Chapter 17 Handcuffed
Handcuffed
The primary function of the National Security Force is to safeguard and defend true Americans from all domestic enemies.
— NEW AMERICAN ORDER, A HANDBOOK
Iwanted to tell my friends what happened to Tekqua, but how would I convey the information without disclosing how I’d learned it? Once the war ended, I could give them the entire story. To his credit, Theo hugged me tight, murmuring condolences into my curls.
Dad’s hugs were better, I decided. He’d never been so stiff.
The following week, Lucas was careful with me, but I took out all my grief on him by using his body as a punching bag. I threw myself into trying to pin him down.
I failed.
We didn’t discuss the note, or touch on the embrace we’d shared, the one I’d relived in my head dozens of times.
Far too intimate.
I’d never held anyone like that, as if he was the only thing that mattered. Like letting go might hurt me.
We ignored it all, and sweat-drenched in our practice room, I stood across from him, panting. “I’m never going to be better than you.”
“Nope.” He popped the P, which only made me scowl.
“Then what’s the fucking point, Lucas?”
His mouth did that thing, that lopsided almost-smile wanting to weave itself into my favor. “Staying alive is the point.”
I flung an arm at him. “Why can’t you teach me to fight like you?”
“You’ll never be able to do it, Sophia. You don’t think like I do.”
Was that a jab at my intelligence? I gripped my hips and glared.
Something warm tinged his eyes as he took in my anger, a bare hint of indulgence. “Is that what you want from life? To be good at seeing the weaknesses in people so you can kill them?”
Oh, my glare cooled.
“To face a man with nothing but a knife, to see his poor grip, his favored right leg, the little tremor in his shoulder telling you he’s tired, and instantly know the best way to end his life? To be so many steps ahead of him that he may as well already be dead?”
“I—”
“—will never think that way. You think like someone who still has a soul they don’t want damaged. It’s why—” His mouth snapped shut, and a slow flush of color spread up his neck into his cheeks.
Curiosity stabbed at me. “Why…?”
“Why…I teach you defensive strategies.”
Oh, you fucking liar. That wasn’t at all what he was going to say.
“You aren’t a killer,” he continued. “Your goal isn’t to be better than me. Your only goal is to be better than you were.”
I groaned. “Fine. Let’s go again.”
My endurance had improved since I’d started exercising, but I couldn’t keep up with him. I swept the stray hairs from my face and waited for him to attack. He grabbed a wrist with one hand and my throat with the other. I yanked at his grip to keep from choking.
Once free, I reached for the pretend knife in my pocket, this time a comb. He smacked my hand away.
Together, we tripped, and my back hit the wall. He squeezed off my air supply.
I panicked, both hands scrabbling to get his fingers off my throat. He loomed over me, and I raised my eyes, pleading for mercy. Our gazes clashed.
He faltered.
His long fingers spasmed, releasing me, and I sucked in air. “Why’d you stop?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
Instead of answering, he took hold of my chin to lift my face, turning from one side to the other while he inspected my neck. “I don’t think it will bruise.”
I swallowed. He’d never been worried about bruises before.
“Next time, knee me in the groin. Don’t panic when you can’t breathe. Cause pain until I let go.”
Snared in the web of his attention, my body stilled. The green in his eyes came out to play, the outer rims like storm clouds. His gaze drifted from my neck to my face.
Electricity crackled to the surface of my skin, and my entire world tilted off its axis. He had never looked at me like this. Not when I examined his hate brands. Not when he claimed me as his. Not even when I clung to him, desperate for comfort.
I tried to hold his stare, but I failed. My focus sank instead down, down, down to his mouth, and longing tore through my common sense.
I do not want this.
I should not want this.
I cannot want this.
The mantra chanted through my mind, ever quieter until the truth smothered it.
I want this.
I tipped closer.
He drew a breath.
A knock pounded on the front door. Our heads snapped toward it, both of us freezing as a man entered the house.
“Colonel?”
“You didn’t lock the door?” I whispered.
He always locked the door.
“I did.”
My stomach dropped. “Who is that?”
“He’s trouble.” Lucas’s sudden curse was quiet, but harsh. He pushed me toward the door, whispering, “Do what I say and pretend to be scared, do you understand?”
Every nerve iced over.
What was happening?
He shoved me toward the bedroom across the hall, still furnished, and I didn’t have to pretend. Terror flooded my body with adrenaline. While my skin went cold, the muscles beneath poised to spring and flee.
Lucas remained focused, his ear cocked toward the man searching the home.
Boneless and shaking, I let him tear my shirt over my head, leaving me in a bra and cotton shorts. Before I understood what was happening, he was on top of me in the bed. He yanked something from the bedside table, and suddenly, both my wrists were cuffed to the iron bed frame.
