Intimate Enemies (46 page)

She gestured to the gurney, keeping her focus on the crisp white sheet. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, didn’t want to see whatever was there—or not there. “Lay on your back, please.”

He obeyed without even attempting a side-glance her way. Seemed he wanted to avoid eye contact as much as she did. Something was finally going right with her day.

Alyssa tapped information into the machine with tense fingers and grabbed a chair. “Can you lift your arms over your head, please?”

As he moved, so did the bulk beneath his tan skin and black tattoos. Alyssa could have used him as an anatomy model to delineate each muscle. Inmates were often physically fit, after all they had all the time in the world to work out, but this man was extreme. As a physician, the sheer beauty of his body intrigued her to distraction. As a woman half his size, it scared the hell out of her.

The officer in the room edged toward the partially open curtain, meeting up with the other guard. “Did you buy that golf pass yet?”

“No,” Farmboy replied. “I have to wait until my next paycheck.”

“You’re gonna miss the deadline, man. Can’t beat those prices. Thirty bucks for eighteen holes on a course like that? Includes a cart, too.”

Alyssa angled the transducer between Creek’s ribs to get a good shot of his liver, half listening to the idle conversation. She darted a glance at his face. His gaze was locked on the ceiling, his jaw ticking. The darkened room shadowed his features, but his looks still caused a double-take. Just as striking as his body, his face was all handsome angles and perfect proportions. Too bad the good looks had gone to waste on a racist, criminal pig.

“Do you have AIDS?” she asked as she clicked pictures of his right kidney.

His eyes flicked toward her, held. Light eyes. Sharp eyes. “No, ma’am.”

The low, smooth timber of his voice gave her belly an uncomfortable twist.

“Hepatitis? A, B, C?”

“No, ma’am.”

Her arm brushed his ribs and heat stung her skin. Alyssa startled, attention refocused. She tipped the transducer so she could lay the back of her hand against his belly. “You’re burning up. How long have you had this fever?”

He shifted away from her touch and turned his eyes to the ceiling. “No fever, ma’am. I’m fine.”

“I can feel it through my glove.”

“Normal for me.”

Alyssa squinted at him in disbelief. That level of heat wasn’t normal for anyone. He had to be near a hundred and five degrees. As she continued to scan, she searched for a source of infection to explain the fever, but ultimately found none.

In an effort to get him talking in hopes of gaining more information, she said, “I haven’t found anything that would cause the abdomen pain you’re having.”

Creek said nothing. His jaw resumed ticking.

With a mental shrug, Alyssa used a washcloth to clean the gel off his skin, his body heat burning through the cloth. Weird kept repeating in her head. But if he wanted to let his blood boil, so be it.

“Turn onto your right side, toward me,” she said. “You’re almost done.”

When he rolled, he was only six inches away. His intense body heat closed around her like an embrace, creating an unexpected intimacy that left her squirming in her chair.

Alyssa’s eyes lifted to his face again, expecting to find him staring at her, but again, he was looking down and away, his gaze fixed on the officers’ boots, all that was visible of the men now situated just outside the curtain.

With one last image of yet another perfect kidney, Alyssa dropped the transducer into its holder and laid a towel on the table beside him. This man’s cut physique would linger in her mind for a long time.

Which meant this place must have finally pushed her over the edge, because fantasizing about prisoners was not what lingered on a normal woman’s mind.

“Done. You can clean up.” She turned away and pushed to her feet. “You need to mention that fever to your —“

The hair on her neck barely had time to lift before heat washed her back. Creek’s hard body closed around her. A cool chain cut across her throat. No. She sucked air. No. Her fingers clawed at the metal. No!

“Don’t make a sound.” He spoke soft and slow, his chin on her shoulder as he bent over her and pressed his cheek against hers from behind.

Her brain finally came back online. Air wisped into her lungs and fed the new baseline of fear. When Creek straightened, he rose ten inches above her. And she now registered not only his size, but the sheer strength in all that corded muscle she’d been admiring. His movements controlled, purposeful, almost zen-like in confidence.

“You idiot…” She barely breathed the words, the metal and pressure restricting her vocal chords. “Let go—“

The chain jerked once, cutting into her trachea. “Shut. Up.”

