“You know, there were times in my life when I wanted to be extraordinary,” she whispers. “Now I’d give anything to be like everyone else.”
“I want you just as you are.”
She rolls her eyes. “Just give me the damn sleeping pills.”
I don’t see what other choice I have. I dig them out of my pocket and bring them to her mouth. Her lips are shockingly warm and full, so tender and flower petal soft. My mouth burns as my fingertips make contact. I slip them in and she rolls them under her tongue.
We both fall silent.
I want to apologize to her for all of this, and for that kiss, but now isn’t the time. She didn’t seem to have a problem with that. She even kissed me back. I couldn’t allow myself to ever hope to be closer to her that way, but now my mind won’t shut off the deluge of images that flood it.
We wait. These things are supposed to be fast acting.
She sighs, shifting in the seat and curling into a tight little ball, drawing her legs up until her knees hit the back of the driver’s seat.
“It’s okay,” she sighs. “Just go get everything. It’s not like I’m going to do something stupid and run.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure I want my cats and my things or am I sure I won’t do something dumb?”
She tries to fight it, but her lips curl up. This time, there’s nothing mean in it. Nothing bitter or angry and wounded. It’s just her, a little bit wry and a little sassy, a glimpse of the spark that I know still lives in her.
“I can’t leave you alone out here.”
“Is that kind of like the fact that you also can’t kidnap someone?” She yawns, but I think it’s all show. “Don’t worry. I’m agreeing to it. I’ve submitted. Succumbed. The tables have been turned. Whatever you want to say, I consent to this form of experimental treatment. You’re right. I didn’t die. That means something.” Her eyes burn with those twin fires that I glimpsed the first day in her kitchen.
Fight. Spirit. A soul that refuses to be crushed.
“Go,” she breathes, and this time, I shut the doors tightly and race back across the parking lot.
Chances are, I’m the worst kidnapper ever.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
Either way, when I rush back out half an hour later with her bag, the cats, and their supplies all loaded up into my arms,I edge open the door carefully, prepared to fight the world for Loreena again, but I find her still curled up like she was before, thick lashes resting on her cheek, breaths even, fast asleep.
Chapter 7
Loreena
Pinpricks of light flash behind my closed eyes. I slowly become aware that they’re there, which means that I’m conscious. My eyelids are heavy, and my head feels sluggish. My brain doesn’t want to give any commands to my body. I must have gone to bed late last night.
The weight of the cats is warm and heavy on my legs. I should get up, make coffee, take a shower, feed the cats, and change their litter before I need to start work. If I don’t check my emails early, it never fails to be a disaster. It’s not unusual for me to get calls if I’m even a few minutes late, with demanding clients who are hot and hyped up enough to immediately launch into things that they assume I already know.
My bed is so soft and I’m so tired, though.
I snuggle deeper into the blanket, tugging it over my face, but I jerk back and my eyes fly open when I realize how wrong it smells.
Last night comes back to me with the ferocity of a brick wall hitting me right in the face. The blanket smells wrong because I’m not in my bed. The weight of the cats on my legs is the only right thing, but even that’s only because I instructed Maverick to go and get them before I took those sleeping pills.
They didn’t take as long to work as I thought they might, and holy shit, did they ever knock me out.
The light pouring in through the three small basement windows stabs my retinas in the worst way, but I flick them around the room anyway. It’s mostly concrete, which would be scary except for the nice furniture arranged throughout the open space and all the light. This has to be Maverick’s cousin’s house. I don’t know that he’d have anywhere else to take me.
The bed is pushed up against one side of the room and there’s a large desk across from it with a gaming style office chair pushed in. A long leather couch bisects the open room and beside that is a large recliner. Aside from that, it’s pretty empty down here. I do note that the window ledges have plants sitting on them.
Footsteps sound above, then a door creaks open and shuts. Those steps echo down wooden stairs, the thuds hollow.
