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Tex had come up empty and when Tex came up empty, you just couldn’t be damn found. The last twenty-four months had been spent following up false lead after false lead until tonight.
Tex had sent him the picture and it felt like he’d been gut-punched. It was Ava, looking worn and beaten down but so goddamn beautiful his chest ached.
And the bastards had shot her. He wanted to hunt them down and kill them with his bare hands.
But not before he had her safe.
And that started right now. Cap headed into the house, bypassing the meet and greet going on in the foyer. Tex nodded in the direction of his guest wing and Cap took off.
Knowing Tex, he’d put Ava at the end of the long hallway.
He stopped at the door he thought was hers, turned the knob, found it locked, and smiled. He closed his eyes, the sight of her burned on his retinas. She was a tiny woman, five-three if she was lucky, and stacked to within an inch of Cap’s life. The woman had curves for days and though she was thinner now than he’d ever known her to be, his hands fisted at the ghost-memory of her flesh in them. Her hair remained long, though it was a ratty nest on top of her head right now. The long black tresses had always been curly, giving her a waifish, bedraggled appearance when she first woke up.
Her face was the stuff of his dreams, and she infiltrated them whenever he closed his eyes. Those huge green eyes had the ability to skewer him alive or settle everything inside him in seconds.
He had loved her. Then he had betrayed her. Or maybe the order was wrong. Because he had definitely come into her life intending to prove her father was a traitor. The fact that he’d fallen irrevocably in love with the traitor’s daughter made him what was called a casualty in his line of work.
“Open the door, Ava,” Cap called out softly.
He didn’t get an answer. He sighed, still smiling, as he reached for his pocket and removed a small tool case. Within seconds, he had the door unlocked. He took a deep breath and entered cautiously. He heard the sound of a shower running and entered the room, relaxing a tiny bit.
He’d been half afraid she was waiting for him with a lamp to bash his brains in.
The shower cut off, and Cap moved to the opposite side of the room where the shadows were thickest. He heard the sounds of her drying off, remembered what she looked like standing underneath a shower’s spray, and his cock hardened.
He willed away the reaction. Now wasn’t the time. He needed to fix her arm, feed her, and talk to her. In that order. Because she wasn’t leaving him again. Ever again if he had his way.
The soft pad of her footsteps announced her arrival into the bedroom. She stopped in the doorway between the two rooms and stared at him, eyes narrowed, mouth thinned in a line that screamed anger. It was a shame. Her lips should never be thinned. Those lush curves should be opened around a moan of ecstasy, his cock, or a breath of release every hour of every day.
He sighed again. Ava Maddigan had him wrapped around her finger and she had no idea.
Then again, how would she? She’d run before she’d given him a chance to explain. And she’d been running ever since.
She had a towel wrapped around her hair and one around her body, the hourglass a little thinner but no less voluptuous. Her body was the stuff of legends. But it was her heart and her safety Cap was after right now. He may have to use her body to bond them again, but he was aiming for all of her this time—body, heart, mind and soul.
She stared at him as she reached for the bedside table and the case he’d given her earlier. She carefully put in the earbuds and flipped the switch on the case.
“Kyle isn’t mine.” He’d thought maybe there was an angle there—use Kyle to make Ava jealous—but his heart wouldn’t let him and he’d disregarded it the moment he had seen the look on her face when they arrived at the house. “She’s an employee. Nothing more.”
Ava didn’t move, just continued to pin him with her gaze.
He cleared his throat. Having her so close and not under him was taking a toll. “You ran.”
Still she said nothing.
“Why did you run?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, nostrils flaring as a red flush made its way up her chest, neck and cheeks. When she opened her eyes, they were bright with moisture. She blinked and it was gone. Her hand rose and removed the towel from her hair. She used the towel to wring water from her hair and then tossed it on the bed before she finger-combed the long ebony tresses.
Her gaze remained on him the entire time and between them, the air charged. There’d been a time when Cap had done the exact same thing for her, wrapping his body around hers in the bed they shared as he ran his fingers through her wet hair until it dried. The memory was there, a taunt and a fact, indeed a gauntlet in the space that divided them. And she recognized it, shifting from foot to foot in agitation as her breathing accelerated and her eyes dilated. She gave all the tells and that was just fine with Cap.
“Tell me, Ava—tell me why you ran from me.” He didn’t want it to come out as a plea, but it did.
“You lied to me. Used me. Betrayed me. And you have the nerve to ask why I ran?” she scoffed, but the heat that would normally accompany such a caustic remark wasn’t there. The hurt was.
And it scored Cap.
He nodded. “I did do those things. But I also asked you to let me explain, and you gave me your word that you would, and then you ran. You said you loved me, and I trusted in that.”
