Prisoner Mine (7 page)

“Greer?”

“What?” she huffed.

“No more questions until morning.” Zeke tried to keep the pleading from his voice, to make the command sharp and final.

“What are you working on?”

Tomorrow he’d get rid of her and find Derrick Coen, but there was a massive load of hours until dawn.

W
hen Greer stretched
, every fiber of her being got behind the event. The nerves that had throbbed yesterday sang in praise of freedom. Each muscle yawned with contentment. Her fingers reached. Her back arched. Her toes curled.

The haze of drugs, along with the need for more, faded into the background like a bad dream. As soon as her eyes opened though, all her unanswered questions stampeded with thundering hooves.

Zach Saulter lay three feet away. He dragged a lazy arm over his eyes, and then rubbed a hand over his mouth and sturdy chin.

Greer’s hand flew to her heart on a two-fold mission. One, make certain she still wore clothes. Two, keep the thudding under wraps.

“Calm down. I didn’t steal your virtue.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Sure you were.” He turned those stormy eyes on her. “But I’m the one who had to worry about having his virtue stolen.”

“Hilarious.” Greer turned onto her side toward him, tucked her legs to her chest, and adjusted the pillow under her head.

“What?” His lips pursed. “You think you couldn’t steal it because I don’t have it or because you don’t have it in you to do it?” He rolled onto his side and shrugged for emphasis. The move shifted the sheet. It fell off his bare shoulder. “Because those vicious limbs could fleece the kindness of a monk. I swear you kicked me in the kidney three times and the nuts once.”

She tried to follow the line of conversation, but the hump of his massive shoulders and the swell of the top of his pec made breathing difficult.

“You said the bed was mine.”

“I just wanted a two-foot strip.” He held his hands two feet apart indicating the distance, but he’d lost her completely.

Bubbled, peeling skin jarred her more than his beautiful physique, which was saying something because his muscles caused a tingle in muscles she didn’t know she had. The burn was an irregular shape just above his nipple. Her finger automatically lifted to her mouth to cover her shock.

His gaze lowered to the maybe week-old wound, turning to a scar. When he met her gaze again the drowsiness had vanished, along with the hint of playfulness he’d revealed. The wall rose into place, high and proud.

She couldn’t let it go.

“How many days?”

He’d been imprisoned by the Stas. It explained his disappearance and his injuries. But as frightening and infuriating as her captivity had been, his had been worse. Much worse. Her fingers ached to reach out to him, this man who chained his emotions in tidy bindings behind a cold visage.

The warmth in his gaze fled. Zach eased to his back.

“Please.” Greer couldn’t stop the plea’s escape.

His jaw twitched. He drew a breath. She held her own in preparation for his answer.

Zach yanked back the sheet, revealing a wide, lean torso. His feet swung to the ground and he stood in one graceful maneuver. The jaundice of healing bruises marred his sculpted back, the powerful globes of his exposed butt, and the robust columns of his hairy legs.

Oh, Zach
.

She almost sobbed the words, but managed to choke them back for ones that might not chafe so much.

“Saulter?”

He sighed and gave her his facial profile. “It’s just a body, Greer. I didn’t get naked to put the moves on you. I can’t sleep in clothes.” He shuffled to the dining table and grabbed his jeans off the back of the chair.

Greer sat, tossed the covers off her legs, and shifted onto her heels.

“I don’t care about that. It’s your…bruises. Your scars.”

“You don’t?” Calling her bluff, Zach gripped the pants in his fist and turned.

Greer double-fisted the reins on the naive part of herself that smacked a hand to her forehead and fainted, as well as the hormonal one that fell to her knees in writhing moans of worship. She kept her gaze trained on Zach’s challenging gray eyes and off his fully erect manhood.

“I don’t.”

She should care that a man had slipped naked into bed with her. Though, it was his bed. It should teach her to get into a man’s bed at all. Not that he’d done anything presumptuous.

Her chest expanded on a fortifying breath. Meaningfully, inch by inch, Greer lowered her gaze first to the scar on his chest, and then to another on his abdomen. His thickly-veined cock twitched. Her lungs screamed for release. Her lady bits tingled in response, but she refused to swallow the saliva pooling in her mouth.

