Circle of Danger (2 page)

“What the hell?” The man ran toward the stairs as he struggled to pull up his pants. One foot on the bottom step, he stopped, staring at the door.

A smaller blast was followed by shouting and heavy footsteps running across the floor above. Whoever had come a-knocking were making their way through the house.

“Well, babe, you're on your own. I hope they appreciate the gift I'm leaving them.” He laughed and disappeared beneath the stairs into a black void.

Her eyelids felt so heavy. Tingling travelling across her torso rushed down her legs and arms, and then a feeling of lightness and floating followed. A strong breeze brushed her naked body. Someone had found the basement. A wave of dizziness pushed her under and she closed her eyes, unable to lift them even when she felt someone fighting with the chains holding her down.

“Damn it, Marie. You better be alive,” a deep voice growled.

She smiled. Deep inside, she knew he'd come for her.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WO

R
yker ignored the tightening of the scars across the side of his face as he grimaced. Although she'd seen his ravaged face often, it'd been years since he'd been this close to her. He steeled himself for when she opened her eyes and they filled with pity.

That was the last emotion he ever wanted from her. He inhaled deeply. Why was he worrying about her feelings? His only concern should be getting her out of here.

Thankfully she kept her eyes closed as he carefully pulled the duct tape off her mouth. The bruise on her cheek and numerous others dotted across her body shot his temper sky-high. Marie would never hurt another human being. He'd tried protecting her the best way he knew how: by placing her in the Information Systems department of his organization. What was the worst that could happen? Carpal tunnel syndrome? He'd ordered Bryan to give her internal assignments. No external data retrieval. But the bastard claimed he'd forgotten.
Forgotten, my ass!

He slipped out of his leather jacket and wrapped as much of her as he could. Seeing the dirty sheets, he wanted to tear them off the bed and use the strips to hang the man who'd done this to her.

“Marie, I'll be careful picking you up. Let me know if you hurt anywhere and I'll stop.” She felt good in his arms, solid but soft like a woman should. Over the last year, she'd gained a little weight and it looked good on her, gave her a more womanly figure.

Holy shit, he needed to keep his mind on the matter at hand. And not where he would like to put his hands. Shit.

He settled her against his chest, and she released a long groan.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

He stopped near the doorway. His men swarmed around him, searching the house for clues. Refusing to move another inch, he waited for her answer. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. Then moss-green eyes opened. Her pupils were unnaturally dilated.

The son of a bitch had drugged her.

“What did he give you?” His jaw shifted when she played with the hair at the back of his neck. His fingers spread wide on her back as he fought the need to squeeze her tighter to his chest.

“I don't know. He injected me with something green and shiny. He just said it was a gift and something about it being addictive.” She licked her lips and winced.

“Hang in there and we'll have the doc check you out.” With each step he made toward the van, she whimpered. It broke his heart. He'd never felt so clumsy, but he still refused to let anyone take her. No one could be gentler. Yet having her nearly naked in his arms was a temptation he didn't need. His hands shook in fury with himself for the sick thoughts and with the certainty he was no better than the asshole who did this to her.

The shiny green stuff she mentioned was called Blossom Flower. The new drug kept popping up and causing trouble. All the information they'd received so far pointed to the Wizard as the designer. They'd hoped this information would lead them to the psycho's lab. For the past year, Ryker had planned to stop the nut job from killing more women in his area by either running him out of business or destroying his resources in producing the drug, but the game plan had changed when he stripped Marie and hurt her. The asshole's death certificate only needed a signature and Ryker was the one who would provide the ink.

Within moments, he strode across the yard and into the van. He nodded at the driver to go. If he had anything to do with it, she'd never leave Sector again. The farther away she was from psychos, the better.

She shifted in his arms and his cock hardened. Jesus H. Christ! Why couldn't he just hold her without acting like a sex fiend? He looked at the dark circles beneath her eyes and the paleness of her cheeks. What else had the asshole done to her? He squeezed his eyes shut for a couple seconds, trying to escape the thought of her being raped.
Please, no human deserves being treated like that.
He understood more so than most men the horror in being held down and forced to endure. Mental scars often didn't heal like physical ones. There were only a few exceptions to that reasoning.

