Live Wire (26 page)

As he moved to close the file, he caught a shadow of movement from the bedroom doorway.

Turning his head, he caught the sign from Bailey that Tehya was waking up.

“This is connected to the Taites, their money and influence,” he finished as he rose to his feet. “Arthurs and Tenneyson are watching the Taites, and it’s obvious they’re watching for Tehya. Let’s see what happens when we give them something.”

He didn’t wait for their opinion. Moving across the room, he headed for the bedroom and the woman too many damned men seemed way too interested in.

“She’s waking up.” Lilly nodded to Tehya with a soft smile, as Jordan entered the bedroom. “Doc will be here in a few. See if you can get her to cooperate. We all know how much she loves the medical profession.”

“Which means not at all,” he grunted, his gaze moving to the bed and the woman in it.

Lilly’s brows lifted, waggled, and a knowing grin crossed her face as Tehya’s lashes flickered open. The door closed softly as Lilly and Bailey returned to the front room.

Staring down at her, Jordan held back his grin as that first drowsy irritation crossed her face before her gaze adjusted, knowledge filtered through, and irritation turned to a spark of anger. As she caught sight of him.

“You drugged me,” she breathed out heavily. “Asshole.”

“We have a doc heading in to check the wound,” he told her. “You were in pain, Tehya.”

She gave a weak little snort. “This ain’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”

No, it wasn’t. She’d been wounded before.

She amazed him sometimes. One minute she was in tears over the invasion of her home, and in the next second so blasé about a fucking gunshot wound that the thought of the past she had lived had sweat popping out on his brow.

“It may not be your first rodeo, but you were too weak and you’d lost too much blood for my comfort level,” he informed her. “You needed to rest until we could safely stop, check the wound, then call a doctor in to look at it. You may need stitches.”

The weak little glare she shot him was almost amusing. It would have been, except for the anger he glimpsed in her eyes. That look assured him there might be hell to pay once she managed to regain her strength and lost the grogginess.

To a point, sometimes, he could maneuver her, but there was no controlling her. Especially when she was pissed. And Tehya was edging very damned close to pissed where he was concerned.

“And if we had been attacked while on the road? What then?” She struggled to sit up in the bed, her expression irate before she winced at the pain to her arm

“Let me help you.” He reached for her, only to have her slap his hand away with a glare. “Dammit, Tehya, you’re going to cause yourself to start bleeding again then you’ll really need stitches if you pull the adhesive I used loose.”

Tehya slowly pushed herself from the bed, the grogginess in her head making her teeth clench.

She really didn’t like being drugged. And she had no problem letting anyone know when there was something she didn’t like.

She’d learned quick enough that Jordan and his men did not care if she suffered her anger in silence.

She ignored him, pushing herself up with her good arm until she was sitting on the side of the bed and glaring at him. “Answer me,” she bit out, her voice strengthening marginally. “What would have happened if we had been attacked on the road and I was unconscious? I would have been dead weight, Jordan.”

“Good thing you don’t weigh much,” he quipped, then watched as she dropped her head, shaking it slowly. She wasn’t even considering the other side of the coin. She would have been vulnerable to enemies with an unknown agenda. All she was considering was whether or not she would have slowed him or the team down.

“I had everything covered, Tehya,” he promised when she said nothing more. “It was an hour-and-a-half trip and you were hurting like hell. You’ve lost sleep, and you’re riding on nerves. I wasn’t going to let you suffer like that when I knew the pain medication would help. Besides, there was an antibiotic with it. You have a head start on fighting back an infection.”

Tehya lifted her head and stared back at him, outraged. She couldn’t believe he had drugged her. How dare he have taken such a decision out of her hands?

“I fucking hate drugs,” she snapped, realizing her voice was still too weak to really hold any force. “And I was fine. It hurt. I was pissed off that my home was invaded, but if you had trusted me you wouldn’t have drugged me. What did you have to do, Jordan, that you didn’t want me to see or hear?”

