by Cindy Dees
True to his promise, Carter paid for dinner and escorted her to the door of the restaurant. She was surprised when he stopped in the vestibule, though. He murmured, “Would you like me to walk you to your car? Or should I wait here until you’ve driven away?”
She frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“I was probing delicately to find out if you’re still worried that I’ll kidnap you. I was trying to be sensitive.”
“Oh. Sensitive. Right. Um, I guess I’m not afraid of you. But you don’t need to walk me to my car. It’s right out front.”
He smiled painfully. “After that less-than-ringing endorsement, I’ll definitely wait here until you’re gone.”
“Whatever floats your boat, Rhett.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, uh, nothing,” she mumbled, chagrined. Good grief. She was so lame. Mortified, she reached for the door, but then it opened magically before her. A powerful arm had shot out from behind her and pushed it out of the way. She glanced up into Carter’s wry gaze. He was standing so close that she felt the heat radiating from his body. Her pulse galloped wildly all of a sudden.
“What can I say?” he murmured. “I’m old-school.”
Rhett Butler, indeed. She stepped into the chilly evening air, her cheeks hotter than they ought to be. True to his word, Carter didn’t follow her outside. Regret speared through her. Why hadn’t she simpered and cooed and vowed she needed a big strong man to protect her across all twelve feet of sidewalk to her li’l ol’ car?
She scowled at her car and reached for the door handle. And that was when the twin, fast-moving shadows rushed her out of nowhere. Strong arms wrapped around her, and someone slapped something wet and cold over her mouth and nose. She fought for her life, flailing and trying to shout for help as best she could around the choking fumes filling her nostrils. But it was no use. Her assailants were bigger and stronger than her by a lot.
Her last, vague thought as her legs collapsed out from under her was that maybe she should’ve played helpless after all and manipulated Carter into walking her to her car.
Carter had worked with enough women in his day who could handle themselves in a pinch to know without a doubt that Lily James was not one of them. The woman was scary smart, but a little short on common sense if he didn’t miss his guess. Still, when she’d looked up at him with those big, impossibly soft brown eyes of hers and passed by close enough for him to smell sunshine and honey on her skin, his pulse leaped. The girl had a way of getting under a guy’s skin.
He gave her a short head start before he stepped out into the night behind her. No sense scaring her again after he’d just spent most of the evening calming her down. He’d barely taken a step outside before he saw them. Two men struggling with a slender form between them, this time without crowds of bystanders to force them to flee.
He reached for his gun. Ice picks of pain shot down his arm and the big muscles of his back clenched spasmodically. The silenced pistol slid easily out of its oiled holster, fitting into his palm like an old friend. He started to shout a warning when a tourniquet of agony wrapped around his throat without warning. His thighs locked up and then his calves wrenched into masses of cramps that all but brought him to his knees. He swore violently as his mind tried to become a block of ice.
At least his weapon was in the clear. Desperately, he clenched his finger around the trigger. He managed to raise his arm. Squeeze the trigger. The pistol kicked, making a low spit of sound.
One of the men cried out and let go of Lily. Carter aimed clumsily at the broad back of the second man. Lily was in trouble. She needed him. He was her only hope of rescue in the next few, critical seconds. Squeeze. The. Trigger.
He gritted his teeth and fired. The weapon jumped in his hand. The second man shouted something and Carter mentally lurched. He recognized that language. The curse was uttered in Russian! What the heck?
He tried with all his might to drag his right leg forward. Intense pain coursed through him, but his shoe skidded a few inches across the pavement. Must. Save. Lily. Now his left leg.
The first man was climbing to his feet, nursing his right arm. Moving like Frankenstein’s monster, Carter bent his torso stiffly from the hips, bringing his right hand and the pistol clutched in it to bear on the assailant.
The man babbled something in Russian. It took Carter’s pain-riddled brain a second to realize the guy was begging for his life. Good thing he was the guy with the gun. Otherwise this encounter would be going very differently. But then Carter spied Lily crumpled on the curb like a rag doll behind the guy and all sympathy for the Russian drained out of him. Cold death in his gaze, he glared back at the injured assailant.
His deadly intent must have been clear because, as Carter raised the pistol one more time, the guy darted to his comrade, dragging the more seriously wounded man’s arm across his shoulder. The two men retreated down the street too quickly for Carter to chase after them. He had no authorization to kill on this mission, and besides, Lily needed help.
Lily. He turned and fell to his knees beside her.
“Lil. Lee,” he managed to grunt hoarsely.
He heard tires squeal in the distance. The Russians’ van must have been waiting nearby. But all his concern was for the woman on the ground before him. She looked so small and helpless. He felt like his guts were being ripped out of him by slow degrees.
“Lil. Lee.”
Nothing. Frantically, he watched her rib cage. It rose and fell, and he sagged with relief. He wasn’t strong enough yet to lift her. The freeze-up lifted gradually and he had no choice but to wait it out.
What kind of man couldn’t pick up a woman who’d fainted and carry her to safety? A worthless shell of a man who was so screwed up in the head that he had full-body seizures every time he got even the slightest bit stressed out.