She continued down his body to the cuts and bruises on his legs. If only she’d had the wherewithal to journey back up his hulking warrior body without blushing. Instead, she shifted her gaze to his. Too late she realized his gaze was locked on the front of her shirt. More accurately, the points of her nipples that tented the fabric.

“You don’t?” One of his brows cocked lazily.

“I want to know how long they had you and why. I want to know what they did to you, how you managed to suffer through it, and how you escaped. I don’t expect you to tell me all of it. But at least the basics.”

He chuckled, causing the etched lines of his abs to contract. The hollow sound echoed through her, nearly knocking her on her ass.

“Get dressed, Greer.”

“You first,” she shot back.

“It bothers you.” He grinned, a trite showing of teeth. “At least I know there’s blood in your veins and not ice.”

Anger thrashed about inside Greer’s chest.

“Me? Oh, you’re one to talk about ice in the veins.” Her hands flexed, keeping pace with her rage. “You’ve never smiled or yelled or cried. Not once in seven months have you shown a true emotion. It’s all for show. Even when you get mad. It’s fake. You’re fake.”

Ooh. She hit a nerve with that one. His eyes came to life, sparking as they had the day before. Red colored his cheeks. Striations shown on the tops of his shoulders and in his arms from the strangle hold he kept on the jeans.

“
I’m
fake? You’ve watched me like a bloody leopard ready to pounce on my cock at the first chance, and then I find out you’re a virgin.”

“Well, I already knew you were an asshole. Not hard to figure out. And I didn’t watch you for that.” She jabbed a finger at his junk.

“You can’t even say it,” he laughed.

“Oh, for the love…” Greer tossed her hands into the air.

“Why’d you watch me then? I mean, if you can’t even say penis, you surely wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“Fuck you and your big dick.” Her voice rose an octave with each word.

That hiked both his brows. “So, now you’re interested?”

“I watched you because I wanted to see something real from you, something honest.”

They stood there for a full minute, descending from the height of frenzy.

“Well,” he sneered, “sorry to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t.”

Zach stilled with his thumbs hooked in either side of his pants, ready to step into them.

“I saw it yesterday when I accused you of buying me for your own pleasure. You were angry…and disappointed that I’d even think you capable of it.”

His jaw firmed and something passed through his undecipherable gaze. It vanished before she could get a read on it. He shoved his legs into his pants, tucked his heavy balls and beautiful penis inside, and then zipped.

“Get dressed.”

“In what?” Greer gestured to her ensemble. “And why?”

“You ask more questions than any person I’ve ever met.”

He jerked his shirt off the other chair and shoved his head inside.

“It’s the only way you learn things.” She collapsed onto a hip. “So, why get dressed?”

“What if I said, so I’m not tempted to fuck you?”

Heat stained her chest, but luckily the T-shirt covered it. If only she could ignore the baking of her internal organs. “I’d say you were trying to avoid my question.”

“Sod it all.” Zach shrugged on his holster, secured his gun and extra mags. “I’m taking you to your dad.”

“My dad! Why?”

“I have things to do and I can’t babysit you any longer.”

“I don’t need you to.” Greer scuttled to the edge of the bed, stood—thanked God she could finally—and jumped up and down to prove her point. “I need you to help me figure out why I was taken in the first place.”

“Your dad can do that. He’s powerful enough.”

She stiffened. The entire United States knew her family. They saw her dad daily on the house floor and her uncle exiting Air Force One. But most people didn’t know they were her family. As a security measure and memorial to her late mother, on her thirteenth birthday, Greer had taken her mother’s maiden name.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s my job to know.”

“No one at US Elite knows.”

“I know.” He pointed at the dresser to her left. “Clothes are in the bottom drawer. They won’t be great, but they’ll fit.”

Greer crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“I already told you. I want to know why I was taken.”

“There’s an old British proverb.” Zach slid a long fixed blade into its sheath on his left side. “It goes something like…you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” He tapped a finger on the tip of his lips. “Yep, that’s it.”

“I’m going with you to find Derrick.”

“No, you’re not. You’re too skinny. You can hardly hold your own weight.”

Greer’s ire frothed again. “You’re not my boss anymore.”

Zach stepped forward. “No. But I’m bigger than you and in this world that’s all that counts.”

When he took another step in her direction Greer clenched her teeth and lifted her chin. “I’m not going.”