Jordan always had plans. He was especially good at those contingency plans that no one was aware of but him. Had that had something to do with the reason he had drugged her? Was there a part of what was going on that he didn’t want her to know?

She watched as his gaze narrowed, his expression tightening with a hint of anger and disbelief that she had asked the question. “I’ve always trusted you, Tehya.”

“Whatever,” she snorted back at him as though it didn’t matter, and she didn’t believe him in the least.

But she wanted to believe him. God, she needed to believe him right now, because she felt as though her entire world were being jerked out from under her. “Where’s the shower? I stink of blood. God, I hate that smell.”

She needed to clear her head and clean the feeling of betrayal from her senses. Even more, she wanted to escape the memories that the scent of blood triggered.

Her mother’s blood, fresh, oozing from a knife wound that was too deep and refused to clot. “I’m okay.” The sickening iron stench invading her nostrils as she tried to help her mother apply a tourniquet. “It’s okay, sweetie. See, Momma is fine.” Her mother, so weak and still trying so hard to smile despite her pain.

It was too much. She didn’t want to remember, she didn’t want to feel what she had felt each time her mother had nearly been caught.

“Let me help you up.” Jordan didn’t take no for an answer. Before she could evade him, he moved to her and all but lifted her from the bed.

She pushed away from him as soon as she was standing steady on her feet, the irritation combining with the drugged, out of sorts feeling. If she had the strength, she’d kick his ass. She wished she just had the strength to kick him.

Well, she’d try to kick his ass. She might consider it anyway. Threaten him. She wouldn’t get far.

“Drug me again, Jordan, and I’m out of this little game. I’ll show you and my would-be captors exactly what I’ve learned during my time in hiding and disappear for good.”

She hoped he believed her. She prayed he did. Because if he ever did anything so asinine again, she might very well end up trying to kill him herself.

“Tehya.” His hold became firmer on her arm as the expression on his face hardened to pure make dominance. “Don’t threaten me. And don’t run. I promise, if you run on me I’ll make damned sure you understand the error of your ways within twenty-four hours flat. Are we understood here?”

She stared back at him furiously.

“I’ll tie you to a bed and fuck you until you can’t consider running ever again, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you’re so tired, the memory of pleasure so deep, the ache for more so ingrained inside you that even the thought of running will be erased from your mind.”

Her brow arched. “If I had known that, Jordan, I would have run years ago,” she told him, her voice lowering as she allowed her gaze to rake over him suggestively.

He wasn’t the only one that knew how to use the hunger burning between them

He was aroused. His cock was pressed hard and tight behind the zipper of his jeans. And she remembered clearly,
very
clearly, exactly what it was like to have him buried inside her. To have his cock stretching her until she was certain she could take no more, thrusting inside her, throbbing erotically against nerve endings that felt fully exposed.

As her gaze returned to his, she watched the blue darken, glitter with hunger and dominance. And just that fast her pussy was aching and wet, and all too ready for him. God, what was she going to do when he was gone. How would she survive losing him a second time when even the dream of a home wasn’t there to fall back on.

Slowly, he drew back, rather than following through with the threat. Disappointment clenched her chest and had her drawing in a ragged breath.

“The doctor will be here within the next twenty minutes,” he warned her, his tone low and dark with a hint of sex. “Be careful Tehya, or he’ll see more than either of us want him to see.”

Tehya escaped to the shower though she would have preferred his touch. The suite they were in was gorgeous, elegant. Marble floors in the bathroom with a walk-in shower and large Jacuzzi tub. Heat lamps lit up above her as she flipped the lights on, spreading an edge of warmth through the room as she undressed, adjusted the temperature of the water, and stepped beneath the heated spray.

She was careful to keep her arm out of the spray. Stepping back from the stream of moisture, she washed her hair awkwardly. To rinse it, she turned her side to the water and worked the lather from the long curls.

It took twice as long as usual but when she was finished, she felt as though she might actually be able to think clearly soon. The warmth of the shower helped clear some of the drowsy lethargy from her head and though she still felt weak, at least she didn’t feel as though she would fall asleep on her feet.