His throat muscles began to relax. He crooned words of comfort to her as the small muscles in his body started to unwind. He wiggled his fingers and toes, willing his major muscle groups to hurry up and regain full functionality. Finally, finally, he was able to reach out and smooth the silky strands of her hair off her porcelain cheeks.
“Wake up, sugar. C’mon. Wake up for me,” he murmured. Dammit. They must have drugged her. This was no faint. She was out cold. He had to get her out of here before those Russians patched up their injuries and decided to come back and finish the job. Clearly, they had some sort of powerful motivation to kidnap Lily. Why else would they have attempted to snatch her for a second time in a single day? Were they on as tight a timetable as he was?
A sinking feeling filled his stomach. If they were in such an all-fire hurry, how could they not be after her for the very same reason he was? He swore under his breath. He had to get her out of here. Away from the Russians.
Carter wasn’t sure yet if he could trust his muscles, but it wasn’t like he had any choice. He bent down awkwardly, scooped her up in his arms and staggered down the street to his car. He had barely enough coordination to dump her in the passenger seat and strap in her inert form, but he managed both.
He surely didn’t have enough coordination to drive yet, but that was just his tough luck. The worst of it was getting the car keys out of his pocket and into the ignition. He had to get away from here before the Russians called in reinforcements and came back to finish the job. If he could just get Lily out of town. Then he could stop and wait for her to wake up and for his body to fully unwind.
Thankfully, the hour was late and the streets mostly deserted. Driving like his grandmother, he avoided major highways and headed out of town. He guided the vehicle east into the deserted wastes of the California desert.
He had a serious problem on his hands. What if the Russian government had stumbled across Lily’s research paper on the internet the same way he had? And what if they’d extrapolated the same possibility? Surely, they’d be hell-bent to get their hands on her to silence her and hide the predictions her algorithms made.
No m
atter how he sliced it, the answer kept coming out exactly the same. The Russians would have to do something drastic to stop her from talking to anyone who would understand the full implications of her work. They had to imprison her—or possibly even kill her.
Chapter 2
Lily woke up slowly. Her neck hurt, and she was seated in an oddly uncomfortable position. She registered silence around her along with a faint glow of green light. Her eyelids fluttered open.
“Welcome back, sugar,” a male voice murmured beside her.
She jolted in alarm, coming fully awake in a rush of panic. She stared at the man in the driver’s seat. Oh. Carter. She relaxed. “Where are we? What hap—” She broke off, trying to sort the jumble of images returning to her. “You held the door for me…and I went to my car…and then… Oh!”
“Yeah,” Carter commented drily. “Oh.”
“Who were those men?”
“Russians as far as I can tell.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Why on earth would some Russian guys try to kidnap me? And where are we?”
He chose to answer her second question first. “We’re in eastern California. I need to get you to a military base ASAP. As for your first question, I suspect it has to do with your research.”
“I lob hypothetical rocks at a simulated Earth. What’s the big deal about that? And since when is there a military base in this area?”
Was he implying there was a classified base out here? Like the real Area 51 maybe? The side of her that secretly, desperately hoped to meet an alien in her lifetime silently whooped in excitement.
He didn’t answer either question, merely started the car and turned on the air conditioner.
She asked the next most obvious question. “If we’re in such a hurry to get to this secret military base that I’m not supposed to know exists, why are we sitting at the side of a road going nowhere?”
“I, uh, have a little problem.”
She looked up sharply. Even in the faint glow of the dashboard, she made out humiliation suffusing his face. “What’s wrong?”
“I was in a…situation…a while back. Saw some things. Did some things…” He broke off for a long moment before continuing heavily, “Ever since, I have these, um, episodes.”
Alarm coursed through her. In his episodes, did he go psychotic and kill helpless female astrophysicists perchance? “What kind of episodes?” she asked carefully.
“Both the neurologists and the shrinks say the seizures are psychological. I just freeze up. Can’t move. I got us out of town, but I thought it might be wise to let my body come back to fully functional before I drive any further.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said in relief.
“Excuse me?” Disbelief laced his voice. Maybe even a touch of outrage crept into it.
She waved a breezy hand. “I was worried that it was something really bad.”
“This is really bad!” he blurted a shade indignantly.
She shrugged. “So, your body checks out now and then. It’s not like you black out and turn into an ax murderer.”
“When you put it that way, I’m doing just spiffy,” he retorted, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“I’m serious,” she replied. “It could be a lot worse.”
“Your middle name isn’t Pollyanna by any chance, is it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying. We all have our crosses to bear. You could be dying.”
He shook his head at her. “You have no idea. I can’t do my job—” He broke off.
She said with a trace of reproach, “Stephen Hawking is one of the greatest scientists ever to live, and he can’t even talk. He has to type with a visual interface device, one painstaking letter at a time, to communicate some of the most brilliant thinking ever recorded. How frustrating must it be to have all that genius trapped inside a body that can never move?”
Carter looked taken aback. “All right already. My life is fabulous by comparison.”
