watched him stalk toward her, there was no other term for the way that he was moving. She watched as he hesitated and then clenched his fists as if he wanted to go to the man that had attacked her. She held her hand out to him, beckoning her toward her instead of to the man that she knew he would kill if he went to the man.
It took a moment, and a very visible internal battle, but finally he came to her. Settling onto the floor at her back, he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck. “Are you okay?” he asked in a rough voice.
She nodded and leaned back against him. “I will be. I’m still a little numb,” she admitted honestly. “I’m better now that you are here with me. I feel safer now,” she admitted bluntly. “You are the ones that will keep me safe, right? You won’t leave me until this is all over and done with, right?” She wouldn’t be able to let him leave her again until they had caught whoever was doing this. Period.
“You couldn’t pry me away with a fully loaded bag of C-4, sweetheart.” Giving her another squeeze, he looked up when the others came into the room.
“Next time you decide to steal my car, I will shoot you.” Michael growled at Bryce. His blue gaze landed on her and warmed up. “How are you doing,
Sadie?” he asked gently.
“Oh shit.” She began to shake her hands with tears in her eyes. “Pins and needles, son of a bitch, pins and needles.” She cried. She hated that, a lot. Dammit, she knew it was going to come but hated that it was coming all the same.
Bryce took her one arm and began to gently rub over her skin. Markham, sitting where he was, went to work on her legs, lightly massaging. And Michael, crouching down to be closer, took her free arm to help ease the circulation back and work off the pins and needles. “How’s Keagan?” Michael asked.
“He’ll be fine, drugged with something. I didn’t get a chance to look in the guy’s bag, but I did see a tranq gun in there,” Markham said.
“Yosh,” Michael said, looking over his shoulder.
“On it.” Yoshi gave her a nod and went around to look in the bag. Digging around for a time, he came up finally with a plastic container. “If this info is accurate, he should come around about twenty to thirty minutes after being injected.”
Markham threw a look at his watch. “If he was shot right after the system went off, about five more minutes give or take, and he should start rousing.”
Sadie nodded and let Markham and Bryce rub at her hurting hands and feet. “What the ever-loving name of hell did he tie around me?” She was looking at the angry red lines that were around her ankles and wrists. “Did he use chicken wire or something like that?” It hadn’t been tape, it had been far too firm for tape, and it had bruised her through the bedding.
“No, it was twine,” Markham told her. “He had it on you tight, which is why I had to cut it off. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to undo any of the knots he’d made. Between the tightness, and your wiggling around, it was like a piano wire being wrapped around you. Even with the comforter to protect your skin, you’ll have the marks for a while I’m afraid.”
