Handcuffed by Her Hero
Read Handcuffed by Her Hero Online
Authors: Angel Payne
Handcuffed
By Her Hero
By
Angel Payne
Handcuffed
By Her Hero
The
W.I.L.D. Boys of Special Forces, Book 2
Copyright
© 2013 By Angel Payne Writes, LLC
All
Rights Reserved
eBook
ISBN 978-0-9888701-4-7
If you have purchased a copy of this
eBook, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book. This
purchase allows you one legal copy for your own personal reading enjoyment on
your personal computer or device. You do not have the rights to resell,
distribute, print, or transfer this book, in whole or in part, to anyone, in
any format, via methods either currently known or yet to be invented, or upload
to a file sharing peer to peer program. It may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright
Law. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase
an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not
purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase
your own copy. If you no longer want this book, you may not give your copy to
someone else. Delete it from your computer. Thank you for respecting the hard
work of this author.
Edited
By:
Jacy
Mackin
Meredith
Bowery
Tracy
Roelle
Cover
Art:
Dee
Allen
Meredith
Blair
Romance
readers and reviewers are wild for the W.I.L.D. Boys!
Praise
for
Saved By His Submissive
:
The W.I.L.D. Boys of Special Forces,
Book 1
:
-- “TOP PICK!
Saved By His
Submissive
is a wonderful, adventurous, suspenseful, erotic read that will have
you panting for much more. My emotions were all over the place…I totally love
military men, and Garrett is one hot man, but what makes him hotter is his
undying love for Sage.” –
The Romance Reviews
-- “Wow! This book was a total
surprise for me! Truly, this was one of the most beautiful love stories I have
read.” –
The Delighted Reader
-- “This is an awesome new
series, with a nice blend of suspense and D/s.” –
Under the Covers Book Blog
-- “Awesome plot…and what an
ending!” –
Proserpine Craving Books
-- “…keeps you glued to your
e-reader, making this novel a great start to a promising new series.” –
The
Jeep Diva
-- “After reading
Saved By His
Submissive,
I have added Ms. Payne to the short list of writers I will
automatically buy a book from…the book provides a refreshing change to the
standard romance novel.” –
Sizzling Hot Books
-- “This book will have you going
through a range of emotions. A four glass wine toast!” –
Reading Between the
Wines Book Club
-- “I found that this was a book
I just couldn’t put down. I got hooked from the beginning and then I just
couldn’t stop reading. Garrett and Zeke are…good dream material.” –
Love
Romance Passion Blog
-- “Sage is one of the best lead
heroines that I’ve come across in quite some time. I need plot, heart and the
female to do me proud, and Sage Weston delivers, absolutely! The dialogue
between these two characters is so beautiful, raw and intimate, it would be
hard not to fall in love with them as a couple.” –
PRUF Reads Blog
Dedication
Humble,
happy, amazingly grateful, each and every day, to my beautiful Sir. Thank you
for being there. Thank you for
you
.
Acknowledgements
Words
can’t encompass enough thanks for the bloggers, reviewers, and readers who enjoyed
W.I.L.D. Boys 1
and contacted me about it. I wasn’t sure about whether
to do this series or not, and your love for Garrett and Sage meant more than
you’ll ever know.
On
that note:
I’ve
never been more thankful for my beautiful Angel’s Wings Street Team. THANK YOU
to every single one of you—even though now my “Shoe Want List” is now a mile
long. Ha ha!
Special
thanks to:
Jenn
Zane, for all your amazing support over the year.
Sir
Danny Greene, for keeping it real lifestyle-wise, and for making sure my
Star
Wars
deets were right.
Shannon
Poole, Angie Barrett, Adrianne Ross – the best damn beta readers on the planet.
AND
The
selfless men and women of our nation’s military. God bless you.
A
portions of the profits from this book will be donated to the following fine
organizations.
Please
support them:
Wounded
Warrior Project
Special
Operations Warrior Foundation
DAV
Homeless Veterans Initiative
A woman screamed.
