by Honor James
“Yep.” She leaned against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. She looked down at her hands and opened them. “Shit, that hurts like a motherfucker.” She lifted her hands and said, “Will you please take the glass? I thought I dropped it, but evidently I kept it in my hands.” And now she hurt. Son of a bitch, her hands felt two sizes larger than they were.
He peered at her hands, shot her a look, and quickly plucked the glass from her hands. He dropped it into the garbage next to the vanity and shook his head. “You’re going to need stitches on more than a few spots,” he said quietly. “Hang tough, we’ll get the cuffs off you and then get you into the shower.” He backed away, a hand up like he was ready to catch her, and when he must have guessed she was steady, he turned to leave quickly. Moments later he returned with a large duffel that he sat on the toilet seat after dropping it. Unzipping the bag, he dug around and came up with a little pouch he opened and pulled out lock-picking tools. “Can you hold your hands up so I can see the locks? These are a little smaller than I’m used to working with so this might take a minute or three.”
She nodded and lifted her shaking hands. “So do you never leave home without your handy lock-picks?” she asked with a grin, her head against the mirror and eyes closed. “There was no way in hell I was going to let that ass take me. Not without a fight.” She felt the adrenaline flowing out of her body quickly and shivered. “Please don’t tell my father. He’s going to have a kitten when he sees me,” she whispered. “So please, don’t? Can we just maybe take a boat off of here? Heck, you can just put me in a dinghy and I will get to the mainland and hospital as long as you don’t tell my dad until after I’ve got the stitches and am healing.”
“Not bloody likely,” he muttered as he settled between her legs. She could feel the heat off of him pressing against her inner thighs and lower legs. “Spread your hands a little more to tighten these up, just so they don’t ride up and down your arms so much. And press your hands out away from them, so they’re out of my way if you would please.”
When she did as he asked, she could feel him working at the locks. “I’m going to have to tell your dad what went down. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that he’s got a mess of his own he’s cleaning up. But he is going to have to arrange to get the guy I tied up handed off to the authorities. Which is another reason I’m going to clean your room out. We don’t want the cops to put you and the thug together in a sentence, or any harebrained conclusion they might come up with.” One of the locks came free and he unwrapped it slowly from her wrist. “Hold onto this so I can do the other please.” He pressed the metal against her fingertips lightly.
“Why?” She didn’t open her eyes but just spoke to keep herself awake. “Why would there be any issue with our names being linked? He attacked me. I protected myself. Not very well, but still.” She shrugged and winced. “God I hurt.” Then she caught up with their conversation. “Wait, the wedding. I heard screams from there. Is everyone okay?” she asked with wide eyes now, watching him as he picked the locks of the handcuffs around her wrists.
“Because, if this guy was here to hurt you, which I’m going to say he damn well was, then whoever hired him will know he bungled the job. But if the guy is arrested with only an assault on a guest charge, me in this case, then the one who hired him thinks things are still going according to plan. Well, mostly. In other words, the one behind all this won’t send out any others to complete the job. Which means we’re working with a known number of bad guys. A number we will get from my hog-tied friend out in the sand before we hand him over to the cops. Another reason I need to call your father, he can hustle that guy off somewhere quiet, ask the right questions, get the right answers, and then deal with the authorities after the fact.” He shot her a look as the other cuff came free and he peeled it from her wrist. “I have no clue what was going on at the reception, yet another reason to touch base with the General. I have a feeling it was all smoke and mirrors, a distraction if you will.”
“Why me?” Gigi was practically drowning in the eyes of the Marine in front of her. The sky-blue brilliance, the crinkles at the sides of his eyes and lips that showed that he enjoyed laughter, often. “Wow, I’m shocked my mother hasn’t attacked you,” she admitted to him. “And why would you do this for me? You don’t even know me.”
