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“That’s not what I was suggesting.”
“And I don’t take favors from killers.”
“Who did I kill?” I smile gently, but I won’t be separated from Tamara for one more minute. “If you could prove anything, I wouldn’t be standing here. Now step out of my way before I lose my temper.”
He’s blocked me long enough, and I have a short fuse these days.
He turns around and goes back into the room. “Tamara, Joshua’s here. I’m telling you, you deserve better than this. Let me call security for you.”
I walk in behind him. Tamara is sitting up in bed, hooked up to a monitor, an IV in her arm, covers pulled up to her chest. Her other arm is in a sling. Even after five days in the hospital, she’s painfully thin and ghost-pale, with dark hollows under her eyes. Greenish-blue bruises bloom on her arms and face.
My heart leaps in my chest when her eyes meet mine, and I just stand there, drinking her in. Just to be in the same room with her, breathing the same air, makes everything right with the world.
“It’s all right,” she says to Carter, her voice weak and raspy. “I’ll talk to him. And thank you again for everything you’ve done for me, Geoff. You’re a good guy.” He hesitates in the doorway. “I’ll be fine,” she says to him. “Really.”
“You can call me any time,” he says to her. With a dark look at me, he leaves.
I can’t take my eyes off her as I cross the room.My girl, my beautiful girl.I sit down in the chair next to her bed, strange emotions churning inside me.
“I’m sorry I took so long to find you,” I tell her, reaching out for her arm. She moves it out of my reach, and a spark of anger snaps in me.
She’s still mine. I can touch her when I want to.
I restrain myself, though, for now. She’s been through hell, and I’ll go easy on her. At first.
She looks at me wearily. “Thank you for saving us.”
“Of course. It was my fault he had you.”I came to save you. I didn’t give a damn about any of the rest of them.
She shakes her head, her dark hair rustling on the pillow. “No, it wasn’t. He set me up to meet you, knowing he was going to kidnap me in the end.” She tugs the blanket up a little. “I knew you’d come for me. I knew you wouldn’t sleep until you found me. That’s what kept me going, every day.” She shudders, her eyes drifting away to a dark place.
I know what those days were like, because I watched the videos. Every minute of every video.
But she believed in me. She knew I wouldn’t abandon her. I feel the ice inside me thaw a little, and I’m not ashamed to say that my eyes burn with unshed tears. Her faith in me wraps around me like a warm blanket.
“It shouldn’t have taken me so long. I threw everything I had into it, Tamara, I hope you know that. The world stopped turning for me. I went days without sleep and did nothing but search and search.”
She shifts in the bed and grimaces with the effort of movement. The hell my brother put her through…the things he did to her body…. Choking anger sweeps through me, and I clench my fists.
“I know,” she says, her eyes hollow and tired. “I never doubted it. If I hadn’t known that, I think I would have gone insane.”
“He’ll never touch you again,” I vow. “Nobody will. I’ll keep you safe.”
Her eyes narrow. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll keep myself safe, thanks. I’m not leaving here with you.”
“Oh no?” That’s what she thinks.
She fixes her gaze on me, with the strength and ferocity of a lioness. “Listen. You saved me, and Astrid and the girls. I will always be grateful for that. But you also held me prisoner for five months, and you tortured me and nearly broke me. You hung me over a damn electric plate, Joshua. You locked me up in the dark for weeks. If your brother hadn’t kidnapped me, you would never have let me go.” Her dark eyes burn holes into my soul. “I would have been your caged little sex toy for the rest of my life.”
“You were much more than that to me.” She is everything to me. She is the first woman to challenge me, to enchant me, to capture my heart. Before I met her, I didn’t even know I had a heart.
She just looks at me with rebuke and hurt.
“I understand why you’re angry at me,” I say. But I can’t quite bring myself to say I’m sorry. Am I sorry I took her, possessed her, forced her to crave my touch? Am I sorry for all those nights she screamed my name when she came? I’d be lying if I said yes.