Normally, that sound got the
Dominant in Zeke Hayes’ blood pumping in all the right ways. Into all the right
body parts.
Tonight,
the wail reached into his chest and gave a terrifying twist. It grabbed his
legs next, hauling them into a sprint up the front walk to Rayna Chestain’s Tacoma
bungalow. Past his thundering heartbeat, he muttered, “Hang on, little bird.
I’m here.”
Little bird?
Fuck. He’d given
her a nickname. When had that happened?
Why
had that happened? He’d
known the woman for all of three months, the last two happening via web chats
and texts from over five thousand miles away, thanks to a “little day job”
called the First Special Forces Group.
Even if that wasn’t the case,
they weren’t supposed to be in nickname territory. He didn’t go to that domain
with
any
woman.
Especially this woman.
The admission slid him to a stop.
He cracked his neck, trying to knock his thoughts back into their proper peg
holes. All right, Rayna was special. All right, she was different. All right,
she was the first woman in years he hadn’t instantly slotted into one of his
three preferred categories: all-kink-no-strings, flogger wench, or horny-and-flexi
rope bunny. He had no illusions about the reason why. On the night they’d met,
a shithead madman had done the honors of tying Rayna up already. The bastard
had left nothing to the imagination, and not in
any
of the good ways.
Zeke would never forget the sight of her, head sagging and shoulders slumped,
her knees bloodied by the packed dirt floor of a Quonset hut in a remote
jungle. She’d accepted her fate, that she’d soon be someone’s new slave, a
conviction that didn’t disappear even when he’d gotten to her. She’d kept her
wrists pressed together even after he cut the zip ties from them, and shook
like a leaf when he’d pulled her close.
Finally, she’d gazed up at him. Tears
had pooled in the dark green depths of her eyes, like he’d pulled down a star
from heaven just for her. And what had
he
done? Cracked a stupid-ass
grin as if she’d just done the same. It had been one of the best moments of his
life.
Which still
doesn’t earn her a pedestal in your brain, jackass.
The second car in her driveway
had a parking sticker for the courthouse, meaning whatever brother was here on
guard duty had some heat and knew how to use it. That would buy him a few
seconds—if Rayna was screaming at anything other than a bug or a nightmare.
Goddamn, he prayed it was just a bug. He could squash the fucker, make sure all
the doors were secured then get the hell out before said broheim made with the
Ward Cleaver foot tap, waiting for him to ask if he could take her to the
movies and hold her hand. He didn’t do the hand-holding thing. Life had yanked
that circuitry from his brain over twenty years ago.
Rayna needed to have her hand
held. She deserved it.
Yeah, he’d be in and out. Make
the fast SitRep then beat feet for the ex-fil. He’d text her tomorrow to check
in. That’d be good. Maybe they could meet for coffee sometime. Someplace public
and safe, no hand-holding required. No mess. No nicknames.
Another shriek ripped through the
air, longer and louder than the first. Z broke into a new sprint. The mist
seemed to part for him as he neared the bungalow’s door. The action wasn’t
necessary. A man yanked back the portal, clearly having heard his approach. The
guy’s dark auburn hair was disheveled, and his scowl fell just an inch short of
meeting Zeke eye-for-eye, meaning he could turn himself into a six-foot-five
big brother blockade if he wanted to.
Despite that recognition, Z was
in no mood to play diplomat with Trevor Chestain tonight. Yippee. He’d drawn
the short straw and gotten lawyer brother tonight, along with an empty living
room and an otherwise peaceful house.
“Sergeant Hayes. What a pleasure.
Long time, no see.”
“Trevor.” He managed to keep the
tone civil as he dropped his car keys on the table inside the front door. Damn,
he wished for a robber instead of the guy who rocked back on a pair of classy
cowboy boots. The shoes were a weird but perfect match with his staid threads,
giving Z a couple dozen openings for some smart-ass quips, but he stayed his
tongue. Rayna was proud as hell of her brother, despite how his overprotective
act danced on the edge of asshole. For her sake, he’d zip up the wisecracks.