Pain cut off all thoughts but sheer survival. Air. Breath.
Air.

She wedged her skull against his collarbone to allow a fraction of relief on her airway. Oxygen wisped through the stricture. In. Out. In. Out. Her gray matter slugged back to work, edged with hot, sharp panic that threatened to invade every crevice and drive her insane.

The officers’ boots were still visible beneath the curtain where they stood in the hall, but she couldn’t draw enough air to speak let alone scream. And the links of metal weren’t cool anymore. They burned, as if Creek’s body heat streamed through the metal.

The older guard chuckled. “You have to stay away from those sand traps, man.”

“Water holes are my problem,” Farmboy replied. “I could pay for the damn pass with the cost of the balls I lose in those lagoons.”

Creek leaned sideways, reaching for something on the desk. With his chest pressed against the width of her shoulders, his hips fitted to the low curve of her spine, he dragged her along. Alyssa strained her peripheral vision toward his reach. Toward the coffee cup holding pens and pencils and… He plucked up a pair of scissors.

Jesus.
“Put…those down.” A spurt of terror gushed up her chest. Her fingers searched for a millimeter of leverage between the chain and her skin. “You’re…burning…me.”

Creek’s head tilted down, his whisker-roughened chin scraping her cheek. “Fuck.”

The pressure eased and Alyssa ran her cool fingers over raw skin, choking in blessed air. Her relief was short-lived as the rasp of metal on metal sounded in her ear. A hard blade pressed against her neck. Her eyes squeezed shut.

“Not another sound,” Creek whispered, “or I’ll cut your throat.”

“All right.” The older guard sounded relaxed and jovial as he swooshed the curtain aside. “Are we all done in—?”

The room went completely still. The extended, shocked moment expanded, taking on weight and mass and volume like one of the cancers Alyssa fought so hard to find and fight in her patients.

“Creek, what the fuck are you doing?” The older guard’s voice snapped the aggressive silence. Fear wobbled on the edge of disbelief. “You’re not thinkin’, man. This stunt will get you thrown in the hole for a month.”

“Not if I don’t go back.” His forearms locked over her shoulders, keeping her tight against him. “Give me the gun.”

Oh, no. God, no
.
Alyssa’s eyes popped open. In front of her, the older man had both hands held out in a now-just-wait-a-second gesture. He’d also lost two shades of color in his face.

This
really
couldn’t be happening. She could almost convince herself of that if Creek’s body heat weren’t wearing on her as if she’d been hiking in the sun.

“Listen, Creek,” the guard said, “I heard about your appeal, but you’re not out of options, man. You know how this works. Just have to keep bucking the system. You’ll get another chance. This kind of shit will only get you—“

“Out of that living hell,” Creek finished. “Now, give me the damn gun before I cut her open.”

Something pinched Alyssa’s neck. She gasped. Or at least she tried. Only a thread of air got through. Warm liquid trickled down her neck. “Do…something.”

“You heard her, boys.” His voice dipped to a dangerously desperate tone. “Do what I say or she’ll be dead before she hits the floor. And you know where I’ll be? No worse off than I was when I woke up this morning. Give me the gun,
right fucking now
.”

To Alyssa’s utter disbelief, the older guard pursed his lips, dug his hands into his hips and nodded at the younger officer. “Do it.”

“What?”
Alyssa squeaked. If that gun reached Creek’s hand, every chance she had evaporated. “No!”

The younger guard stepped forward, the weapon held out, butt first. After one more glance at the older officer, he slapped the gun into Creek’s palm. Her vision blackened at the edges.

“Give me your gear,” Creek ordered. “Both of you. Now.”

They obeyed, setting their radios, sticks and whistles on the fold-out desk. Creek pointed the gun at the base of Alyssa’s skull. The scissors rasped closed and disappeared. She took one luscious, deep, shaky breath. Air never tasted so good.

“Keys,” Creek said. “Uncuff me.”

The older guard unhooked his keys from a belt loop and dropped them on the desk, his expression angry but resolute. “Make your new girlfriend do it for you.”

“You bastard.” If Alyssa could have reached that guard, she’d have decked him. “How dare you—“

“Dump your keys, kid,” Teague said to the younger man.

