Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) (6 page)

As his cock started to stir, he gave both it
and
himself a stern talking to. Just what the hell was
wrong
with him, anyway? Why was he going to mush over a woman that he’d heard speak exactly twenty words, and approximately half of those were while out of her mind with fever? Is
this
what happened when he didn’t have sex for over three years? He started lusting after the first cute female that he saw in her underwear, even one who was seriously ill?

Jesus Christ, now
there
was a depressing thought.

He had to be a better man than this. He had to be better for Shay.

He took command of himself now, to hell with his straining cock and dirty fantasies. He breathed deeply, tucked her head under his chin. Her body trembled against his, and he turned all his attention to her, to what she needed.

Warmth, softness, safety.

He could do all of that for her, give her all of that. Hell, yeah, he could.

Warren shut his eyes, and just held on to her. Held on until they both tumbled in to sleep.

**

The first thing that Shay felt was warmth. It surrounded her, a soft cocoon of blue summer sky. Like a pillow made of lazy sunbeams. She wondered when was the last time that she’d ever felt so safe and comfortable.

She opened her eyes. For almost a full minute, she just blinked and stared, totally unable to process what she was looking at.

The warmth was a man in bed with her, a man holding her snug against his chest. Oddly, it was a huge, muscular man. Most oddly of all, it was the huge, muscular man that she’d smashed with a frying pan on her way out the door as she escaped him.

That was when the penny dropped, and all hell broke loose.

With a cry of shock and horror, she sat straight up, fighting to extricate herself from his arms. But even before he’d opened his eyes, nailing her in place with his fierce blue gaze, he gripped her more tightly. Shay struggled against him, knowing it was hopeless even before she began: the power in that body was immense.

Feeling that she had literally nothing else at her disposal to do, she screamed, and that was when he loosened his iron hold. She scrambled backwards, hit the wall with her back, tried to get to her knees. A burning, shooting pain in her right leg stopped her dead, and she actually felt the color drain from her face.

He saw it. He grabbed her again, and she struggled hard. She was tiring, though, tiring surprisingly quickly, and suddenly, the room was swimming and spinning.

“
Stop
,” he ordered, in that deep, harsh voice that she remembered all too well. “Stop or you’ll rip out your stitches.”

She froze. “My stitches?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do I have stitches?”

He looked at her closely, his mouth a set line in his hard face. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” she asked, not sure that she wanted to know. “Did you – did you hit me?”

Those amazing eyes flashed in rage, and he let her go at last. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I – I don’t know.”

“No. I did
not
hit you.” Every word was a snarl. “I’d never lay a hand on you to hurt you, Shay, so don’t you
ever
say something like that to me again.”

She fell silent now, confused and uncertain. She shifted, and that was when she realized that she was just in her bra and panties. Horrified, she snatched the bed sheets, yanked them up and over her body. Panic flared again, and got exponentially worse when she saw that he was just in boxers.
How
she’d missed
that
astonishing fact was beyond her, now that she’d taken it on board.

“Where are my clothes?” she squeaked, tearing her eyes from the smattering of blond hair covering his broad expanse of chest. She
did
note the massive bruise, though, and felt a stab of regret at having marred that gorgeous landscape. “Where are
your
clothes? Did we – did you –”

“No. We didn’t, and I sure as
hell
didn’t.”

“Oh.” She took a shuddering breath. “So…”

“So. If you promise to sit still, I’ll tell you everything that happened.”

She hesitated, still fighting to push down her fear. Absently, she rubbed the bruises and cuts on her wrists. “And you won’t… hurt me?”

“Hurt
you
?” There was a light, teasing note in that gravely voice now. “Hey,
I’m
not the one who went all Ninja stealth-attack, and bashed someone over the head with a frying pan. That was all
you
, baby.”

“Uh.” She blinked as she took in his grin. It made him even more handsome, if such a thing was possible, and she tilted her head at him, liking the way he called her ‘baby’. It felt strangely familiar, for some reason, and gave her a warm feeling in the pit of her belly. “Yeah, OK. Point taken.”

“Damn right.” He touched the bruise on his cheek. “Direct hit, hellcat.”

“I can see that.”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” God, that little growl was sexy. “You got me.”

“I do believe you got what you deserved,” she said, feeling the need to show some spirit and defend herself a little bit here. “You
are
the guy holding me against my will.”

“I’m
also
the guy who saved you from dying of infection, or possibly bleeding out in a mountain cave.”

Shay stared at him. “Bleeding out? Infection?” That was when it all came back to her in a bolt of memory. “Oh, my God. The mountain lion.” She stuck her leg out with a wince, gazed down at the bandage on her lower leg. “
These
are the stitches that you were talking about?”

“Yep.”

“You stitched me up?”

“I did. I also gave you a few shots of antibiotics. You were burning up with fever for two days.”

She took in his tattoos, his muscles, his ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ vibe, and she felt her face crinkle in puzzlement. “Are you a doctor?”

“No. But I was raised on a farm, and my mama taught me how to tend to the animals. I can inject drugs, figure out appropriate dosages, do stitches, deliver babies.” He paused. “Well. I can deliver baby horses and cows. I’d hesitate to deliver a human baby.”

Shay shocked herself when she laughed. He smiled back.

“Anyway,” he said. “I brought you back here and took care of you.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Three days.”

“
What
?” she said, stunned. “Three days?”

“Yeah. It’s been touch-and-go, but you turned the corner late last night. Slept well for the first time.”

She glanced down at herself again. “And we’re both half-naked because…”

“You were freezing cold, off-and-on,” he said, all matter-of-fact about sitting there in just his underwear, all hot, hard man and rippling muscles. “I had to warm you up.”

“Oh. Right.”

