Page 68 of Taken By the Convicts
Fuck, it didn’t matter what he said, it always seemed to be the wrong thing. “I know you’re afraid of me, Melina, but I can’t change who I am.”
“I never asked you to change. And I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.” Her eyes drifted to where the two men had been before returning to his face.
Yeah, he saw the fear in her eyes, but it wasn’t for him. While he felt relief at that—which quite frankly baffled him because it didn’t matter whether she feared him or not—he realized he suddenly didn’t like the idea of leaving her at the med-center. She’d be safe inside, for the most part. Even with the guards inside, she was quite vulnerable. Hell, the guards inside were half the danger. They’d put her in the hole, not caring if she died.
“Then what’s the problem? You’re mad at me, and I don’t know why.”
“There’s no problem.” She flashed a forced smile. “I guess I misunderstood our arrangement.”
“Arrangement?” He reached for her arm, but she jerked away.
“I never asked you to bring me to the med-center in exchange for sex.” She wrapped the scarf back around her face to hide from him. He tore the scarf away, grabbed her chin with one hand until she looked directly at him. Tears pooled in her eyes; she was struggling not to cry.
“We had a deal,” he said, trying to remember what they’d said. He’d offered her anything she wanted, within reason. She wanted to go to the med-center. And here they were.
“I gave myself to you last night because. . . It doesn’t matter now. It was a mistake, one I won’t repeat.”
Mistake? Mistake! Fuck her. She was writing him off like she didn’t think he was good enough for her.
“You think Crusher is the only one with the right to touch you. You belong to all of us. And next time I’m going to fuck more than that pretty mouth of yours.”
She tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist. He didn’t let anyone hit him, not after Danning.
“I belong to no one.”
The look on her face. . . His stomach twisted. Something wasn’t right here.
“I trusted you,” she said, pulling the door that had shut. She kept pulling and pulling, even though it was obvious it had relocked.
Jayce placed his wrist against the scanner. The fucking door didn’t open for him. He wiped the snow off the scanner, dried it with the inside of his coat, and tried again. Nothing. Thorne had probably screwed up the access Jayce had granted himself.
Melina pushed past him, her face tucked into her coat. He could hear her crying as she placed her tattoo against the scanner. The door clicked open.
“Trusted me with what?” he asked before she disappeared inside. She hadn’t told him any secrets, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be blamed for something he didn’t do.
“I trusted you to not use me like all the men in my past.”
Chapter Eighteen
MELINA
Walking into the med-center after being gone for a month did more than raise eyebrows from the med-techs and guards there. It caused outright animosity.
“You can’t expect me to turn over control to you again because you decided you got tired of fucking Ivan and his unit,” med-tech Akins said as she entered the recovery unit.
Two men were chained to their beds. Each had scrapes and cuts. One had a leg in an old-fashioned plaster cast.
“Why haven’t you given this patient nanites to repair the broken bone?” she asked.
“Nanites? You think we have nanites? We can’t find nothing because the inventory room’s a fucking mess.”
“It wasn’t a mess when I left.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have left. Get in there and start organizing it,” Akins ordered.
Melina stood frozen in place. She was in charge of the center, not Akins. She glanced at the guard who’d been listening.
Davies, one of the guards who’d thrown her in the hole, didn’t move from his spot against the wall. “No one thought you’d return after Hawke’s men pulled you from the hole.”
