Wyatt (Lane Brothers #1) (6 page)

“Okay.”

I’m a little choked up by the time I give her a lip-smacking kiss and disconnect the call. My heart is sitting somewhere in the region of my toes. I feel like bawling like a baby because I think I may be in love with Judith Lane, and if she really is who she says she is, I’m going to have to suck it up, shove my baggage to the background, and give Wyatt Lane a chance.

That won’t be easy for many reasons, and I won’t even include the whole kidnapping-stalker thing he has going on. I’m just scared. Four years it’s taken me to get to this point where I don’t scream myself awake after an hour’s worth of sleep, or have a mini breakdown when I see a blond head in the crowd.

              The only thing I’ve loved in years is Goofball.

Goofball!

“Wyatt!”

Oh God, my poor Goofy! She’s been alone all this time without food or water or anybody to talk to.

Wyatt comes running into the kitchen just when I’m about to have a fit and takes one look at me, only to shake his head.

“I told you she was a lot to handle.”

“Oh shush! Your mother was awesome and you know it, you fool.”

“Okay. I’m lost then.”

“Goofball!”

“No insults,” he mutters, his brows drawing down.

“No. Goofball. My cat. She’s going to—”

More laughter.

“Relax, baby, I would never leave a defenceless animal to starve. Sheesh, what you take me for, woman? I had Miah grab him and leave him with Ma.”

My heart settles once more and I can breathe again. Goofball is my baby. I raised her from a little half-dead ball of fur that I found abandoned in an alley behind a dumpster.

I love that pussycat like my own child. Of course, I have to because she was the only thing that saved me that first year when I got so lonely that I felt like I’d go mad.

Who the hell am I to think he’s a killer when the man can’t even bring himself to abandon a cat.

Softy.

“She,” I mumble, feeling unaccountably shy all of a sudden.

I’m not afraid of him anymore and it’s opening up a gap for my hormones to start raging and…

“Huh? Baby, you okay? You’re looking feverish,” he says, his concern making me blush even more.

I don’t know why. The man has seen every inch of skin I own and then some, if the way I woke up is anything to go by, and that should make me mad.

Instead, I find myself wondering if he liked what he saw. The scars, included.

He’s stalked closer while my mind wandered, and I find myself having to slap his hand away when he reaches to check me for a fever.

“Quit it. I’m fine. And Goofball’s a
she
.”

That’s right, turn shrewish because that is
so
attractive to a man as easygoing as this one.

“Hmm. Okay. So, you spoke to Ma. You feeling better now, baby?”

The insides of my cheeks are probably going to bleed, I’m biting them so hard.

“She says you have a freckle.”

No! No, you do not want to see the freckle, Ellie. Take that back.

Too late. He grins wickedly and raises a brow, causing my blush to deepen.

“I’ll show you any freckle, hair, or…skin you want to see, baby. All you have to do is ask.”

“Really? I’m trying to have a conversation with you, and that’s all you get from it? Immature much?”

Do not laugh, Ellie.

I want to so bad, though, when he sticks out his bottom lip and looks up at me through his lashes.

“You’re mean.”

“Nope, just trying to survive, Lane. Just trying to survive.”

The joking expression falls away fast and he comes closer, bending to look directly into my eyes.

“You’re not just surviving anymore, baby. You’re going to live. Now, let’s go play some pool and you can tell me everything my nosy-ass mother had to say. Oh, and that freckle? It’s a lot higher than Ma remembers. I’ve grown to be a big boy.”

Wyatt

I’m definitely in love now if I wasn’t before. This is it, the deal is done, and all because after beating me at pool (yes, I’m man enough to admit she kicked my ass and hustled me like a pro), she helped me make lunch and drank a protein shake without giving me any shit.

That caught me on her hook, and then she reeled me in when she spent a half hour on the phone while Ma told her how to make her chocolate chip cookies.

My favorite.

That sealed it for me—her immediate affinity for Ma. It’s necessary for them to like each other since my family is clannish and sticks together. The house we live in is huge, and each of us have an entire wing with separate entrances for privacy.

We’re close, though, so I expect that once Ellie is home, she and Ma will spend a lot of time together. Hopefully Ma can take her shopping and turn her into one of those crazy females who love to spend.

I like the thought of her spending my money on stuff that’ll make her happy and feel secure in her femininity.

The only dark spot to this day of firsts for us was when Jared called and told me he got her files. The therapist she worked with after her recovery didn’t believe in putting such sensitive information on her computer, so my brother was forced to call in a favor and have one of his buddies do a quick in and out.

That was yesterday, and the file has been delivered straight into my hands. Ellie’s still sleeping since it’s only just dawn, and here I sit in the office, scared shitless at what I’ll find if I open this shit up and look deep.