Wrapping a towel around her, she held back the wince at the sharp pains to her arm as she finished. Painkillers would be nice if they didn’t knock her on her ass. Unfortunately, that was exactly what they did. They left her feeling worse than the pain did, without the benefit of being aware of what the hell was going on around her.

As she stepped from the cubicle, she came to a hard stop her breath suspending in her chest as excitement began to rage through her body once again and anticipation dampened her pussy.

Jordan stepped into the bathroom.

He’d obviously showered as well. His thick, black hair was still damp, and he had changed into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.

God, his feet were bare.

A man shouldn’t have sexy feet, but he did. To be so damned big, they were strong, male, and powerful. Even his damned toenails were perfect.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice husky, breathless from the hard fierce throbbing of her heart in her chest.

He should be illegal. He should have to wear an ugly disguise when he was in public to weaken his effect on the female of the species. Because she wasn’t the only woman to grow immediately wet at the sight of him.

“Doc is here,” he told her, the lazy drawl in his voice filled with knowing arousal as his gaze slid over her body. “Keep the towel on. He’ll need access to the arm though.”

Tehya rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew the wound had to be checked. The towel was large enough that she was well covered, but it still left the heavy slice on the outside of her bicep accessible.

Thankfully, the doctor was old enough that she felt reasonably comfortable, and he was well supplied with all the tools of his trade. One of those tools was a numbing cream that he used on the wound before bandaging it.

Within minutes the worst of the pain eased, giving her some relief without the grogginess of the pills.

“You need to pack that stuff in your bag.” She informed Jordan. “Steal it or something.”

“The wound isn’t too bad,” the doctor assured them as he and Jordan both ignored her. Though, bless his heart, he left the tube on the table as he repacked his bag and stared down at her with kind eyes. “You should feel right as rain once you’ve slept for a while and the wound has a chance to start healing. Keep the cream on it, keep both cloth and adhesive bandages. Don’t use the arm any more than you have to and you shouldn’t have any problems.”

He laid out a small bottle of medication. “It’s not too strong, even for your system.” His lips quirked in a grin. “Mr. Malone explained your sensitivity to painkillers. It has some pain medication and antibiotics. Once every four hours unless you want a nasty infection.”

She stared at the packet and clenched her teeth in frustration. She detested pills and medications of any sort. No matter what they said, the stuff always made her groggy at the very least.

“Take one now, my dear.” The doctor laid one of the oval pills in her hand. “Have you ever seen gangrene? I’m certain one so pretty wouldn’t want such a nasty infection.”

She swore he was in league with Jordan.

She took the pill. If it knocked her out and she managed to wake up safe and sound, then she would make certain Jordan paid for it. And the look she shot him promised retribution, because she knew, somehow, he had found a way to manuever this pill thing.

As the doctor left the room and the door closed behind him, Tehya gathered up the change of clothes Jordan had laid out for her.

Soft lounge pants, a loose T-shirt, and warm socks. She kept them in her go-bag. A girl never knew when she was going to need to be comfortable. That and makeup, and she was usually good to go in almost any situation.

Pulling her make up bag from the pack, she took out the moisturizer before placing the bag on the chest.

“What are you doing?” He stepped in front of her as she headed for the bathroom.

“I’m going to get dressed, Jordan,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s time for bed, Tehya,” he shot back in return. “And you don’t need to get dressed for that.”

Hell, when he dropped his voice like that he made her stomach clench in hunger. There were times when loving him, needing him as she did, could be a terrible distraction. And this was one of those times.

“I’ve already slept, remember?” She argued as she shot him a glare.

“That was no more than a nap,” he scoffed as he blocked her way once more.

What the hell was his problem?

“I’m too restless to sleep.” She narrowed her eyes back at him suspiciously. “Go away, Jordan. Surely you can find something better to do than aggravating me to death.” If he couldn’t think of anything, then she was certain she could.