He took her wrists and looked them over. “Best guess is because of who you are related to, honey. As to why I’m doing this, why not? You didn’t ask for any of this. I should also admit that I was brought out here because of a threat that was discovered. It was pointed toward Sandy though, not you. Unfortunately it’s all starting to make some sense to me. The threat that was uncovered was a ruse, a way to tighten security around her, which left you off the radar and an easy target.” Moving, he collected a stool and set it into the large shower. Turning the water on, he got it adjusted before returning to her. “I’m going to set you in there to clean up while I go and clean out your room. I need to know, for sure, if you will be okay for the ten to fifteen minutes I’ll be gone.”
Gigi was going to nod, but she would have likely fallen over if she did. “I will.” She looked up at him, a frown creasing her brow. “I wonder if that’s why I’ve gotten the dead flowers, the hang up calls, and other things while here.” She wasn’t so sure that she was the target, but here he was thinking she was? Really? “Go. I will be good. I need to get naked and I can’t do that if you are in here.” Her mother might sleep around. Gigi didn’t. “Can we wait and tell my father in like a week when I am maybe not looking as bad as I’m sure that I do right now?”
All she got was a snort as he lifted her from the vanity. A moment later, he settled her onto the stool, passed her the soap and a loofah, and adjusted the water toward her more. “I’ll leave a robe just outside on the toilet if you can manage to get there. If not, I’ll come in with my eyes closed to help you out. Check all the cuts for any glass and dirt. I’ll do the same when I clean you up, before we stitch up the worst ones, but it’s best you do it while you have the burn of the soap working with you.” He backed out of the shower, set the robe right where he said he would, then left her alone in the bathroom as he departed with his duffel. “Ten minutes,” he called out to her through the door.
“Go,” she called back. She sat on the stool that he sat in the shower for her and sighed. She dropped the loofah to the bottom of the shower and let the water run over her bloody hands and watched in rapt fascination as her blood ran thick against the shiny white surface.
After two minutes or so of silent reflection, she began to clean out the wounds, her tears mixing with the water from the shower as she did so. “God that freaking hurts,” she muttered and stopped. She couldn’t handle any more. Already she felt like she was going to puke. Her vision was swirling, her head hurt and her fingers would no longer bend from where she held the broken glass in her hands. She leaned against the wall of the shower and closed her eyes, passing out without even realizing she was doing it.
Chapter Five
Slipping into Gigi’s room, Michael took a quick inventory and began to gather up everything of hers. He straightened absolutely everything, putting it back to the picture-perfect room it had been when she’d arrived. All her stuff, clothing and cosmetics, went into her bags. It was all haphazard, but he was on the clock. Anyone could come looking for her and he wanted to be long gone before then.
After setting the bags by the sliding glass door, he began the clean up. A little difficult since all he had to work with was what was in the hotel room. Soap and water on a washcloth was his tool of choice. He wiped every surface down, tearing down the bed and remaking it fresh from new stuff he hijacked off a maid’s cart up the hallway. Thank you, cleaning service, for leaving a cart lying around. Someone would get reprimanded later, but their bad luck was his good.
He really hadn’t wanted to go to find a linen closet in the resort. That sort of time he didn’t have. Once he’d gone over everything, he did a slow and careful
sweep. Checked the shower for any stray hairs, checked the sink, cleaned out the garbage, and then got the hell out of there.
And because he could, he kicked the asshole still tied up on the sand as he went past. It was beneath him, but damn it, for the damage that brute had inflicted on her, he deserved a lot worse. Only thing that had him even remotely happy was the knowledge the General would do a hell of a lot worse to the asshole as soon as he got in touch with the other man.
Which was next on his list, after checking in on Gigi.
In his room, he set her bags down next to the TV stand and went to the bathroom. Knocking lightly, he waited a moment and then knocked again, harder. “Gigi,” he called out when he heard nothing. “Gigi, honey, I’m coming in. So if you’re naked, deal with it.”