“You can stay.”

After all that it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing with Zach Saulter was easy. “I can stay, if…”

Lids narrowed around his turbulent eyes. “Tell me why you really don’t want to go home?”

Greer’s arms fell at her sides. He saw through her, at least as well as she saw through him. Enough to know that there was more to the story.

“I don't want my dad to know I was taken. That I was put on the market to the highest bidder.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“It wasn’t his, but he'll feel that way.”

“Why?”

“He’s my dad.”

Zach tightened his stare. “The truth this time.”

“Because he recommended me to US Elite.”

Z
eke had
a crap ton of things to do and not one of them included chopping fire wood. For cripes sake, the sun beat down hot enough to sear his back and shoulders, and he wouldn’t be here when the season came to use the split logs. But it was either plow logs or Greer mother-fucking Britton. With each swing of the axe sweat spattered the splitting stump like shrapnel. Pretty soon he wouldn’t have any perspiration left. He hadn’t grabbed a canteen or even his laptop when he’d stormed out four hours ago. An hour in he’d found out the hose water tasted more like metal than water. At least his computer had a password from prying eyes.

When his vision tunneled an hour later—with no better idea for how to get rid of Greer or find Coen in the pile of compounds—he dropped the axe and headed inside for a cold arse shower. He’d challenged her, tried to cow her into submission with his body. Boy, had that backfired. She hadn’t turned away. She’d met him boot to boot, so to speak, and dressed him down as though he’d been fully clothed.

He’d never been so rock hard in his entire, sordid life. He’d never been so near taking what he wanted, consequences be damned.

Calculate the repercussions. Minimize them. That was his job. Only when he stood too close to Greer she dulled the ramifications of his actions to background noise.

Despite her innocent eyes, Greer saw more than most. She knew he hid things. If she knew half of what he beat into his closet every morning, she’d have fled when she had the chance. Seeing exactly what she did to him should’ve made her run. Her stubborn little feet hadn’t moved.

Zeke secured the barn door, smiled at his car parked in the far corner—see, he smiled—and then climbed the stairs to his safe house, which didn’t feel quite so safe with Greer here.

At the sound of clanking glass his senses prickled. What was she up to now? Probably rigging a booby trap or looking for tools to hot-wire the car. He ascended the last three steps more slowly. His head stayed on a swivel, ready for her attack. Only he wasn’t quite so ready. This woman’s booby trap outdid all the scenarios he’d conjured.

Greer stood on her tiptoes. Her left arm gripped the edge of an open cabinet, while the other reached the top shelf. The hem of her shirt caught at the ample swell of her bottom. His black boxer-briefs clung, exposing every dip and curve. She stretched and grunted from the effort. Her finger grazed a drinking glass and pushed it farther into the recesses.

He definitely should have sent her packing. His feet carried him into the kitchen, while better judgment urged him back to the chopping block.

“Oh, hey.”

She whipped around with her hand over her heart like she had many times in the past day and a half. Like he scared the shit out of her. That couldn’t be right though. She stood up to him when grown men and wiser women had doubled down on retreat.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.
Ever the charmer
.

Onions, spinach, carrots, mushrooms, and chicken littered the counter, along with pots and pans, cutting boards, and a big-arse knife.

Huh?

“Cooking lunch.” Her nose scrunched. “Dinner really. It’s almost four p.m. I mean, only old people eat this late, but since you didn’t have breakfast or lunch…” She bobbed her tiny shoulders and swatted a strand of white blonde hair from her brow. “I just figured you were hungry. I am, and I ate breakfast.” Her fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt. “I ate some lunch too. I didn’t know when you’d come back. Or if you’d come back at all.”

“You’re rambling.”

“I know. I felt bad for running you out of your own home.”

“It’s not my home.”

“You know what I meant.” Her hands bracketed her hips. There was the gusto.

“You felt bad?”

“Yes.”

“Bad enough to leave?”

Her pretty pink mouth formed a thin line.

“Guess not.” He nodded to the cabinet. “And there?”

“Oh, I can't reach the glasses.”

Greer gave him a doe-eyed, please-help expression that looked totally out of place on her usually determined features.

Zeke stepped back, grabbed the back of the dining chair, and dragged it between them. “Problem solved.”

