Page 22 of Dirty Gambit

Lena waited until he was comfortable before taking his uninjured hand. She snapped the cuffs to his left wrist and closed the other end to the base of Jessie’s car seat. It was an awkward situation when she had to lean across his body to do it. She had expected some resistance, maybe another burst of fight from him; it wasn’t as if she was holding the gun on him, and she was close enough for him to seriously hurt her if he tried. But he didn’t resist her or make any move to disarm her. Instead, he sat perfectly still, studying her as she drew back.

“Can you give these to Jessie?”

She handed him the cookies and waited until he had them both pinched before kneeling outside the car with her kit. She set it down in the dirt and popped open the lid.

The intensity of his scrutiny made her all the more aware of him and all the little things about him. It made her painfully aware of the fact that the fingers on the hand she was dressing had been inside her not that long ago. Having them right there, palm open, digits splayed in front of her was a taunting reminder of just how good it had felt. Harder still was ignoring the thrum left behind, the twisted little knowledge that, five more seconds and she would have climaxed all over that hand.

The realization made her want to both laugh and cover her face in mortification.

What was wrong with her? The events of the office, her plans to seduce him into submission had been a one-time thing. She wasn’t supposed to like it. She wasn’t supposed to want more of him. She wasn’t supposed to want him to finish what he’d started. That was just stupid and reckless and—

“Ow!” Jaxon’s yelp startled Lena back to the present and the gauze she’d tugged too hard around his torn skin.

She grimaced and loosened the mesh. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Her chin came up when he didn’t respond. “Is that better?”

Rather than answer, he gave a low, dry snort and shook his head gently as if she just didn’t get it.

“What?” she asked, not seeing the humor.

He looked at her. “How’s your head?”

Taken aback by the random question, Lena paused. “What?”

“When you fainted, you hit your head,” he pointed out.

Unconsciously, she raised a hand to the tender spot at the back of her skull. “It’s fine.”

He didn’t press, nor did she elaborate. The conversation had taken a turn into unknown territories and neither one of them seemed to know how to behave. Lena didn’t like it. It was better if they didn’t speak again until their time together came to an end. The less they spoke, the easier it would be to leave him in the end.

Which seemed to work for him, too, because they stayed in a tense silence as she cleaned and bandaged the scarlet band of tattered flesh. Jessie’s chatter filled the cabin, picking up some of the discomfort as she gnawed on her cookies with gleeful relish. The end of the gauze was tucked into place, containing a healthy amount of polysporin she’d slathered across his skin.

“That should do it,” she said, dusting her hands together and pushing to her feet. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

Jaxon gave a barely perceptible nod.

Neither moved. Even when Jessie chucked a sloppy chunk of mashed up cookie over the side of her car seat and it landed in the space between her seat and Jaxon’s hip, neither blinked. They studied each other with the usual wariness of two people in an awkward and unusual situation, but beneath it, beneath that transfixed contact, she could feel the vibration of something else, something thin and taut, a wire at its snapping point. One false blink and the whole structure could come apart on top of her. The unwavering scrutiny tingled across her skin, eliciting an army of raised pimples in their wake. It teased her nipples into hard points under the soft material of her t-shirt and pooled below her navel, making her unconsciously clench. The absence of his fingers only intensified that desperate little ache coiling deep inside her.

It was insane how easily he’d managed to worm under her skin when she’d spent the better part of eighteen years keeping men like him away from her. Twenty-four hours and she was ready to straddle him right there in the backseat. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the weeks she’d spent pouring over his photos, tracing that perfectly cut jaw with her fingertips and falling headlong into his fathomless eyes. Maybe, somewhere along the way, she’d worked herself up into this situation, or maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe he was intentionally fucking with her head, getting her worked up and confused so she got sloppy. That seemed more logical than wanting a man she barely knew.

“Tuck in,” was the only warning she gave before slamming the door shut, sealing him in.

Ignoring his startled expression, she rounded the car at a sprint and climbed in behind the wheel. Her fingers fumbled trying to locate her pocket and the keys inside.

“Where are we going?”

The metal bits jingled as they were torn from their confines. She found the right one and turned the ignition on before responding.

“Put your belt on.”

He didn’t push, which should have been a red flag … another one. She wanted to think it was because Jessie took that moment to demand his attention, but his easy compliance was unnerving her. Lena kept half an eye on them while she maneuvered the painfully narrow opening in the forest.

It had been meant as a stopping ground, somewhere to keep Jaxon while she ran for supplies with Jess. The seclusion assured absolute privacy. No amount of noise could be heard from the main road, a tested fact. Plus, she hadn’t planned to be gone longer than a few minutes.

Those plans had changed drastically and with them, her methods.

In the backseat, Jaxon covered his eyes with his unrestrained hand and yelled,peek-a-boo!Sending Jessie into a fit of giggles.

He is good with her,she mused grudgingly. But she didn’t belong with them. Jess belonged with her family. Jaxon would just have to accept that.

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