Once Farmboy’s keys joined the others, Creek lifted his chin toward the half bath tucked into the corner of the room for patient use. “Both of you, in.”

He pushed Alyssa forward as the men crowded into the tiny space. Within sixty seconds she’d be alone with Creek. No one came down this hallway but prisoners and guards, and look how well that worked out.

Creek shifted his grip. The chain loosened, offering instant relief. But her skin simmered as if she’d been fried in oil. “Oh, my God. What’s on that chain? You
burned
me.”

His arm came up and across her throat. “One twist, and I’ll break your neck. Then you’ll forget all about the burn. You’re no safer now than you were a second ago, so don’t get cocky.”

Fear and betrayal mingled with confusion and exhaustion, resulting in white-hot anger. “I’m not cocky, I’m
pissed off
. If you want to screw up your own life, go right ahead, but I can screw up my own just fine.”

His chin scraped her temple when he looked down at her. He remained silent an extended moment as if he didn’t know how to respond.

“You won’t make it past the others,” Farmboy said.

“Others?” Creek’s voice lightened with sarcasm and victory, yet still sounded starkly mature and powerful and authoritative in comparison to the guard’s. “I happen to know there’s only
one
other. And I’d tell you to watch me, but the first one who sticks his head out that door will get a bullet to the brain.”

“Close the door,” he ordered in Alyssa’s ear, “and put that chair under the knob.”

She did as she was told, trying to do the lousiest job possible. Not hard considering she had a two hundred pound—
burning
—proverbial monkey on her back.

“Do it right,” Creek said. “Or you’ll be responsible for getting their heads blown off.”

Just what she needed—a guilt trip. She wedged the chair’s metal bar beneath the knob. With the cabinets securing the chair’s feet, those guards wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

“Good girl. Stay that way and you’ll be fine.” Creek walked her backwards, pausing at the desk. “Pick them up.”

Gladly. Alyssa wedged the individual keys between her fingers like claws.

“And put them in your pocket,” he said.

Dammit.
“I don’t have pockets.”

Creek tightened his arm on her throat. “You
have
pockets.”

She couldn’t swallow. Could barely breathe. And, damn, her neck
hurt
. Alyssa shoved the keys into the breast pocket of her scrubs.

“Good girl.” Creek loosened his hold and dragged her toward the door. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Got me?”

“You’ve already hurt me.” Alyssa took deep, quick breaths, savoring the oxygen. “It would be smarter to let me go and get the hell out of here as fast as you can. I’ll only slow you down.”

He didn’t respond. He was busy searching the length of the hallway, empty now at nearly six o’clock. The side doors, where all prisoners entered and exited the hospital, was just twenty feet away. Twenty feet. Surely, he’d release her when he hit the exit. She couldn’t consider any other conclusion.

And just to push her own desired conclusion forward, she kept talking. What man in his right mind would want a pissy, chattering female along for the ride? “Look, I really don’t have time for this. I’ve got critical patients in ICU who could die if I don’t get PICC lines in them ASAP.”

It was true they could die, just not from lack of a PICC line. But he didn’t know that.

“Not my problem. And stop talking in acronyms. It’s annoying as hell.”

“I’d be a lot less annoying if you let me go.”

“I can see you’re going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut. That’s not what I expected from you.”

“From
me
? What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer as they approached the exit where late fall sunlight filtered through the glass. Screw whatever he may have meant. Freedom inched closer with every step. That’s what she had to focus on: reaching that door.

But Creek stopped too soon.

At a doorway leading into a holding area, he tapped the fake paneling with the muzzle of the guard’s gun in some cryptic Morse code-type pattern. The door burst open with such force, Creek jerked Alyssa back and twisted, putting his body between her and whoever or whatever was in that room. In that moment, his massive body engulfed hers giving her a flickering sense of complete protection.

“Hey, man.” A rough voice, filled with almost boyish glee, sounded on the other side of Creek. “You gotta see this.”

He straightened and turned them both back around. Another prisoner stood at the door, no cuffs, no leg irons. He had a gun stuffed in the waistband of his navy prison sweatpants, and the grin on his unshaven face matched the mischief in his tone. But his eyes… There was definitely something wrong in the brain behind those eyes. Alyssa had worked with too many mentally deficient patients to miss it.