Handcuffed by Her Hero (25 page)

“Especially now. With a hat and
glasses, I’ll blend even more with the locals.” He glanced back over to Rayna,
who was done with her futzing at his wound and now scooted up onto one of the
kitchen stools. She gave him a sweetly supportive smile while wrapping his
shirt around her knees for warmth. The action let him see a tiny piece of her
ass, so cute and tawny and pinchable. That did
not
make his next words
easier to say. “Hawk, did you ever made good on that plan to sneak Sage up
here?”

There was another lengthy pause.
“Aw, hell,” his friend finally spat.

Z frowned. “Hell what?”

“I’m not getting that paddle back
now, am I?”

“
What
paddle?”

“The one you found.” Garrett
snorted. “Right? The one I got at the vendor night at Bastille, the leather-wrapped
number with the end shaped like a heart, then left up there? Bastard. You know
Sage loves that thing. You found it and now you’re holding it hostage. All
right, what do you want for it?”

Even under these circumstances,
he’d usually laugh at that. But now, knowing he had at least a couple more days
in this place with Rayna, that paddle and a whole kitchen full of kinky utensils
that he hadn’t even used on her yet…

That he couldn’t use on her,
ever
.

Hopping the border and
disappearing into the Canadian tundra was looking less torturous by the second.

“I don’t want the damn paddle,
Haystack Jack,” he retorted. “I was just hoping Sage left some clothes behind.”

“Oh.” Garrett emitted a sarcastic
snort. “Well, in that case, can’t help you, man.” When Zeke sliced a growl
through the line, he cracked, “What the hell? You think I let her pack
clothes
for a weekend in the woods alone?”

Z rolled his eyes. “One day, I’m going
to regret exposing you to all this, aren’t I?”

Garrett laughed. “I think I would
have managed the way myself eventually.”

“Yeah, just remember the buddy
who put the first flogger in your hand, you stubborn smegma.”

 “No way I’m forgetting you right
now, darling. You’re hotter than the Kardashians and all twelve
Bachelor
finalists right now.”

“Gee thanks, my little love
muffin.”

“Bite me, Hayes.”

“I’d really rather not.”
Especially because he could only think of one body he longed to be biting right
now. “But speaking of kinky aftermath—”

“You wanna talk to T-Bomb?”

Sometimes it was damn good to
have a wingman who read your mind like a Jedi. “Check,” he responded to this
friend. “Thanks, Hawk.”

After half a minute, Tait’s voice
came on the line. “Hey, Z.” His tone was strained.

“Tait.” He turned away from Rayna
and pulled in a deep breath.
Awkward
just got installed over the
conversation in neon letters. “Listen…I need to thank you for having my six
last night with Luna. Well…night before last, technically.”

Tait shot back an angry growl.
“Are you really doing this shit? After you saved my bacon twice in Kaesŏng
last
Saturday?”

“Not the same game and you know
it, man. There are times and places for Psycho Zsycho, and—”

“And from what I witnessed, Luna
had no complaints about him showing up in that play room.”

Something snuck into the guy’s
voice that Zeke didn’t recognize. If they were women, he might even think a
certain green monster had perched on T-Bomb’s shoulder. “Are you square with
what happened, man?”

“Yeah.” Again, Tait’s answer came
too fast and easy. “Of course. It was a fucking awesome scene, Z. You were good
with her; really amazing. I learned a few new things, too.”

“Okay.” He said it slowly. “So
how’s Luna? Was
she
square with everything?”

“As square as she could be.” Tait
took another breath as if to add to that but huffed into silence.

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’ Dude,
she was using Harry Potter references on me. 
That
woman, with her
goddess hair and her endless eyes and her sexy wit, was reduced to Hogwarts
analogies after being under your hand for an hour.”

He felt his eyebrows jump. Half
of him wanted to take Bommer’s clear-cut case of infatuation, mush it up into a
nice pile of shit, and rub the guy’s surfer god face in it. Fortunately, the
other part of him won out.

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “I
need to talk to her.”

“Ya think?”

“On the top of the to-do list,
okay? Just as soon as I don’t have every cop, civvy
and
military,
craving to put a bullet in my ass.”

With that as a perky little
conversation ender, he said good-bye to Tait, coordinated another call time
with Garrett in twelve hours, and re-cradled the phone with a weighty
exhalation.

Rayna scooted around to stand
next to him at the counter. She lifted the tips of her fingers to his forearm
and scraped them lightly through his hair. Damn it if even that simple gesture
from her didn’t ignite his blood in forty different ways again.

“So we’re on the lam for a little
while longer, Clyde?” She embellished it with a tiny giggle. Zeke struggled to
match her mirth but couldn’t summon the feelings. They were jammed by an
embargo on his senses, enacted by a joint effort between his cock and his mind,
uniting as one front, behind one petrifying thought.

How the hell was he expected to
stay here with her for one more hour, let alone a day or two or three, and keep
his hands completely off of her?

You already know
the answer to that, asshole.

