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  “He’s still out there,” he said, grim. I shot at him, but the bullet might have just nicked him because I was moving when I fired. “He’s obviously still pissed too.”

  “Because of the tires, you mean?” I guess it was a dumb question. People who weren’t angry didn’t go around slashing other people’s tires.

  “Yeah. And because you got away.” He was silent a moment. “Guys like him don’t like to lose. They like to be in control.”

  I shuddered a little at his words. My kidnapper was definitely big on control. “I called 9-1-1. I told her my name, but the phone was disconnected.”

  “I went to the police too. There was some bad accident out on Route 210. A lot of casualties. The police station was practically empty when I got there.”

  “That’s why you came,” I whispered.

  “You needed someone fast.”

  Yeah, I did. And he came. Emotion swelled up in my chest, choking me up. I swallowed it down. “Thank you,” was all I could manage. Why is it those words never seem like enough?

  “You’re welcome.” The reply was a soft whisper that floated to me from the front of the cab. His words were simple too. They were more than enough.

  He opened up the center console of the Jeep and pulled out some sort of energy bar. “Here,” he said, handing it back to me.

  I took his offering, ripped open the wrapper, and bit into the sweet food. I made a sound of appreciation when vanilla burst over my tongue.

  “How long were you down there?” he asked, his voice strained.

  “He took me this morning. I was out for a run on the trail.”

  “So like fifteen hours,” he surmised.

  “I guess,” I replied around a large bite of food. It had felt like forever.

  As soon as the bar was finished, I crumpled the wrapper and stuck it the jacket pocket. A bottle of water appeared in my line of vision.

  I took a small sip at first, the cool water slipping down my parched throat with ease.

  “What did he do to you?” Nathan whispered. His voice was hoarse.

  I paused my drinking and lowered the bottle against my chest. “It could have been worse.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  I glanced down at my hand holding the bottle. I’d forgotten about the raw state of my knuckles. “I’ll be okay.”

  He didn’t say anything but went back to rummaging through the center console. When he closed the lid, he held up a small white kit. “I’m coming back there.”

  Before I could protest that there was no way we would both fit, he squeezed himself between the seats and mushed his wide frame beside me.

  He smelled good. Like a fresh-cut Christmas tree.

  He held up the tiny flashlight, which was surprisingly strong, and handed it to me. “Here, point this at your hands. Keep the light trained down.”

  “What if he sees?” I worried, glancing out the very dark window. I could see nothing. The sound of the rain pounding against the ragtop was very loud, and the wind rocked the vehicle occasionally.

  “If he comes here, I’ll shoot him.” There was no room for doubt in his words. In fact, his voice held a backbone of steel that made me a little nervous.

  “It’s not that bad.” I tried. “I can wait.” Okay, so since he reminded me of my injuries, they hurt like hell. But I wasn’t going to admit that.

  “Honor,” he said gently, all traces of the steel gone. He didn’t just say my name—he breathed it. It was like he inhaled it into his body, filled up his lungs, and then exhaled.

  Something warm spread throughout me, like I was being warmed up from the inside out.

  “There’s no reason to leave it like that when I can clean it up.”

  He didn’t touch me. Maybe he knew I was still kind of in shock from everything that happened.

  I was.

  But damn, I wanted him to touch me.

  He placed the small kit on his lap and popped it open, reminding me of an oversized kid with his lunchbox. “This is probably going to hurt like a bitch.”

  I laughed. Thank God he wasn’t the kind of guy to say, “This might hurt a little,” when we all knew that it was going to hurt way more than that.

  He was looking at me when I placed my hand between us. “What?” I said, my heart lodging in my throat and making it very hard to breathe.

  “You have a good laugh.”

  I didn’t say anything because my throat was still obstructed and now my stomach was doing all kinds of funny flips. I really hoped the bar I just inhaled didn’t make a reappearance. I turned on the light and shined it down low between us over the bloody mess that was my hand.

  He used his teeth to rip open some kind of little wipe. “Ready?” he murmured, slipping a free hand beneath mine.

  I nodded.

  He was right. The process of cleaning my scraped and raw knuckles hurt. It hurt a lot. But the good thing was I barely registered the pain because I was too entranced by the feeling of his skin against mine.

  Too entranced by sitting there in a tiny enclosed space with a very large man while he protectively curled his body close to mine and cupped my hand with his. The sound of falling rain splattering against the ragtop and sliding down the vinyl windows was so melodic that if I wasn’t in survival mode, I might have been lured to sleep.

  The scent of pine wrapped around me, bringing me comfort as I stared at the top of his dark head bowed laboriously over my hand. If he noticed the way the flashlight shook in my hand, he didn’t comment.

  Nothing had ever affected me this way. Not ever.

  I tried to commit this feeling to memory, the exact sound of his breathing, the way our knees bumped together. It sort of felt like we were in a small cocoon, closed off from the world. Safe.

  Feeling safe had become a real luxury.

