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“Well then,” she breathed. “I should give you an education. Hold still.” She crawled behind him. As if he could have moved. On her knees beside him, delectable curves pressed to his side, she was both innocent vixen and calculating seductress. Grant gave himself a mental ice bath. No, she was neither of those things. She was trying to explain something to him. Something vulnerable. Something important. Right? God help him. Maybe he should check the fire.
“Can you reach your hands back here, both of them?” Melinda asked as she fidgeted with something behind his back.
Grant might have been out of his element but he wasn’t about to cry off. Whatever she wanted to teach him, he knew he had it coming. Gamely, he clasped his hands together at the small of his back and awaited her cure for the ignorance that ailed him.
At her fingers’ urging, a sharp line drew itself around both of his wrists. The line grew tight, then taut, then cutting.
“Ow!” What was she doing? He wriggled where he sat but couldn’t free his hands.
Melinda sat back against the cushions.
“There,” she said. His lungs stalled at her beatific smile. “There’s your taste.”
She looked part exhilarated, part giddy. Grant struggled against the band around his wrists but all he got were lacerated wrists.
“What is that? What did you just do?” he asked.
“Paul has zip ties.” Her eyes sparkled.
Grant groaned. If he’d had a free hand he would have slapped his forehead with it.
“Of course he does.”
“This is helpless, Grant,” Melinda said. “This is powerless. Not completely, of course. You could escape if you really wanted to. Something that wasn’t available to me,” she added. Grant closed his eyes against another wave of disgust at himself.
“That’s a good idea,” she said, though he’d uttered not a word. She searched around them and Grant’s pulse kicked up a notch. “There!” His bicep burned where her breast brushed it.
“What—” he managed before she wiggled what must have been her hat over his head and in front of his eyes. She shifted and the tantalizing pressure of her legs on his evaporated, leaving them cold and bereft.
“Now,” came her voice from farther away. “Imagine you’re in a car.”
Grant stiffened.
“Imagine it swerves, but you’re in the back seat and you can’t do anything. Maybe you offer advice to the driver and he doesn’t like it, so he blocks you out. Imagine the windows are blackened. Imagine the driver hates you. Wants to hurt you. Wants you dead.”
“But I didn’t hate you.” A feeble interjection. “I don’t hate you.”
“Yes, I know that now. But in the moment, let’s imagine you aren’t sure of that. You’re only sure that you can do absolutely nothing to save yourself.”
The slight whoosh of her exhale to his right was Grant’s only warning before something exploded.
“What the hell!”
“Imagine the car spins out of control.” Her voice was ice.
Something sharp scored Grant’s arm from his elbow to his shoulder in a slow, teasing line. A knife? No, there was no pain. Before he could determine what weapon she’d wielded, Grant heard the unmistakable sound of the wood stove door opening. Why would she do that? The room was warm enough. The fan churned out hot air by the second.
“Melinda?” he asked. “You need help?” The scrape of wood on wood quickened his pulse. “You want me to do that?”
Melinda moved almost soundlessly, but the flames on the stick she must hold crackled menacingly.
“Can you feel this, Grant?” Her voice was a terrifying song. “Would you like to know where it’s going?”
Grant opened his mouth to protest.
“I wish I’d known where we were going two days ago,” she said. “I wish I’d known anything about who you were and what you wanted with me.” Shame burned through him like the fire she brandished.
The crackling receded and the stove door squeaked as she closed it.