She bit her lip as a memory of something sweet and light moved over her skin. This man had held her, hadn’t he? Her body
knew
it, knew it intimately. She had no memory of any of it, nothing beyond some hazy sensations and some murmured words, but her body was humming at how it had felt to be touched by this man.

He’d been incredibly gentle, she knew that much, and more than anything that had happened over the past few days, that surprised her the most. She hadn’t expected goodness here, in this place. Not with him; certainly not
from
him.

“What’s your name?” she blurted out.

As soon as the question left her lips, her eyes widened. She hadn’t thought
at all
before asking him that, hadn’t even known that she’d wanted to ask the question. It was out there now, though, and suddenly, she found that she really wanted the answer.

He regarded her steadily. “You want my birth name or my road name?”

“Well, that depends,” she said slowly.

“On what?”

“On who you’ve been these past three days. Everything that you’ve done for me – did you do that as a member of the Fallen Angels doing a babysitting job for the club? Or did you do all that as yourself?”

“That was all me, Shay,” he said, so husky-soft that she believed him. “There was nobody here but us. I promise you.”

She smiled, and his heart almost cracked open at the sight.

“Then tell me your real name,” she said.

“Warren. Warren Kane.”

“Warren.” She liked saying his name, she was shocked to find. It suited him, and it didn’t, and she had no clue what she meant by either of those things.

Those blue eyes were gazing at her, and the tenderness she saw in them unnerved her suddenly. What the hell did an outlaw biker know about being gentle and tender and caring? And why was she so ready to believe that she was safe with him?
Nothing
about this man was safe, and the sooner she got her head straight about that, the better.

Flustered, she averted her eyes, scrambled to find a neutral subject that didn’t involve talking about their state of near-undress. Her gaze fell to the bandage on her leg again.

“This cabin has all that kind of medical stuff?” she said. “Antibiotics and syringes? A suture kit?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“So what
is
this place, then?”

“It’s whatever it has to be at the time.” He gestured at her leg. “We have a full-on medical kit here, so sometimes we use this place when a Fallen Angel is injured on a job. They can heal up and recover after some minor surgery. But this place is also a hide-out when the heat is on, a place to relax and recharge, a place to meet in secret away from the clubhouse…”

“A place to hold a hostage,” Shay interrupted him before she could stop herself.

He gave her a hard, narrow look. “Yeah. That too.”

Silence fell between them now, the warmth between them cooled, and they both remembered just what the hell they were doing there. Their eyes held, trying to read each other’s faces and thoughts, then they both looked away at the same time.

Shay may have been stupidly grateful for one hot minute that the man had helped her, but she had to remember that the
only
reason she’d been injured in the first place was because she’d been escaping
him
. He was one of her captors, and no matter how sweet and gentle he’d shown himself capable of being when she was hurt and helpless, he was a bad guy. A criminal. A one-percenter. A killer. A violent, brutal man whose only allegiance was to his brothers, and to his club. He’d turn on her without a second of thought, and beat her near-to-death if he was told to do so, undoing all of the healing that he’d so carefully and patiently bestowed upon her.

And speaking of the healing: he hadn’t taken care of her because he gave a good goddamn about her. No, his job was to keep her in one piece until her fate was decided. He’d seriously fucked up by letting her knock him out and run, and he’d
had
to get her back,
had
to nurse her back to health for the negotiations. She was only useful whole and alive, after all. Her bleeding out in a cave would mean that the Fallen Angels would have exactly zero leverage over her brother. None of this was personal to
him
, and she’d better not forget that again.

Actually… one part of this was personal to him, she knew. If he’d let her get away, or if she’d died, then his own President would have ended him with a bullet to the head. No doubt about that, since that was how these idiots rolled. So Warren Kane was only interested in saving his own ass – and that had meant saving hers.

She was bitterly sorry for her moment of softness now. Sorry that she knew his real name, sorry that she knew
any
name that he went by at all. Sorry that she’d allowed herself to see him as human, even just for a minute.

Well.
That
wouldn’t be happening again.

From Warren’s side, he reminded himself that this was Crusher Alcott’s sister – and that made her both a useful pawn
and
an enemy of the club. He had no idea what Ace and Kirk Jensen had planned for Shay, but he knew that they’d want her off their hands as soon as possible. Getting attached to a woman who was going to just up and disappear back to her real life one day soon made no sense whatsoever.

Well. Getting more attached than he already was, at least.

“So, girl,” he said, aiming for barely-civil, even though it hurt him to be cruel and dismissive to her. He’d held her slim curves to him as she'd slept, inhaled her scent of vanilla, touched her silky skin. How the
fuck
did it make a lick of sense to be cold and aloof now? “It’s past noon. You gonna laze around some more?”

She
did
need some more sleep; of course she did. It killed her to admit this weakness to him, but she had to be smart about this. If she was going to make her next escape her last one, then she had to get her strength back. She had to rest up, eat, and take a good look around the cabin. Since the cell service out this far was non-existent, there
had
to be a land line in here somewhere. Probably in one of the locked rooms, down the hall near the bathroom.

So, yeah. She needed time to get herself together, organize a second plan. Then she’d make her move, though she imagined it’d be way harder to get him down and out again. She’d have to get seriously creative about escape now. After all, she’d
totally
tipped her hand about not being some sniveling, passive nitwit, and she’d bet that he’d already locked up all the frying pans.

“I need to get some more rest,” she said, reluctantly telling him the truth. “Where’s my bed?”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You want to go downstairs?”

“If that’s where my bed is, then yes.”

That stopped him. The bed downstairs was small and uncomfortable, and the basement was freezing cold right now, since he hadn’t had time to turn the heat on yet. No goddamn way he was putting her down there, not when she was still pale and shaky. She needed warmth and comfort, a fresh bandage, some more antibiotics. She was staying right where she was, where he could keep an eye on her.