***
Wire covered lights that hung from a concrete ceiling were the only part of the tunnels that registered in Gracie’s fog-filled brain. She tried to count them as they flew past, in attempt to cling to reality, but no matter how hard she blinked her eyes they refused to focus. The man who carried her in his arms was wearing black SWAT gear, and not an inch of his skin was showing. Finally, he stopped. She tried even harder to bring the world into focus but one section of her brain recognized that something horrible lurked on the other side of her shock. She continued to shy away from acknowledging it.
“Sorry about this, but I need to check you for injuries.”
His voice sounded soothing as he laid her gently on the floor and started stripping her out of her clothes. She barely registered the cold air as it hit her skin. She recognized she should be feeling embarrassed, or even outraged, but not a single feeling could penetrate her mind. He reached up, pulling his ski mask over his head. Then the sound of ripping Velcro rent the air as he tugged off a bulletproof vest. His eyes appeared wonderfully sweet, and she focused on their amber color, as if she were dangling from a lifeline.
“I’m Jacob Cook. Do you know your name?”
“It’s Gracie St. John,” she forced out the whispered words, and he nodded.
“Gracie, you didn’t take any direct hits but you’ve been grazed twice. It doesn’t appear to need stitches—it’s more of a severe burn mark. I realize you’re in shock and probably won’t be able to stand, but I need to get this blood off of you, okay?”
“Okay.”
He left the room and she started to scream for him not to leave her, but he was back as quickly as he left. He lifted her nude body into his arms and carried her into the bathroom where he had turned on the shower earlier. Then, in a move she wasn’t expecting, he stepped into the shower with her in his arms—fully dressed in combat boots and all. He tilted the water so she got the majority of the stream. He slid her feet to the floor while holding her tightly to him with one arm. With the other hand, he squirted some body-wash onto her and began scrubbing off the dried blood. She gasped out loud when he washed her wounds, but other than that, she stayed quiet and still for his ministrations. He massaged shampoo into her hair, using his fingers to remove any tangles. She began shaking, her teeth chattering with the violence of it; even though the steam rolling through the room told her brain the water was hot, her skin felt chilled.
“It’s a side effect from the shock,” he told her, making her feel as if he were reading her mind. “It’ll wear off in a few minutes.”
Jerking a towel from the nearby rod, he dried her before wrapping the towel around her hair. Grabbing another dry towel, he enfolded her in it, lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. After he tucked the covers tightly around her body, she relaxed slightly and imagined this was what it felt like to be wrapped in a cocoon. Buried deep beneath the covers, she finally began to warm up. She looked around. The large underground area reminded her of a studio apartment because, with the exception of the bathroom, it was one large room comprising of an all-in-one bedroom and kitchen. The only furnishings were a king sized bed and a small table with two chairs. Jacob sat on the edge of one of the chairs, trying to unlace his boots. Finally he managed to tug loose the wet laces. Toeing them off, he peeled away his wet socks before trying, without much success, to remove his shirt.
She watched him struggle for a moment before she realized his problem. He’d been shot.
She gingerly slid from the bed, half expecting her legs to collapse from underneath her, but she remained upright. Tucked the towel more firmly to her body, she made her way over to him. He watched her approach without a word, and when she motioned for him to show her the wound, he did so without argument.
“Do you have a first aid kit?”
He nodded towards the bathroom. “In there, under the sink.”
Gracie followed his directions finding the first aid kit easily, and she dug around until she found a pair of scissors. Back at his side, she cut the shirt away until his upper body was bare and she was able to start dressing the wound. It looked as if the bullet sliced his arm open, leaving behind a deep gash.
“It probably needs stitches but there are these butterfly thingies in here if you want to try those instead.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, and she stuck a couple of them across the wound after pulling it tight. She was no expert in dealing with serious cuts so she wasn’t sure she was doing it right, but he didn’t correct her or utter a word of complaint.
Her eyes were a light green and possibly the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing. That’s what he concentrated on while she tugged and swiped at his arm. It hurt like a motherfucker now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but he refused to flinch away from her touch.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said in order to distract himself.
Gracie blinked rapidly as if she were holding back tears. It was strange that she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint when he stripped her naked, but she didn’t want him to see her cry as if it would leave her too exposed.
“What will happen to her body? I don’t like thinking about her lying out there all night.”
“That won’t happen,” he reassured her. “My people will have already reported it as a drive by shooting. She’ll be found quickly.”
“A drive by shooting,” she repeated woodenly. “But that’s not true.”
“What is the truth, Ms. St. John?”
She threw her hands up, nearly losing her towel in the process and almost poking his eye out. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Instead of answering her question, he asked. “How long do you think it will take those men to find out who you are? How long do you think it will take them to wonder if you’ve seen their faces or our safe house?” he said, gesturing to the room at large. Then, shoving his face close to hers, he added. “Or if you’ve seen my face?”
When she remained silent, he continued to try and drive home his point. “My guess is they already know who you are and they don’t intend to ask you any of those questions nicely.”
The little bit of color left in her face after a night of shocks bleached out at his words. He felt like shit but she needed to understand the seriousness of the situation. He was trying to keep her alive.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” she choked out. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t know any of those things.”
“If I hadn’t,” he said with brutal honesty, “you’d already be dead.”
Gracie backed up, dropping down onto the edge of the bed. She stared down at her clasped hands leaving him looking at the top of her head. She lost the towel covering her wet hair when she climbed out of bed earlier. The brown locks hung down her body, and the ends were already starting to curl as it dried. Her legs were gorgeous, and even her bare shoulders appealed to him. He was totally aware that his attraction was inappropriate, but bad timing never stopped a man from finding a woman sexy before. A drop of water hit her arm and rolled down to her wrist. He realized she was crying. It was silent and more heartbreaking than anything he had witnessed before now.
