I run my tongue over my split lip again and relish the pain even as I taste hints of my own blood. “How’s your knuckles?”
Another chuckle from the unseen man. “I didn’t hit you. But youwerefighting pretty damned hard.” I hate that his voice makes my cock harden as much from what happened to me as from the rich sound of his tone, the familiar inflections to his words. So…familiar.
It’s a conditioned response. Especially since this guy sounds so damned much like a man, another Virginian, who’s forever in my past even as he’s forever imprinted on my heart and soul.
Guess I do have a death wish.
“Why do you insist on doing this the hard way?” he asks.
“You’re going to kill me whether I make it easy or hard on you. I know how this works. Life’s finally caught up with me. The only question remaining is how hard am I going to make you work for it?”
“Areyou now?” He sounds amused, like maybe he’s smiling.
Fuck. Even his voice sounds like—
No.
I know it’s notHim.
Itcan’tbe. This man’s voice is similar, that’sall. For starters,Hewould never do something like this to me.Hewould do everything inHispower to protect me. It’s just stress and fear warping this man’s voice into one from my past.
I really need to stop thinking about Him with a capitalH, but old habits die damned hard.
Besides,Hehas a life, a wife, children, a job. All safely in Florida.
Hehas everythingHeever wanted.
And that, unfortunately, doesn’t include me.
Not anymore. Although, at one point in the past, it could have.
Maybe if I hadn’t letHimwalk away way all those years ago, if I’d chasedHim, forced myself to open up and admit how much I neededHim, I could have been part of that equation.
Why shouldn’t I have a death wish? Is my life really worth anything?
I’m beginning to think it’s not.
Add to that, with the last nagging, open chapter in my past firmly closed by Him during His recent trip to Berlin only a few weeks earlier…do I really have anything left worth living for with my revenge now vicariously completed?
Apparently, I must not think I do, because I fucked up my peaceful retirement by being an utter dumbass, which got me into…this.
A noise as the tablet scrapes against the table, followed by the soft, dull, rapid thud of blunt, hard fingers moving over a tablet screen.
I wait.
“Tsk. Edward James Fowler. Or do you prefer Ed?”
That’s the first time he’s addressed me by name, or even asked to verify my name. He damned well knew exactly who I was and what I was up to when he snatched me, based on the questions he’s already asked. The guy’s now toying with me, maybe even trying to build rapport. A one-man good-cop/bad-cop routine.
I know the drills. I learned them. Even taught them, once upon a long damn time ago.
If he is trying to build rapport now, that means he still wants intel from me, or thinks I’m moderately valuable. The longer I stay alive, the more of a chance I have to escape. I’ve been in tight spots before but this is the worse by far.
And at fifty-one, I’m no spring chicken. If I manage to get out of this, it’ll be through my wits and sheer, dumb luck breaking my way, not because of my busted-up body suddenly pulling a Rambo moment out of my ass.
“Might as well call me Eddie.”
“Is that what your friends call you?”
