Ecstasy Island’s second location, which was due to open tomorrow afternoon—when he flew down to help with training last month. She seemed plenty competent. Even so, if it would ease Treah’s anxiety, he would be happy to oversee things down there the next week. “You want me to go down there for you?”
“Yeah. But it’s not happening. That would raise too many eyebrows, get people speculating something’s wrong. I just need you to keep your eyes and ears open here. One thing you can count on with this group is their need to brag. Sooner or later, someone’s going to get mouthy. I want you there when they do.”
“You really think anyone’s going to be shooting the shit with me after Nic opens his big mouth?”
“We’re not the only ones who think he’s an asshole, or know how much he feels insulted to be ranked second to you. Most of the guys will figure he’s talking trash in an attempt to get you canned.”
“Maybe.” Probably not. Still it was possible, hopeful even, and Chris would take what he could get in that department. Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier to remain hopeful if he had more to do than sit around with Nic’s taunt eating at him. “Until I get the info you’re after, I sit around on my ass clientless?”
“Shit, no. I’m already losing money. I can’t afford to have your ass getting paid for sitting around.” Treah lifted a thick, yellow packet from the corner of his desk and handed it to Chris. A cute mid-to late-twenties brunette with spiky bangs and huge baby blues smiled at him from the photo taped to the front.
“And, no,” Treah continued, “I’m not going to start pulling your picks for you either. This week was a no-brainer. She’s got that innocent-bystander/believes-she’s-scarred-for-life thing going that you can never resist.” Amusement lightened the gravity in his eyes and tugged at the corners of his mouth. “If that isn’t enough to convince you, her sister swears she’s a hellcat in bed and way overdue for a scratching.”
Typically, the victim type was Chris’s favorite. Healing them served as a form of penance he would never get to make to the man he’d personally helped to become a victim. Now, with the sins of his past threatening to become common knowledge, a client with an intimacy issue or some other low-complexity fear would have been ideal—a distraction from his worries without stealing his thoughts completely.
Treah’s pick might be both more difficult to cure and harder on Chris’s peace of mind, but he wasn’t about to turn her down. Not when doing so would make it seem Nic’s words had disturbed him to the point of being unable to do his job. And not when he owed Treah his eternal gratitude.
Since The Incident, Claire had had too many nightmares to count. None had morphed from terror-filled dream to horror-packed reality. Not until now.
She emerged from sleep instantly. Felt the hands on her bare upper arms just as quickly. Nausea did a slow roll through her belly.
What the fuck? What the fuck!
Erin. Please be Erin playing some stupid, overblown trick meant to somehow magically fix her.
Not able to find her voice past the lump of fear in her throat, Claire tested the hands on her arms. Her sister was smaller than her by a good three inches and twenty pounds. She could easily shake off Erin, particularly with the gut-punch of adrenaline currently on her side. These hands didn’t budge with the shaking of her arms. These hands were far too big and strong to be Erin’s. As her eyes adjusted to the shadows made by the moonlight bleeding through the fine lace of her bedroom curtains, she could see the profile of the person attached to those hands was far too big and strong to be Erin’s, as well.
Too masculine.
Claire’s pulse tripped into hyperdrive. He’d pulled back the warmth and weight of her covers and sheets at some point. She wore only cotton shorty pajamas—not enough to keep her warm on their own through the chilly May night. Sweat beaded on her skin regardless.
Panting for breath, she moved her arms again. This time no simple shaking, but shoving upward with both them and her knees as hard as she could manage…which wasn’t all that hard at all. It was as if she had as little control of her body as her voice. Like she’d been drugged.
Oh, God. She’d been drugged. Rendered helpless. Impotent.
What was he going to do with her? Who the hell was he, even, to get past her state-of-the-art security system?
“Who…” she managed in a low, throaty voice that wasn’t hers.
“Relax. There’s nothing to fear.”
Easy for him to sound calm when he wasn’t the one under the influence of something undoubtedly illegal, about to have God only knew what done to him by an unseen stranger. Anything at all.
Anything like taking her out of this apartment. Hell, no. “But…”
The hands at her arms pulled up, lifting her into a sitting position. One of the hands moved away and an arm came around her back, supporting her body as he slid her to the edge of the bed. “Your sister sent for me, Claire.”
The words whispered near her ear, calm again, gentle as the way he was handling her. Gentle because this was exactly what she first thought it. Erin playing some stupid, overblown trick meant to somehow magically heal her. The anxiety clawing at her belly lightened. Her sister tended to think in sensational terms, but when it came down to taking action, Erin tended toward the straitlaced side.
They’ll come for you.
Aw, crap. The momentary ebb in panic flowed into a tidal wave of bile-rising anxiety as Erin’s words from the previous month returned. Claire thought her sister had forgotten about the so-called top notch yet somehow amazingly cheap professionals almost certain to cure her when she hadn’t brought them up again. But Erin had neither forgotten them nor was she taking a straitlaced approach. She’d had Claire scheduled into their books. And they’d come for her, just as her sister promised they would—with that ominous note in her voice.
If Claire survived this night, Erin was going to die.
The arm at her back tightened. A second one slid under her legs. Together they lifted her away from the safety of her bed. Against a hard body. A body that started moving from nearly the second she was settled in its owner’s arms.
Claire’s breath wheezed out, leaving her mouth dry and her throat achy and tight. He was moving toward the bedroom door. Moving through it. Down the hall. Her heart kicked lightning fast against her ribs. Tears stormed to the backs of her eyes.
She tried to move again, to struggle. Such a futile effort. She was so powerless. Not just an innocent bystander this time, but an immediate victim to be killed softly, slowly. One step at a time.
How could you, Erin? “Plea…don…”
“Shhh…” Soft lips feathered across her forehead. “Close your eyes and sleep, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be all better real soon.”
No, dammit, it would not be all better! Because he was still moving. And she wasn’t. She could barely think now. Barely breathe. Barely hear Hot Stud’s hissing and her captor’s not-nearly-so-gentle curses that followed.
Good boy, Claire thought groggily, maliciously. Tonight, you bite his balls off. Tomorrow, I’ll feed you Erin, one rotten inch at a time.
2
Erin had tricked her into agreeing to the kind of professional help that forced her out of her apartment in the dead of night. Claire could be sensible about it and understand that, in her own special way, her sister believed the kind of help that involved kidnapping was help all the same. She didn’t have to scream or cry. Or puke her guts out over the idea someone had rendered her so completely out of it—to cart her from her apartment, to wherever the bed she’d just woken up in was, without her knowledge—that anything could have happened to her.
Might have happened to her.
No. She wasn’t