Page 4 of Guilty as Sin
Something was wrong with his brain. Some fuzziness. He started to sit up, and he couldn’t.
Wait. He couldn’t move.
Choppy breath coming short. Panic beginning to twist in his gut. Arms. His arms were splayed overhead, fastened by the wrists with something hard. Not cloth. Something that cut at his skin when he tried to pull free.
Ankles, too. No play in them at all. He was spread-eagled on something soft… a mattress. Blindfolded and secured with… with zip ties, maybe. Hard, cutting plastic.
The fuzziness cleared some, enough to remember sipping his drink as he sat backwards on a bar stool, one booted foot on the rail, surveying the room. And the moment when he’d seen the blonde, her hair falling over one eye, her dress and her mouth as red as sin, as hot as hell, and everything from her deep cleavage to her swaying hips speaking the language of lust.
The language oflust?No. Too much. And this woman sounded like Jessica Rabbit. Jace kept reading anyway.
She’d walked straight over to him, not bothering to drop her eyes. Not hiding what she wanted. Then she’d tossed that mane of blonde hair back, looked sidelong at him, and purred, “Buy a girl a drink?”
He remembered that, and he remembered buying himself another one, too. Remembered taking a sip, the whisky burning a path down his throat as hot as her gaze on him. But that was all. And now he was here, in the dark, tied like a sacrifice.
Helpless.
“Hello?” he called out, then hated the weakness. He wanted to ask, “Who’s there? Where am I?” But he didn’t.
When the soft slap came, he flinched. And his heart, which had already been racing, turned it up another notch. Because the blow wasn’t from a hand. It was something else. Something flexible, but with a sting. Then the nearly tickling touch as it was drawn down his body, and he was tensing more.
He wanted to ask, “Who are you? What do you want?” He wanted to say, “Let me go.” But he was damned if he’d give her—him—the satisfaction. The blonde? Somebody else? Was this about sex? Money?
The next blow fell.
It was about pain.
Jace could hear his own ragged breathing, clearly audible in the quiet cabin. He turned the page. The next one—the last one—was blank.
Movement beside him. A faint sound. A hum.
“Huh!”The exclamation was out before he could stop himself, and his body jerked, sending the rocking chair into motion and startling a sharp bark out of Tobias. The Ridgeback was standing by Jace’s chair, whining softly, the source of the movementandthe noise.
Jace shook his head to clear it, then jumped up, leaned down for the handle of the wood stove, shoved the manuscript inside, struck a match, and lit the whole mess up. He caught sight of the envelope—no return address—grabbed it, too, and tossed it on top before slamming the door shut.
Wait,he thought as he watched the glass window glow yellow as the flame flickered and died. What would Matt Sawyer, super soldier, have done in this situation? Something much more clever, of course. Sawyer would have preserved the evidence, obviously, because something else was clicking into place in Jace’s brain now. That phone call.
“It’s you,”the husky voice had said.“Did you get it?”Male or female, Jace hadn’t been able to tell. Phone numbers could be traced, though. Envelopes with no return address, even if he’d noticed the postmark, which he hadn’t? Not so much.
He hadn’t been so stupid after all, then. It was a one-time thing, or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, there would be more evidence, and next time, he’d save it. Anyway, it wasn’t news that fans could send you some crazy stuff. Invitations to their birthday parties six states over, offers to come to your home and “take care” of you while your wife was away. And if you were a six-foot-three Aussie thriller writer with some female readership, a few muscles, and blue eyes—invitations into their lives and their beds.
But not on the phone.
Not using your real name.
Not in your home.
Time to get prepared.
That evening, Paige was still thinking about what Lily had said. Not about her chakras. She’d given up on those. The tea had been disgusting, so it seemed her crown chakra was destined to remain uncleansed. Or dirty. She liked the thought of dirty chakras. It sounded so sexually adventurous.
Ha. As if.
No, thinking about Lily’s problem, that was what she was doing. Maybe because itwastheir birthday, and the waiter had just brought out two micro-thin slices of vegan, gluten-free chocolate cake with a candle stuck in each, prompting the roomful of spa guests to sing “Happy Birthday” in the most embarrassing way possible. Lily smiled and thanked them, and Paige saw the shadow beneath the smile as if Lily’s soul were laid bare—because to her, it was.
During Lily’s marriage, Paige had gotten jumbled, confused messages from her sister, because that was the way Lily’s thoughts had been—tangled like snakes, and just that deadly to her peace of mind. Now, her twin’s mind felt different. Anxious and unsettled, but clear. Paige said, “You can call me before and after, you know,” before taking another sip of champagne. Much better for chakra-clearing than tea. At least, she felt bubbly and light, and non-grumpy for the first time today. She was made for drinking and combat, not purity and enlightenment.
Sounded badass, anyway.
