by Holley Trent
Given how she was dressed, they probably thought she was a prostitute.
“God.” She squirmed away from Harvey’s touch and moved as close to her door as she could.
The man raised his sunglasses onto the top of his head and studied her without a greeting.
And, as awkward as his unceasing assessment was, she couldn’t bring herself to look away. He was familiar, somehow. He stuck out in her brain. His face was like a sticky note she’d put on her calendar to remind her to do some important thing, but she couldn’t remember what the thing was or why it was important because her note had been too vague. Those silver-blue eyes had seen her before, though she couldn’t speculate on when and where. She’d gotten around a lot since aging out of foster care.
“Nan was right. She’s totally offline,” the man said. He turned around in his seat and pulled the seatbelt across his body.
“Once it gets out that she’s back, all sorts of characters are going to crawl out of the woodwork trying to edge in,” Joe said. He moved the SUV into traffic.
Tess wrapped her fingers around the door handle and gave it a pull before realizing the lock was engaged. She reached for the lock, but Harvey wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her back to him. “Everything’s all right.”
“I’m not taking your word for it.” She reached for the lock with her other hand, and Harvey grabbed that one, too.
“Have I ever hurt you?” He held her wrists together in front of her belly in one sure hand. “Eyes up here, Tess.”
She let her gaze track slowly from his large hand, to the powerful thighs his trim slacks hinted at, up his flat belly, past his loosened necktie, beyond the succulent lips pressed into a tight line, to his pale, narrowed eyes.
“You like making me wait, don’t you?” he asked.
Somehow, she didn’t think the question had to do with her circuitous route to eye contact, so she shook her head.
“Have I ever let you get hurt?” Gone was the familiar, teasing tone she’d known from childhood. In its place was a quiet confidence. No, dominance. He expected capitulation, and he earned it time and time again. He didn’t make demands before he’d proven he was worthy of trust. He ran his business that way and was a rich man because of his vision. It made sense he’d be the same way in his personal life. But, why hadn’t she seen that before?
Maybe she hadn’t been looking…or maybe, just maybe, he’d been hiding it.
“Answer me,” he said. Her gaze fell to his lips, and he gently nudged her chin up to put her stare back where it should be.
“No.”
“No, what?”
She swallowed again, her will weakening every second she had to stare into those hypnotizing eyes. “No, you’ve never let me get hurt.” Simple truth. He’d always stuck his neck out for her, even when she didn’t deserve it.
“That’s right. I need you to remember that, okay? And I need you to stay in this truck and come with us.”
“It’s just a ride to the airport.”
He gave his head a slow shake.
Joe had picked up enough speed that even if she could get the door open, the chances of her rolling safely to the ground were nil. There was also the minor issue of getting run over by the vehicles behind them. She’d end up in the hospital with no insurance. She didn’t need more bills.
“If not the airport, then where?” she asked.
“We’re going to the airport. I haven’t lied to you.”
She flexed her bound wrists, clenched her hands into fists, and meditated on the sharp feel of her nails against her palms. That helped her concentrate and break things down into sensible nuggets. She’d never been the kind of girl who was good at jumping to conclusions. Her brain was bogged down by too much murk for her ideas to get off the ground, but one took flight.
“You’re flying me somewhere?” She whipped her head toward the men in the front seat. “Are they bail bondsmen or Marshalls or something?” She yanked her wrists, but Harvey wouldn’t let go. Oh, God. She may have had some outstanding charges in other states she didn’t know about. Hell, the probability was actually pretty good. She’d always done what she could to get by, and worried about the legalities later.
“Tess, look at me,” Harvey said.
She didn’t take the bait this time. She couldn’t get her hands free, but she still had her feet. She leaned back as far as she could and lifted her right foot, planning to smash his shin, but the sharp prick at the left side of her neck made her stop. A burn seared her muscles, then spread up her neck and down her chest.
Her lips went numb, tongue heavy.
She turned her head in time to see the woman behind her draw back an empty syringe.
“What the fuck did you just do?”
The redhead capped the needle and dropped the spent syringe into a plastic bag without answering. She looked out the window once more.
Eyelids drooping and muddled mind fogging even more, Tess turned back to Harvey. “You said you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. You said…”
He caught her as the earth beneath her opened up and swirled, and held her head on his lap. He smoothed her hair back from her cheek and stroked her jaw. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was outvoted. I said we should go slowly, but they didn’t think you’d agree to come.”
“Who didn’t? What’s happening?” She tried to lift her head so she could nuzzle her cheek against his hand, but gave up when the oddness of the action struck her. She shouldn’t be cuddling with someone who’d just facilitated her abduction.
“You’re finally going home, Tess.”
“I don’t have a home.” She could hardly keep her eyes open.
He chuckled. “I always thought you were the queen of every-damn-thing, but now I know for certain that it’s true.”
“What the blazing hell are you talking about?”
He stroked her face some more, softly and lovingly, and she practically purred under his touch.
So very odd.
“You’re descended from royalty, Tess. Chieftains and queens. You’ve got the most revered of the Norsemen in your blood.”
