Speechless

Elissa
Abbott

Stone is as hard as his name. An
intelligence agent on the run from his former bosses, he’s had to destroy every
connection he’s ever had with another person. Sex was a release, sometimes a
weapon. Taken, given, never shared. But when Eva literally falls into his path,
she proves impossible to resist. He cannot keep from touching her, pleasuring
her, allowing his fortifications to crumble for her.

Eva knows she should fear Stone, if
that’s even his real name. He tells her so himself. But every time they touch,
every time he reads her body’s needs and answers them, he erases even her
oldest fears. He hears the voice she does not have. How can she leave that
behind? Their connection could mean her death, but she will not sever it.

A Romantica®
suspense erotic romance
from Ellora’s
Cave

Eva straightened up after retying her hiking boot and
adjusted the pack on her back as she scanned the hillside. She had hoped to
have collected ten or fifteen specimens from the mountain laurel she studied by
now, but without her assistant, the going had been slower and she only had six
cuttings carefully wrapped and bagged. The view around her was spectacular,
though and she took a moment to store in her memory the vision of the lake
below, stretching blue across the valley. It was remote enough—she’d hiked
several miles from the nearest road—that the motor boats and water skiers that
infested most larger bodies of water couldn’t reach it. Somehow, someone had
managed to build a small cabin along the shore and it was the only sign of
human presence. Above her, spindly saplings and pines clung to the mossy rock
face, the ancient mountainside exposed by eons of water, wind and gravity.
Farther up, where the slant eased, high-altitude forest grew—hemlocks and
rhododendron mostly—flourishing in the damp climate.

She was probably already too high to find more laurel and
Eva knew she should turn around so she could get back to the trailhead before
dark.
Another fifteen minutes
, she told herself, shifted her pack again
and kept moving along the deer track she’d followed off the main path. Around
the next bend she spotted the plants. They sprang from the hillside below her,
shiny oblong leaves just begging for her to take them back to her lab to study.
They were too far to reach from the trail and she scrambled carefully down to a
mossy ledge about five feet below, from which she could easily extract a specimen
from the cluster.

She knew as soon as her foot touched the triangular wedge
that her landing spot was not, after all, a ledge, but a single rock
insufficiently anchored to the mountain. It canted beneath her weight, pulling
free and tumbling away. Eva scrambled to catch herself, reaching for anything
that would support her, but spindly tree roots and mountain laurel could not
hold her and she slid then rolled down the incline. She felt something in her
leg crunch, opened her mouth to scream, but heard nothing but sliding, scraping
rocks and tearing cloth, then nothing at all as she lost consciousness.

* * * * *

Stone jogged along the lakeshore, determined to keep himself
in shape, just in case. Every few minutes he sprinted, then settled back into
his steady pace. He’d turned west this afternoon out of curiosity, wanting to
see if he could tell what had caused the rumble and cloud of dust he’d noticed
earlier. He’d waited and watched the area for hours, knowing that landslides
here tended not to happen spontaneously. If someone had been trying to reach
his cabin, though, they had never appeared and he now wanted to investigate,
set his mind at ease.

But as he approached the pile of dirt and stone and
vegetation, still jogging, his mind kicked into high gear. His senses shifted
into high alert as a scrap of color, the corner of a nylon backpack bright
yellow against the brown and gray of dirt and rock, caught his eye. As he drew
nearer, he saw a figure sprawled half-buried in the rubble. He pulled up, approached
more cautiously. The person wasn’t moving. A woman, he saw, her chestnut hair
ponytailed, her eyes closed, her face bruised and scraped. Rubble lay scattered
across her legs and one of them lay at an unnatural angle, almost certainly
broken. Stone cursed, pulled his pistol from his shoulder holster and eased
toward her.

The woman showed no sign of hearing him and until he put two
fingers to the pulse in her neck, he wasn’t sure she was still alive. But her
heartbeat was steady if fast and this near he could see her chest rise and
fall. Her skin was cold and clammy beneath his touch, a sign of shock. Before
moving her—lying still a little longer would cause no further damage—he freed
her pack from its own collection of displaced mountain and searched through it
quickly. It held plant specimens, a computer tablet, water and trail snacks,
wallet with ID, a couple of credit cards and a little cash and a cell phone,
its display cracked. He pushed the power button and watched the phone come on,
the readout jumbled but the phone otherwise functional.
Shit
. The last
thing he needed was the authorities of any kind answering her call or following
her phone signal and turning up on his doorstep. He dropped the phone, picked
up a rock and smashed it into the device, rendering it a jumble of useless
plastic and circuit boards.

