a first-class asshole.
“Y-you asshole!” Claire fought to replace the breath voicing the words cost her, but her throat felt like it was collapsing in on itself. The wind seemed impossibly heavy as it whipped her hair across her cheeks. The sun against her back was hotter by the second.
Wildly, she glanced at the door. It was four feet away at most. Too damned far. “I—I…”
“Shhh…” Sympathy in his eyes, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her cheek to the groove between his shoulder and neck. “No one’s going to hurt you, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be all better real soon. I promise.”
She knew this soothing voice. Recognized it as the same one that had spoken to her in her bedroom last night. He was the one who’d kidnapped her. The one whose balls Hot Stud hadn’t managed to sever given she’d felt the stiffness of his cock moving against her less than a minute ago. And she’d wanted it. Wanted him bad. Believed he’d wanted her as well, when he turned back and pulled her into his arms, kissed her until she was grinding against him in an attempt to ease the heavy ache in her core. But all he’d wanted was to speed her fast-forward into a nightmare.
Ew! If she could move, he would be in such pain.
Claire couldn’t move. Her limbs felt solid, her bare feet frozen in place on the pebbled walkway beneath them. His embrace was meant to comfort, she knew. But all it did was smother her, stole what little air she was managing to take in, and pitched her stomach to the heaving point. “Let go. I-I’m going…to puke.”
His arms released and, for a second or two, she felt calmer. Then it all just grew worse again. Because she still couldn’t move from this damned crippling spot just outside his door. Wouldn’t move without his help.
As if he knew her thoughts, he nodded at the door. “Help yourself, Claire.” Steely determination filled his eyes. “Get inside. You can do this.”
Yeah, she could. Because it was so freaking easy. Maybe for him.
Fury pushed through her, tangling with the panic. She fought to shake her head. Fought and won. And immediately regretted the move as her mind filled with a pounding haze.
God, she was so helpless. So stupidly helpless. Maybe if Erin saw her like this, she would understand when Claire said she couldn’t attend functions outside of her apartment. Maybe she would quit trying to fix her. “Can’t. Move.”
“Yes. You can.”
“N-no. I—” Her stomach clenched as the bile rose up once more. Heat came along with it, fanning upward and outward from where the sun scorched her back to consume her chest and head and vanquish her thoughts. Tears burned at her eyes as she heaved out a dry, gagging cough.
“Do it, Claire,” he commanded. “Get inside the cabin. Now!”
Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.
Can’t think. Can’t talk. The pounding intensified, splintering pain through her skull and hammering at her temples. Shudders racked her body as the heat increased until her skin felt it would be forever blistered.
He spoke more words, maybe even shouted them. She couldn’t tell. Could barely even make out his face as it swam before her as a flesh-colored fog. Could barely even see the ground as it came at her as a blur of grass and walkway.
Ooh…this was going to hurt.
“Help,” a thin voice Claire loathed to think was hers cried out.
He said something else. A curse she could tell, as she closed her eyes and waited for impact, going only by the intensity of his voice. Another of the same followed, and then his hands were there. His mercifully strong hands grabbed hold of her arms and brought her descending body to an abrupt halt. One of those hands came behind her knees and he swung her up into his arms, holding her gently against his solid chest as he had last night. Then he’d moved her toward her greatest fear. Now he moved her to safety. He took them so goddamned easily into the cabin that she would have wept with envy if tears of terror weren’t already streaming down her face.
He laid her on the couch and moved into the kitchen, returning with a damp washcloth in seconds. She could mostly make out his face now. Sympathy was back, brimming in his pale blue eyes as he sank down on the edge of the couch and applied the cool cloth to her forehead. “You’re okay, sweetheart.”
A hysterical laugh rolled out of her at the irony of his comment. She wasn’t feeling sweet, not by a long shot. She was feeling furious as hell and like her body would go up in flames. At least the tears had stopped.
“Not okay. Burning.” Strength slowly returning, Claire forced her hands to the hem of her sweater and pulled it up to her neck. The inside air wasn’t exactly cool but even the moderate temperature was a relief to her fevered flesh. He brought the washcloth a couple of inches above her chest, wringing out the excess water, and she sighed with the blissful contact.
Smiling, he moved the cloth over her skin, tracing the contours of her breasts above her bra. “You’re fine. Just like I said you would be.”
Damn that smile. She could see his face picture perfect now, and the last thing she wanted was him breaking out that sexilicious chin cleft. It made the idea of closing her eyes and giving herself into his care far too appealing. She couldn’t trust him like that, not when he’d been the source of her misery.
She let his ministrations continue another minute as she regained full control of her body. Anger surged higher with each step toward normalcy. Her mind finally clear and the heat mostly gone, she jerked the washcloth from his hand. “Don’t you touch me, you dick. And don’t you ever kiss me again.”
He came to his feet. No quick bolt off the couch, but a leisurely stand that was accompanied by the broadening of his smile. “I take it the sex is off?”
The sex?
How could he even think about sex at a time like this? When she was lying on his couch with her shirt pulled up to her throat, her nipples taut from the stroke of the cool washcloth and pressing hard against her bra cups. And he was standing next to her with only his jeans on, probably sporting a semi from that little impromptu grinding she’d done outside his door. Both of them breathing hard…
Claire’s nipples tingled as the decadent image painted itself in her mind. She sighed in understanding. He sighed back, a sound as amused as it was rough with arousal.
All the fight drained out of her as the truth of the guilty party returned. Erin’s fault. All of this was Erin’s fault. He was only doing his job by trying to desensitize her to the outside world. Whoever he was.
Ah, God. She’d almost slept with him and she didn’t even know his name. During those first couple of crazy years of college, she wouldn’t have cared. Now she didn’t find the thought of sleeping with a virtual stranger—one who presented himself well, at least—to be desperate or slutty; rather, it was one more awesome step for Women’s Lib. Still, a first name would be nice.
Pushing her sweater down, she swung her feet to the floor and moved into a sitting position. “What’s your name?”
“Chris.”
“Well, Chris, what happened to talking to your boss?”
His smile vanished. “Right. I should get to that.” He went into the bedroom. He emerged a few seconds later, pulling a navy sweatshirt over his head.
Claire mourned the loss of the stellar view of his chest and torso even as she told herself it was a good thing. After what happened at his door, she could totally see him using her lust for his body against her for the next three weeks.
Going to a closet near the door, he grabbed a pair of tennis shoes and shoved his feet into them. Twisting the front doorknob, he glanced back at her. Her belly fluttered with the idea he would already try more of that desensitizing crap. Then her sex gave a fluttering of its own with the idea that he would use another sex-her-up approach.
In the end, he