“I don’t know about revered,” Joe said. “That may be too kind a word given the circumstances.”
There must have been some good shit in that syringe, because she was having a hard time comprehending simple English.
“Norse-who?” she muttered.
“Vikings, Tess. The real deal. We’ve been here longer than anyone else can prove. We’d like to keep it that way, because there’s a reason our ancestors left Denmark and then Iceland. We’re not like normal people.”
One of the men up front chuckled at that, and her head had gone so echoey she couldn’t even tell from which side. Probably Joe, though. Not that stoic motherfucker in the beanie hat. Who the fuck wore beanies in September?
“Wha…” Her tongue was so sluggish and numb that she could hardly push back spit to swallow. “Whas tha mean?”
“You’ll learn soon enough, doll. Trust me. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Never again.”
“You keep saying that,” she said. Vaguely, she registered that she should try a bit harder to get away.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything, except black out.
CHAPTER TWO
Damn, she must have been tired. Tess was always exhausted after leaving work, but she always remembered getting herself home. What had happened at the bar? She must have gotten in the middle of another one of those brawls and gotten concussed. She could throw a hell of a right hook, thanks to that mixed-martial-arts-fighting asshole she’d dated whom wouldn’t go away, but like him, she’d probably been hit in the head one time too many.
She stretched her arms high over her head and moaned indulgently, savoring the plush feel of the soft leather beneath her.
Just a few more minutes, and then she’d get up and…
She opened her eyes. She didn’t have a leather sofa, and the last place she’d been wasn’t wor
k, but inside an SUV hurtling toward the airport.
Her vision focused on wood paneling on a curved wall containing a small oval window. The cloudy view out that small piece of Plexiglas told her that while she was still in a vehicle of sorts, she was no longer on the ground.
“Oh shit.” She gripped the armrests of her luxe seat and faced right. Across the aisle, Harvey sat watching her. His lips were pressed into a tight line and jaw clenched.
He was aggrieved? Well, she was the one who’d been stabbed in the neck with a hypodermic needle and brought onto an airplane against her will. Apparently thugs with private planes didn’t have to go through security.
She filed that bit of information away for later.
She pushed the release on her seatbelt buckle and stood just slightly—enough to turn and confirm her suspicion that the plane was a small one. She’d only been on a plane once in her life: when the state of Florida had sent her ass back to Texas that first time, and it’d been nothing like this. Folks on that flight sat six per row, not two.
That plane hadn’t had luxurious carpeting and polished wood walls. It hadn’t had large-screen video monitors. She could just barely see a sectional sofa on the other side of the cabin door.
“I’d hoped you would sleep until we got there,” Harvey said, drawing her attention back to the front.
He rested his hand over the indiscreet bulge in his pants.
What the hell had he been watching on that big screen? She reached across the aisle to grab the cord of his headphones out of the socket, but her falling shirt strap gave her pause.
She nudged it back up, but not before Harvey hissed.
Oh.
“Your neckline’s been drooping for two hours,” he said when she fixed a warning glare on him. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Such a gentleman. So, I’ve been more or less hanging out all that time. That’s what you’re saying?” She looked down at her nearly exposed breast, covered now by a thin triangle of lace that left very little to the imagination.
His leg bobbed.
“You didn’t have to look,” she said. She made no effort to fix the strap—not yet. When she was standing up and gravity did its job, she had no problems with the shirt’s hang. So, the way she saw the situation was that this was his problem, not hers. She didn’t ask to be put on that plane.
“Hard not to,” he said. “I figured you’d be more comfortable with the coat off. I didn’t think you’d be wearing rags beneath it.”
“Name-brand rags. Well, go ahead and have your eyeful.” She nudged the fabric aside so her breast was in full view.
It was a brazen, teasing thing to do, and totally out of character, but she wasn’t in the mood to be cautious and careful. She was in the mood to be provocative. Maybe she’d get some answers that way. Being nice sure as shit hadn’t worked.
He kept his stare on the ceiling. “You really don’t want to do this. Don’t make this harder for me.”
“Harder for you?” She put her back against the window and pulled her right knee up onto the seat. “Why, my dear man, I do apologize for inconveniencing you by walking past your vehicle and begging you to carry me away. My, how thoughtless of me, not considering the distress my company would cause you.”
He sighed. “It’s for your own good.” He brought his gaze down and turned to her, but kept his eyes focused above her neck.
Well, she’d see how long that lasted.
She moved across the aisle and planted one hand on each of his armrests. Insinuating her knees between his spread legs, she leaned in slowly and gave him a view she knew he wouldn’t resist.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with his labored swallow and his gaze flitted downward.
She heard his sharp exhalation as she skimmed her lips along his jaw and stopped just short of his earlobe.
“That wild streak of yours is going to get you into trouble,” he said.
“Much worse than I’m already in?” She flicked her tongue at the fleshy drape of his ear and pulled it into the clamp of her teeth before he could react.
She released it on a gasp when his strong fingers dug into the meat of her ass, startling her upright.
