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Once I had the supplies, I would give her another saline rinse and another dose of her medicine. But in another day or two, we could probably ease her back on the pain medicine. She was on a heavy dose, and it might have been the reason she was still so out of it, lost in her own head.
I now knew a thing or two about being drugged. And getting to the surface of your consciousness felt a hell of a lot like swimming through molasses. Red hadn't gotten a break from the drugs yet—for good reason, her pain would have been excruciating—but as soon as we could, we needed to give her the chance to surface again.
"That's everything for now," Ace's voice startled me, making me turn to find him dropping a bag on the couch. "You stay in here."
With that, he was gone, closing the door.
I figured that was it until about fifteen minutes later when I heard drilling. Then the slide of a chain on the other side of the door.
So that was that.
Unless one of them was coming in to check on Red or bring me food, I was locked in.
After a couple hours of pacing the bedroom, I was seriously starting to contemplate tying together all the bedding and clothes in Red's closet to scale down out the window like some prison movie.
In the end, though, I'd raided Red's closet, intent on taking a shower, then getting some rest.
The only problem was that Red was the kind of woman I was convinced was the figment of male movie makers' minds, not one who actually existed. She was the kind of woman who didn't own a single pair of "comfy" PJs. Oh, no. She was the sort of woman who favored lace and silk. All of it short and tight.
Her day clothes were similar. Tight jeans, short skirts, tops that were heavy on the cleavage spillage and skintight.
On a sigh, I stole some of her panties and a burgundy silk tank and shorts set that was lined in black lace. It was entirely too sexy. But it was clean. And that was really all that mattered after being in the same dress for days.
So I showered, going ahead and using all of Red's various beauty products, then took one of the many blankets from the closet—wondering all the while what these peoples' obsession was with warmth—and climbed onto the couch to sleep, at least a little comforted by the locked door.
See, the problem with locked doors was they could be unlocked.
When you were unconscious and vulnerable and unaware.
I woke up slowly, sleep stubbornly clinging to my thoughts, leaving me laying there with closed eyes, lulled a bit by a low timbre of a man's voice in the room. It took a solid minute or two before I realized that what I was hearing was not what I wanted to hear.
Ace's voice.
In the same room as me.
My eyes snapped open, slow-blinking into the darkness of the room, finding the source of the voice.
Ace was sitting in a brown leather barrel chair that hadn't been in the room when I'd gone to sleep. He'd changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a black hoodie, despite the thermostat likely being set around eighty.
He had a book open in his hands, one much thicker than the last one.
At last I put off love,
For twice ten years...
I wanted to hate the man.
He'd certainly earned my derision.
But I found myself captivated by the smooth sound of his voice, the confident, familiar way his mouth moved over the words.
My eyes drifted closed again, wanting him to think I was still asleep so I could listen to him read for a while longer.
I didn't pretend to understand my reaction to him.
I didn't even get my apparent newfound interest in old poetry.
There was just something hypnotic about the way he recited the poems—with a sort of reverence I found myself inexplicably drawn to.
"Are you done pretending you're asleep?" Ace asked, making me jolt at the sudden change in tone.
His reading voice was smooth and soothing.
The voice he used on me was sharp, cutting.
Like he was annoyed with me.
With me!
Meanwhile, I was the one ripped off the street, cuffed, injured, held captive, used, and drugged.
The bastard.
"I was hoping you would shut up and leave," I told him, sitting up, my chin jerking up.
"Dressed up for me to tell me to fuck off?" he asked, closing his book as his gaze raked over my exposed skin. And there was a lot of it, thanks to Red's signature style.
"For your information, Red seems to be allergic to cotton and comfy," I told him, confused and annoyed by the way the skin his gaze moved over felt suddenly warm and sensitive. I was sure that if I looked down, I would find a flush over my chest and neck. So I went ahead and didn't look down. I didn't need proof of how screwed up I was about this whole situation, and this man in particular.
