Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Maverick
N ow that I can finally draw a breath that doesn’t feel like it’s directly connected to my testicles, I get to my feet and lunge toward her. I don’t want to hurt her, but I need to get her to calm the fuck down so that we can talk.
Then she wheels around, and I know talking is off the table.
Her icy eyes land on me. There’s a wildness there that concerns me. She lacks the control of her counterpart, looking more like a feral cat than a stoic soldier now that her back is against the wall. In this way, she’s far more dangerous than that soldier. She’s something to fear.
I raise my hands and take a step toward her. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you. If we can just talk about this and?—”
“I prefer to converse with people who share common interests. Something tells me we are nothing alike.” She rises to stand, the cuffs held in her left hand and the gun gripped tightly in her right. It’s no longer aimed at me, but the threat remains. “Get on the fucking bed, Maverick.”
Yeah, that ain’t happening. She’ll have to shoot me if she wants to cuff me to the bed.
I take a step back, toward the cabin door. “I have a better idea. I’ll head to the atrium and give you some time to cool off, and you?—”
“Get on the fucking bed!”
Fuck, she’s leaving me with no choice. She’s the one who needs to be handcuffed to the damn bed.
The solution comes to me like a lightning strike. I just need to wait for an opening, then get the gun out of her hand. After that, it’s as simple as cuffing her to the bed and explaining why she needs me on her side. She’ll have to see reason after that.
Thunder booms as the ship travels through the storm. A strong gust of wind pushes a sheet of rain against the balcony door again, but it makes a much louder sound this time. Frankie’s head whips to the side, and there’s my opening.
I lunge forward, keeping my entire focus on the gun. With a quick chop to her wrist, I disable her grip, and the gun drops to the carpet.
“Ow! What the fuck, Maverick?” She shakes out her hand, then steps toward the gun.
My foot rushes forward and kicks it under the bed. “Are you ready to listen now?”
The little minx is too quick for me, and she shoots forward and straps the cuff around my left wrist before I know what’s happening. It’s too bad that she won’t get the chance to secure the other side to anything else. That’s my job.
I band my arm around her waist, then lift her into the air and slam her onto the bed. The wind evacuates her lungs, and I regret the force I used, but she did this. This is her fault.
Taking her right arm, I drag her body toward the head of the bed and then loop the remaining cuff through the decorative gap in the headboard. Before she can regain her composure, I yank her arm once more and slap the cuff over her right wrist.
Now she can’t get away.
Neither can I, but where there are cuffs, there are keys. Once she finally sees sense, I’ll set both of us free.
I lie back on the bed and catch my breath as Frankie does the same, though I toss Frankie’s light blanket over my crotch to hide the arousal that isn’t directed at her.
It’s merely a product of the pain and the struggle.
The risk. But she doesn’t know this, and if she fears I’ll lose myself and take advantage of her, there’s no chance in hell she’ll ever trust me.
It’s not that I want her to trust me for my own selfish reasons alone. Fuck, I’m trying to protect her too! Jim wants her kept alive, and I want to keep her alive. She’s just making this more complicated than it has to be.
Frankie grabs a pillow, shoves it over her face, and screams.
“Are you ready to listen to me now?” I ask.
She raises the pillow. “You’re so fucking stupid,” she wheezes. She lowers the fluffy fabric over her face and screams again. If she says words, I can’t make them out.
“You clearly aren’t ready to talk ,” I mumble.
Frankie throws the pillow against the wall and blows the hair out of her face. “Where is the key, Maverick?”
“Uh, in your bag, I guess?”
“And where is my bag right now?”
I peer over the side of the bed. “On my side. Near the footboard.”
“And how will we reach it?”
I look at the handcuffs. I analyze the short chain connecting our wrists. My brain calculates the length of my arms versus the length of the bed. All of these things happen in the split second it takes my plan to come crashing down around me.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“No, you don’t know. And neither do I.” She sits up and tries to cram her hand through the headboard gap, but it’s no use. Her hand won’t fit unless she can dislocate some bones. “Well, I can scratch ‘live through a Stephen King plot’ from my fucking bingo card.”
“You read?”
She scoffs. “Yes, I fucking read. Well, I listen to the audiobooks, but it’s the same thing.”
“Listening to an audiobook is definitely still reading. A few months back, I was in a heated Facebook debate about the veracity of audiobooks versus consuming books the traditional way.”