Didn’t matter the next moment,
anyhow. Another whimper filled the air, shooting from the hallway that branched
to the bedrooms.
Zeke grimaced. “She’s gotten
worse, hasn’t she?”
“A lot worse.”
“Fuck.”
Trevor let him squirm through a
silence thicker than the fog outside. Finally the guy said, “You were gone
longer than she expected.”
The comment fit Trev’s M.O. Simple
statement transformed to instant accusation. The man never left the courtroom,
did he?
“Sorry about that. Next time I’m
undercover in a South Pacific rogue state, I’ll stroll next door with a Bundt
cake, tell ‘em I’m on a time schedule and ask if they can help out with a few
nukes in return.”
“Or you can delete my sister off
your contacts list.”
So much for lawyerly subtlety.
Zeke spun a glance around the room, wishing a jury and judge really would
spring out of nowhere. Judges came with gavels. Gavels could do serious damage
to a jerk brother’s head, never mind that said brother was soon going to get
his way about the issue. Not that he was going to spill that nugget for the
asshat.
He just had to see her one more
time. Especially now. He couldn’t leave when she was in torment. Not when he
knew he could ease her pain and chaos. Not when he could help her, even in this
little way, once again.
He crossed Rayna’s living room
without a backwards glance at Trevor.
She cried out again as he got to
her bedroom door.
He blinked for a second, letting
his vision adjust to the dim room. Everything was the same as he remembered,
decorated in soft shades of cream and blue, except for a small lamp on her
vanity table. That was new. The bottles of medications at the lamp’s base? Not
so new. Zeke scowled at the containers on his way to the bed. All of them were
still close to full. She wasn’t sticking to her plan. No wonder she was worse.
Two more steps got him to the
bed. To her side at last.
He was grateful for the excuse to
let his knees give way, plummeting him to the mattress next to her. He couldn’t
account for why the rest of his body felt like C-4, mush with the capacity to
create craters, only needing the fire in his chest to detonate.
Wait. Of course he could explain
what was happening. Absence made the heart grow fonder, but when the real
estate in a guy’s heart was limited, fondness found a home elsewhere, like the
rest of his body. Suddenly, all sixty days of their separation weighed on his
muscles like bricks of the explosive—and damn if he didn’t yearn for a few to
go off, too. God please, only a few. To let her get to him…just a little. To
know what it was like for the simple nearness of a woman to heat his blood, to
storm his senses, to flood his cock with need…
But that was impossible. He only
got that rush in one way. It was a fact, plain and simple, another default setting
on the Zeke Hayes re-wire project. His body’s explosives only got discharged by
one thing.
Control.
A
hell
of a lot of
control.
That was another zip code he’d
filed into No-Man’s Land with Rayna.
Her tears pulled him back to the
real reason he was here. Hell. Huge drops soaked her copper eyelashes, still
closed in sleep. They flowed over her high cheekbones and across the slender
plateau of her nose but never made it to the tip of her heart-shaped chin,
because she backhanded them away. All this, and she didn’t wake up once. Zeke
watched in amazement—and anger.
“You shouldn’t be wiping your own
tears, Ray-bird.”
His whisper was only heard by the
shadows. Rayna cried out again. She flailed, fighting off an attacker only she
could see. Her hand whacked the heavy oak headboard but her nightmare had her
mind trapped tight. She whimpered and thrashed the other direction.
Her arm headed toward the
nightstand, and the large glass of water on it. Zeke caught her wrist half an
inch before it would’ve collided with the container and sliced up her hand. He
got in a breath of relief before realizing, too late, that he’d probably just
intensified the torment of her subconscious.
“Noooo!”
Sure enough, she started fighting
his hold.
“Fuck,” Zeke muttered. “Rayna.”
He jerked her hand to his chest, crushing her knuckles against his sternum. “Sshhh,
bird. It’s going to be—”
“You’re dead! You’re—you’re
supposed to be dead!”
