LITMIR.BIZ

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Sam dismissed her speculation about Maclean, watching as the agency paramedics leapt out. Then she glanced at Maclean again. He seemed to be noticing that his conquests for the evening were gone.

      “You don’t need them,” Sam said. She stepped into the street, aware now that one of her spike heels was gone. Cursing, she flagged down a cab. She seized the door handle and looked at Ian as she opened it. “Get in, Maclean.”

      His eyes widened.

      She kept her mind blank. “I want to see your digs.”

      A slow, hot smile began. He slid into the cab and Sam slid in with him. She shut the door. As he leaned forward to tell the driver where they were going, she reached into her bag. “1101 Park Avenue,” he said.

      Sam snapped the handcuff on his wrist. He started, his gaze slamming to hers as she snapped its mate on her own wrist. She smiled at him. “This should be fun.”

      SHE HAD JUST handcuffed herself to him.

      He started to laugh, amused. Did she think to dismay him? He’d been lusting for her since he’d first seen her. He would never get over her face. Those striking features, those amazing eyes and that cropped platinum-blond hair. He looked forward to the day she rubbed her face over every inch of his body…

      He raised his wrist and said, “All ye had to do was tell me, Sam. I’d have brought the handcuffs myself.”

      “We stay together tonight,” she said coolly.

      But he didn’t hear. As he tugged gently on the handcuffs, his gut churned, the sensation sickening. They were speeding up Central Park West, but the old, stately apartment buildings started to swim in his vision. They became dark ominous shadows…

      He could not have a flashback now.

      But he recognized the shadows—the small, tight walls of a cellar. The iron on his wrist was attached to one wall. They’d left him in there, like that, for months. His only company had been the rats. He’d been nine years old.

      “What’s wrong, Maclean?”

       “What’s wrong, Ian? Are you afraid of the dark? The rats? Me?”

      He stared up at the demon who had captured him. The demon who had killed him, and then brought him back to life so he could be tortured. Used.

      Soft evil laughter sounded.

       And although he hadn’t used his voice in months, not since the beginning when he’d screamed and screamed for help, he begged. “Please let me out. Please. I’ll do whatever ye wish.”

      “Good, because I have so many uses for a pretty boy like you,” his grandfather said.

      “Maclean?”

      He’d lived with horror and pain—and abject fear—for sixty-six years. But he heard Sam Rose, and somehow, he looked at her.

      He was sweating.

      “What’s wrong with you?” Her vivid blue gaze moved over him. “Hot flash?”

      Her mockery brought him firmly back to the present and the taxicab they shared. He looked back at her and shook his wrist, so the handcuff wriggled between them. “Of course I’m hot. We’re shackled together.”

      For one more moment she stared. He was fairly certain she did not believe the excuse he’d just made. He didn’t care what she believed. He was aware that she thought him selfish and a user—and she was right. He had one and only one interest in her.

      Pleasure was an escape. He never had flashbacks during sex.

      The first time he had seen Sam Rose, she had been crossing the street in Oban, Scotland, causing male pedestrians to trip and stare. Traffic had come to a screeching stop. His mouth had gone dry and he’d become as hard as a two-by-four. He’d known then and there that he’d have her. No woman had ever denied him. He’d been honest when he said he always got what he wanted.

      He’d felt her warrior power instantly and that had added to her allure and appeal. Most of the women he used were rich and bored, the highlight of their day a trip to Cartier. Now he knew even more about her. She was a powerful Slayer. The highlight of her day was a bloody fight with the devil. He would never forget the sight of her battling the possessed teens in her little red dress and spike heels just moments ago—fighting as he’d never seen a woman fight before. She’d taken down the five possessed teens effortlessly. And she had not been afraid. He’d have felt it. Evil did not frighten her.

      It frightened everyone else.

      It frightened him.

      He hid beneath a pile of towels, trying to make himself as small as he could. His grandfather had returned and he had guests—and he was calling for him. Fear made him sick. He lost control of his bladder. He was throwing up. He knew what they’d do to him. They were bored and he’d be the evening’s sport—until they went to hunt the Innocent on the streets. There was nowhere to hide and they wouldn’t let him die. He’d heard Moray telling his captors that he must be kept alive—at all costs.

      He prayed to his father, begging him to hear him, begging him to come rescue him.

      The door opened and the lights in the bathroom came on.

      He was sweating and sick now. His gut was so tight, he thought it might explode. He reminded himself that he was not a captive child now and that Sam Rose wasn’t evil. He wasn’t helplessly shackled and chained. Monsters weren’t waiting to devour him, his grandfather’s guests weren’t waiting to rip him apart. This was a game. And she was going to wind up in his bed, beneath his body, and he’d be the one pounding into her. He was not a prisoner now. He was a free man—wealthy, powerful and in control of his life.

      She jerked hard on the handcuffs. “If you leap into that vault, you will be taking me with you.”

      He had no idea if a pair of handcuffs would keep her with him during a leap. He didn’t need to use that power to get into Hemmer’s vault. He could open locks and dismantle alarms with his mind, but Sam already knew that. If he needed to leap to get inside, he didn’t think he’d have the courage to do so. Pain still terrified him.

      Ian turned to stare out of the taxi’s window. He refused to go back into the past now.

      “What is it? I happen to know firsthand that one person with the power to leap can bring another along. Handcuffs might do the trick.”

      Somehow he smiled at her. “Really? An’ who gave ye the ride?”

      Her gaze widened, focused on his. It was far too searching, too direct. He wasn’t good at reading minds. The power came and went. Sometimes it was sketchy, as if there was static in the telepathy. Sometimes it was perfect. But he didn’t need the power to know that she was determined to stop him from stealing the page.

      “Nick brought me back with him. We were looking for Brie when your father took her hostage,” she finally said.

      He was staring out of the window at Central Park now. So she’d gone back in time—good for her. Then she knew how excruciating leaping through time was.

      “You do plan on leaping into the vault, don’t you?”

      He wanted to tell her to shut up.

      He turned to look at her instead. “Why leap when I can walk inside?”

      She smiled. “Good point.”

      He’d never let her know that he feared pain, much less the evil causing it. From the moment his demon grandfather had abducted him when he was nine years old, taking him from medieval Scotland to the modern world, he had learned what evil really was. Evil enjoyed fear and pain, and inflicted both at will. Evil lusted for sex, power and death. He’d been kept a prisoner for sixty-six years. And evil had been merciless with him.

      At first, he’d thought to escape.

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