His chest shook with a rumbly laugh and his fingers danced over my neck. “Good. Glad I haven’t lost my touch.”
I shifted to his other side and bent my knee, folding my hands over his chest and peering up at him. “Since you’re up, and I’m up—”
He smirked, lifting a single eyebrow and saying suggestively, “Gooooo on.”
I grinned and opened my mouth to respond, but he interrupted me again.
“Please tell me you want to knit an afghan. I’ve been dying to try out my new set of sharp Hiya circulars.”
I was astonished he’d gleaned enough about knitting terminology to say, set of sharp Hiya circulars; nevertheless, I ignored this surprising information and pressed forward. “No. I want you to tell me what happened after you drugged me.”
He grimaced, and I felt his abdominal muscles tighten, like he felt the words on a visceral level. “Do you have to say it like that? It sounds so untoward.”
“You did drug me, Greg.”
“I know. But can’t we frame it differently? How about we say I poked you?”
“That makes it sound like we had sex.”
“We did have sex.” I heard the smug smile in his voice.
“You know what I mean. And I’m not going to use the word poke for both drugging and sex. You can see why that wouldn’t be a good idea. I don’t want to request a poke and have you spike my coffee with Ketamine, misunderstanding the request.”
“Fine. But for the record, I would always assume you meant sex.”
“Getting back to the original question, what happened after you drugged me?”
“First you need to know what happened when we were captured.”
“Okay, start there.”
Greg’s chest rose and fell with an expansive breath and his hand smoothed down the length of my back, settling possessively on my backside.
His eyes grew unfocused as he recalled the memory. “They swarmed the boat, boarded, and immediately cuffed our hands and feet, duct-taped our legs together and arms to our sides. They were more concerned about us escaping than about us knowing where we were going. I was propped up in a seat and was able to look out the window when they transported us. I mentally mapped the route.”
“I thought you had a bag over your head?”
“They didn’t put that on until they suspected I was a US citizen. Regardless, I saw the route they took and knew where we were, more or less.”
“So you knew which direction to take when you left the building?”
“Yes, with the help of your guidance. I left out the east door—like you recommended—but I didn’t take the trail. I walked south.”
Greg went on to explain that my suspicion had been correct; the structure where they’d been held had been an illegal oil refinery. He’d recognized the need to find and follow the siphoning pipe. It would (and did) lead him to the main oil line.
“The company is supposed to keep the main products line secure, especially since it’s not buried, but siphoning offshoots aren’t unusual. Opportunists—and by opportunists I mean thieves—tap into the mainline and steal the oil. They refine it and sell it. Nautical Oil will look the other way as long as it isn’t too much, unless it cuts into their bottom line. But the problem is these siphoning taps aren’t well made, they spill oil all over the place. And these illegal refineries are even worse, wrecking local ecosystems, polluting water supplies. It’s a bloody mess.”
Greg described how the oil company maintained postings along the line, small houses where sentinels were supposed to be stationed to guard the line. But he’d discovered over the last two months that the company couldn’t keep trained personnel in these positions. The sentinels would either be bribed to look the other way, or be terrorized by local thugs until they left.
He’d carried me three miles until he’d found one of the postings. Then he’d broken into the house.
“It wasn’t abandoned. The sentinel inside—a man, about my age—was asleep.”
“What did you do?” My stomach clenched as I braced for bad news. I’d been so careful to subdue the guards rather than leave a body count.
I’d discovered years ago the problem with marrying a Marine—or a former Marine—was that his answer to everything was usually brutal focus, and single-minded, comprehensive annihilation.
Is that a spider? Shoot it.
Your phone isn’t working? Smash it with a sledgehammer.
Your mother is making you crazy? Drop a house on her, and her little dog too.
Whatever you do, commit to the set course. Never hesitate. Never falter.
“I knocked him out with your wee dart gun, tied him up, gagged him, and stuffed him under his bed. Then I stole his clothes, food rations, and his car. But first I took a much needed shower.”
I grimaced. “I hope somebody finds him.”
“They will. The siphon line was right next to his post. He had to be working with the same greedy bastards that abducted me.”
Now I cared less whether anyone found him.
“I stuck around for an hour or so, and I . . .” He paused, glanced at me then away.