He lifted my hand and held two fingers on the inside of my wrist, checking my pulse. “Shit,” he murmured. “You need to lie down.”
In one swift movement, he lifted me out of the chair, cradling me against his body. Like human chains, I wrapped my arms around his neck as though he was my one and only lifeline, and everything would fall apart if I let go.
Chapter Twelve
One.
Two.
Three.
Four turns and Ryker halted in front of a door at the end of the hallway in the villa. He pushed it open and kicked it closed behind us. Maneuvering through the large room, he carried me with ease. Instead of white walls and dull concrete floors like my prison cell, the room danced with vibrant color—warm terra cotta floor tiles, honeyed wood furniture, a black and red Aztec looking coverlet neatly folded at the bottom of a creamy duvet. Bright photographs of Mayan villages hung in a block of nine on the heavily textured wall above the headboard. A lamp molded from a twisted wooden branch casted a yellow glow over the room.
He sat me down on the bed, and my eyes drifted lazily over the room absorbing the details. “Where are we?”
“My room.”
I shivered. “Why?”
He didn’t answer. “Get under the covers and warm up.”
I glanced at my hands. Blood stained my fingertips. My eyes widened, and I thought I’d be sick. On a good day, the sight of blood made me lightheaded, but today it was so much worse. I didn’t have my usual armor. I’d been stripped bare by the events of the past week and the past hour. “Oh my God,” I breathed as I leaned against the mountain of pillows on his bed.
Ryker sat next to me on the bed. “Are you going to be sick?” he asked slowly.
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. “No,” I whispered, not opening my eyes. “I don’t like blood.”
“Shh,” he said, taking the hem of my dress and lifting it.
“Get away from me,” I yelled, swatting my hands at him like a loose helicopter rotor system. Whatever calm I felt in his arms melted when I saw my blood. Ignacio Vargas, Ryker’s dad, had sliced my neck. I gasped for breath repeatedly, but my lungs forcibly repelled the air. It was like someone had stuffed a ball of plastic wrap in my mouth, slowly but inexorably suffocating me.
“Calm down,” he said, restraining my arms.
“Calm down!” I screamed. “How am I supposed to calm down? I’m being held captive by a band of deranged murderers, one of which sliced open my neck and threatened to kill me.” He snorted, and my eyes popped open. Summoning every inch of fiery anger from every corner of my soul, I glared at him.
“Nobody is going to kill you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Ignacio is first and foremost a businessman. He’d sell you into the sex trade before he’d kill you.”
My mouth hung open, and my hands dropped onto the mattress like limp noodles. “I’d rather die.” I had read the stories. Being sold into the sex trade was a death sentence, albeit a long, torturous one where I’d become a shell of myself before I took my final breath.
“Good thing you won’t have to make that choice in the near future.” Without an explanation, he picked me up again and carried me to the bathroom adjoining his room. My sandals fell off my feet as he dumped me in the shower, still fully dressed.
Cold, then hot water beat against my skin. Joining me in the partially enclosed shower, he stripped my soaked dress over my head and scrubbed every inch of my skin. I stood there, unmoving and trembling from his touch and the tsunami of emotions assaulting my brain. His hands moved in efficient, asexual strokes, coating every inch of my skin in a thin veil of white foam. Then, he moved me under the spray of hot water again.
With tightly closed eyes, I tipped my head to the ceiling wishing I could follow the water down the drain and get the hell out of this place. “I want to go home. I want my life back. Is that too much to ask?” I whispered, more to myself than Ryker.
“No.” He turned off the water and wrapped a big, white terry cloth robe around my body, directing my arms into the oversized sleeves.
Again, he lifted me and placed me on the edge of the countertop. Using a white washcloth, he gently cleaned the laceration on my neck. “It’s not too deep,” he whispered, his face only inches from neck. His warm breath licked the side of my face, making me too aware of his proximity. “It won’t leave a scar.”
I scanned every feature of his face, studying him as though he were a single cell organism under a microscope. Searching for what? A flaw? Kindness? Redemption? I didn’t know. I didn’t find any clues or secrets hidden in the details of his flawlessly sculpted face. He had one of those faces where if I separated any feature from the whole, it wouldn’t be perfect, but together they were a study in rugged, masculine perfection.
Water marred his starched white linen shirt making it transparent, hinting at the muscles my hands freely explored over a week ago. His almost black hair brushed the collar of his shirt. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbow, exposing his golden and thickly muscled forearms. As usual, dark stubble highlighted the chiseled angles of his face, and my mind taunted me with the memory of it abrading my neck as he devoured me. And in that stretch of time, with Ryker tending to my injury, I felt like a rare rose blossoming under his attention. My lips twitched at the silly analogy.
He slipped a long elegant finger underneath my chin. “What are you thinking?”
I blinked repeatedly as though the motion would somehow scrub away the dangerous direction of my thoughts. “How I’d kill for a spa day,” I lied. But what was one more lie between abductor and abductee? He didn’t need to know my mind was freefalling into Stockholm syndrome.
“When in doubt, choose the massage over the facial.” He didn’t make eye contact as he smeared an ointment on my cut. I flinched, and his gray eyes snapped to mine.
“Does your girlfriend agree with you?” What was wrong with me? Did I really go there? Yes, I went there. I mentally bitch slapped myself. I didn’t care if he had a girlfriend. I didn’t care if he had a whole harem chained in the dungeon of this villa or wherever he spent the bulk of his time.
Ryker’s hands stilled, and he lifted one dark eyebrow, a hundred questions dangling from the tip of his tongue. “My girlfriend?” he said dryly as he smoothed a few butterfly bandages on my neck.
“Yes. You know what one of those are, don’t you?”
“Hm.” He trailed his finger along my neck, to my collarbone. His eyes flickered to mine as he slid the top of my robe down my shoulder. Goosebumps scattered across my skin, but I didn’t budge. I didn’t take a single breath. I couldn’t.
“What are you doing?” My voice was strangled.