Everything was spinning, while my cheek lifted up and down with his heavy breaths. I was on a carousel, moving in too many directions at once.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, wanting to reassure him. My fingers were numb, and all I got was pinpricks of feeling when I tried to move them.
Then his arms swept beneath my legs, and he held me against his warm chest, and I sighed in relief.
“I’ve got you, princess. You’re safe. If you can hear me, no one’s going to take advantage of you. I promise.”
I managed to mumble, “Bummer.”
He released a heavy breath. “You’re something else.”
I really hoped he didn’t start talking about me being a piece of work again. His arms were so warm, and I’d never felt so comfortable.
We started moving, and Hunt asked me questions in a low, rumbling voice.
My head felt thick and clouded and my body outside my control. It took all my focus to string together words to answer him, but somehow, despite all of that, I was always aware of Hunt’s hands and his breath and his heart beating firmly underneath my cheek.
When I opened my eyes again, the world was a kaleidoscope of lights and colors and gray, gray eyes. Just when I thought I knew where I was and what was happening, everything would rearrange into something new and confusing.
Hunt’s eyes, though, they were constant. And they were dark and deep and so very unreadable. My head was in his lap, and the world was careening, circling and sprinting around me where I couldn’t follow and keep up. Everything tilted, and Hunt’s hand laid flat against my stomach to steady me.
I felt sick, but somehow that cleared my head a little, made it easier to think.
“What’s happening?” I mumbled.
“We’re in a cab. I can’t be certain, but …” His jaw clenched, and a storm brewed in his gaze. “I’m pretty sure someone slipped something in that drink while it was sitting at the bar.”
That’s what this was? Suddenly the warmth and the heaviness didn’t feel comforting and safe. It felt suffocating. I could feel my heart trying to beat faster in my chest, but the heaviness was there, too.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“I tell you that you’ve been roofied and that’s all you have to say.”
“You tell me I’ve been roofied and expect me to say more?”
I couldn’t say more. I wouldn’t. I didn’t even want to think about it.
His expression said he was pissed, but the hand on my waist and the other stroking through my damp hair told a different story.
There was a softness to him after all, and I was glad for it, glad that I wasn’t alone for this. Because if he was right …
Don’t think about it. Nothing happened. You’re safe.
I laid a hand over his on my stomach, and tried to just feel and breathe. There was no use in thinking about what could have happened. Just as there was no use in thinking about the past.
I must have fallen asleep again because next thing I knew Hunt was pulling me out of the cab and up into his arms. I had that strange out-of-body sensation again. I watched the way he cradled me—careful and strong, almost as though it was happening to someone else. He didn’t even break a sweat as he carried me into the lobby of a hotel.
He didn’t stop at the desk, so I guessed that this was where he was staying. My stomach clenched.
In the elevator, I blinked up at him, and in my dazed state I saw one thing clearly. It was the way he looked at me, like he already knew me inside out, like he knew something even I didn’t—that was what made me desperate to pull him closer and so eager to push him away. I didn’t know if he looked at everyone that way or just me.
“You scare me,” I said.
His brow furrowed, and his mouth opened, but no words came out. He took a breath and then very slowly said, “You have nothing to be scared of. I won’t … I wouldn’t. I’ll help you get to bed, and then I’ll leave, get another room.”
He thought I didn’t trust him … that he might do something.
“Not that. I don’t think that.”
“Then why do I scare you?”
“Because I don’t want you to see.”
There was a small part of me that knew I should shut my mouth, that I was saying things I shouldn’t, but that part of me felt like it was on the other side of a cement wall. It was too far away and too hard to understand.
“See what?”
He shouldered open a door and I answered simply, “Me.”