Opening the door, he let out a vicious curse and ran to the shower. “Damn it, Gigi,” he muttered. She was out cold. Thankfully she hadn’t landed on the drain or she’d have drowned. Pushing her hair from her face, he checked her pulse. Steady and strong.
Rolling her gently to her back, he popped her lids open one at a time. They were both equal and mostly reactive. She definitely had a concussion, low-grade he was guessing though. “Gigi, wake your ass up, woman,” he said in a firm, relatively loud voice. “Gigi, now.” He snapped the order out.
“You are too sexy to be so bossy.” She whispered and sighed. She sought the heat of his body and laid her head on his shoulder. She didn’t open her eyes but lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “Shh, head hurts.” She was one big hurt, but all in all she was alive, and that was better than anything at all. “Think that maybe you can take me to bed, Marine?”
“Oh boy, lady.” He growled at her. “Gigi, honey, you are laying in a bloodied sundress in my shower. Now is not the time to be making a pass at me. When you are able to stand upright and think coherently, we’ll talk about this again. For now though, we need to get you cleaned off so that I can pour iodine on all your wounds and stitch you up.”
“Okay.” She pulled back from him and cracked her eyes open. “Can you dim the lights a bit? It’s so bloody bright in here.” And her head was killing her. “Did you get everything taken care of in my room? And how are you going to explain me being in your room and not my own?” She was stroking her fingertips along his jaw and jumped when there was another boom of thunder and flash of lightning. “Holy crapballs, what the hell is happening out there?”
“That would be a major tropical storm,” he said. “Yes, your room is likely cleaner now than it was when you checked in. There is absolutely nothing in there that will ever show you might have inhabited the space, ever. The rest we’ll figure out later.” Moving her so she was leaning against the wall, he stepped out of the shower. At the vanity, he grabbed a towel and began to unscrew the light bulbs until only one remained. “Better?” he asked her as he set the last one he’d removed aside.
“You are truly a God among men. I see why Daddy likes you as much as he does.” She was there and watching him carefully. “Do you know how to put in stitches, or are you thinking that you are just going to need to bandage me until we can get me to medical or the mainland?” She looked out the window and heard the wind whipping through the trees, the heavy rain and the staccato of the thunder and lightning. “Jesus. They won’t let us off the island until this subsides, will they?”
“Yes, I know how to do stitches. They won’t be as pretty as the socialite’s plastic surgeon can do, but they won’t be as bad as some I’ve seen.” He looked over his shoulder into the bedroom and then shook his head as he looked to her again. “No, we are not going anywhere until that lets up. Even then we’ll still be here for a bit while they clean up and ensure nothing’s been damaged that would get us off this damn island. Though, knowing your father, he’ll have a couple CH-53s here before we even get to breakfast. If this lets up enough for one or two to get through.”
“If he knows that I’m hurt, he will do it.” She watched him as he moved around her and sighed. “They are a bunch of conceited asshats. I wouldn’t be here if not for my mother. Although if I had known that she was going to be dating a guy I went to school with, I wouldn’t have bothered to come. And to get tricked into being a bridesmaid.” She narrowed her gaze on him and frowned. “It’s because of you. I got distracted by you and before I knew it, I was suddenly the stand-in for the woman that got wise and raced off.”
His eyes went wide, and then he blinked in clear confusion. “I’m sorry?” he said, though she definitely heard a question to those words. “How is it exactly my fault that you got scammed into doing something you didn’t want to do?”
“Because I wasn’t paying attention to them and couldn’t defend myself from not being forced into that ugly-assed dress. I was too busy watching you as you moved around and wondering just who you were and why you were there.” She didn’t lie, it was easier to just tell the truth all the time. Another thing she learned from her dad.
“Oh, well, oops,” he said with a shrug. “I guess I am sorry then, ’cause that dress you were stuck into was hideous. Who the hell picks out such a nasty-ass color for her bridesmaids? Especially when there is only one out of the eight of you that can wear it without looking like an extra from a zombie movie.” He stepped back into the shower with her, and sliding his hands under her arms, lifted her back up onto the stool, which he then moved so she was leaning against the wall.
