Chapter 29
KARA
A pair of hands seized my shoulders, startling me awake, and I reeled around. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, but it was growing dark outside. The rain had stopped.
My breath halted painfully as Juric came into focus. His blue eyes were only an inch away from my face, but he looked different. Maybe even worried. Was I delirious?
“Can you stand up for me?” His tone was so gentle, it was disorienting.
I tried to get up, but my body was as stiff as the tree I leaned against. A voice that sounded like mine spoke, but it was odd and detached. “I’m thirsty.”
“I’ve got water in the car.” He straightened and peered over his shoulder, speaking nonsense.
Wait, no. That was Italian. Who was he talking to?
The other man, who I couldn’t see, responded, and Juric’s gaze drifted back to me. Sticks and gravel crunched underfoot as the other man went, leaving me alone with the pair of unflinching eyes I hated.
He put a hand under each arm and drew me forward, up into his embrace.
I wanted to fight, but I was too weak. It took everything I had just to remain standing.
When he pulled a hand away and saw it was wet with my blood, he frowned.
Some sort of decision was made, and he bent, putting one arm around my back and the other behind my knees so he could scoop me up.
“Don’t,” I groaned in pain.
He ignored that and carried me in his arms, sloshing through the forest. I struggled to stay conscious and lucid, but every blink made my surroundings change.
“It’s not that much farther,” he said.
When I blinked again, we were beside the Mercedes. He set me on my feet and leaned me against the car, but as he reached for the door handle my knees gave out and my body crumbled.
“Shit,” he gasped. Rough hands grabbed me to stop my collapse.
I was aware he was holding me, but he’d done worse things, so I wasn’t going to waste what little energy I had left fighting him right now. I simply had to survive until rescue could get to me.
He sat me in the passenger seat, and his hands were unsteady when he unscrewed the cap to the water bottle before passing it to me. He’d been so controlled and confident yesterday. It was like my escape had unraveled him, just a little.
I drank and drank, until the water bottle was empty.
He started the car and blasted the heat on high, but it did nothing to remove the chill.
My bones felt like they were made of ice.
I expected him to produce handcuffs or another needle, but all he did was stare at the steering wheel, looking puzzled.
What the hell was going on? I folded my arms around my body—
Everything went black.
I came to, curled up on a plush rug. The tile floor beneath it was hard and cold, but I didn’t mind. I was warm and it didn’t hurt anymore. I felt . . . good. Happy, even.
There was a noise that took a moment to identify. A shower running. I pushed up on my hands, so I could sit and take in my surroundings.
This wasn’t the tiny bathroom in the basement—it was large and open. The all-glass shower had a seat in it. My head was foggy, dulling the alarm I should be feeling. Where was I?
Juric leaned against the counter, watching me intently, his face filled with something that might pass as concern.
“Are you in any pain?”
I ignored him and put a dirt-caked foot underneath my body, pulling myself up with a hand on the counter. Which was not a good idea, and he was ready when everything blurred from moving too quickly.
“Where am I?” I recovered and tried to back out of the arms that trapped me.
“Where we were before.”
I hoped the relief that swept through me didn’t show. He could have moved me while I was passed out, derailing my plan—
“What are you doing?” I cried.
He unbuttoned my dirt-encrusted pants and peeled them down to my ankles. Then he knelt and urged me to step out of them by grasping my leg above the wadded pants and lifting.
Was this real? What the hell was happening? Independent of my brain, my body complied, eager to get out of the wet, muddy pants.
His voice was hushed. “Can you take off your shirt, please?”
It was so confusing, it would have made me dizzy if I weren’t already. When I didn’t move, he stood, grasped the hem of my shirt ,and dragged the damp fabric up, which clung to me. My body refused to fight him, like my brain was no longer online.
I stood before him again in just my undergarments. I’d been so focused on what was happening, I hadn’t realized there was a large mirror behind him.
“Don’t look,” he said, but it was too late.
The side of my body streaked with blood. Bruises, mud . . . the purple-yellow swollen cheek. I didn’t care right now. I knew I should, but my thoughts were fuzzy.
He brushed a piece of wet, clumped hair off my forehead. Like he cared about me. I pushed his hand away and had to brace myself against the counter right after. I had to get away from him.
“Stop it.” I felt seasick.
“I don’t want to hurt you."