She subsided, studying him closely. “How long do these episodes usually last?”
“They’ve been getting shorter. I’m down to somewhere between two and ten minutes. Although—” he frowned “—this one’s been going for an inordinately long time.”
“How long did they used to be?”
“The first one lasted two weeks. That was right after the ambu—er, situation.”
“Ambush? Were you attacked?” Consternation at the thought of this nice man being in danger coursed through her. “Was everyone okay?”
He answered quietly, “No. Everyone was not okay. That’s why the shrinks think I’m like this. They think my mind is punishing me or something. Whenever someone’s life depends on me now, I freeze up.”
She looked outside the car in quick alarm. Her life depended on him in some way? Was there some immediate threat she wasn’t aware of? “Who’s threatening my life right now?”
“No one this second. I’m still unwinding from that attack back at the restaurant.”
Her breathing accelerated. “Exactly how much danger am I in?”
He closed his eyes and squeezed them shut for several long seconds before he answered her soothingly, “I’m trained to think in worst-case scenarios. To anticipate bad stuff so I can stop it before it happens. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
He hadn’t answered her question. And whatever worst case awaited her, it was bad enough to keep him a statue for a good long time. “What can I do to help you with this condition of yours?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She leaned across the seats to place a hand on his shoulder. “Have you tried massage to relax your muscles?”
“Trust me. We’ve tried everything,” he ground out.
But as her hand rested lightly on his shoulder, she thought she felt the rigid muscle softening slightly beneath her fingers. She kneaded a little, experimentally. That was a definite easing of the terrible tension under her palm.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
“Yes. I did.” He sounded startled. “Do that again.”
Unbuckling her seat belt, she maneuvered until she was kneeling in her seat and resting her hands on each of his shoulders. It brought her into intimately close proximity with him, but he didn’t voice any complaints or make any inappropriate comments. Must be that old-school gentleman thing kicking in.
She massaged his shoulders, and in moments, the muscles noticeably relaxed. She bent to the task with more enthusiasm. “I need more room to reach the rest of you,” she announced.
“Electric seat. Push the switch by my left hip.” He sounded more than a little uncomfortable.
Lily reached across his lap and found the switch. His seat was already most of the way back because he was a big man, but she motored it back the last few inches and reclined it as well. She swung her right leg across his lap and straddled his thighs.
“Better,” she stated.
He looked equal parts amused and frustrated. “Damn,” he muttered. “A pretty girl climbs on top of me and I’m supposed to just lie here and look at her.”
She frowned, intent on her experiment. “Let’s see if we can fix that.” She commenced working in earnest on his neck and shoulders, moving on to his chest as his muscles became supple and relaxed under her massaging fingers.
When he groaned quietly, her hands froze, but the sound was pure pleasure.
Good gravy, the man felt amazing. He was slabbed in muscle everywhere she touched. Greek statues came to mind as she tried to envision what her fingers were outlining.
She reached behind herself to massage his thighs near his knees, but it wasn’t enough to relax his legs entirely. She rose to her knees and reached for his hips, digging her fingers deep into his flanks. He groaned wordlessly, and she almost did the same. Her hands slid across the tops of his thighs, and abruptly she became aware that she was all but massaging the man’s crotch. Her hands had unconsciously strayed in the same directions her thoughts were heading.
He laughed under his breath. “No apologies whatsoever are necessary. You’re a miracle worker.”
The fervent pleasure in his voice made her cheeks warm in embarrassment. She was such a hussy, climbing all over this poor man when he was defenseless. Seriously. Here she was getting all turned on, and he was sitting there, possibly in terrible pain.
“Am I hurting you?” she blurted.
“Not in the way you mean,” he ground out between what sounded like clenched teeth.
“Huh?”
“Never mind, sugar.” His eyes blazed at her and her entire body blazed back.
And then the side of her hand bumped against a muscle that was definitely not paralyzed and jumped hard at her accidental touch. Oh. He was in that kind of pain. Her cheeks exploded into fire.
“Have I missed anywhere?” Sheesh. She sounded all out of breath like she’d been running…or was so hot-to-trot she couldn’t breathe right.
He startled her by raising his hands clumsily to the small of her back. “Sugar, that felt better than just about anything I can ever remember. Any chance I could hire you to be my personal masseuse for the rest of my life?”
She stared down at him, her jaw sagging. Personal masseuse? Rest of his life? Her brain hitched and actually stopped processing information momentarily. She finally managed to mumble, “Really? That felt good?”
Carter shifted beneath her, and abruptly she realized she wasn’t straddling a statue anymore. He was a living, breathing, fully mobile and functional male. A big, strong one. And she was sitting in his very aroused lap.
He stared back at her. “You do know how attractive a woman you are, don’t you?”
The abrupt shift of topic gave her mental whiplash. “Me? Well, I…attractive?” she managed to squeak.
“Oh, for the love God. You don’t, do you?” His arms swept around her upper torso and pulled her down to him too quickly for her to do anything but yield to the pressure. She fell forward, shamelessly savoring the way his chest mashed hers and made her think distinctly unprofessorly thoughts.
