UNTAMED

30. Holden

“So, what are the sleeping arrangements? Because if you two think I’m going to lie here and listen to my ex-girlfriend and my brother roll around in bed together all night, you’ve lost your damn minds.” Duke kicks his boots off before leaning back against the pillows on one of the beds—the one I didn’t make out with Rosie on.

I’m fresh from the shower, my lower half wrapped in a towel. I left my clean underwear in the duffel bag.

Rosie’s eyes graze over me, heated and hungry. She flicks them away when I catch her.

Feeling is mutual, angel.

My dick stiffens again. It’s almost to the point of being painful.

I should’ve made Duke get his own room.

Except she’s hurt and resisting her would be ten times harder if I were alone with her.

I reach down for the bag Duke threw together for him and me. Thankfully, there are two toothbrushes and some deodorant. He also tossed in some clean shirts and underwear. I grab what I need before returning to the bathroom.

“Are you saying you wanna cuddle with me, brother?” I leave the door cracked open while getting dressed and brushing my teeth.

“I’m saying you can sleep on the damn floor,” he calls.

I chuckle, opening the door with nothing but my tight boxer briefs on. If he hadn’t said that, I’d have put on a shirt. Now, I have to make him understand something.

Rosie is in my bed, and I’m nearly naked. He can take that information and file it away wherever he wants. He keeps his eyes trained on the TV as I walk between the beds before slowly crawling in next to Rosie. She’s a statue beside me, not moving toward or away from me.

No doubt, this situation is awkward for her.

One of us is her first love, her high school boyfriend turned friend.

The other one of us murdered her uncle and hasn’t been silent about hating her family for years.

On top of all that, he and I are brothers.

I would never coerce or force a woman to do anything physical with me, but my arms are aching to hold her. After six days apart, finding out she was taken and then injured—on top of my lack of sleep—I want nothing more than to tuck her in close tonight and sleep for ten hours straight.

I refuse to make the first move. I want her to decide if she wants to be near me, especially in Duke’s presence.

Hell, maybe she wants me on the floor too.

After our kiss, that would sting.

I turn to look at her. Her eyes are focused on the hunting show Duke is watching. I let my gaze travel down to her full rosebud lips. She blinks lazily, still looking ahead. She nibbles her bottom lip right when I feel her touch grazing my hip underneath the covers. I expect her to stop there, but she keeps going. My senses overheat when her fingers reach for my dick, grasping the half-hard length.

I jolt, my knee kicking toward the ceiling. I hold back a groan, moving my fingers to intercept her, interlacing mine with hers. Even this innocent hand-holding with her makes me feel lighter, easing the ache in my chest that I’ve had since she went missing.

I feel like I might explode if I don’t get closer to her. She squeezes my hand, sighing contentedly. I reach around her, grabbing her waist and scooting her entire body over until it’s flush with mine.

“Are you hurting?” I whisper into her hair as she leans back against my shoulder.

She shakes her head. “I’m better now.”

“Did you eat any more?”

She nods. I watched her eat a chicken strip and a couple of French fries before I got into the shower.

“Who do you think would do this to me?” she whispers.

I’ve been racking my brain with that exact question the entire drive here. The main enemy in my life seems like an unlikely suspect, considering I don’t think even Clay Dixon is corrupt enough to kidnap his own daughter and try to pin it on me.

But who else would?

The fact that she disappeared on my ranch and was being held there is hard to justify with any other explanation other than someone trying to frame me for it.

“Maybe if you can tell me what happened—from when you left the ranch to when he took you to me finding you—it could clue me in.”

Duke shifts closer. “What did Jed have to do with it?”

She turns to him. “Who’s Jed?”

“The bald man who was holding you captive,” I say.

She shudders, shrinking back against me.

“What did he do to you?” I hold her tighter.

Please don’t say rape.

She blows out a slow exhale. “He didn’t touch me … sexually.”

My entire body sags in relief. I squeeze her hand tighter, encouraging her to continue.

Her bright eyes look up into mine. “He would let me out every few hours to use the bathroom. I got one cup of water a day. I only got food once—a sandwich. I think it was a few days ago. The window was boarded up so I couldn’t tell what time of day or night it was. I tried to run once, and that’s when my ribs … he threw me up against the wall. My eye and the other bruises had happened on the night they took me.”

“How many were there?” Duke leans forward, swinging his legs over the side of his bed to face us.

“I think three? I know there was a driver and two others. One of them was the bald guy, Jed. They wore black ski masks. When I got to my apartment, they were already waiting inside. I tried to fight them off.”

My body grows rigid again when I picture her being abducted by three grown men, helpless and terrified. The days of the other two are numbered.

“How did no one hear you?” I grit out.

She shrugs. “My apartment is in a bad part of town. There are fights and screaming, even gunshots, pretty often. I only screamed once, and then they duct-taped my mouth. I was blindfolded in the car.”