He didn’t leave me any time to evaluate if he was being truthful because he pulled his own shirt off, the one with my blood smeared on it. I gaped at him with shock, but he kept moving. He shed his pants, leaving him in only a pair of white boxer briefs.
“What are you doing?” My voice was loud this time. Blood rushed in my ears and my head pounded.
“We’re both covered in mud, and you can barely stand. You’ll collapse in the shower.”
He began to herd me toward the glass door. When I resisted, he simply lifted me off the floor and stepped into the shower where the warm water soaked us both. He eased me down onto the cold, slick seat, and I immediately had to avert my gaze.
His white underwear was entirely see-through when wet.
Juric stood under the water and rinsed the mud off his body while he watched me, curious. “You can look,” he said. “I am.”
I turned away and folded my arms over my chest. Shouldn’t I be more upset with this? All I could think about was the tingling in my skin and the bizarre urge to smile.
He finished cleaning and knelt before me on the tile floor, his gaze wandering over my bare skin like he found it fucking fascinating. I jerked when he grasped one of my legs and ran the soap over it. Mud swirled down the drain.
“Stop,” I said.
This. Was. Horrifying.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Kara.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” He finished with my leg and focused on the other. The shower was warm, but I wasn’t under the water like he was, so my skin pebbled beneath his touch. That was the cause of this. Not his touch, I told myself.
My eyes closed and my head fell back against the tile wall. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“You haven’t figured that out yet?”
I had. It had been lurking in my subconscious, but I had refused to believe it. When I opened my eyes in alarm, he leaned over me, a hand on the wall on either side of my head. My heart lurched, wanting to break free and run away.
He dropped his head to mine and kissed me.
Juric’s kiss was so much worse than the knife. Worse than all the other damage he’d inflicted on me.
I tried to fight, to break it off, but I was unable. He was warm, and my skin sang with every touch, and my brain could not get control of my body. I just sat there, my back against the cold wall, surrounded by steam and the monster above me.
It finally dawned on me why I had no pain and no control. “You drugged me,” I hissed. “The water bottle.”
“I’m drugging you now,” he murmured, his lips returning to mine. It wasn’t a confession or a denial. His tongue was invasive, but I had no resistance. What the hell had he dosed me with?
“Do you want to kiss me?” he asked.
“No.”
His mouth left mine and traveled downward to the hollow at the base of my throat. “Come on, don’t just sit there.”
“I have no desire to kiss you.”
His hands cupped my neck. He whispered it against my lips. “Liar.”
I shook uncontrollably. “Stop, please.”
He did, showing me that his eyes were heated and he was . . . aroused. He was breathing as deeply as I was, although his was with excitement and mine was fear.
His hand was on my thigh now, and I wanted to push it away. I wanted to get up and run. But my whole goddamn body was immobile. It was a locked, inescapable prison.
“What’s this from?” He flicked his thumb over my scar.
When I was twelve, I’d been burned on a camping trip when a flaming leaf from the campfire blew into my lap. It had been the most painful thing I’d ever endured, and his touch now was enough of a reminder, it was like I’d been burned there all over again.
My teeth chattered with anxiety. Giving him any information was a mistake, and the last thing I wanted him to know was my greatest fear.
“I . . . fell off my bike when I was little.”
His lips were on my collarbone. “Now I want to know why you just lied.”
“Because you’ll use it against me.” My tone was pleading. “Tell me what you gave me.”
“When we got back here, I gave you a local anesthetic and redid your stitches.”
I stared at the water falling behind him, refusing to look at him. “Why do I feel like this?”
“Like what?” he asked. “Like every cell of your body is alive? Unbelievably turned on?” He lightly raked his nails over my thighs, making me squirm. “It was MDMA. Do you like it?”
Feeling like I had no control? “No. Why’d you—”
“I wanted to kiss you, and I got tired of waiting.”
My stupor was a blanket wrapped around my brain. I couldn’t focus. All I could interpret was that I didn’t like this idea. I raised my hand and tried to slap him. I was successful in the attempt to move, but he caught my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist.
Then he used it to pull me up, right into his embrace.
The water was so warm.
His body was hot and hard against mine, his skin wet pressed to mine. Every nerve-ending tingled.
“What are you hiding from me?” He feathered kisses over my bruised cheek as his hands settled on the small of my back.
It came out even when I didn’t want it to. “She’s pregnant.”