Jorja opened her mouth to protest that she could go back to her hotel. She didn’t need to go to bed. There were probably women across the globe who would fall over themselves for the option to go to bed with Gunnar McKinley, but she was not one of them. But she figured until she knew the layout of the property or had an idea where the exits were, it wouldn’t do her any good toattempt an escape. She meekly followed Gunnar out of the kitchen.
“We’re that way.” Gunnar jerked his chin toward the opposite side of the courtyard. He led her through a cobblestone pathway, past a fountain, and under the covered walkway.
Jorja suppressed a yawn. She’d been running on way too little sleep for the last few days to appreciate how beautiful her prison actually was. But she made a mental vow that she’d give it the praise it deserved tomorrow. He unlocked the door and waved her on ahead on him. Jorja winced when the door slammed shut behind them. God, she hoped she wasn’t making the biggest mistake on the planet. She could feel him following her up the steps. How was that possible? No man should give off enough heat that a woman could feel him from a couple of steps away. She turned the corner into a beautiful living room.
It’s beautiful.
But still a prison.
“I only have one bedroom.” Gunnar side-stepped around where she’d stopped to look around her and walked toward a door on the opposite side of the room. “I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed.”
Damn. For a second there I was hoping this would be like the books and movies.
Shut up, girlfriend in my head, because we aren’t touching him with a fifty-foot barge pole, and I don’t care how flipping sexy-smexy he is…
“Let me grab you a t-shirt or something to sleep in.” Gunnar disappeared into what she assumed was his bedroom.
I would have something to sleep in if you hadn’t been an asshole and kidnapped me.
She was tired, cranky, and the food combined with thewine had made her sleepy. She didn’t have the energy to argue with him, but resolved to give him another piece of her mind first thing in the morning.
“I changed the sheets this morning.” Gunnar reappeared through the door. “But I dropped another set on the bed in case you’d prefer to change them yourself.”
“Thank you.” Rude or not, she slipped past him and into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Jorja leaned against the door and blew out a long, slow breath. It was a relief to be out from under his gaze. From where she stood, she could see a bathroom through an open door, and decided a fast shower would make herself feel better. Her elbow brushed off the key in the door, and it gave her some small satisfaction to lock it. She had no doubt Gunnar could pick that lock if he really wanted to.
I should have brought the fricking lock thingymabob from the hotel.
After managing to keep her hair mostly dry in the shower, she donned his t-shirt and decided he had no reason to lie about the clean sheets and climbed into his big bed. She’d expected, or rather hoped she’d fall asleep fast, but after ten minutes of tossing and turning, she got up again and stripped the sheets off the bed. After living by herself for so long, it was just too weird being in a bed which smelled of someone else. Jorja climbed back into bed and buried her nose into the pillows, which still freaking smelled like him. Pillows which smelled like Jerk-God were not supposed to be comforting. Eventually she gave up trying to figure out how she ended up here and berating herself for having impulsively jumped in her car and taken off on a road trip to freaking Italy, and finally drifted into a restless sleep.
A weird noise filtered into Jorja’s dreams. A hurt puppy cried, whining for its mother or siblings. Even in her dreams, her heart couldn’t take the heartbreaking sound and shejolted awake. The noise sounded again, and she cocked her head to one side, listening for a couple of minutes before she couldn’t take it anymore and climbed out of bed to investigate.
Does Gunnar have an animal in the house? Because that really does sound like an animal in pain.
Jorja padded to the bedroom door and paused with her head cocked to one side as she listened for a heartbeat before carefully turning the key in the lock. She peeped into the living room, and her heart clenched when she realized the noise was coming from the couch. Whatever filled Jerk-God’s dreams was breaking his heart and in turn the sounds coming from him were destroying hers.
She softly crossed the room until she stood next to the couch. She reached out a hand toward where he was lying on his back on the massive sectional couch, but hesitated with her finger almost touching the single tear which tracked down his face. She skimmed down his body with her gaze, her heart clenching when she spotted the red puckered scar which was just visible under the rim of his tighty whitey boxer shorts. She knew better, but before she could stop herself, as he whined again in his sleep, she touched the scar with the tip of her finger.
Poor guy, that had to hurt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Danger!
Danger!
Fight!
Come up swinging!
The orders in his dreams jerked him awake and just as his internal voice warned, Gunnar came up with his hands already moving, reaching for the figure hovering over him in the dark. His fingers wrapped around her throat. It took a freaked out muffled scream and the feel of a female body lying on top of him as he jerked the figure forward before the nightmare receded enough for him to recognize who he was strangling.
“Shit.” He immediately released her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you. Did I hurt you?” He wrapped his arm around her waist and where her fingers touched her throat with his. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” he asked again. This was one of the many reasons he didn’t get involved with women, and certainly didn’t sleep over when he did. “I was dreaming…” The longer it took for her to answer, the more concerned he got. He shifted them on the couch so he could roll off without dropping her on the floor. “Ice… I’ll get you some ice.”
He got to his feet and flipped on the small light on the table at the end of the couch.
Fuck! I didn’t mean to hurt her.
He berated himself as he opened the freezer and wrapped a bag of ice in a towel. Despite what his ex-wife said, he’d never gotten his jollies out of hurting women. Assholes and tangos, yes. Women, absolutely not. Yet here he was proving everything she’d splashed all over her social media pages true. He brought the ice to where Jorja still sat on the couch. “Let me see.” He crouched in front of her. “Did I hurt you?”
