Page 4 of Trapped With the Secret Agent

Loud footsteps thundered on the stairs. The vivid memory of seeing the dead guards flashed before her eyes, and suddenly the little room didn’t seem so utterly distasteful.

The door crashed open. She pressed herself into the corner of her dark prison and tried to make out the shadows looming there, but the sudden brightness blinded her. She threw up a hand so she could see, but the change from complete darkness to bright light only made her vision fuzzy. Should she get out? Did she want to get out?

Something was thrust inside, shoving her violently against the box next to her. The heavy weight was enough to impair her ability to breathe. The door slammed shut a second later. Georgia fought against the crushing mass pressing against her without success.

The total darkness combined with the big and heavy something flattened her like a pancake against the crate. This wasn’t like before when she was a kid trapped in the entryway closet. This was worse. The heavy object squishing her was warm and moving, and faintly smelled of sweat. A man. They’d thrown a man in with her. Into a space without enough room for one person, let alone two.

The world shrunk until the only thing left was herself and the man on top of her. She couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but the crate and the man. Nausea grabbed hold of the bottom of her stomach and attempted to yank it up through her throat.

“Off, off,” she ordered. “Off,get off me.” Her voice was so high she didn’t recognize it. Her knee connected with a soft lump, and she heard a deep masculine grunt.

“Ouch! Damn it, hold still.” His voice wasn’t familiar, his body heavy, but it was the darkness that weighed most of all.

Georgia’s arms were pinned between their bodies. She tried to knee him again, but he trapped her legs somehow. She couldn’t move.

Trapped inside a cramped storage room, in the dark, with a man. Unable to move, unable to save herself. Again.

Oh God.

The scream that came out of her could have woke the dead.

A large hand covered her mouth.

“Ow,” he muttered. “You’ve got a hell of a scream on you.”

Georgia struggled to break his hold, but he forcibly held her still. She jerked one arm free and tried to hit him, but he grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the wall beside her head, and she couldn’t wiggle the other one out from between them. Before she could knee him again, he shifted and blocked her legs with his own, pressing her more firmly against the wall. He held her imprisoned with the weight of his body, trussed up like a rabbit.

“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Georgia didn’t believe him, not after what she’d witnessed. The faces of the dead Marines flashed before her and she wiggled frantically to get free.

“Georgia, it’s Peter Welis. I’mnotgoing to hurt you. The ambassador asked me to look after you, remember?”

His words sank in slowly. She stopped fighting to listen.

“That’s better,” he said, his voice low.

Now that she wasn’t in a complete panic, she could feel the strength radiating from him. He held her easily, almost negligently. She couldn’t move an inch.

Slowly, he eased off on the pressure until his palm left her face.

Georgia was careful to not move or even breathe audibly.

The vicelike grip on her wrist eased then disappeared altogether. He shifted away, but the room was so full of boxes and crates he couldn’t move far, his body heat penetrated her clothes, causing her shirt to stick to her skin.

Despite the heat, she shivered. “I...I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. I’d worry if you didn’t freak out.”

Georgia cocked her head, listening intently to his voice. It was unusual—deep, full-bodied, but with an edge to it that rasped harshly across her nerve endings, making her hair stand on end. He brushed against her. Too close. There wasn’t enough air. Her breathing shallowed.

Something hit the box with a thud.

“Ouch.”

He stopped moving.

“Are you all right?” she asked, momentarily distracted.

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