LITMIR.BIZ

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      Somehow, she held her stomach. Spite, she figured. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching her vomit. After a few minutes, he took the washcloth from her and eased her into the tub.

      She had to admit the warm water felt heavenly, even with all her clothes on. Sinking back, she closed her eyes. Marco fished her injured ankle out of the water and propped it on the side of the tub, then laid the ice pack over the swollen joint. The odd combination of hot and cold made her skin tingle. Her breasts pulled tight.

      She opened her eyes and realized the bathwater wasn’t the only thing making her tingle. Marco’s dark gaze wandered lazily up her body from her toes to the tips of her ears.

      He was squatting next to the tub, a tube of antiseptic cream in his hands and something much more sinister in his flinty eyes. One hand dipped into the tub and tested the water. “Too hot?”

      Way too hot. The water he stirred lapped at her chest. Her breasts grew heavier. The T-shirt she wore stretched across her nipples, chaffing, confining. She followed the trail of his gaze to the dark aureoles showing through the wet fabric.

      Why in heaven’s name did a white T-shirt have to be on top when she’d reached into her dresser for something to wear?

      She was still pondering that when he began to dab at her with the antiseptic, his expression impassive. He cleaned up her head wound first, then worked on the various cuts and scrapes, which seemed to be everywhere. He dabbed a little antiseptic on the side of her neck, like cologne.

      A second later it started to burn. She hissed. Leaning forward, Marco blew on the wound. The cool stream of air pulled her skin tight. Her eyelids drifted shut.

      She heard, felt, him swirling his hand in the water again.

      “You feel it, too, don’t you?”

      “No.” She would not feel anything for this man, attraction or otherwise.

      “It was different between us. Special.”

      Her heart knocked against her hands, which she’d folded across her chest. “It was a mistake.”

      “Maybe.” He pulled his hand from the water, rose and stepped over to the sink, where he cleaned his own wounds, starting with the bite on his forearm. “Maybe not.”

      She had no idea what he meant by that. Wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She was tired of his riddles.

      She opened her eyes. Modesty be damned. She was getting out of here. Grimacing, she pushed herself up on one foot.

      “Careful,” he warned. “Not too fast.”

      Holding on to the wall for support, she tried to hop out of the tub. She might have made it, if the floor hadn’t suddenly tilted and her stomach hadn’t raised up into her throat, blocking her air. The room went as dark as if someone had turned out the lights. Then starbursts exploded behind her eyelids. The swaying floor tossed her off balance and she fell.

      Right into the last pair of arms she wanted to catch her.

      “What happened?” she asked when her vision cleared. The steady thump of Marco’s heart—maybe a notch faster than it ought to be—comforted her cheek.

      “You fainted,” he replied roughly.

      She straightened. Carefully. “I don’t faint.”

      “Okay.” He sat her on the rim of the bathtub. “You took a little nap standing up—or falling down, rather—in the tub.”

      “I mean it. I don’t faint.”

      “I said okay.” He’d wet another washcloth for her forehead. Once he’d applied it, he tilted her head back and stared deeply into her eyes. This time there was nothing sensual about the gaze. “Maybe you’ve got a concussion, after all.”

      She pulled the cloth from her forehead. “I’m fine.”

      “You don’t look it.”

      “Why don’t you just go away and leave me the hell alone?”

      “I can’t do that.”

      “What is that supposed to mean?”

      “It means—” he pulled a towel off the bar and snugged it around her shoulders “—that I’ll be going, all right, but I won’t be leaving you alone.”

      Shock raised gooseflesh on her arms as his meaning registered. He couldn’t— He wouldn’t—

      One look into his shuttered black eyes, and she knew with dead certainty that he could. Most certainly would.

      “I’m taking you with me,” he said.

      Chapter 4

      “This is a felony!” Paige twisted her fingers in the sweatshirt beneath Marco’s open coat.

      Purposely withholding his gaze from hers, he set her down on her good foot in the shadows outside her door and fumbled the key into the lock. Inside, Bravo barked like a maniac at being left behind.

      Bravo, however, wasn’t the reason Marco didn’t look Paige in the eye. She had damned near passed out again when he’d told her he was taking her with him. Since then her eyes, the pupils large and dark, had held such stark animosity that he hadn’t been able to look at them.

      “It was a felony the minute I forced you to drive me away from the search area,” he said, as much to convince himself as her.

      “You’ve always been a renegade, but this is going too far. You can’t just…steal me away as if no one will notice. You’re making it worse for yourself, Marco.”

      “How much worse can it get?” With the door locked, he hefted her into his arms again. Even through the thick down of her navy-blue ski jacket, he could feel her heart race like a startled rabbit.

      “People could get hurt,” she insisted, kicking her blue-jean-clad legs and almost wiggling out of his grasp. One of her sneakers bounced off his hipbone.

      He gritted his teeth. “No one is going to get hurt if you cooperate.”

      “Cooperate? Is that what you think I’m going to do? Just give up? Be a good little hostage and do whatever you tell me?” She flung her fists at his back as he started down the stairs.

      “No,” he said, flinching as she landed a blow on his sore shoulder. “I suspect you’re not going to do a damned thing I tell you.”

      “Then why are you doing this? Why not just leave me here?”

      He stopped. “Because I can’t,” he said simply, but his gaze, now that he’d finally looked at her, must have said more. He felt the pull between them, the memories their bodies shared even when their minds refused to acknowledge their past, and he knew she felt it, too.

      Color flooded her cheeks. Far from being unsightly, the blush added to her sensuality, her vibrancy. He found the look infinitely appealing. He always had.

      Slowly he peeled his gaze away.

      She looked over his shoulder toward the door, where Bravo’s barking had dissolved into long consonant howls. “Wh-what about Bravo?”

      “What about him?”

      “You can’t just leave him.”

      “Watch me.”

      “But—but… He knows something’s wrong. That’s why he’s howling. And he’s hungry.”

      “Someone will come looking for you soon. When they find you gone, they’ll take care of him.” He started down the stairs again. Starving a dog would be the least of his sins before this was over.

      “Marco!”

      “Forget it, Paige—”

      She surged halfway out of his arms, nearly knocking

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