Because if you
don’t, you’ll destroy her. Forget about everything you’ll do to her body.
Consider the damage you’ll wreak upon her mind, her heart…

Consider the
devastation she’ll wreak on
yours.

“Ooohhh! I like this one.”

Rayna giggled as she held up the
T-shirt to her chest, grabbed from a bin of ridiculous tourist garb in the
little gift store where she and Zeke were the only customers. It sure as hell
beat the baggy sweatshirt he’d given her as a replacement for the Henley, along
with her semi-clean sweats and muddy Skechers runners.

Z glanced at the shirt, jabbed a
tuft of her hair back under the Mariners baseball cap, and issued an answer
without skipping a beat. “No.”

She gave him a mocking gape. “No?
What the hell, Hayes? It’s the best line from all the Indiana Jones movies. You
know, this shirt is probably a classic.”

“Classic piece of crap.”

Her jaw dropped again. “You just
said that about Professor Henry Jones Junior, buddy.”

“Pffft. Whatever.”

“Ohhh, I get it. You’re one of
those Jedi boys who thinks Han Solo kicks Indy’s ass, right?”

He grunted. “Han Solo isn’t
afraid of some stupid-ass snakes.” He pondered a sweatshirt embellished with
sparkled butterflies and flowers along with the words
Cascades National Forest:
A Blooming Good Time
. “Han Solo isn’t afraid of anything. Just sayin’.”

“Except Leia.”

The second it came out, she
realized she wasn’t entirely kidding. Fortunately, Z didn’t get her subtext due
to his own search through the bin. “Why would he be afraid of Leia?” he
muttered. “She’s the love of his life.”

“And she knows that…how?”

“What do you mean?”

She glowered at him, strangely
irritated. “
The Empire Strikes Back.
Cloud City, remember? He’s about to
be encased in carbonite. They have no idea how long he’ll be frozen or if he’ll
even survive the imprisonment. It’s dangerous shit.
She
comes clean,
confesses she loves him. And he—”

“Okay, look.” He abandoned the
bin in favor of thumbing through a rack of hoodies on hangars. The action made
it necessary for him to lean closer to her. “Leia is the leader of her people
and usually has a blaster strapped to her thigh. It’s not like she needs hearts
for dots in her words, or sappy astral sonnets. Han knows that.”

The smile he sent as finish to
that only worsened her weird case of rankled. Nevertheless, with a little smirk
of her own, she returned, “Which is exactly why she scares him.”

Not waiting for a comeback, she
pivoted and started back down the aisle. Just before she rounded the corner
near the hunting rifles, she called, “Get me the sparkly sweatshirt and you’re
a dead man, Hayes.”

*
* * * *

An hour later, with several bags
of non-perishable groceries and new clothes in the Jag’s back seat, her mouth
was filled with an incredible burst of flavor. She lifted a gaze at Z filled
with pure rapture.

“Holy shit,” she gasped. “You
were right.”

Z leaned back against the
driver’s side door and cocked a grin. “Bet your ass I was.”

“This is the best damn pizza on
the planet.”

“Worth the extra half hour down the
hill?”

“Mmmmm.” She took another bite
and rolled her eyes in pleasure. “Yes, Sir!”

Unbelievably, Zeke set his pizza
down into the box that rested on his lap. She looked up in surprise—until her
gaze got to his face. His parted lips and darkened gaze brought a meltdown of
comprehension. And remembrance. And deep, needing lust.

And unease.

“It—just popped out,” she
murmured.

“It sure did.” His voice was
equally low. And coarse. And damnably, deliciously sexy. He didn’t falter his
stare, making her feel like the cheese on the pizza. The box rested against his
broad, firm abs. She fought off a sudden urge to toss the thing into the back
seat, climb over, and plunge her hands under his jacket just to feel his hot,
hard skin again. She dared glancing up at him again, biting her lower lip to
keep her chin from wobbling and betraying her thoughts.

Like
that
helped.

“Rayna.” It spilled from him on a
rasp. “God
damn
it. How do you do that to me?”

She frowned, trying to discern
whether he’d just bashed her or complimented her. “Do what?”

He shook his head. The action
stirred thicker tension into the air. “
That
.” He rubbed his chest hard.
“With just your eyes…
hell
.”

She looked back down. It didn’t
thin out her cloud of need at all. Nor, she realized, did she want it to. This
churning, needing burn in her body for him…she
liked
it. Though she knew
it was insane, even knew her body might end up bearing the same deep welts
she’d seen on Luna, she needed
him.

“Z?”

“What?”

She peered up at him again. “Before
that day, with Kier…I’d never been to that park.”

“I know.”

“I never went back after.”

“I know.” He gazed out the
windshield as he repeated it. The scudding skies etched his bold features in
dark gray light, making him look more a troubled warrior than ever. Her fingers
itched with the need to touch him, to soothe those dark edges away from him. “I
went back a few times,” he confessed. “Looking for you.”

“You did?”

He rolled his head, cracking his
neck. It didn’t ease the taut lines at the edge of his face. “I never knew what
had happened. Whether you were okay.”