Stone straightened and regarded the injured, unconscious
woman while he dumped her stuff back into the backpack. Her ID told him she was
a faculty member at Bay University in Boston, no threat to him really. But his
safety depended on keeping his location secret, giving his contacts time to do
their work before he could even hope to walk down a street without feeling a
bullet in his back. If the wrong person found him… And if she told any authority
about him, he had no doubt word would get out. His best hope for survival was
to leave her here and let fate take its course.

Then she moved, her lips parting, eyes fluttering open and
he imagined she said, “Please,” though in truth she made no sound. He ran a
hand down his face and knelt beside her.

“Be still,” he said. “I’m going to help you.” His former
boss had always said he was too kindhearted.

Old training kicked in and he spoke softly to the woman—Eva
James, according to her university ID and driver’s license—as he cleared debris
off her. “I need to check you for injuries and immobilize that leg before I
move you. Do you understand?”

She gave a slow nod and her eyes closed again, but he could
tell she was still conscious from how she winced and grimaced as his hands felt
along her limbs for other breaks. Blood trickled from her forehead, but the
wound was superficial and he let it bleed to clean the cut. A larger scrape on
her hip, visible through her torn jeans, would need bandaging. She relaxed as
he worked and he wondered if she’d slipped into unconsciousness, but when he
asked, “Still with me?” she nodded.

“Okay. Other than your leg, is there anyplace else where you
hurt?”

Eva opened her eyes and gave a soundless, disbelieving gasp
of a laugh and looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he had asked such a
stupid question.

“Everywhere, I know,” Stone said softly. “Any abdominal
pain?”

She shook her head.

“Neck or back pain?”

Her lips formed the word “No” and frustration filled her
eyes. When she tried to move, pain replaced the frustration. She managed to
raise a hand to her mouth and laid two fingers across her lips. He understood
her cryptic sign immediately—she was mute. But her movement reassured him that,
all things considered, her injuries were minor.

“I understand. Lie still now. I’m fairly certain you’ve got
a concussion and your leg is broken.”

Stone wasn’t sure she’d heard the end of his
explanation—she’d lost consciousness again. First things first, splint the leg
and get her back to the cabin and comfortable.

Eva always woke in stages, hearing first, then her sense of
the space around her, then her internal sense of time and self, before she
finally opened her eyes and fully engaged. This time, though, she was first
aware of pain, deep aches everywhere and a sharper, more defined hurting in her
left leg. None of her other senses fed her any useful information. The sounds
were those of someone working in a kitchen, sloshing water and the clang of a
utensil hitting a pot. The bed and pillow beneath her were not her own, too
lumpy and molded to someone else’s shape. And the feel of the room around her
was wrong, too large for one thing and she could sense light coming through a
mislocated window beside the bed. Her disorientation brought swift fear, the
pain turning it to near panic, and her eyes flew open as her breath caught in
her throat.

She didn’t know what to take in first, the one-room cabin or
the man who turned from the large, free-standing sink to look at her. He solved
her dilemma by moving toward her across the room. He reminded her of Kiefer
Sutherland a bit, not in looks necessarily, but in general impression. He was
powerfully attractive, his face both severe and tender, but his features were
imperfect—his face a little long, his skin rough—and a scar marred his left
temple. Evening stubble darkened his jaw.

“There’s a pen and pad on the chair beside you,” he said.
“Can you reach it?”

How did he know?
Eva wondered. She had no memory of
him, of this place, of why she hurt so much.

“You told me. When I first found you. Do you remember?”

Eva shook her head and reached for the pen and paper.

“That’s the concussion.”

“Who are you?” she scribbled. “Where am I?”

“Stone Peters. In a cabin by Hidden Lake.”

She remembered looking out over the lake from the trail. Hadn’t
she seen a cabin? Was that where she was now? “How?” she wrote.

“I found you at the bottom of a landslide.” Stone sat in the
chair. “Do you remember what happened?”

Eva shook her head, her memory of the incident vague at best
and dominated by a feeling of the earth tipping beneath her feet and falling
away. It made her dizzy to remember and she dropped the pen and paper to clutch
the blanket over her until the room steadied. Stone seemed to recognize the
effect of the memory and he waited for her grip to relax and for her to pick up
the writing materials before he spoke again.

“Do you remember your name?”

“Eva.”

“Good. What day of the week is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“It’s Wednesday. I found you yesterday and you’ve slept
since then, about twenty-four hours. How long have you been mute?”

“Birth.” The doctors had told her parents that she’d been
born with nonfunctional vocal cords. But she needed to know how badly hurt she
was now. She would satisfy his curiosity about her lack of speech later.
“Injuries?”

He nodded. “A broken leg and a few scrapes.”

Broken leg
. Eva looked and saw the straight lines of
a splint bracketing her left leg beneath the blanket and she could feel it now
too, keeping her appendage still and straight. She threw the covers back and
looked, saw that her jeans were gone, saw the ugly bruise and swelling on her
shin, saw the boards, padded with something soft, running from mid-thigh to the
bottom of her foot.
Oh God. No wonder it hurts so much.