“You should get some sleep.”
She nodded absently, keeping her eyes averted, and he knew she was ashamed of her tears.
“I’ve got to get out of these wet clothes,” he told her, sparing her pride.
Moving silently, he went into the bathroom, only closing the door halfway. There was no way she was leaving this room without the codes needed to open the door, but, knowing how angry she was, he didn’t put it past her to try, not to mention there were several weapons stashed around the room.
The bed creaked, and his eyes shot to the mirror. He watched her reflection, but she only crawled back up the bed, climbing underneath the covers. She shifted around, then after a minute of struggling against the wet towel, it went flying out from beneath the blankets. He knew she was now tucked into his bed, naked. The image in his mind made him instantly hard. Even under their dire circumstances, he couldn’t miss how sexy her nude body was when he dried the water from it. Her curves were so beautiful, his mouth watered as he pictured how she’d feel underneath him. He knew her breasts would overflow in his hands—and his hands were large. That thought alone forced him to clutch the edge of the sink in an attempt to cling to his sanity.
CHAPTER TWO
Tears were a useless waste of time and energy, and Gracie hated to cry. Some women could cry so prettily, but not her. Her face got all blotchy and her nose turned red. It was not a good look. Sometimes she believed she had cried so much as a child that there were no more tears for her to shed, and then something like tonight came along and slapped her with the truth; there were still a few left. That didn’t mean she should let anyone play witness to it. Mary was dead—that was a loss she may never forget. Something horrible happened tonight in that alleyway, and she didn’t even know what it was. She was well aware that Jacob saved her life, but she felt helpless, and that helplessness fed her anger. Her anger wasn’t even necessarily directed at him. It was more of a living thing that ate at her insides, making her feel as if it might explode out of her at any moment. She didn’t like being kept in the dark. It went against her need to be in control of all situations. She didn’t know what was going on or who these people were. She didn’t know who killed Mary or who was protecting her now. She didn’t know if Jacob played for the good guys or the bad. He had carried her out of there, and he was keeping her safe now, no matter what the reasons. A bad man would have left her to die or would have killed her himself, but he was shot while saving her life.
Now the numbness was wearing off, not only was she more aware of her own mental distress, she was also becoming increasingly aware of her physical discomfort. Even if her brain would calm enough for sleep to overtake her, there was no way she was going to be able to ignore wearing a wet towel to bed. She wiggled out of it, making sure she remained completely covered by the blankets as she dropped it to the floor. She knew it was crazy to cling to her modesty this late in the game but what else did she have left?
A whisper of noise sounded, and she quickly looked towards the bathroom door. She could see the muscles flexing in Jacob’s back as he clutched the edge of the sink. She felt momentarily panicked. How much blood did he lose carrying her through those tunnels and while he cared for her after their arrival? He didn’t appear weak in the least, but she was no judge of physical health.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly, somehow knowing he would hear.
His eyes lifted to the mirror, and their gazes locked in the reflection, forcing the breath to catch in her chest. Good lord he was … intense, and she felt an even stronger need to make sure she was covered from head to toe, but she made herself lie still. While holding her gaze, he unsnapped his pants then slowly slid down his zipper, as if daring her to continue to watch. Little did he know she couldn’t have looked away even if she had wanted to, because no matter how bad the timing of her overload of hormones, she was unaccountably drawn to him.
He made her suddenly want to celebrate the fact that she survived. When she didn’t glance away shyly, as he was clearly expecting, he let go, allowing his black cargo pants to slither to the floor. He was going commando under those pants, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to lick her parched lips at the sight of his gorgeous ass. The mirror above the sink only showed his face and bare chest, but somehow she knew, she just
knew,
he was hard and ready for her. Her own body screamed out in answer to his overwhelming potency, and heat flooded her core as her nipples tightened. The brush of the sheets against her bare breasts almost made her cry out in frustration, and she pressed her knees together, trying to ease the pressure building there.
He grabbed another towel from the rack, wrapping it around his waist, before moving into the room. She kept her eyes locked on his, not even daring to drop her gaze in order to see the proof of his arousal. He dropped down into the hard, wooden-backed chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing his feet at the ankles before leaning back to stretch out as much as he was able. He linked his fingers behind his head, and it took her a moment to realize he intended to sleep there.
“You can’t sleep in that chair,” her voice came out sounding husky, even to her own ears. He snorted in response. She added, “This bed is big enough for us to share. It’s not necessary for you to sleep in that hard chair.”
He watched her through half closed lids, and her breathing hitched up a notch. “Trust me darling. That bed is not big enough for the two of us right now. If I get under those covers with you, we both know I’ll be inside you before you could say goodnight.”
She did know it. His body was a work of art, and since art was her profession, she knew what she was talking about. He was a tall man, probably reaching six foot seven, and every muscle in his body was well defined as if the world’s leading sculptor chiseled out each line.
“And if that’s what I want?” she asked curiously.
His eyes flared at her question, but he made no move to join her. “You’ll hate me when you realize I took advantage of you, and I have enough things blackening my soul already.”
Would she hate him?
She wondered momentarily.
No,
she decided that, as much as her heart hurt at the moment, she still knew herself and would never proposition a man if she didn’t mean it. But she could see he meant to stand by his decision, and she respected him all the more.
“If you have no intentions of distracting me in bed, at least tell me about yourself so I don’t lay here letting my mind wander. I don’t think it would end up in a very pretty place.”
Why was he refusing her again? He couldn’t remember with all the blind lust fogging his brain. He also couldn’t remember a time in his life when he was so fascinated by a woman. He shook his head, trying to shake away the cobwebs, but she misinterpreted the motion. “Ugh, you won’t tell me
anything
?”