Stronger Than Sin (6 page)

“He was raising such a ruckus we couldn’t move him to his bedroom. He might start up again when you approach, so be careful.”

He released her, and with more caution, Liliana shifted toward Bradford. As soon as her foot touched the mat, Bradford’s eyes
snapped open, the blue blazing brightly, almost wildly. She had seen that kind of look before—when Mick had first brought
Caterina home.

She set down her medical bag, raised her hands in a sign of surrender, and calmly said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help
you.”

Despite her words, he grew even more disturbed and fought against the restraints, the muscles of his arms bulging from the
force of his exertions. His wrists were already red from irritation, and if he kept on fighting the restraints, he would soon
rub them raw. Considering that in his current state he was little more than an animal—thanks to the drugs Whittaker had administered—she
worried he would do major damage to himself if he kept on struggling.

So she picked up her bag but continued speaking to him gently as she slowly approached.

It was a good sign that his struggles didn’t increase the closer she got.

When she was about a foot away, she dropped to her knees and touched a gentle hand to the middle of his chest. “I won’t hurt
you.”

Bradford’s gaze skipped from her to Whittaker and
then back. “Needed to see them,” he said, his voice husky as if he had been screaming for some time.

Maybe he had, she thought and shot a condemning look at Whittaker. Bradford wasn’t a criminal, although Whittaker seemed intent
on treating him like one, which made no sense to her.

“See who?” she asked as she returned her attention to Bradford and stroked her hand across his chest.

“He’s not making any sense,” Whittaker said from behind her and neared, causing an immediate reaction in Bradford. He started
to push with his feet, driving himself a few inches away.

“Easy, Jesse,” she said, using his first name to try and reestablish the rapport she had shared with him just moments before.

“Hurt me,” Jesse said, digging in his heels and propelling himself farther and farther away on the mats.

Liliana looked over her shoulder at Whittaker. “It might be better if you left.”

Whittaker jammed his hands on his hips, and when he did, it revealed not one but two guns tucked into holsters beneath his
arms, making her wonder about the reason for the overkill.

“He’s dangerous,” the special agent replied as if in answer to her unspoken query.

Liliana peered back at Bradford, who had managed to move the entire distance across the mat and now sat upright, tucked into
the corner of the room. His knees were drawn up protectively, his hands shackled to his hips, and the last thing he looked
was dangerous.

What he looked was partly psychotic, but mostly afraid, like a child facing a too-real nightmare.

“I can handle him. Give us a little time alone,” she said and patiently waited for Whittaker to leave.

The special agent glowered, but she held her ground, and with a mumbled curse, he whirled and left the room.

She moved closer to Jesse, laid a sympathetic hand on his.

“I won’t hurt you, Jesse,” she repeated.

Bradford knocked his head against the wall in a repetitive motion and mumbled, “Hurt me. Shot me up.”

“I won’t let them do that again. Where does it hurt?” she asked, still soothing her hand along his arm in a comforting gesture.

He finally stopped smashing his head and his gaze drifted downward to his left side. “Tasered me.”

She wondered what he had done to prompt such action, and he immediately repeated his first words.

“Needed to see them.”

“See who?” she repeated.

“My family,” Bradford shot back quickly. “I just needed to see my family.”

Liliana imagined that the last thing Whittaker wanted was for Bradford to have contact with anyone not in the immediate loop.
But Tasering Bradford and then shooting him up with hallucinogens seemed like an extreme reaction. She was going to have to
speak to Whittaker about it, but for now, her primary concern was treating her patient.

“Would you lie down for me so I can check your side?”

With a few clumsy nods, Bradford shifted from the wall and moved awkwardly to try to comply with her request.

Liliana rose and took hold of his shackled arms to help
him. Beneath her hands his body was all hard muscle, but maybe too hard, she thought. As they maneuvered together to help
him lie flat, his T-shirt rode up on one side, exposing the nasty wounds and reddened area where Jesse had been electrocuted.

She mumbled a curse beneath her breath, and to her surprise, Jesse offered up a small smile and teased, “Nice mouth, doc.”