I tugged, trying to shove down the panicky sense of entrapment. The metal only dug into my skin, stinging.
Tears blurred my vision.
I was chained to a bed beneath a Blood Colonel. This wasn’t a situation most women survived.
“Hello?” the voice called, closer.
Lucas dragged my shorts down, then wrapped my legs around his waist. I obeyed every silent command, petrified by the tension in his stormy gaze.
He paused just long enough to look me in the eye. “Trust me,” he said, and his eyes begged me to obey.
His lips crashed against mine, one arm encircling my waist to draw me flush against him.
My mind blanked.
I hated that I’d wondered what this would feel like. I hated that he was kissing me under duress. I hated that I now knew how he kissed, what he tasted like.
Mostly, I hated that I really didn’t hate it at all.
“Struggle,” he ordered against my ear. He pinched my waist hard, and I whimpered, squirming to escape him. He only pulled me closer.
A throat cleared somewhere near the door, but Lucas didn’t stop. His hand curved around my thigh, sliding to my hip, waist, breast. I yanked my face away, trying to catch my breath, and he scraped his teeth down my neck, then pressed a covert kiss where his hands had choked me earlier.
The throat cleared again, louder this time, and Lucas put on an affected sigh. He lifted his mouth from my skin and glanced behind him. “You better have a fucking good reason for being here right now, Lieutenant.”
The man stood at attention. “Sir, Colonel Miller requests your presence urgently.”
“It’s Thursday,” Lucas said, tone flat. “This is his night to deal with emergencies.”
“Yes, Colonel. These were my orders, sir.”
I thought Lucas might stand, leave me tied down and exposed to this Hunter officer, but he didn’t budge from his place atop my body. My own personal bodyguard.
The thought didn’t calm my heart in the slightest.
“How’d you find me here, Lieutenant? You following me?”
“No, sir. Your quarters were empty, sir. You have no comms on you. Found this address on your desk.” The man’s gaze darted to me. “I guess your Friday nights are getting tame?”
What did that mean?
And why would Lucas leave this address on his desk? That wasn’t like him.
Lucas’s voice dropped to a lethal register. “Watch yourself. Why are you going through my desk?”
“Colonel Miller’s orders were to find you now, sir. There’s a…situation.”
The fear turned rancid in my gut. What could that mean? Did it involve the Defiance? I peered closer at the man’s face. Sweat had gathered on his brow, and his jaw ticked. Was it Lucas who had him so nervous? Or was the mystery situation dire?
Lucas appeared unfazed. “And the seven other colonels present at base are not enough to handle it?”
The man did not reply, but once again, his attention dipped to me and our eyes locked.
With a rough hand, Lucas cupped my jaw, jerking my head to match his gaze. “Don’t look at him. As far as you’re concerned, I’m the only man in the world. Got it?”
I nodded, frantic. My heart slammed against my ribs, and we were pressed together so tightly that he had to feel it like a hammer against his chest. Eyes squeezed shut, I fought to keep breathing, to push away the growing panic.
Because in that moment, Lucas Scott was the only shield I had, and I knew what was about to happen. To protect his cover, he’d leave with this soldier, and I’d either be taken with them as a prisoner, or I’d be left alone, handcuffed to this bed.
I prayed for the latter, even though prayers didn’t work.
At least in this house, the possibility of survival existed.
If they took me with them, I’d wind up executed or a slave at the House.
Funny, when I’d agreed to be a Hunter contact, I thought Lucas would be the greatest threat to my life.
This kind of situation hadn’t even entered my awareness.
Clearly, it had entered Lucas’s, since he kept a pair of handcuffs prepared for me in a bedside drawer.
Releasing his tight grip on my face, he pushed off me.
Without the warmth of his body, I became aware of my near nakedness.
I lay before these two Hunters in nothing but a strappy sports bra and neon blue bikini underwear.
I tugged at my restraints, desperate to cover myself.
Metal links clinked against the decorative iron, giving not an inch.
One last time, the officer’s gaze found me, but this time, a flare of heat lit behind his eyes. Whether it was lust or hate, or some combination of the two, I couldn’t tell, but it pulled goosebumps to the surface of my exposed skin.
Lucas’s dangerous stare locked onto him. “See something you like, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir,” the man said, returning to attention.
“Good. Because I plan to come back and finish what I started here, and if everything is not exactly how I left it, I’ll know who’s to blame.”
“Yes, sir.”
“At ease. Where is the rendezvous point?”
Lucas followed the officer from the room as the man began his brief, but I couldn’t stop the fearful whimper that escaped me. Metal clanked as I struggled to free myself. “Let me go,” I whispered.
At the door, Lucas’s ocean eyes emptied of all emotion as he stared down at me. “You do not make demands of a man. Your only value is in obedience. That’s your first lesson. When I return, I’ll teach you your second.”
With that, he disappeared.