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“I figured as much.” He grinned indulgently and sat down on the edge of the mattress, making it incredibly easy for her to fasten the other cuff to the post without so much as a protest from him. “Besides, it all ties into that captive and bondage fantasy I’m trying to indulge in.”
“Whatever turns you on,” she said without thinking, then realized the double entendre when their eyes met and the wicked gleam in the depths of his told her that she turned him on.
A now familiar frisson of awareness surged through her, and she did the smart thing and moved away. He settled onto the bed, making himself as comfortable as possible considering how limited he was with one arm shackled to the headboard. With his free hand tucked beneath the pillow behind his head, and his gorgeous, long, lean body sprawled the length of the mattress, he appeared content and relaxed as he watched the television in front of him.
She inhaled a calming breath. Damn him, anyway—for being so cooperative and accommodating, and for making her harbor doubts and uncertainties that had no business taking up residence within her.
Turning away, she dragged her fingers through her damp hair. She needed sleep. At least eight solid hours of it if she expected to make the long drive back to Oakland tomorrow in one straight shot and with a clear head. She cleaned up the bathroom, leaving the light on and the door cracked to provide a shaft of illumination into the room throughout the night, then stuffed the clothes he’d stripped out of into his duffel and set the alarm on her cell phone for six o’clock. After taking off her shoulder holster, she stowed her gun beneath the pillow on the far side of her bed for safekeeping and double-checked to make sure her keys were still attached to her waistband—all the while ignoring the heat of Dean’s stare as he watched her.
“Mind handing me the remote?” he asked pleasantly, just as she pulled down the covers to climb into her bed.
“Keep the volume down and turn off the TV when you get tired.” She tossed him the device, and in typical male fashion he immediately channel-surfed in search of a program that interested him. She turned off the lamp on the nightstand separating their beds, throwing the room into shifting shadows from the glow of the TV, then slipped between her cool, clean sheets.
“Good night, Jo,” he said, his low, intimate voice reaching to her side of the room. “Sweet dreams.”
Sweet, erotic dreams of him, he’d no doubt meant. “Yeah, you, too,” she muttered.
He chuckled warmly. “Now that sounded sincere.”
She refused to smile. Refused to enjoy his attempt at humor when she was so conflicted about him, about her reaction to hi
s mere presence, and about the need to believe he was as innocent as he claimed.
Punching her pillow to fluff it, she curled up on her side facing the opposite direction of him, but couldn’t succumb to the weariness pulling at her subconscious. After the day she’d had and the events of the last hour, it took her body longer than she’d expected to wind down. She didn’t completely relax until Dean shut off the TV a good hour later and she finally heard his breathing grow deep and even in slumber.
Then, and only then, did she let herself drift off to sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
Dean woke up in the middle of the night to the disturbing sound of frightened whimpers, and Jo thrashing frantically in the bed next to his. He’d wished her sweet dreams, but it seemed nightmares were plaguing her instead.
The bathroom light Jo had left on supplied enough illumination for him to see her tossing and turning restlessly beneath the sheets twisted around her legs. “No, please don’t leave me,” she moaned, and her breath caught on a soul-deep sob as she kicked even harder to free herself from the restricting covers. “You can’t die. You can’t. I won’t let you!”
She sounded so terrified, and his heart gave a funny twist in his chest at the too-real despair and anguish in her voice. Wanting to soothe her and chase away whatever demons overpowered her mind, he attempted to move across the expanse of bed separating them, and cursed vividly when he was brought up short by the arm cuffed to the headboard.
“It’s all my fault,” she groaned raggedly, openly crying now, the stream of tears slipping down the sides of her face glittering like quicksilver from the light. “I’m sorry…so sorry,” she chanted as she wept, her pain a tangible thing.
Annoyed at his inability to reach her and wake her from the throes of her bad dream, Dean used the only resource available to him. His voice. “Jo,” he called, loud and firm enough to snap her out of her sleep-induced nightmare.
She sat up abruptly in bed, her chest heaving and fingers clutching the blankets in her lap. Her unfocused gaze darted around the room, taking in her surroundings, trying to latch onto something familiar. She shook her head, looking completely lost and disoriented.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured gently, not wanting to frighten her any more than she already was. “Are you okay?”
A frown creased her brows, and she slowly glanced toward him as her hands absently shoved her disheveled hair from her face. She tipped her head in his direction. “Brian?” she asked softly, confusion and hope mingling in her quivering voice.
He had no idea who this Brian person was. He didn’t think it was a husband or boyfriend since she’d denied having either, but judging by her glazed eyes and perplexed expression, he guessed she was still asleep, her subconscious still submerged in a hypnotic-like trance. He decided to play along, just to keep her calm and subdue her angst and distress. No doubt she’d fall right back to sleep and wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, which was just as well, considering how bizarre the whole entire incident seemed.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, keeping his response vague and letting her come to her own conclusions in her mind about who he was. “And you’re fine, Jo.”
A shudder of relief shook her shoulders. “You’re not really dead.”
Her gratitude wrapped around him like a physical and emotional cloak, making him a part of whatever torment lived deep within her soul. Her heartache was authentic and sincere and obviously intertwined with the desperate need to believe that this Brian person was still alive. That he was still alive.
Swallowing the tight knot in his throat, he granted her wish. “No, I’m not dead.”
Instead of lying down and falling back to sleep as he’d expected her to do, she tugged at the blankets around her legs and finally managed to untangle the covers from her long limbs. Slipping from her bed, she approached his, and Dean held his breath and remained completely still, uncertain what she intended.
Without hesitation, and with too much trust, she crawled across the mattress and snuggled up to his side, oblivious to his other hand cuffed to the post. Oblivious, too, to the fact that she was as defenseless and susceptible as a person could get—and embracing a man she believed, in her conscious state, was a felon.