It was easy to control the little
tingles that danced through her chest. Fighting the thrill that rooted in her
stomach was another thing. “You worried about me?”

He didn’t answer her right away.
His brows bunched as he picked apart one of the napkins, piece by
thumbnail-sized piece. “You can blame the ballet for that.”

If he’d just told her he was
secretly a European prince, she wouldn’t have been more stunned. “Excuse me?”
She couldn’t help the laugh with which she finished.

“Kier and I were street mongrels,
Ray. You know that part, already.” After she nodded, he went on, “We were
actually friends for a long time as younger kids. We were unified by our belief
that there had to be a way out. Trouble was, once we hit middle school, Kier’s
escape hatch was lined with drug dealing, gun running, booze and dropping out.
I chose a different path. It involved the ballet.”

She tossed him a teasing sneer.
“You joined up with the Pac Northwest Ballet?”

“Not exactly.” His lips quirked.
“My social worker was a huge fan.” He dragged a hand through his hair as an
excuse to hide his embarrassed grin. “The rec center always got donated
tickets, and she told me I was a great date. The night after Kier and I bumped
heads in the park over you, I went to see
The Fire Bird
with Mel. The
ballerina who played her had hair as beautiful as yours. The entire time I
watched the show, I thought about my own fire bird from the park. I thought
about…you.” He lifted a wistful grin. “I was so pissed at the end when the bird
didn’t magically morph into a princess or something. She was shorted by a
feather and a prince. What the hell was up with that?”

She giggled. She couldn’t help
it. “Maybe the prince saw a blaster on her thigh and figured she was good to
go.”

Zeke scowled at her and shoved half
a piece of pizza into his mouth. After gulping it down, he looked over and
queried, “So you were okay, then? The police got you home?”

“Yeah.” She issued the answer
fast, flustered by what his fervent tone did to her. Actually, more than
flustered. She wanted to launch herself into him, flattened pizza be damned.
She wanted to grab his hair, kiss him, and beg him to put his hands on naughty
places on her body. She wanted to show him that last night had only made her
want more of him. And yes, more of his domination. Maybe much more.

But she couldn’t give him more.

Because every time he claimed her
body, a little more of her heart went with it.

And whose fault
is that, Rayna? He’s been damn clear about what he can do for you—and what he
can’t. If you get caught in the tractor beam of Zeke Hayes, don’t cry when
you’re caught, trapped, and executed by your own foolish feelings.

She needed air.

In a rush, she jerked the handle,
shoved the door open and got out of the car. As she expected and dreaded, Z
scrambled out, too.

“Ray-bird?”

“I’m okay.” She forced a light
tone. “Sorry. It was just getting warm in there.”

“Yeah,” he agreed after a moment.
The wet ground squished beneath his boots as he approached. “You sure you’re
all right?”

He let her have a long moment to
respond. When she didn’t, he shifted closer. Her breath hitched from his
warmth, so familiar and strong…such a perfect fit with the deepest fibers of
her body. It was likely why she let him latch one of his hands into hers and
pull her around to face him. He circled his other hand to the small of her
back. With semi-automatic instinct, she lifted her hand to his shoulder.

One side of his mouth tilted,
along with the corresponding eyebrow—just before he swept her into a perfect
waltz.

“What the—”

“Did I mention that Mel also used
me as her ballroom dance lessons partner?”

Rayna laughed then squealed as he
spun her even faster. After they circled once through the clearing, scattering
wet leaves as they went, Z slowed their pace into a more sedate step, similar
to a back-and-forth prom night sway. But as his dancing calmed, his stare
didn’t. Once more he drilled a searching scrutiny down at her, his dark lashes
dropping, his irises filled with glittering bronze intent.

“What?” Rayna finally stammered.

“What
what
?” He curled her
hand in against his chest. Even through his thick jacket, he warmed her skin.
His fingers enveloped hers in unflinching strength.

“Why are you looking at me that
way?”

“In what way? Enlighten me.” His
voice dipped lower, as focused as his gaze now. She turned her gaze down. If
she looked at him now, she’d blurt something ridiculous. Something that stemmed
from what she
hoped
his intent was, and nothing of the truth.

“What is it, Rayna?” He squeezed
her fingers tighter. “You can tell me. But I’ll be clear about something. I’m
not buying the ‘it’s too hot in the car’ excuse anymore.”

She forgot his fingers as the
timbre of his voice seeped into her. The authority of it, mixed with such deep
protectiveness, sounded exactly like the order he’d given her last night.
Kneel
for me, honey.

Just like then, her heart raced.
Just like then, she was a little afraid and a lot aroused. She closed her eyes,
savoring the strands of heat and ice in her blood.

She took his hand and pressed it
to the side of her face. When she opened her eyes, letting her gaze lock so deeply
into his once more, she almost formed her mouth around the words again.

Please. I know
it can’t be forever, but I need…all of it. Your bondage. Your body. Your
control. Your strength.

I need
you.

Instead, she clenched her teeth
around a smile before gently kissing his knuckles. “I’m fine. Thanks for your
concern. Let’s just get going, okay?”