  I tried to tuck away every detail for later when I was able to sit down at the keyboard and write. Yes, I guess I was thinking about work. But when you do what you love, it isn’t work. And when every experience, every single aspect of life can be pulled on for inspiration… well, even my own kidnapping is fair game.

  And so was Nathan.

  He was far more interesting than any story I could ever write about myself.

  “Almost done,” he spoke, bringing me out of my head and back in the moment with him.

  I watched him gently spread some antibacterial cream over the worst of the scrapes and then individually wrap each of my four fingers in separate Band-Aids.

  “That looks ridiculous.” I scoffed. “They probably won’t stay on.”

  “They’ll stay,” he stated, smoothing the last one into place.

  “How do you know?” Little tingles shot up my arm and into my elbow. It made me feel all squirmy inside.

  He looked up, our eyes connecting in the dim light created by the flashlight. “Because I put it there.”

  I would have called him on his arrogance… if I could’ve found the oxygen to speak.

  The temperature in the Jeep rose about twenty degrees as we stared at each other silently. It was like there was some sort of pull between us, a special gravity that only he and I could feel. The air between us practically crackled with tension—but not the stressful kind, the good kind. The kind of tension that made me bite the inside of my lip and squeeze my thighs together.

  After several charged moments, he broke eye contact. I was partially relieved, partially disappointed. Nathan ripped open yet another of those wipe thingies. The flash of his straight white teeth as he used them had me biting the inside of my lip even harder.

  He shook out the mini towelette and looked up. Without warning, without a single word, he cupped the back of my head, his palm completely spanning the base of my skull. His warmth seeped into my scalp and sent little goose bumps racing over me. They multiplied so fast it almost felt like a million tiny ants rushed over my body.

  I couldn’t hold back the shiver.

  “You cold?” he asked.

  “Not
as cold as before.”

  His fingers flexed into my hair and he reached up, using the wipe to gently dab at my lower lip. “What happened here?” he asked gently.

  I swallowed. “I’m not sure.” It could have been from me biting it. It could have been from being hit. Who knew?

  He grunted and pulled it away, and I caught a glimpse of the dark stain against the white. He folded it over and then returned, swiping carefully over more of my skin. “I’m not going to be able to do anything about that eye right now.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” he said, that steel creeping back into his tone. His shoulders stiffened slightly and I tensed. In that moment, he seemed like a cornered, aggressive animal. Like he was seconds away from completely losing it.

  He took a deep breath and expelled it, the action seeming to calm him down. “It makes me angry he did this to you.”

  “Are you friends with him?” I couldn’t keep the question in any longer.

  He tossed the wipe into his lap with the other used one. “No,” he replied.

  “Then how come you texted him?”

  “I play poker once a week with a group of guys. Lex is one of them. He was late to the game and I texted to see if he was coming.”

  “His name is Lex?”

  Nathan nodded.

  Putting a name to the hideous man who tortured me didn’t make him seem any more human. In fact, it made him seem like more of a monster.

  “I had no idea he was a total whack job.”

  “Well, he is that,” I agreed.

  Nathan flashed a grin in the darkness. I longed to see him in the light. I wanted to know the angles and planes of his face. I wanted to take in his features and truly see the man who had literally saved my life.

  Nathan seemed oblivious to my thoughts as I watched him tidy up the first aid kit. Before he put it on the floor, he glanced at me. “Where else are you hurt?”

  “I won’t be requiring any more Band-Aids,” I quipped.

  He turned to look at me fully. His hand closed over mine and he gently took the flashlight from my grasp and clicked it off. “What about your ribs?”

  “I don’t think you have anything in that kit for them.”

  “Let me see them.”

  “Wh-what?” My mouth ran dry. He wanted to look under my shirt?

  “I want to see them.”

  “That’s not really necessary—”

  He studied me and then thrust his hand out in the space between us. “Hey, I’m Nathan Reed. It’s nice to meet you.”

  I wanted to laugh. We were a little beyond a formal introduction. But it was fun (hey, you try being kidnapped and beaten and see what you consider fun), so I slid my hand into his. “I’m Honor.”

  He held my hand a little longer than he needed to, his thumb brushing over the inside of my wrist. I caught myself right before I started purring like a cat.

  That would have been hella embarrassing.

  “I’m a staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. My favorite color is green, and I like football.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, thoroughly charmed by him.

  “Formally introducing myself so you’ll let me under your shirt.”

  I laughed. “I usually don’t let men I just met under my shirt.”

  “I’m irresistible.”

  I smiled. “And so modest.”

  “Now you know all about me. Your turn.”

  I lifted my eyebrow. I knew all about him? I highly doubted that. In fact, Nathan Reed seemed like a guy with many layers. But I played along.

  “I’m Honor Calhoun. I’m a writer. My favorite color is blue, and I also like football.”

  “You like hot wings, Honor?” he asked like it was the most important thing he needed to know.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Nice,” he drawled. He had quite the southern accent going. Every time he talked, I felt a little giddy and I hung on every word he said. I was waiting for him to drop his first “y’all.”

  “All right,” he said, gesturing to my shirt. “Lift it up. Let’s see it.”