Her gaze connected with his, and his intense struggle to maintain control over the drugs Whittaker had administered was visible.
Placing her hand on his chest once more, she urged him on. “Focus on me, Jesse. The drugs will wear off soon,” she said reassuringly,
although she had no idea just how long it would take for the powerful combination of mind-altering drugs to dissipate in his
system.

“Trying, Doc,” he said, and beneath her hand, the tension slowly ebbed from his body.

Understanding that his reactions might be under tenuous restraint, she forewarned him about what she planned to do. “I’m going
to look at your side now. Get it cleaned up. It may sting… a lot.”

The barest hint of another smile skipped across his lips as he said, “Promise not to cry.”

His humor dragged a chuckle from her. Keeping her actions nonthreatening, she removed the needed materials from her medical
bag and began, her tones restful as she explained each step she took.

He jumped at the first contact of the antiseptic against the angry-looking wounds but said nothing.

Carefully she cleaned the two nasty barb marks and then slathered on an antibiotic ointment before covering
the area with a large bandage. As she smoothed the tape over the area, it was hard not to notice the sculpted muscles of his
abdomen or the well-defined ones in his arms.

She ripped her gaze away and sat back on her heels, wiped shaky hands along her thighs. “It may take a few days for that to
feel better. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.”

“Thanks,” he said and shifted his fingers slightly, as if to shake her hand.

She took his hand in hers, cradled it as she said, “We’re going to make you better. I promise that.”

“Will you stay?” he asked, an expectant chord coloring his words.

“Stay?”

He nodded, the action a little more coordinated than before.

“Lonely,” he said and closed his eyes while continuing to hold on to her hand, the gesture so innocent it reached deep within
and awakened a confusing set of emotions.

Jesse Bradford was not turning out to be quite as she expected.

A heavy tread sounded behind her, shattering the peace of the moment.

Bradford jerked awake, but at her comforting squeeze of his hand, he remained calm.

She looked over her shoulder to find Whittaker there with the other agent who had been watching Bradford. “Do you think we
could move him to his bedroom?” she asked.

Whittaker inclined his head to the side as the agent whispered something to him. With a nod, as if to confirm whatever the
agent had said, he replied, “Only if Bradford
can get there under his own steam. I won’t risk my men again.”

Liliana faced Jesse and with another gentle squeeze of his hand asked, “Do you think you can stand?”

He nodded and slowly sat up, not an easy task when he couldn’t use his arms, but with his impressive physical strength, he
made it seem almost easy. Once he was sitting, he maneuvered to his knees but wavered a bit at that point.

Liliana quickly supported him by placing her arm around his broad shoulders. She could barely reach around him he was so massive.

He murmured his thanks and then, with a surge of power, came to his feet, Liliana at his side, continuing to steady him.

Jesse fought a wave of dizziness, and the suddenly wild colors swirling around in his vision. It had been a long time since
Wardwell had used the mind-control drugs on him, mainly because he had stopped fighting Morales in the hopes of finding a
way to escape. Now the drugs wreaked havoc on his mind once again. He lost his balance but suddenly encountered Liliana’s
sympathetic weight at his side.

As he glanced down at her from nearly a foot more in height, she looked like a fierce angel with her dark hair and her eyes
blazing with emotion. “I’m okay,” he said and took a wobbly step toward the door, where Whittaker and his goon awaited them.

Even with the psychedelic vision from the hallucinogens, he detected the way both men reached for their weapons. Would they
shoot? he wondered, although if they did, all their plans would go awry.

But so would his, he forced himself to remember as the animal instinct to escape rose up sharply. He tamped down that desire.
He had to stay to help his sister. Whittaker and this odd little doctor were the key to that.

He took another unsteady step, and Liliana was immediately there, balancing him as he leaned on her. Together they took one
step and then another until they were safely past Whittaker and on their way up to his bedroom.

The bed would be a welcome change from the hard mats in the gym.

In his bedroom, they shuffled over to the large king-sized bed, hips bumping as they moved.