He kept her hand locked to his
chest as he forced in a breath. Her words, twisted with her despairing tone,
painted a searing picture of what was happening behind her twitching eyelids.
She was ranting about the cocksucker who’d been part of the human trafficking network
she’d run from for over a year. Once she’d gotten recaptured, King transferred
her to Thailand then gotten ready to sell her as a sex slave without a flicker
of hesitation. That’s when the squad had stepped in, busting up the bastard’s
party to rescue Rayna, her best friend Sage, and five more American women. It
had been damn satisfying to lock King away in a Bangkok prison—until they’d
learned the Feds had extradited King’s sorry ass back
here.
Inside a
day, King pulled a fucking Criss Angel on them all, his backside never seeing a
second of time inside FDC Sea-Tac, thanks to switching places with a secret
twin brother he had waiting on the back burner.
“I’m—I’m going to kill him. I need
to kill him. Wh-where’s the gun? Where’s the gun?”
Despite his tension, a proud grin
jerked up the corners of his mouth. The angels knew what they were doing when
making her hair the color of fire. “That’s it, honey,” he murmured. “Fight
back.”
He was pretty damn certain where
her flashback went now. King hadn’t been happy to slink back into the gutter
from which he’d slithered. The monster had the goddamn nerve to take Rayna and
Sage again, along with Josie Hawkins, Sage’s pregnant houseguest. King had
gleefully enjoyed the triumph until he realized the stateside “clients” who showed
to buy his booty were actually trained Special Forces operatives. Correction.
Trained and
pissed
operatives
.
Sage’s fiancé, Garrett, was one of
those men. Josie’s husband, Wyatt, specially reactivated for the off-the-books
mission, was the second. Zeke was the third.
Once the jig was up and the women
were safe, King had been taken out—but the bullet hadn’t been fired by him,
Garrett, Wyatt, or any of the FBI agents stationed outside the target house. The
finger on the trigger had been Rayna’s.
To the day he died, he wouldn’t
forget that moment. Tiny redhead. Tiny blue latex fetish dress. Trembling arms.
Shaking lips. Complete resolve. Total bravery. Incredible. Beautiful. She’d
taken his breath away. What breath he had left, anyway. Having just taken a knife
in the gut from King himself, staying conscious had required a deep tap into the
determination reserves. It hadn’t stopped him from dreaming about kissing her,
though. Oh yeah, that would’ve been good. It wouldn’t have been like the chaste
lip brushes he’d indulged with her until then, either. He’d yearned to open her
wide, filling her mouth, tasting every corner of her. Taking her fear and
replacing it with his adoration.
Exactly like he longed to kiss
her now.
Rayna moaned and flinched again.
She kicked at the covers. Her hand wrenched in his. Z’s chest felt like
cracking ice. His thoughts of passion were demolished by fantasies of fury.
He’d never thought of exhuming a guy just to kill him again, but putting a few
more bullets in King’s carcass sounded really fucking good right now.
“Ssshh.” He ran his other hand
gently up her other arm. She was breathing fast, gripped tight by the dream.
Breaking her out of it at this point would be worse for her psyche than letting
her process the memories. “Rayna, it’s all over. You got the gun. You killed the
bad guy. You got him, honey.”
“No. He’s—he’s coming.” She
sobbed and kicked. “Bringing guards this time. Th-they’ve got the woman with
the n-needle. Don’t. Please don’t. Not down there!”
Z’s muscles went to sludge a
second time. Relief had liquefied him the first time. Rage was the villain now.
He forced his way through it, wrapping her hand tighter in his.
“Needle?” he demanded. “What
needle, Rayna?”
He prayed this was some strange
glitch of her nightmare, and not a remembered reality. If it was, so help him
God—
“Not there. Why there?” Her whole
body seized. The only part of her that moved was her face, flinching and
twisting with strains of horror. “Don’t. Oh, god.
Donnn’t
!”
He pulled her up, cradling her
against him. He needed to help her fight off the demons, even if they were only
in her mind. “I won’t let them do it.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “I
won’t, okay?”