“Did they take you straight out to the cabin, or was the drive longer?” I ask, tracing a circle on her hand to help ease her into opening up and calm my own nerves.

She looks down at the covers, where our hands are hiding underneath. “I think it was longer. It takes me twenty minutes to get to work, but it seemed like longer. We stopped once. One or two of them got out, but the third waited in the car with me. They were gone for just a few minutes before one got back in, and he and the other one drove me out to the cabin.”

“How long did it take to get to the first stop?” Duke asks.

“Um, maybe ten minutes? Not long.”

“Did you hear them talking about anything, saying any names or places?” Duke continues prodding.

I’m concerned she’s going to get overwhelmed and shut down, so I throw him a warning look.

“They talked about a guy, someone they were either meeting or maybe who had hired them. That’s who I think we stopped to see the first time. They just said, ‘Tell him we got her.’ Then, Jed told them where to find the cabin. He knew it was behind some hidden gate. I think they used bolt cutters to get it open because I heard them snap.”

Duke and I exchange a look. Jed could have known where to find the cabin, but few people know it’s there. We don’t use it much anymore. It’s just another thing to keep up with that doesn’t make us any money. We spend our time and efforts on bull riding and cattle sales.

“What about?—”

“That’s enough for tonight.” I shut Duke up.

The last thing I want to happen is for Rosie to get triggered or have trouble sleeping. She’ll do better remembering and telling us things on her own time.

Duke stands up, walking toward the bathroom.

“You’re safe now. You’re with me, and I’m not letting you out of my sight. We’ll talk more tomorrow, if you’re ready for it.” I adjust the covers, pulling them farther up to go over her.

You’re getting soft as fuck.

She settles back against the pillows, but doesn’t release my hand. I lie back on mine, looking up at the ceiling and debating how wise it is for me to lie here with her, to let myself make her promises about keeping her safe and by my side.

If there’s any chance she’s still in danger, I can’t not watch out for her.

But who could have possibly done this? What do they want, if not to frame me?

“Does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?” she murmurs, her eyelids growing heavy.

I roll onto my side, leaning up on my elbow to hover above her face, eyes on her mouth. “I plead the Fifth.”

My lips gently press to hers. She’s still for a moment. I savor her taste, caressing the side of her face with my fingers. She whimpers into me when I pull away.

I smirk. “You need to heal and sleep.”

She curls her arm up around my neck. “I need to be touched more.”

Fuck, she’s hard to deny.

“I’ll be the first to volunteer when you can sit up in bed without wincing.”

I peel her arm off, lying back against my pillow. This is getting out of hand. I need to keep my distance from her before I do something I can’t undo, like take her virginity.

You’re not that man. You’re not the one. She needs a good guy, someone clean.

“Get some sleep,” I tell her.

My finger is on the trigger as I approach the low crossing. We split up to look for Dolly. Her last location ping was near the grove of oak trees with the smaller tank where the cattle drink, but she wasn’t there.

Cash, Sterling, Duke, and I went in four different directions. The ATV I’m on makes it hard to hear anything, so I pull on the brakes and switch off the engine.

The quiet of the night envelops me. I wait for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of nature and breathing deeply. A breeze rustles through the trees as voices rise down near the river.

One of them is Dolly’s.

I throw my leg over the side of the ATV and continue on foot. My boots rustle in the overgrown grass. My spine tingles when I hear the male voice of Cain Dixon.

“The fact that you’re only eighteen is fucking wild. You look older.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Her nervous chuckle floats on the wind. “I feel like I should get to Rosie now.”

“Ah, I thought you wanted some alone time with me.”

I grind my teeth, debating how much of a beating I’ll give him for this. I decide to wait in the bushes for a few seconds, seeing if he’ll be a gentleman and leave my sister alone.

“I do … I just thought we’d go on a real date or something.”

“You need a real man. You’ve probably never been touched by someone who knew what they were doing. I can show you things.”

I step closer, raising my weapon as Cain’s smirking face comes into view. It’s a full moon tonight, illuminating his expression of lust.

“I’m still a virgin, so, no, I haven’t. I’ve never met someone I was ready to?—”

He reaches for her then, hands gripping the front of her jeans. “You’ll like it. I’ll make you feel good.”

I lunge forward, pushing aside the tree branches and brush separating me from them. It all seems to happen in slow motion. My gun is heavy in my hand as I raise it to aim for his head. I only want to scare him, to get him off my sister before I beat his face in with my fists.

Cain is so caught up in his intent to steal her virtue that he doesn’t hear me coming. Dolly screams, which seems to only fuel his resolve. I’m fifty yards away. He jerks at the button of her jeans, ripping it off. He tears off the button-up shirt she has on, scattering the buttons around as it splits open.

“Get off me!” she screams, turning panicked eyes to me.

I get within ten yards of them before speaking, pistol raised and aimed right between his wide, excited eyes. “Get the fuck away from her if you want to live to see another day.”