CHAPTER 3
Asher held the unconscious woman in his arms and let his muttered curse fly on the night breeze.
She weighed next to nothing, even garbed in yards of shapeless fabric and denim. As displeased as he’d been to learn she was not only female but an adult woman besides, at least one small thing had gone in his favor tonight. The clothing spared his fingers from touching her bare skin. If he’d made that tactile connection, his mind would now be flooding with all the worst of her most agonizing memories.
He stared down at her drooped head and silken shoulder-length black hair, realizing only now how beautiful she actually was. To call her features delicate barely did her justice. Aside from the oversized, plain clothes she wore, she looked like a perfect porcelain doll, a petite, ebony-haired angel sleeping in his big arms.
Her almond-shaped eyes had been a stunning shade of golden-brown before they fell closed. Now her lids shuttered her tilted, intelligent gaze, thick fringes of ink-black lashes floating against the milky smoothness of her face. The cupid’s bow mouth that he doubted ever got much rest while she was awake was now slack, soft breaths gusting through parted lips that were far too sultry for his peace of mind.
“Zoe,” he said, hoping the sound of her name might wake her.
She didn’t so much as stir. And for what wasn’t the first time, he wondered if that was even her name at all. The woman was a scrapper and a fighter, that much he could guess. Not to mention a thief, by her own admission. But she was also a fool if she thought she could run so far afoul of an obviously powerful casino boss that he had ordered her dead, then waltz right back to Vegas as if nothing happened.
Then again, not his damn problem.
Yet here he was, no further away from this whole unwelcome situation than he had been the moment he pulled Ned’s truck off to the side of the road to take a look.
No, he was even deeper now—at least until he cleaned up the bodies and dropped his unwanted baggage off at the nearest hospital emergency room.
Whatever trouble she got into after that was none of his concern.
Asher carried her to the area where Gordo and his companions lay, carefully placing her on a clear patch of sand while he went to work finishing his clean-up job. Once the large hole was dug then filled with its three permanent occupants, he drove the sedan far enough into the desert bramble that it wouldn’t be spotted from the road anytime soon. Then he went back to deal with the female.
He half-expected her to be gone again when he returned. Or maybe he hoped she would be.
But she was still where he left her, still snared in the unnatural sleep that was going to do her more harm than good if her concussion was as bad as he suspected it to be.
He crouched down beside her, trying not to linger on how soft and innocent she looked. Or how she was so pretty it almost hurt to look at her. How long had it been since he had a woman?
A month, he guessed. Hell, maybe two.
Too long by far, based on the primal stirring he felt as her sweet, warm scent invaded his senses, igniting a possessive need in him he didn’t want to acknowledge. The urge to touch her was almost too much for him to resist.
The dark red blood currently drying in a thin rivulet at her temple wasn’t helping matters either.
His fangs were already extended from his earlier battle rage. Now they throbbed in his gums for an entirely different reason.
“Zoe. Wake up.” She lay unmoving, disturbingly still. He shook her shoulder, hardly able to feel the diminutive flesh and bone beneath the thick sweatshirt. “Zoe?”
“Uhhnn . . .” Her lids fluttered, but her eyes didn’t open. And while her muscles twitched under his grasp as he continued to jostle her awake, she was only barely responding. “Tired . . .”
He frowned, having little experience with the sick or wounded. He’d been with Ned till the end of his mortal life, but the old man had made it easy by dying in his sleep. Judging by the woman’s incapacity to remain awake or upright, he had a feeling if he didn’t do something to get her conscious soon, she might never wake up either.
“I know you’re tired, but you have to get up now.”
She groaned in protest, burrowing her face deeper into her oversized hoodie. Her voice was thin and drowsy, her speech slurred. “Go ‘way, Michael. Lemme shleep.”
Michael?
Hearing her murmur the other man’s name spiked something more than curiosity in him. Something deeper than irritation too. If she was accustomed to this other male waking her—this Michael—then where the hell was he right now? Shouldn’t her life or death be that man’s concern more than Asher’s?
“Come on, Zoe,” he said, more gruffly than intended. “On your feet now.”
When she continued to lie there, he raked his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and expelled a curse. Then he reached down and took her under the arms, lifting her drowsy body onto her feet.
If he hadn’t held her up she would have sagged to the ground the instant he let go.
He could see this was going nowhere productive, so with one arm scooping her behind the knees he brought her back into the cradle of his arms and started heading for the old truck. As if the first time he’d held her against him like this hadn’t been torment enough, now he felt every curve of her small body, each steady beat of her heart.