  “You suck at foreplay.”

  He caught my wrist in his oversized palm and towed me a little closer. His face came close to mine, so close that I was able to see that he had blue eyes and a scar across one of his cheeks. “That, sweetheart, was not foreplay. When we get to that, you’ll damn well know it.”

  Well, alrighty then.

  Shamelessly, I wondered when we might get to the foreplay.

  He released my wrist and tugged at the hem of my shirt and jacket. He wasn’t going to relent, that much was clear. I sighed and slapped away his hand. Then I opened up the jacket. Before I could get the zipper down, he was sliding up my jacket and shirt, bunching it up beneath my breasts, and then the tiny light clicked back on.

  When the beam met with my torso, breath hissed out between his teeth. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

  I glanced down long enough to see purple and black splotches all over my creamy skin. The area was puffy and grotesque looking, and I turned away. I didn’t want to see it. Feeling it was bad enough.

  “He kicked me.”

  A low growl ripped from his throat.

  I glanced at him, expecting to see rage taking over his face, but instead he wore a frown. Ever so lightly, he brushed the tips of his fingers over the area and I winced. Even his soft caress hurt.

  And then he did something I didn’t see coming.

  The flashlight fell from his fingertips and rolled into the crack of the seat, plunging the backseat back into darkness. Nathan’s newly free hand wrapped around my lower back, his palm spanning my waist as he ducked his head and pressed his lips to the injured area.

  He trailed barely there kisses across the extremely tender flesh.

  Who the hell needed a Band-Aid when he was around?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking up. “I’m not the one who did this and I can’t take away the pain, but if I could…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, but the unspoken dangled there between us and made me forget every ache that coursed through my body.

  In that moment, I fell just a little bit in love with him.

  16

  Nathan

  Her injuries pissed me off.

  And what pissed me off more was the fact that she didn’t whine or complain about them. No, I didn’t want to hear some whiny female sniveling all over the place, but fuck. She earned it. I can’t even imagine the crap she’d been through in the last fifteen hours.

  She was going to end up like me.

  Messed up.

  She deserved better than that.

  I didn’t know her, but I knew enough to realize that kind of life wasn’t what I wanted for her. Hell, I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy.

  Okay. Maybe I would.

  But not her.

  Never Honor.

  God. Just her name in my thoughts was enough to stir up things in me that had laid dormant to the point I thought they went extinct. It was a freaking dandy time for them to show up out of the blue.

  Especially in this situation.

  Especially given what I had to do.

  I fished the flashlight out of the crack between the seat and straightened. “We need to go.”

  “Go?” she said. Her eyes widened and looked like two large white marbles.

  “We can’t stay here. We’re sitting ducks.”

  “It’s raining.”

  Yeah, it was. “Exactly.”

  “You need to explain,” Honor said, pushing herself up a little higher in the seat. She tried to hide the grimace of pain that crossed her face. I saw it. It pissed me off further.

  “Lex slashed my tires. He wants us stranded. He wants us vulnerable. He’s out there. He’s going to be looking for us. He doesn’t want us to get out of these woods alive.”

  “He’s going to kill us?” The veiled fear in her words caused my gut to tighte
n.

  “We’re not safe yet. You might be out of that hole, but he still wants us dead. Now more than ever. If we get out of here, there’s going to be a manhunt for that bastard, and I’ll lead the team.”

  “I already called the cops.”

  “That’s good. I’ll call them too, have them send someone out here.” I probably should have called them when I got here, but I hadn’t wanted to call if she wasn’t here. I wanted to find her first. Of course, once I found her, I was too busy to call anyone.

  “We know who he is. What he’s done.” Honor seemed to be reasoning it out for herself so I didn’t bother to reply. I watched as she reached under my jacket and pulled out the necklace I saw in the photo. “He’s done this before,” she said, her voice wavering. “We have to stop him.”

  “We will. It’s why we can’t stay here. He will be expecting us to take refuge from the rain. He’ll expect you to be too weak to go on foot.”

  “I’m not weak.”

  I smiled a little. She was like a kitten with a really big roar. “I know you aren’t.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is to get moving, work our way to the road.”

  “It’s dark. How will we know which direction to go?”

  I was insulted. “Sweetheart,” I drawled. “I was trained for this. I could find my way out of a pig’s ass.”

  “How the hell would you get into a pig’s ass?”

  “Exactly.”

  She snorted. It wasn’t very ladylike. It was cute as hell. “You make no sense.”

  “You’re going to make me into one of the characters in your next book, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help but tease her.

  “Yes. He’s going to have no teeth and one eye.”

  I chuckled. “Wow, you got good eyesight. I was hoping the dark would disguise my ugly ass ‘til morning.”

  “Whatever,” she tossed out.

  As much as I wanted to sit here all night in this godforsaken tiny-ass back seat, I knew we had to go. We’d been here too long as it was. Before, I just didn’t have the heart to make her run off in the rain. She’d been standing there with this lost, hopeless look written all over her, and I could see the dark smudges of dried blood on her skin.