Stone rose and fetched a medicine bottle and glass of water
from the table. He shook two tablets onto his palm and held them out to her.
“Take these.”

She hesitated, suspicious of drugs given to her by a
complete stranger. He held the bottle out for her to see. “It’s just ibuprofen.
It will help with the pain. I have stronger stuff, but I don’t want to give it
to you unless I have to, until I see if that concussion is going to have any
lasting effects.”

She took the pills, and the water in her mouth made her
realize how thirsty she was. Stone refilled it before she could ask and handed
it back with the instruction to drink slowly. When she’d taken another couple
sips, she picked up the pad again.

“Hospital?”

Stone shook his head. “Too remote. I can’t carry you that
far and there’s no way to contact anyone.”

“Cell phone in pack.”

He grimaced. “It was damaged. It’s dead.”

Using the pen and paper was driving Eva crazy with its
slowness, though Stone didn’t seem to mind the waiting silences as she wrote.
Unusual for a man, in her experience. They were always trying to read over her
shoulder and guess at what she was writing, if they even noticed that she had
something to say. More often, they just rambled on, filling the silences with
their own voices, carrying both halves of the conversation. Now she was the one
who wanted to speed things up—ask all her questions before the wooziness she
felt overcame her completely, before her headache drove them all out of her
mind, before her fear returned. If she could just understand her situation,
fill in some of the gaps, she would be able to catch her breath. Her hand shook
a little as she wrote “Tablet”.

Stone didn’t question her, but rose in silence to dig
through the pack and retrieve the device. Eva could not help but admire his
wide shoulders and trim waist or the way his jeans fit his butt. She could tell
from the way he moved that he’d managed to find that elusive balance between
being well-muscled and flexible that her trainer at the gym was always going on
about. Stone had to be strong, she knew, to have carried her here—at
five-eight, she was not a petite woman and she’d never felt a need to starve
her womanly curves away.

“This one seems whole, but you won’t get any kind of signal
here,” Stone said, passing her the tablet.

Eva’s fingers flew over the touch screen’s keyboard. “It
doesn’t have any kind of wireless service. It’s just faster to communicate
with.”

Stone waited as she typed out her list of questions for him.

“How will I get out of here?

“Am I going to be okay?

“Who are you and what are you doing up here?

“What happens next?”

He answered them calmly and his confidence reassured her.

“A supply plane comes every couple of weeks. You can fly out
the next time it comes, if no search and rescue team finds you before then. He
was just here on Sunday, so I’m afraid you’re stuck here with me for a while.
I’m sorry. But you’re going to be fine. Your leg is the most serious injury and
it seems to have been a clean break. I’ve done everything I can for it and it
won’t get any worse before you get to a hospital.

“Until a couple months ago, I was an international
consultant. My last job was very high-pressure, so I decided to get out of the
business. I couldn’t imagine a place I’d rather be than here. What happens next
is that we eat supper, if you’re hungry. I’ve made some soup.”

Eva didn’t have a chance to type out her answer before Stone
smiled and said, “Good. Do you want crackers?”

Stone forbade her from going to the table to eat and instead
helped her sit up. She quickly saw the wisdom in his prohibition. Just that
much movement made the pain in her leg flare and her head swim. He handed her a
steaming bowl and spoon, then slipped into the space between her back and the
wall. Eva started at the closeness, leaning forward and sending a ripple of
soup sloshing over the bowl’s rim.

“Lean back,” Stone said, placing a hand on her shoulder and
pulling her irresistibly against his chest.

With her hands full, she could not reply to him, could not
argue against this…invasion.
I don’t like this
, she thought.
What’s
he planning?

“I’m not going to hurt you, Eva. I don’t want to risk moving
your leg just yet and you need something to lean against.”

Okay, so there’s some wisdom in that, too.
She
allowed him to take some of her weight, felt the hardness of his chest, his
well-defined musculature against her back, and a flush crept up her face.
Before she could think further about the warmth spreading through her, she
started eating. The soup was delicious, full of fresh vegetables and bite-size
cubes of beef, and Eva could feel its nourishment filling her. At least, she
told herself that was what it was from, the alertness she felt, the heightened
sensitivity. Anything but her proximity to Stone.
He could be an escaped
convict, a rapist or murderer. One of those guys who lure women they meet
online to their deaths. Why does he have to feel so good?

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he said.