I already know so much and it’s equally as heartbreaking as it is infuriating knowing what she suffered. Do I really need to know more, and more importantly, do I have a right to invade her thoughts this completely?

The answer is no, but I’m a dick and I don’t care what rights I do or don’t have. That woman upstairs is mine, and if I have to live with some guilt in order to know how to heal her I’ll do it.

It takes less than an hour to read the file cover to cover, and I’m crying by the time it’s done.

I dry my eyes and think of every minute of every coming day and the ways in which I’ll make those minutes the most blissful for Ellie that I can.

              That’s my job since I failed to protect her from that animal Bolton. I take that shit seriously, more so now after I know how bad her ordeal was.

              The file is closed and stashed in the safe where it will stay till I’ve tortured myself a few more times and read it again. I’ll do that shit till I can recite it word for word so I never forget why she needs me more than she needs freedom from me.

And then I’ll burn it.

I do drink this time because this is too much. As the man that I am, ruthless in business and what little personal life I allowed myself while waiting for Ellie to be ready, I’m not used to letting emotion cloud my mind.

The feelings rushing through me now are too strong and I turn to the liquor cabinet, set on getting myself nicely sauced so that when I see her in a few hours I won’t be quite this raw. And maybe, just maybe if I’m mellow I won’t give in to the urge to make love to her before she’s ready.

This knowledge, the sick and twisted facts I now have polluting my brain, has only served to amp me up. The instinct to claim and mark is now that much stronger, and since it was a beast before, I reckon it’s a slavering rabid animal now.

But I’ll wait, as long as need be before I do anything that might harm her. She’ll be ready soon enough, God willing, because my dick is desperate enough to go looking if I so much as fall asleep beside my baby.

***

Ellie

This is the third morning I wake alone and I don’t like it, not one bit. I fell asleep last night cradled in his arms, the cuffs binding us together as tightly as any ring or marriage license can, and I’d felt, peace…I think.

I sure dropped off quick enough to make me believe that’s what that feeling was, and I slept like a corpse to boot, only half waking when I felt him get up to go to the bathroom.

He must not have come back, though. I’m stretched out on his side of the bed, my face planted in his pillow, sniffing out his scent like some dog in heat or something.

Yeah, I’m so there after seeing him drop trou last night and crawl in behind me. The man is built, but what I failed to see last time is that he is tattooed, as well, with some sort of dragon thing across his right shoulder and part of his chest.

And then my eyes had progressed down and my vagina actually shrank in fear because that
thing
, his…it was just so…there. Proud and large and swollen.

It got harder the longer I’d looked at it, and by the time I could drag my eyes up I was blushing and not so sure about him, me, and the whole sex thing.

Too big. Way too much.

I’m awake now and mad. Where is he? What sort of captor is he fixing to be if he leaves me alone for hours and doesn’t even re-cuff me to the bed? To play a damsel in distress is hard enough without him taking away the whole distressed part of things.

He’s clever, though, I will give him that. From what his mom told me yesterday, his intelligence has served him well in business. Wyatt is a mogul, like one of those rich guys who could buy and sell countries and not break a sweat over the cost.

And he likes power plays enough that even though he’s gotten rich enough to retire for ten lifetimes and never go without, he still goes to work for the rush of sealing the unsealable deal.

I suppose he has to have that kind of drive since the man is a health fanatic and drinks those raw egg shake things like water. Just gross. How the heck am I supposed to kiss him with that shit on his breath?

A record scratches in my head and everything stops. Can I, Eloise Carver, messed up as I am and averse to any sort of happiness, really be wanting to kiss Wyatt Lane?

              At my age, it may not seem like a big deal, except for the fact that I am a virgin with no experience. That shit is intimidating.

I’m also unprepared to consider that kind of relationship with this man, no matter what my body wants. I’ve just come off the terror of being taken against my will again, not to mention the snake debacle. I need some rest for my nerves.

The problem is that I remember. I’ll always remember. After I escaped and ran from Bolton’s torture, I spent so long walking in circles, delusional from thirst and hunger and heat. I collapsed and would have died right there if not for that freak stalking me, just waiting to snap me back up and take me back to his hovel.

He took me back and he bathed my blistered, sunburned skin and rehydrated me for a whole day. He cared for me gently and made sure I lived, even going so far as to spoon-feed me chicken broth after starving me for a full week.

When I was well enough to move and scream, he put me in a pine box, poured….snakes in there with me—those small, nonvenomous ones—and then closed me in there while I screamed so hard, I lost my voice and spat up blood.

All those slithery little bastards slipping and sliding over every inch of my naked body almost drove me nuts, and for one glorious second I sort of disconnected with my mind and started floating away.

