PUNCHING, stomach cramping, Molly jerked upright in the bed. Her hands balled into fists and her throat burned from the scream that almost escaped. Almost. Someone loomed next to her, someone big.
“Molly?”
She knew that voice. Still tinged with panic, she took quick inventory of her surroundings. The unfamiliar bed didn’t crawl with bugs, and the usual stench of unwashed bodies, fear and sickness didn’t pervade the air.
Reality crashed back in, and with it shame, mortification and sadness. She gasped, blindly reaching out. “Dare?” Her hand hit something, maybe a hard thigh.
“Yeah, just me.” He set something heavy on the nightstand, and then his big body dipped the mattress and his hand touched her shoulder. “Bad dream?”
More like bad memories, but she didn’t want to go into that right now. Her breath shuddered in. “Yes. I’m so sorry I woke you.”
“You’re okay now?”
“I …” What could she say? That she’d never be okay again? Unacceptable, because that would mean they’d won, whoever they were. “Yes. Now I am.” Fear continued to rip through her in agonizing waves. “I’m sorry.”
“Enough with the apologies, okay?”
His gruff voice somehow reassured her. She nodded in the darkness, struggling to get her bearings. “I thought …”
“That you were back there again?” Cautiously, a little awkwardly, he drew her against him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s going to take you a while to shake it off.”
Then he put another bottle of water in her hand.
A near-hysterical laugh bubbled up, and she barely repressed it. Shake it off? Is that what he would do?
Probably. He was so much stronger, so much more capable than she.
She dutifully drank some water, then handed the bottle back to him. He set it aside, but then pulled her close.
Her cheek met the bare skin of his upper chest and fit neatly against the notch of his shoulder. So much heat emanated from him. He smelled good, too, clean and pure. And he felt even better, like strength, safety.
Her rescuer had nothing in common with the filthy, depraved animals who had imprisoned her, who had likely been hired to … do what with her?
Molly could hear his even, calm heartbeat, and it helped to slow her racing heart. Other than his initial, probably automatic gesture of comfort, Dare didn’t touch her. One of his hands rested lightly on her shoulder, un-moving but offering the knowledge that she was no longer alone or in danger.
“Dare?”
“Hmm?”
He seemed perfectly comfortable in their present position, as if he did this sort of thing all the time.
Molly wished she felt the same. Never in her life had she asked for comfort from another person. For her, this was all very awkward, but basic need, the need to survive, drove her now. “Would you mind if I just stayed like this for a few minutes?”
“No problem.” As if in affirmation, he coasted his hand up and down her back, then up again, to tangle in her hair. “At least your hair is mostly dry now.”
Another strangling, semi-ironic laugh almost slipped out. “Yeah, I’ve got that going for me.”
He was silent a moment, then said, “I didn’t think to ask earlier, but do you need any aspirin or anything?”
Molly shook her head. “I’m not sure what the pills were that they forced me to swallow, but I’d rather not take anything else for a while.”
“They were probably some kind of hallucinogen. Or maybe tranqs.”
Reminded of how the pills had made her feel, she stiffened, pushed back from him a little to look up at his barely visible face. “I detest being out of control.”
He went curiously still. “Now?”
“No, when they were doping me.” She remembered the lack of control over her sluggish limbs, how her mind dredged up such ridiculous, vague and misty dreams. Everything was surreal, implausible, insubstantial. “I don’t drink, and I never, ever took drugs. I’ve never even smoked pot. And then to have them force me … It was awful. Why would anyone ever drug themselves on purpose?”
He relaxed again. “No idea.”
She believed him. Dare was a man who enjoyed being in charge. He wouldn’t blunt that ability for the sake of kicks or a quick high.
More to herself than to him, Molly whispered, “I like being me, not a loopy version of me.”
He said nothing to that.
Needing to talk, to drive away the remnants of that dream, she again looked up at him. “The other women … You said you saved one, but there were others there, too. What happened to them?”
“Four of them were apparently local, because as soon as I freed them and told them it was clear, they took off.”
“I hope they’re all right.”
He shrugged. “They seemed to know right where they wanted to go.”
“Those men …” Damn it, she had difficulty finishing thoughts, much less sentences. “They were so cruel, taunting the women, pawing them.”
His muscles seemed to bulge. “The blond woman. They pawed her?”
Icy anger sounded in his tone. “Sometimes, but I got the impression she was too valuable to abuse. They said she’d bring a lot of money.” Now Molly soothed him, clutching his big shoulder. “She’s the one you saved? The one you said is like family?”
“Yes.”
She put her cheek against his chest again. “Where is she now?”
His hug was automatic, for them both. “With her brother. Safe.”
Safe. Such a strange concept, but Molly now knew that no one was ever really safe. “I’m glad. She’s so young.” His warmth seeped into her, making her drowsy again. “I tried talking to her, but she was too afraid.”
Looking down at her, he asked, “And you weren’t?”
“I’ve never in my life known that kind of fear.” The dark and quiet of the small room, the casualness of his touch, made it easier to talk. “Dare, can I tell you something?”
He shifted, almost like he was settling in for something monumental. “Yes.”
How to explain it? A prisoner was a prisoner—but she’d been imprisoned differently. “I wasn’t like the others.”
Rather than question her meaning, he just said, “I know.”
Did he? “Those girls were in their late teens or very early twenties, and they were all stunning. They were kept on one side of the trailer, with more opportunity to bathe. They were given clean clothes. Ridiculously revealing clothes, but still … And they had more food, more water. It was almost like the jerks wanted them to look good. Healthy, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know.”
But Molly frowned at her own words. “I’m not saying they had it any easier than I did. Captivity is captivity, and we were all miserable.”
“But?”
She swallowed. “But … I’m thirty years old.” She twisted to look up at him. “I know I’m plain. And even if I didn’t already know it, I’m not stupid.”
She heard something in his tone when he agreed. “No, you’re far from stupid.”
“They didn’t want me to sell, like they did the others.”
As