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But as her hand closed on the handle, she paused. Where was he anyway? Was the knife a trap? A test? He’d clearly left it there, in plain view, and therefore, would notice if it disappeared right out from under his nose. Forget about any element of surprise, she’d be lucky if he didn’t pluck it from her hands the moment he stepped inside. Andthenwhat would he do? Laugh at her audacity? Or something more villainous? Tie her up? Refuse to let her eat? Punish her in some other way? All kinds of salacious scenarios stormed through her brain, sending unexpected zings straight to her core, waking up an appetite of a different kind altogether. Memories of his wide, strong hands on her tender inner thighs ripped through her mind. Spreading her wide, he’d explored her open sex with assumed dominion, and she’d not only allowed it but welcomed it,burnedfor it.
Shit,no. She had to stop this. So what if his presence triggered an olfactory awakening and unlocked some untouched well of horniness? What happened earlier couldn’t happen again. But her mind refused to budge from the memories. His stupidly handsome face with his impossible eyes, winsome smile, deep dimples, andfucking cleft chinwere bad enough. There was absolutely no fucking reason to fixate on the sizable bulge he’d sported while conjuring two orgasms out of her from thin air.
No. She needed to focus. He could return any second.Where the fuck was he?Abandoning the knife as too obvious to escape his notice, she cast about the cave, anxious to get her hands on something, anything, that might be of use. Maybe Omegas couldn’t resist their biology, but shesure as fuck could, and resistance would be a whole lot easier with a weapon in her hand.
“Solve the problem, solve the problem,” she whispered like a calming mantra.
Several knapsacks lay to the side, opened and half-unpacked. Immediately, she tore through the nearest one, shoving aside clothing, food, and whatever else, checking pockets and flaps as if her life depended on it. All while praying to a god that didn’t exist. Please let her findsomethinguseful, something that wouldn’t be so immediately noticed as missing, something that might mean the difference between staying true to herself and being mated and claimed on the dirty floor of a dreary cave like an animal.
Her nose twitched, and the faint hint of cinnamon coffee caused her eyelids to flutter involuntarily. Like a signal for her alone, his aroma billowed around her, causing a subtle but definite pliancy to the tense and stressed lines of her body. The temptation rose to sit there and wallow in it, lost to anything but that intoxicating balm.
Fuck, Della, wake up!
Shaking off the languor, she rummaged through the bottom of the final sack, her fist tightening around something small and hard and metal-cold. Yanking it free, she hastily repacked the bag and hurled herself back onto her pallet, slipping the jackknife prize under her covers as she laid down as if just wakening from her nap.
Smooth, assured footsteps crunched on the stones, and an enormous body ducked through the narrow opening, momentarily blocking out the twilight. Pulse thundering in her ears, Della raised her tired eyes, hoping against hope he couldn’t hear her heart hysterically knocking against her ribs. If he did, he gave no sign of it, greeting her with a paired raise of an eyebrow and one corner of his lip that she found way too appealing.
“Feeling better?” he asked, thankfully not pausing to await her answer. Squatting fireside, he tore some greens in his hands and added them to the stewpot.
Rising, Della ran a hand through her tangled hair, partly to assess the disgusting mess it had worked itself into and partly to buy herself time to think. She had the knife, but a knife wasn’t a plan. Adeline Cabrese made her living as a wheeler and dealer, a compromise-seeker, a consensus-builder. Maybe they could work out an arrangement of some sort, some sort of bargain to get her back home to Morris Hill. He had to want something.Her cheeks warmed with a sudden flush. Something other than her body, that was.
She faced him again, scrutinizing her caveman captor like a political opponent. What were his strengths? His weaknesses? His blind spots? His pressure points? She didn’t know, but she’d find out.
“My headache appears to be gone,” she said, opening with the most neutral statement she could find. “What are you making?”
Alphas could smell a fire on the breeze for miles, and anyone nearby would notice an orange glow at the cave entrance. Curious that he’d risk lighting one under the circumstances. She squinted into the small flame, considering. Was it stupidity? Arrogance? Or were they so far from Morris Hill that he didn’t worry about a search party? Or had a search party already come and gone while she’d slept during the day? That thought chilled her to her bones.
Cal stopped stirring and began spooning out a portion into a wooden bowl. “Simple stew. Sorry, there’s no fresh meat for it, only dried.” He handed the bowl to her, and she took it with a nod of thanks. “I set some snares, so maybe tomorrow a rabbit will get unlucky. The creek also has some fish. Trout, I think.”
Della arranged herself cross-legged on her pallet, draping a blanket over her bare bottom half. After the earlier debauchery, her trousers mysteriously disappeared, and she’d bet anything he’d squirreled them away as some sort of insurance policy against her making a run for it. A simple but compelling deterrent. Not an idiot, she had to admit. Lifting a spoonful of the fragrant dish, she blew the steam away. “You’re used to living rough, then?”
“You could say that. Here.” He tossed a roll into her lap, one of Logan’s. Interesting. Somehow, he’d gotten his hands on Morris Hill food supplies. Had he stolen it? Did he have help? How well had this little abduction been planned?
“That’s stale, but if you break it up in the stew, it’ll soften right up.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, ignoring the weird pang in her chest. The genuine concern for her welfare that propped up that innocent comment touched some sensitive spot deep, deep in her psyche. Maybe this wasn’t a man solely intent on keeping her alive to use for his own needs; for whatever reason, her comfort mattered to him.
And she didn’t know how she felt about that.
As a distraction from that line of thought, she wolfed a huge bite of stew. Searing heat scorched the inside of her mouth, and she let out a closed-mouth scream, trying hastily to swallow and not spit the scalding soup back into the bowl.
Cal practically leaped across the fire, coming to her side and shoving a cool canteen in her hands. “Damn girl, are you all right?”
She gulped the fresh, cool water, feeling the burn and shock lessen. Running her blistered tongue over her gums didn’t feelgreat, but nothing on par with singing the roof of her mouth with pizza cheese back in her old life. She’d be okay.
Brows creased, Cal brushed hairs away from her face, drawing her attention back to his suddenly too-near presence. His fingertips lingered to trace the shell of her ear and the underside of her jaw. This close, her skin shivered, and the burned roof of her mouth faded to inconsequential background noise.
Cal’s lips quirked in that sly half-smile that had to be his trademark. “Didn’t realize I had to warn you not to put boiling hot stew in your mouth.” A chagrined shake of his head accompanied the teasing scold, all of it given away by the creased crow’s feet crinkling happily around those hazel eyes. “Hitting your head, losing your pants, burning your mouth. What am I gonna do with you, Omega?”
Despite herself, amusement bubbled in her chest. “I don’t believeIlost my pants. Where are they, by the way?”
He tipped forward, nuzzling his nose into her hair. Hot breath brushed against her ear when he spoke, tripping Della’s stomach into a series of flip-flops. “Wherever they ran off to, can’t say I’m sorry they’re gone.”
With a delicate, barely-there nip of her lobe, he backed off, grinning from ear to ear like he’d stolen a plum pudding right off the queen’s table, while Della’s belly continued its exhilarating, terrifying free fall.
How would she get the upper hand when every little thing brought her to her knees?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