She flashed him a crooked smile and hopped onto the chair. Too late he realized her round bottom would be within biting distance. Damn her, but she still had to stretch to grasp a glass in each hand. His extra-large shirt flagged with the movement, giving him a clear peek of her abdomen.

Still on the chair, she turned with both glasses hugged between her breasts and stared down at him. “Thanks. You go get cleaned up and dinner will be ready soon.”

“What are you up to?”

Her head canted. The shorter strands of her hair fell over her forehead. “Are you always this hesitant when someone does something for you?”

“Yes.”

“No surprise there.” She hopped off the chair and hurried around him to the sink.

Zeke’s gaze followed her. She filled one of the glasses and then extended it to him. He stared at it for a long time.

Greer put the cup to her lips and took a hefty sip. “It’s not poisoned.” She grabbed his hand and put it in his palm.

“I can get my own drink.”

“Good for you. Can you wash your own ass?”

His eyebrows rose on that one.

“Well?” Her hand flipped palm-up in question.

“I can.” His gut burned, but he couldn’t decide if it was with annoyance or amusement.

“Good. Go do it. You stink.” She fanned the air between them and crinkled her nose.

“Fine, woman. But I’m locking the door.”

“I’ve already seen you naked.” A smirk skewed her pretty mouth. “Get over yourself.”

“Tossing my words back at me. Cute.”

Her mouth formed an O and she covered it with her flitty hand. “Cute? Was that a compliment?”

Zeke turned away and stalked to the bathroom. He deflected. It’s what he did. The coping mechanism had gotten him through some dire shit. Yet somehow, Greer penetrated that shield. That revelation and the chilly water kept his dick at bay during his shower. He liked puzzles, was good at them, really good, but this one required more hands-on manipulation to figure out. A bad thing for them both.

When the cold reached the marrow of his bones Zeke cut the water and grabbed a towel.

“Hey?” A thin knock on the door followed the reedy, feminine voice. It obliterated the numbness he’d worked so hard to attain.

“What?”

“Your clothes.”

Zeke looked at his damp body, and then at the door. He’d never lived with anyone, not since childhood anyway. He’d never had to account for nudity.

“What about them?”

“I brought you some…so you don’t have to traipse through here in your towel to get them.”

He scrubbed the towel over his head and face on his way to the door. The lock
snicked
under his hand and the door swung wide. Greer jumped. Again her hand clutched her heart, only this time a neat stack of his clothes lay between them.

“Who said I’d use a towel?” His hung in front of the goods. By the look on her face no one would know it.

Greer launched the stack at him like a javelin. They bounced off his wet chest. He caught a pair of pants. The underwear and shirt plopped to the ground.

“I was trying to help.” She yanked the knob from his grasp. The door rattled against the frame.

Zeke wiped the grin off his face. Why was disarming bombs, hand-to-hand combat, leaping from airplanes, and tormenting Greer Britton so much fun? A shrink might have an answer, but it wouldn’t be the right one.

He dried, dressed, and left the bathroom, heading for his desk. The dining table arranged with two settings and a full spread pulled him up. Greer’s expectant gaze nailed his bare feet to the floor. She stood between the table and kitchen counter with her hands folded meekly in front of her—his—oil splattered, food-stained T-shirt.

“Salad. Sautéed chicken and vegetables. And an apple crisp for dessert.” She gestured to the table.

His stomach grumbled, but his intuition howled louder.

“What are you up to, Greer?”

“Helping out.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“But are your reasons altruistic?” Zeke shook his head.

“Whose ever are?” Her arms went wide.

“Fair point.”

Bull’s eye. He’d saved her, but only to spare his conscience—which already had plenty to deal with—and to cull information.

Reluctantly, Zeke sat. He waited for Greer to do the same before picking up the utensils she’d ordered on a precisely folded napkin. They ate in silence. She cut little bits off the hunk of meat and pulled the tender morsel from her fork with her lips. She blotted her mouth. She sipped from the glass. The difference between Greer Britton on the training grounds and the woman before him made chewing difficult.

“You said your dad recommended you for US Elite, but why the military to begin with?” She opened her mouth, but he couldn’t hold back any longer. “A woman like you has no place in the military.”

Greer dropped her fork and knife. They clattered onto her plate. “Really? Well, just get it off your chest. Tell me how you honestly feel, then maybe I’ll get to the heart of your scornful—”

“It has nothing to do with your ability as a soldier.”