“Because she’s a narcissistic asswipe that would be pissed off if anyone looked better than her and all her plastic glory?” Gigi said with a grin. “Because she’s a nightmare. Yes, she’s my cousin, but she’s as far away from the kind of woman I am as you can get. She is more like my mother.” She shrugged. “I’m all about natural beauty, refuse to do anything that would lift and tuck and whatever.” She rolled her hands in the air and sighed. “This is really going to get in the way of my writing.” She grumbled and looked at her hands. “And I have a flipping deadline, too.”
“What do you write?” he asked as he gathered up the soap and loofah. He rubbed the soap into it before he gently began to rub her knees and calves, working his way down to her feet. “Here, wash your palms out and look for any glass shards or dirt. It will hurt like a motherfucker, but it’s better than an infection down the road,” he said. Handing her the soap, he went back to cleaning her legs.
“Already did that. I think that’s part of why I blacked out,” she admitted and opened her hands again so the water could flow over them. “I want to kick the ass who did this to me. At least I was able to cut his happy butt,” she grumbled darkly. “Crap, he needs medical attention, too. I couldn’t live with myself if he died because of me.”
“He’s fine, was snoring when I kicked him in the ribs as I left. But I’ll call your dad soon enough, and he’ll go and collect him. Don’t worry about him,” he advised. “Tip your chin up so I can wash your face. Most of the blood washed off while you lie here drooling, but there’s still some grit I can see.”
“Drooling.” She snorted. “I don’t drool.” She went back to his earlier question and said, “Romance. I write romance novels.” She tilted her head up and winced. “Bloody hell, that hurts,” she muttered. “Thank you, by the way.” She was looking at the ceiling and sighed. “So what do you do on a second date?” She was mumbling, randomly tossing things out there here and there but it was how she dealt with pain.
Michael let out a chuckle at that. “Well, usually something a little more low-key. You know, dinner, dancing, maybe a movie. Don’t want to let all the goods out of the bag right off the bat. And since I’ve razzle-dazzled you on the first one, it’s time to back off a notch and relax. Now, third date usually involves a high speed chase and maybe a little gunfire. If you’re feeling daring of course. Sorry,” he said when she hissed out a breath. “I think you’re good. Let’s get out of here, and you need to get out of your wet clothes and into the robe. Can you manage that on your own, or should I stay to keep you conscious?”
“I thin
k I can handle it. Just bring the robe close or take me closer to the robe?” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Don’t show my full naked-self till the fourth date, at least,” she teased. She lifted her hand and touched her fingers to his lips. “You are a good man. Just make sure to sidestep when Daddy starts to yell, and he will.” Even though it wasn’t Michael’s fault her father was going to have a fit when he saw the hot mess she was. “And please don’t mention to him that you are going to share your bed with me, please?” Even if it wasn’t for anything more than sleeping and keeping her safe.
“Damn, and that was going to be my opening line, too,” he said. Turning off the water, he shot her a grin as he collected the robe and held it open as he closed his eyes. “Quick like a bunny now, Gigi. We need to get those wounds attended to before you make a mess of yourself again.”
“Good point.” Gigi moved as fast as she could, sure it was like molasses moving uphill in winter, but she was moving all the same. “Yeah, I’m his only daughter and I think that he would make your life just a wee bit on the miserable side. You would find yourself getting the worst assignments ever. Then add to it my godfather.” She shrugged, wincing as she did so. “Okay, take me to bed, Marine?” She liked Michael, enjoyed teasing him, too.
He wrapped the robe around her, and turning her to face him, tied it on. “Give me a minute to get out of my wet stuff. No need to drag puddles out into the other room.” Grabbing up a towel, he began to strip down, drying as he went until he was buck-ass naked. A quick flick of the towel and he had it secured around his waist. He caught her peeking too and shook his head. “For shame on you, Ms. Gigi.”