Eva shook her head. He was—and he wasn’t. Then his hands were
on her shoulders, at her neck, his thumbs pressing into her, massaging the
length of her neck and more warmth flowed out from the touch, collecting in
rippling pools in her breasts and between her legs. Startled by her reaction
and his effrontery, she began to move away, but his hands moved higher and his
very talented thumbs found the exact pressure points at the base of her skull
to relieve her persistent headache. She groaned silently at the pleasure and
stilled, her spoon settling against the rim of the bowl, a last soggy cracker
corner forgotten at the bottom.

Better than sex
, she thought, relaxing under his
ministrations. He stopped suddenly, pulled his hands away from her and pushed
her forward so he could rise.

“There’s more soup.”

She just stared at him, trying to catch up to him, his
sudden movement and attitude shift.

“You okay?” Then, when she didn’t reply, “Eva?”

She nodded, forestalling his move back toward the bed.
Better that he didn’t get so close again.
Just tired
, she told herself,
and
concussed
.

“Do you want seconds?”

She shook her head.
No. I just want to lie down. I want
to not hurt.

“It’s too soon for more medicine. Do you want to sleep?”

Eva typed “I don’t think I’ll be able to,” and held the
tablet out for him to read without having to move to her side.

“Want to try to read? Might distract you.” He crossed the
room to a steamer trunk, lifted the lid and peered in. “A few mysteries, some
military suspense, Dickens and Mark Twain.”

Eva smiled at the Twain and he brought over
Life on the
Mississippi
and
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
. She
handed him her bowl and picked up the first title, but could not get the words
to stay still on the page and when she did manage to read a sentence, her brain
could barely piece it together. Even when Stone lit two propane lanterns and
hung them from the ceiling, shedding more light on the page, she barely made
any headway. She found herself watching him instead.

Stone had served himself some soup and sat facing her from
across the table. He didn’t speak, though he’d noticed she wasn’t reading. She
was grateful for the lull, for the surprisingly easy silence. When a companion
could sit quietly she felt less defective, more natural in her speechlessness.
Her abnormality became less obvious, almost nonexistent.

Eventually she tried again to read, wanting something to
distract her from the very distracting man ten feet away, but she had no more
luck than before. After a few minutes, she felt the mattress shift as Stone sat
next to her, taking up the other half of the bed. He pulled the book gently
from her hands and, as if he knew how little she’d taken in, started reading
aloud from the beginning.

He had a resonant voice with a touch of depth to it and he
read well, catching Twain’s rhythm and the feel of the river’s pace and depth.
A trace of a Southern accent added authenticity to the narration. Eva listened
to those rhythms and that resonance as much as she did to the words and for a
while they lulled her. But then the ibuprofen began to wear off. She wanted to
shift, look for a more comfortable position, but every time she moved her leg
protested painfully, stilling her and making her breath come in short gasps.

Stone lowered the book and watched her for a moment. “You
want the stronger stuff? It will knock you out.”

Eva nodded and he brought the medicine. She could feel her
eyes closing as the pain receded and she sank gratefully into sleep.

* * * * *

Stone set the cup next to the bed and watched Eva sleep. She
appealed to him, curvy in all the right places, her breasts perfectly sized for
his hands, which fisted now with suppressed desire. Her arms were tan, but when
he’d cut off her pants to tend her leg, he’d found creamy soft skin and her
face had a rosy glow. Her hair hung at the confluence of deep red and brunette.
Someone with a more poetic bent than he might call it auburn, he supposed, or
compare it to autumn leaves. His fingers twitched, needing to caress that hair,
those curves, even to massage her neck for a few more minutes. Her reaction to
his touch had come off her in waves, her initial shock and discomfort followed
quickly by submission when he’d found those pressure points.

It had been so long since he’d felt a woman’s softness. He’d
often seduced a woman when the need struck, for a single night or a few days or
weeks. But not this woman, not now. He reprimanded himself for even thinking
it. She was injured, for one thing, at his mercy. It would be wrong for so many
reasons. He liked to think he was beyond using people for his own satisfaction.
He could not deny that he’d enjoyed touching her. It always gratified him when
a woman responded so positively to him, but this pleasure had been different.
He’d been pleased because he’d pleased her, not pleased with his own talent.
Now he craved more, needed to stir that reaction from her again. But once she
flew out on that supply plane, they’d never see each other again. She didn’t
seem like the type to accept that severing after two weeks of intimacy.

He wasn’t sure he could accept it, either, he realized. Her
face was still now, as she slept, but it was so expressive when she was awake
that he barely needed her written words to know what would come next in their
strange conversations. Her silence suited him. He’d seen a Mark Twain quote
once and taken it to heart, “It is better to be silent and thought a fool than
to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” And in his line of work, silence was
always a virtue. But he’d found that most people couldn’t stand it, that if he
sat in silence long enough, they would start to babble. Sometimes he learned
valuable things this way, more often he would simply grow annoyed. But Eva was
as comfortable with silence as he was.