I welcomed it at the time because I couldn’t suffer if I couldn’t feel, but it didn’t last long. I came back to myself, still trapped with the snakes, with no air and a heat unlike anything I’d ever felt.

He took me out hours later, just before I was smothered to death, and warned me that if I ever ran from him again I’d suffer worse. That, more than anything, broke me, because my instinct was to run but I was so terrified of what he’d do that I just gave up.

He didn’t even have to chain me anymore, because I was docile as a newborn lamb.

That’s where my head’s at now.

I’m terrified because I could love Wyatt Lane so easily it’s ridiculous, but that would give him the power to destroy what’s left of me.

              “Baby?”

I look over and see him standing in the doorway, frowning, and I realize there’s wetness on my cheeks.

“Ellie, princess, why are you crying?” He stalks over to the bed and pulls me up onto his lap.

“I need to pee.”

It’s not the most original thing I’ve said, but I can’t be near him right now, feeling raw and out of sorts. I haven’t cried in years.

“Talk to me, baby. Please.”

              “You know why I’m so afraid of snakes?”

He stiffens, and I feel his arms squeeze tighter around me, making it hard to breathe.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

But I do.

I want to.

“I never used to be. Alan and I used to go down to the river and catch those little garter snakes, the harmless ones, because he was fascinated with the critters.”

I laugh, remembering his sweet innocence and curiosity when they would slide so seamlessly through his fingers.

“It was great and he was so proud that a girl wasn’t scared of those things. Anyway, I never feared them, not once since I was a little girl, and my dad would take me exploring and fishing and camping…but then, you know I was…taken.”

“Ellie, baby, don’t talk about it if it’s scaring you so bad,” he pleads, burying his face in my hair as his frame trembles around me.

That one sign of weakness in him, his show of care and angst for me, gives me the strength I need to suck it up and go on. I have to because if by some miracle we can have something, he needs to know what he’s getting himself into with me.

I will never be normal and okay.

“I’m not afraid. Not now. Not here with you.”

It’s true. I’m not afraid anymore, and I want him to know it because he deserves to understand that I’m not comparing him and this….I don’t know what to call it, but it’s nothing like the other. He is nothing like the other.

“Ellie, I—”

“I escaped, did you know that?” I interrupt.

It was my moment of pride knowing I’d outsmarted Bolton and gotten free. I still remember his screams of rage echoing around me as I ran.

“No,” he says gruffly, breathing into my hair.

“Well I did. I got loose and ran, but it was hot. I had no water and I was dehydrated and weak from hunger. I didn’t get far at all before I collapsed and he came and dragged me back. For a rich, pampered college boy, he was very strong and determined. Anyway, he took me back and cared for me.”

Those words make us both shudder, and I’m almost sure I feel tears wetting my temple where his face is pressed to mine.

“He fed me and made me drink through my cracked, bleeding lips and bathed me in some medicine or something to heal the places the sun had blistered me. When I was strong enough, he…put me in a box, poured snakes in with me, and sealed me in.”

Saying it out loud is easier than I expected, and if not for Wyatt’s shudders, I would feel victorious at this huge breakthrough I’ve made. That one time I told Dr. Hanley, I’d needed to drug myself half to death just to function.

“Christ, Ellie, I am so sorry.”

“Not your doing, Wyatt, so no apologies required. I screamed, man oh man did I scream. Things are scarier in the dark when you can’t see them. They feel bigger. More sinister than your rational mind can grasp. They were everywhere. In my hair, my ears, trying to crawl up any crevice or hole they found.”

Blech
. I’d stopped pounding on the box top in order to keep them from crawling into me.

“My throat was bleeding when he opened the lid hours later, and I learned one thing I will never forget. I may have thought I was stronger, more resilient, but there are always ways for people to hurt you. Always, and Bolton Conrad broke me that day. I didn’t try to run after that. I was cowed and broken and I don’t know if I’ll ever be right again.”

I want to be now that I know this good man and his family. I want in there so that I won’t be alone, so I can have that closeness I haven’t had in years.

“He didn’t break shit, he just made you stronger than you should be, baby. You’re not weak for wanting to survive.”

“I didn’t, though. I wanted to die. I just couldn’t risk another torture like that one.”

We say nothing more for a long time. He just holds me and rocks gently as I sit quietly and think of every moment he stole and every minute I can never get back.

Is this what I want? Can I honestly say I want to live this way, half dead and not caring when I used to want nothing more than to live, love, and be happy?

I don’t want what he did to steal any more precious time from me, and I know just where to start looking for the happiness I’ve denied myself for so long.

“Ellie?”

“Hmm?”

I’m mellow and relaxed now that I have my mind made up and am ready to take what I want.

“Don’t take this the wrong way and hit me, baby.”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”