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Decker
I snatch a t-shirt from my brother’s wardrobe, then trudge to the bathroom and throw it inside the steam-filled room while Keira showers.
She doesn’t protest the intrusion. Or acknowledge the clothes I’ve given her to wear. She doesn’t even make a sound apart from the slight shift in the shower’s spray before I slam the door shut.
The damn woman has me tied in knots.
This whole situation is a cluster fuck of epic proportions.
The worst part is the demanding urge to help her. It’s the biggest bitch slap my intuition has ever handed me, and I don’t know how to bury the impulse.
While I wait for her to finish her shower, I retrieve Hunter’s handy duffle of goodies and dump it on the floor in the room where she will sleep.
A few minutes later, she returns to the room, my brother’s shirt billowing at her thighs, her hair damp and hanging around her shoulders.
She entices me like no other. She always has.
The woman embroiled in more crime than a small country. The daughter of my sister’s murderer. The sister to the man who will soon kill me.
She’s my weakness, my downfall, and still I can’t ignore the temptation of her.
“What are you doing?” she asks as I weave a cable tie through the one already looped around a wooden slat in the designer bed head.
“I’m creating shackles.”
She sighs. “You don’t have to do this. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.” I pull back the covers and pat the mattress. “Get in.”
She glares at me, but that’s the extent of her protest. She climbs on the bed and remains quiet as I secure a cable tie around her wrist, then another at her ankle.
She can’t complain. I’ve set up the restrains in the middle of the bed. She has the ability to rest on her stomach or her back. She’s not spread starfish like I could’ve demanded. If anything, I’ve been highly accommodating.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“Wherever the fuck I want.” I cover her with the quilt, cutting off the sight of her laying like a BDSM pinup model. The only problem is, instead of her body slaying me with temptation, her eyes implore me with wounded emotion.
She wordlessly begs for my trust. She tears me apart with those big baby blues.
“I don’t want to hear from you until sunup.” I need to erect a big fucking wall between us. It’s the only way I’ll stay sane.
I start for the hall, flicking off the light and closing the bedroom door as I pass.
She doesn’t wail on me like I expect. Not a single word leaves her lips as I pause outside the room, waiting for a theatrical reaction to make me feel like less of a prick.
I’m still waiting for a dramatic response as I shower. And again, when I pull on a clean pair of boxers from the drawers in the main bedroom.
She continues to surprise me as I climb into my brother’s bed and listen to the eerie silence. I didn’t expect her to take her punishment quietly. I also didn’t anticipate feeling like such a sack of shit at having her tied like a prisoner in the next room. But there’s no other choice.
She would run if left to free-range the house. Or worse, she would attempt to punish me for all the fun-filled choices I’ve made, and only end up getting hurt in the process.
It’s safer to have her restrained.
Smarter.
I keep telling myself that while I fade in and out of guilt-ridden consciousness.
I wake with every subtle squeak of her mattress as the hours pass. I picture her tossing and turning. It isn’t until three in the morning that those squeaks become something more.
There’s rustling, grating, and the continued snarl of something hard ru
I’m not surprised she freed herself. To be honest, I would’ve been disappointed if she hadn’t made an effort to escape. What I’m not looking forward to is the retaliation. The revenge.
Yesterday, I would’ve eaten that shit up like prime rib. Now, I can’t stop the dull ache under my sternum. The thought of continuously fighting with her makes my stomach turn.
I retrieve my gun from under my pillow and hold it frozen at my side. I keep my breathing heavy, feigning sleep, as her slim silhouette enters the doorway.
She creeps into the room, one slow step after another. I can’t see her face in the darkness, but I feel her stare. She’s scrutinizing my breathing, waiting for a sign to show her I’m prepared to fend off her attack.
I continue to inhale deep and exhale slow as she approaches the foot of the bed. I have no clue what I’m going to do when she reaches my side. I’ll have to fend off a weapon; that much is clear. She didn’t yank or tug her way out of those cable ties. There’s a blade on her somewhere.
What I don’t understand is why she didn’t finish the job earlier when she held my jugular hostage. Did my refusal to help her with the hitman situation make her change her mind?
She doesn’t continue toward my side of the mattress like I expect. Instead, she heads in the opposite direction, making my breathing falter for a second while I try to figure out why she’s moving to the left of the bed.
Slowly, she raises the covers, and I scowl through the darkness as I battle confusion.
Is she going to try to suffocate me? Really?
Of all the ways to attempt homicide, this is a shitty one. I’m so goddamn disappointed in her poor excuse for a murder plot that I gently glide my grip away from the gun to free both my hands. This way I’ll have the ability to shake some fucking sense into her.
Then the bed dips, and her weight nestles onto the mattress.
I hold my breath, my ears attuned to her movements, my muscles tense and poised for her strike.
But she doesn’t.
Slowly, silently, she inches under the covers as if preparing for a secret slumber party.
I keep waiting for the violence to start. I stare into the shadows and bite my tongue to stop myself from asking what the hell she’s doing, even though the answer is clear. She’s snuggling into the bed, her back toward me, her head on the pillow.
The question is—why?
Once she’s settled, she doesn’t move, not one fucking inch. She just lays there. Less than a foot away.
I don’t get it.
What’s her plan? What’s the strategy?
I remain on alert, waiting a lifetime for her to pounce.
Thirty minutes pass, and she still hasn’t budged. The only thing that changes is her breathing, the inhales deep, the exhales languid.
I don’t know what’s more fucked up—her freeing herself of the cable ties and escaping her room, only to crawl in bed beside the man who’s keeping her captive, or me for being the sick son of a bitch who relaxes under the wash of relief at having her close.
I’m one dumb fuck for ignoring the i
But it’s hard. It’s really fucking hard, when all I want to do is believe her.
No matter what I do, I can’t convince myself she’s the enemy. I struggle to see anything heinous and vindictive about her. Instead, I’ve battled with the obsession that comes with wanting her.
And maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the emotional exhaustion, but I’m too fucking tired to fight it anymore. I’m too battered and bruised, and not from Hunter’s beating. It’s the months spent searching for revenge I no longer think is achievable.