He looked at the matted skin along his right arm. The burns had healed years ago but he still remembered the piercing pain. Only a small part of a past he struggled with every day.

His cell phone vibrated. Being careful not to squeeze Marie, he leaned to one side and pulled it from his jeans pocket.

“Yeah.”

“The bastard got out through a cellar door. He jumped on a motorcycle and headed north and in less than five minutes we lost him in the mountains,” Jack relayed.

So much for capturing the asshole who harmed his woman.

He looked up and blinked. No. Not
his
woman. Never his.

“Tell them to keep looking.” Then he pressed a button, cutting short the conversation.

Marie wiggled in his arms. He shuddered from the electrifying feeling of her buttocks rubbing against his groin. After a slight adjustment, he regained control.

“Honey.” He needed her to look into his face. “Marie, quit moving around. We'll be at Sector in less than thirty minutes.” He wanted her checked over quickly.

Once he stepped into the helicopter, still holding her, he sank into the soft leather seat. The hum of the luxury craft escalated as they took off. His jacket had slipped down a little and one perfectly formed breast with a coral-pink areola peeked at him. With trembling fingers he adjusted the jacket and resisted touching the hard tip. He blinked hard to wipe the sight away and glared at the man talking to him.

“Sir? You can cover her better with this.” A crew member nodded to the dark-blue blanket he held out with a trembling hand.

Ryker rubbed the rough material between his thumb and forefinger. The wool would chafe her tender skin. But she needed the warmth and maybe it would help him regain a little sanity.

Still shaking inside from the thought of someone else mistreating her and the extreme danger she'd been in, he compromised by leaving the jacket on her and wrapping the blanket over it.

He stared out the window watching the landscape change from steel and concrete to trees and mountains. He forced himself to look anywhere but at Marie during the flight. They were in the air for no more than five minutes when her body became limp. She'd dozed off.

As soon as they landed and the door banged open, an EMT reached in for her.

“No. Tell Doc to come to the mansion,” Ryker said, snarling his impatience. He sounded unreasonable. Yet he didn't care.

By the time he reached his bedroom, her wiggling and moaning in his arms almost shattered his control. His chest ached with worry. She appeared to be reliving the nightmare of the last few hours as her eyes darted behind closed lids. He kneeled on the bed and placed her in the center.

With eyes wide open, she batted and pushed at the heavy material. “Let me out of this cocoon.” She squealed and shoved again, fighting the blanket. “I feel like a thousand ants are marching all over me.”

“Wait.” Ryker pulled the sheet back. He planned to cover the temptation she presented, protecting some of her modesty. The least he could do was act like a gentleman.

She burst free from the constraints of the blanket and jacket, slapping away the sheet. Long hair flying around her head, the white of her eyes bright and almost glowing in her fear, she kicked and screamed, “Get them off me!”

“Marie, calm down. I'm trying to help you.”

He tossed the sheet back over her, but she immediately rose to her knees and clasped his arms, obviously uncaring that she provided a clear view of every glorious inch of her again, especially the exquisite shaven apex of her thighs. As soon as her trembling fingers touched his skin, she changed from crazed maniac to purring kitten.

Her talented hands massaged his biceps. “Oh, Ryker, thank you for getting me out of there.” Her gaze followed the fiery path her hands made from his elbows to the skin beneath his T-shirt's short sleeves. “You feel so good. Hard and hot.” She rubbed her chest against his. “I feel funny. Different. Wonderful. Awww, I love your broad shoulders and the way you're so big, so manly.” She fingered his nipple through the thin cotton. “So sad. The scars are so sad, but they make you look dangerous. Everything including the patch makes you”—she inhaled deeply, causing her breasts to lift, drawing his attention—“so mysterious, so delicious.” The last said almost in a whisper.

All the air in the room disappeared, shutting down his reflexes and allowing her the advantage to shove one hand under his shirt and the other beneath his waistband. His rock-hard erection greeted her warm hand with a jump.

He grabbed her wrists and folded her arms across her upper chest, a much safer spot to allow him to reorganize his thoughts. “Listen to me. Whatever that guy gave you, it's making you do this. I'll do my best to help, but you've got to help me. You need to fight it.”