Her hips were soft and wide. He could imagine holding them in his hands, curving them around to cup her deliciously formed
ass as he drove into her.

“Fuck,” he muttered beneath his breath as his erection roared to life with his uncontrolled imaginings.

She pulled away from him then and he plopped onto the bed, shaking his head to drive away the visions.

“Are you okay?” she asked with concern, and he reared away as she reached for him.

“Okay,” he said, his eyes closed to avoid any further temptation from her proximity.

A second later, hard hands were pulling him up into the center of the bed. Whittaker and Bruno, he realized as he peered through
half-closed eyes.

“Can you undo the shackles so I can tend to those abrasions?” she asked, but he immediately shouted, “No,” at the same time
as his captors.

“Not safe,” he added and gazed at her, pleading for her to understand.

Maybe she did, because she didn’t press further. Instead
she said, “I need to take some more blood samples. I’ll only be a second.”

With efficient movements she prepared a syringe and removed several vials of blood while sitting on the edge of the bed. After,
she grabbed a tube of antibiotic ointment and, with her index finger, gently applied the salve all over the abraded spots
on his ankles and wrists.

“That should help a little,” she said and rose from the bed.

She hesitated, and her gaze was clouded with confusion, but with a nod of her head, almost as if she was answering some unspoken
question, she said, “I’ll be back tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

She turned and walked to where Whittaker was standing by the door.

“If you want me to continue to help you, you won’t treat him like an animal. And you won’t use those mind-control drugs again.
He’s not a criminal.”

Whittaker narrowed his eyes as he considered her, but he seemed to understand she was serious in her demand. With a curt bop
of his head, he said, “We’ll do our best, Dr. Carrera.”

Carrera, Jesse thought. Like the race car, but the only sleek thing about the doctor had been the thick masses of her shoulder-length
hair. The rest of her was more like a race track—all dangerous curves.

Not even the mind-controlling drugs could make him forget that, he thought with a smile as he relaxed his tenuous hold on
reality and slipped away to more pleasant imaginings.

Liliana’s gentle touch, growing bolder as it skimmed along his muscles. The deep cocoa of her eyes darkening
with desire, and that soft husky voice saying his name with need.

His mind retrieved the feel of her rounded, womanly hips, and he pictured placing his hands on them. Urging her closer. Wrapping
up that petite but curvy body in his embrace.

Jesse groaned with need as his body responded. He snapped open his eyes and glanced around, hoping that no one was observing.

The room was blessedly empty.

With a smile of relief, Jesse allowed his mind to wander back to thoughts of Liliana.

Gentle, caring, rebellious Liliana.

He had never met a woman quite like her. Maybe that was the reason she haunted his mind as he lay there. As his body refused
to let go of thoughts of her close to him. Beneath him as all those womanly curves accepted his hardness. Welcomed the union
of his body with hers.

He groaned again, the sound loud in the emptiness of his room.

An emptiness that had been a part of his life for far too long, he acknowledged, although…

With Liliana beside him, that bleakness had lessened a bit. Surprising, considering she was a virtual stranger.

For now.

As Jesse awkwardly rolled over onto his stomach, willing away his unwanted erection, he was certain of one thing.

He didn’t want Liliana to stay a stranger.

S
o how’s this new gig going?” Ramon asked as he captured one of the tacos on the plate Liliana’s mother had brought to the
table just minutes earlier.

“Not much is happening yet,” Liliana replied. Although she had provided her family some initial information, she could not
reveal any more to her cousin because of Whittaker’s “need-to-know” directive.

When Ramon glanced at Carmen, as if expecting her to provide a different answer, Carmen only echoed Liliana’s earlier statement,
which clearly displeased Ramon.

“I get that you can’t talk about it. Just remember that if you need anything, I’m always here,” he said as he finally brought
the taco to his mouth and took a big bite.

Liliana nodded, feeling slightly guilty about keeping anything from him. Ramon had spent so much time in her house while they
were growing up that he was like a brother. She had no doubt she could count on him. With his being the police chief in one
of the nearby towns, that support could come in handy.