And then she was on her knees with his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down.
“Much more,” he whispered. He raked his fingers through the back of her hair and pushed her down even more. “I thought I warned you well enough back in the SUV. Maybe I was too subtle.”
Her nose was so close to his crotch that she saw his cock’s twitch.
“This is me being nice, Tess,” he said, still whispering. He loosened his grip on her hair, and rubbed her scalp with tender strokes. “This is because we have history and you deserve some kindness.”
“This? What is the this you’re referring to?” She pressed her cheek against his thigh and closed her eyes. She breathed him in, and moaned wantonly. He was so warm and earthy. All male and uniquely Harvey. She skimmed up his thighs, pausing when her fingertips skimmed his cock, and he grabbed her hair again, adjusting her head so her face angled toward his.
As his thumbs grazed her jawline, she whimpered, and struggled to focus on him. She’d gone lightheaded, and didn’t think it was from the plane’s air pressure or the drug working its way out of her system.
“I wanted to give you a choice, Tess. If it were up to me, you’d be mine, but I didn’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Yours?” she rasped, curling her fingers into the bunched fabric at his crotch. “What are you talking about?” She fingered his fly, and he nudged her hand away.
He dragged the back of his hand down her cheek and settled his palm at her shoulder. “They’ll explain everything when we land.”
Annoyance filled in the spaces in her brain where lust had been, and the fog slowly cleared. What the fuck was going on with her? With them? She’d been out of sorts ever since she’d woken up. Had to be the drugs.
Drugs were bad. She’d never so much as walk through a cloud of secondhand weed smoke again if they were going to fuck her up like this.
She grabbed his shaft and squeezed hard, twisting for added agony.
Swearing, he clutched her wrist.
“Explain it to me now,” she said through clenched teeth. “No more bullshit.”
A bell-like ping sounded over the intercom, and a modulated, calming female voice announced, “Folks, we’re approaching the landing strip and will be setting down in just a couple of minutes. Weather’s great and we’re looking at smooth landing conditions, but just in case, take a seat and buckle up for me.”
The ping sounded again, and the intercom turned off.
Harvey’s breathing became ragged as Tess squeezed harder. “Unhand me,” he said.
“Or else what? You’ll spank me?”
She didn’t care about the footsteps coming closer to the front cabin or the fact the plane was dropping in altitude in what seemed like a precipitous rate.
“Y’all abducted me, remember?” She wedged her other hand in and grabbed his balls before he could stop her. “I was on my way home, minding my own business. I didn’t ask for this. Tell me now what’s going on here, or so help me God—”
The harpy with the tranqs leaned over Harvey’s seat back and cast Tess a withering look. “Nan’s not gonna be too happy if the first time she sees you is with you being hauled out of here unconscious over one of these guys’ shoulders, so I suggest you take your seat.”
“Lady, I couldn’t give a shit about your nan.”
“Oh, but you will, and if you’re lucky, she won’t psychically bulldoze you so you spend the next two weeks trying to recall whether you’re a person or a persimmon.”
“Have you been self-dosing with much better drugs than what you gave me?”
Harvey groaned. “Please, Tess. We’ll be on the ground in a couple of minutes. Everything will be clear before breakfast.”
There was a familiar earnestness in his voice T
ess had known from long ago, and only because of that, she let go of him.
He didn’t wait for her to stand. He picked her up, turned her, and gave her a hard swat on the rear that made her yip. Then he nudged her across the aisle.
He pushed her into her chair and fastened the buckle. Her ass smarted and face burned, but through her embarrassment, there was an odd sense of relief. Relief of what, she didn’t know, though.
He bent to her level and whispered, “I know my place. Never doubt that. I’ll always defer to you because of your status, but let’s be clear on one thing.”
“Take your seat, Harvey,” the redheaded harpy barked.
Harvey ignored her. He kept his gaze locked on Tess’s and whispered, “The next time you grab my dick, you’d better be prepared, because I consider that an invitation. Trust me, sweetheart. You don’t know what you’re inviting.”
Oh, she had a good idea.
Her pussy throbbed and nipples tightened at his frank words, and she wanted very much to see her straight-laced friend dominating her in the way she needed.
She was tired of being the one in control all the time.
He fixed her shirt over her shoulder and straightened her neckline. “I suppose we’ll have to get you something more comfortable to wear when we land.”
She nodded, and he retreated to his seat.
He fastened his belt and the harpy behind him sank into her seat as well.
“We’re wired to like it rough, but the next time you want to instigate a bit of PDA,” she said, “don’t do it in front of your family. I’ll never be able to scrub my brain clean of witnessing it.”
Tess waited for Harvey to acknowledge the woman, but he simply raised an eyebrow at Tess.
“What?”
“Your family, Tess.” He crooked his thumb to the folks seated behind them. “Not mine.”
Oh. My. God.
Tess’s cheeks burned hot yet again and her thoughts devolved into chaotic perplexity once more. She pressed her forehead to the cool window at her left and, struggling to think, she closed her eyes.
What the fuck is happening to me?