“No. I don't want to stop. For years, I've wanted this. For too long, I was afraid you would laugh at me. Being this close makes me remember things. The way we were when I was a kid. And then you changed. I was afraid of you. I was afraid of what you would do to me. I don't feel that way now.” She used his tight hold to pull up until her tongue glided across his lips. “I mean I'm no longer scared of this with you.”

His body, taut and aching from holding back, braced against sinking in her touch. He even smelled her arousal. Who would've thought it possible? The drug running through her bloodstream had to be the reason. Set off some type of powerful pheromones or whatever. Every available inch of her naked body strained to rub his, and her sensual attack made it difficult to resist until one word she said sunk into his bloodless brain.

“What do you mean, you were afraid of me?” he asked in a whisper. A fear he'd tamped down so many years ago reared its ugly head. Was he the monster their master said he was? She'd known him longer than anyone else in The Circle. Why had she been afraid of him?

“I'd belonged to Master and he called you his beautiful monster. No matter how he treated you, he trained you to take his place. You were so above . . . I . . . I want to show you how I feel.” She rubbed her cheek in the crook of his neck.

Releasing her hands, his fingers gripped her shoulders until he found the strength to push her away. She landed on her butt in the middle of the bed.

“Don't talk like that. You never asked to be treated the way Mast . . . Theo treated you.” He needed to quit thinking of the perverted man who warped their lives as Master. Time to move on and realize Theo Palmer had been no more than that. An evil and insane man up to the day he died. His control over their lives continued from the grave only if they allowed it.

“Please. Only you can make it stop hurtin'.” She licked her lips as her eyelids lowered and she watched him with a lust-filled gaze.

Her pleading jerked his attention back to the erotic fantasy crawling across the bed. Ryker wanted to take her, wanted to thrust the ache away by sinking into her over and over again. But he couldn't. The drug the freak had concocted forced her to act so unlike her normal shy self. Later, she would hate her actions, and him even more, when it wore off. They needed a sample of what she was given in an effort to produce an antidote. Every designer drug had an antidote. At least, he hoped there was one.

Unable to resist one small touch, he brushed the back of his hand against the silkiness of her breast. She smiled up at him, innocent eyes and sinful mouth.

He arched his neck as he threw his head back and groaned.

Her hand cupped his tight balls. She leaned her cheek against his stomach and slid her hand up his swollen shaft. Even with cloth between them, he almost lost control. He shoved her away again. His common sense screamed to leave the room until Doc could give her something to combat the effects of the drug.

Before he moved toward the door, she scrambled to her hands and knees with legs spread wide, looking at him with such hunger. He inhaled her special fragrance again and devoured the sight of her provocative position on the bed.

His chest rose and fell as he worked to regain his composure.

“Oh, it's goin' to be like that, is it?” she teased. The tip of her tongue peeked out as if she tasted his need in the air.

Leaning forward, she arched her back and lifted her buttocks in the air. The two round mounds held high tempted his hands to smack them until they turned a warm, deep pink. She had no idea what she invited by playing with him. Did she understand the danger she asked for?

More blood surged toward his groin so fast he jabbed his knees into the side of the mattress to remain upright. When she climbed up his torso and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, sucking his tongue into her mouth, all thought of protecting her from everyone including himself dissipated.

Ah, hell.

Denying himself her touch was no longer a viable option, especially when she unzipped his pants and pulled him out. He tried to kick-start his brain again. His hands reached for her head, but when he felt her tongue slide from balls to tip, he gritted his teeth as he hissed with pleasure. He needed to stop her before it was too late.

Instead, his hands fisted in her hair and brought her mouth to his. He growled a dark yearning against her lips. Her tongue darted around his. He answered by devouring her.

Damn, nothing tasted sweeter. Every moan she released set off warning bells in his subconscious, but the hunger he'd denied himself for so long could no longer be put off.

As soon as her back hit the mattress, he forced his hands to gently spread her legs apart. His gaze centered on what he'd craved for so long. Using his thumb, he traced the soft nether lips. She'd shaved recently, so smooth and tender, and he could easily see they were swollen and moist with desire.

She moaned, arched her back, and reached out her arms to him. “Please. I need you in me.” Her eyes half closed and her blonde hair mussed, he found her irresistible. “Help me. Make it stop achin'. I need you.”