“Veracity? Consuming books the traditional way?” Her head slowly turns toward me, and her brows push together. “Facebook? Isn’t that more for people my age?”
I shift uncomfortably. “I’m an old soul. Fucking sue me.”
“On the contrary. I find it refreshing to meet a twenty-something who isn’t talking about crypto or Taylor Swift’s newest album.”
I won’t mention that Eve and I attended the Eras Tour. We all have our guilty pleasures.
“Don’t get your hopes up, though,” she adds. “Even if we find common ground, I have a mission to complete. The only way to stop me from disclosing everything I discover is to kill me.”
“That’s not what we want.”
“We? Who’s in on this? And what exactly do you want from me?”
“Jim and I know who you are.” My cuffed wrist begins to ache, so I sit up to take the pressure off. “No one else does.”
“You didn’t answer the third question.”
I snatch on the cuff, my frustration building. “Because I can’t. Because I don’t have all the answers. I was given a mission, same as you.”
“That’s where we differ. I know why I’m here. My mission means something to me because I swore an oath.” She scoffs and shakes her head. “There’s no honor in what you do.”
Arguing right now is futile. She fully believes she’s making a difference through her work, but I need to show her that she and I can coexist, that her goals aren’t so different from ours. Our solutions are just more...permanent.
I also need to reach that bag at the foot of the bed. Once that’s accomplished, I’ll think of an alternate plan.
“Take off your bra.”
Her head whips to the side. “Excuse me?”
“I’m going to use it to fish for the bag. If the hooks on the bra’s fastener can catch that mesh pocket on the side of the bag, we’ll be free.”
Her drawn-down eyebrows rise. “That’s...actually a pretty good plan. But turn your head.”
She doesn’t need to tell me twice. The temptation is definitely there, but her inability to listen to reason is one hell of a mood killer.
Several quiet seconds pass. Well, they’re quiet aside from Frankie’s huffing and grumbling. I can’t imagine it’s easy to unfasten a bra using only one hand, but she’s making it sound like a struggle of epic proportions over there. The bed bumps and rocks, and she finally lets out a single whimper.
“I think I’m stuck.”
I blink at the wall. “Stuck? Like . . . how?”
“My bracelet is caught on a thread on my shirt.”
“So rip it?”
“The bracelet was a gift from someone, and it means a lot to me, so I’m not ripping the bracelet.” She grunts again, and the bed squeaks as she struggles. “I don’t care about ripping the shirt, but since someone prevented me from using one of my fucking hands , I can’t exactly pick and choose.”
“Look, just rip the bracelet. I’ll pay for the repair.
” My hand rises, yearning to push through my hair and release the tension crawling over my scalp, but I stop before I fuck anything up.
The style strategically hides a scar I don’t want to talk about.
“The only other solution is to allow me to help you.”
Frankie’s legs thrash on the bed. I assume it’s her legs, anyway. It could be her entire body for all I know. Then she stills. “Fine. Just don’t get any fucked-up ideas. Sex is tied to damn near everything where you sick assholes are concerned.”
She’s wrong, but now isn’t the time for correction. If anything, I can remain a complete gentleman and prove that serial killers aren’t oversexed maniacs.
I turn my body, and my left shoulder thanks me for coming around to a more natural position. Frankie tries to scoot and angle her back toward me. By the time she stops squirming and twisting, I can see where the bracelet has snagged her shirt.
I can also see acres of smooth skin. My eyes are drawn to the dark freckles that occasionally accentuate her body.
Is this what men feel like when they step into territory that hasn’t known human interference in eons?
I imagine it’s similar. Like I shouldn’t be seeing this, and I definitely shouldn’t be allowed to touch what I see.
She’s a living, breathing liminal space.
“Unless you possess magical powers, I don’t think you’re going to untangle this mess with your fucking eyes,” she says, snapping me out of the trance.
I lean forward and grip the bracelet between my fingers, providing an anchor so that it’s supported. She was right to worry. The frail gold chain would have snapped long before the shirt gave way. A single charm dangles from the thin chain, but I can’t make out what it is.
Frankie looks over her shoulder. “Do you have a good hold on the bracelet?”
“Yeah.”
She twists her body, and the fabric rips, tearing a large hole from the middle of her back to her armpit. Her wrist comes free, complete with a flailing fabric souvenir.
“We’ll have to work together to unfasten the bra. I can’t do it with one hand,” she says, and I nod.
Again, I don’t feel like I should be touching her, but here we are.