That quieted her tirade, but did little to dull the resentment in her blue gaze.

“You performed better than 97 percent of the men who applied for Elite’s top ops.”

“But?”

“But Elite is 98 Percent male. Male soldiers. Male trainers. Male officers. The military is at, what, 85 percent these days? You have no business being surrounded by a horde of battle ready, horny bastards months away from their last proper lay, and miles away from the families and responsibilities that separate them from base instincts.”

Zeke shoved away his plate. “If Chad had been your trainer at Elite, things would’ve been bad for you.” Just speaking the man’s moniker raised his hackles.

“Worse than getting abducted by the Stas, drugged, and sold to the highest bidder?”

“Much worse.” That son of a whore had collected bids on who would bag Greer first. Fifteen men brazenly scrawled their names on the dry erase board in the men’s locker room, while the rest dropped green. By bag, they didn’t mean have sex with. They meant blind her with a black bag, constrict the cord so tight that it almost strangled her, while he—the winner—raped her.

Maybe she saw the rage in his eyes. Maybe she figured out that the rumors were true. Either way, the taut line of her mouth relaxed.

“I always wondered how a man trained as well as Chad could shoot himself in the leg while cleaning his sidearm.” Her breaths stabilized. She caressed her narrow throat. “Thank you.”

Warring emotions coursed through Zeke’s veins. Veins that normally felt little except the adrenaline of battle quaked under the offensive her words and her manners provoked. He wanted to throttle her and kiss her, hold her and run for the hills, all at once.

“I have work to do,” he said.

Zeke didn’t flee the barn, but in short order he put the room and desk between them. Wisely she didn’t follow. The chaos of the kitchen kept her busy for a while. Long enough for him to get lost in the maze of information at his fingertips.

During his days as a bouncer he’d hacked into the Stas database under the guise of reviewing security footage to look for a thief. The information didn’t do him a lick of good without the key. His hope had been that Greer would have that and more information from her time undercover. After all, she’d…

She walked out of the loo with a towel wrapped around her head and wearing the sleep clothes he’d bought for her before he’d gone to the club to extract her. He popped the top onto the highlighter, immediately pushed it up with his thumb, and snapped it again, in a ritual he hadn’t been aware he’d undertaken. Why he’d bought her spaghetti strapped camisoles and tiny cotton shorts he didn’t know, but he could castrate himself for it. His suddenly tight jeans might just save him the effort. He dropped the marker and folded his hands together.

The noise drew Greer’s attention. “Always with you and those looks.” She scoffed and continued on toward the bed. “What now?”

“You made nice with the head of security at Sable.”

“And?”

“I find it hard to believe you two spent so many hours in the control room not screwing and you still managed not to get any information from the deal. You must give marathon blow jobs.”

“And you must be the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.” Greer yanked the towel off her head and tossed it onto the pillow he’d used the night before.

“So what did you two do in there?”

She muffled a scream with both hands. When the noise died her fingers spread wide. Her palms lifted to the sky as if evoking the powers that be to either strike him down or give her strength. Finally her clear gaze found his.

“We talked.”

“He’s a fifty-year-old bald Russian. What did you have to talk about?”

“I know it’s hard for you to understand, but some people talk to hear the sound of their own voice. Yep.” She nodded. “Shocking, I know. Some people even talk to work through a problem.”

“Did Buzzy?”

“His wife of thirty-two years found out who he worked for. She threatened to leave him and move to California to be near their daughter if he didn’t get out. Buzzy knew they’d never let him leave, not alive anyway.”

“So why didn’t you help him?”

She waggled a finger at him and grinned. “This you’ll get. It took me three weeks of just talking about nothing, inane things, to get him to trust me enough to open up.” The finger stopped its back and forth. “Nope, take it back. You wouldn’t know about that last part.”

“And then Buzzy and his friends delivered you to the gentlemen’s club.”

“No. He wasn’t with the guys that…dragged me from my bed. I was about to broach the subject of helping him leave when I was taken.”

Greer walked to the desk and fiddled with dog-eared edges of plans for the club where she’d been held. “When I was taken, I wondered if they’d heard our conversations. Mine and Buzzy’s. I wondered if…”