Chapter 4 #2
Only to realize that she was tied up, too.
Not her chest and upper arms. But her hands were tied behind her back as thick rope bit into her wrists.
Her ankles were tied to the chair legs, too, just like Ryan’s.
Luckily, she didn’t have duct tape over her mouth.
“You’re alive!” Simone frowned, remembering a blast. “I was afraid that Alexei had shot you!”
He said something. Ryan’s face twisted with fury as he fired off something, but all she heard were grunts and mumbles.
“Huh. Yeah. Not getting that.” Her head turned to the right. She sniffed again. “I swear, I smell shit.”
More grunts and mumbles. But she didn’t look back at him, not yet. Simone was too busy surveying the area and being glad that they were both still alive. She was super glad to be breathing. Super glad he was breathing, too.
Light trickled through the wooden slats around them. Slats on the walls to the left and right of them. Slats above them. And… “Straw on the ground.” Great. She had allergies. She’d probably start sneezing any moment.
In fact—
Something neighed.
Her head turned toward the sound. A series of stalls waited to the right. “Horses.” A nod. “Right. That would explain the straw and the shit. We’re in a barn. No, wait, stables? We’re in stables?” Now she looked back at Ryan.
He glared at her.
“Uh, oh.” Focused now, she studied him a little more closely. “That is one killer black eye you have going on there. Want to tell me who gave it to you?”
Grunts. Snarls.
She nodded. “Alexei. Figures.”
Surprise had Ryan’s dark eyes widening.
“Yeah, no.” She rocked forward, testing her chair because she had an idea.
“I didn’t actually understand your words.
I just made a wild guess.” She pulled in a deep breath.
“That guy always gave me the creeps. Got the instinct that he was bad. My instincts are usually dead-on target.” She tightened her arms around the back of the chair, or, tried to tighten them. “Okay, I’m coming toward you.” Maybe.
He grunted.
She…hopped. Sort of. She’d lifted the chair and hopped forward with her desperate movement.
Simone tried a second time. A third. And, yes, she was actually moving her chair.
A bit. Slowly. Forward, toward him. It was just hard as hell.
Panting, she shook hair out of her eyes and told him, “You could help, you know. Did you even try hopping toward me?” Why was she having to do all the work? She’d been the one who was unconscious.
He blinked.
“I’ll get the tape off your mouth. It will be my first to-do, right after we get together. So let’s eliminate this distance and make some magic happen, shall we?” She hopped again. Went forward a bit more. Yes!
His gaze sharpened on her. She could practically see the wheels turning in his mind and then…
he started lurching forward in his chair.
Not hopping as she had been doing. More like jerking one side of his body, then the other.
Left. Right. Left. Right again. His technique was a lot more powerful than hers, and he eliminated the distance between them in moments with those hard, yanking heaves of his body.
Impressive.
Their knees collided. His gaze pinned her, and his expression seemed to say…Now what?
She wet her dry lips. “Lean toward me. As much as you can.”
He stretched toward her.
“Down more,” she urged him. “Slouch and stretch. Come on, make this happen!”
More grunts from Ryan.
She leaned toward him. As far as she could.
His eyes narrowed to slits as he stared back at her. A growl rumbled in his throat.
She put her mouth on him—
He whipped back.
“Seriously!” Simone caught herself and lowered her voice.
“Do not be a baby about this! What did you think I was going to use in order to get the tape off you? My eyes?” Which, by the way…
her fake lashes were gone. Dammit. Another sin to put on Alexei’s shoulders.
Maybe the lashes had come off in the rain or during her struggle in the van—whatever.
Alexei’s fault. “I only have my mouth free. So I’m going to use my lips and my teeth and I’m going to tug the tape off you.
The edge is loose, I can see it. If you will just come toward me… ”
He did. Watching her very, very closely.
“Good.” Soft. “Now, give me a second…” She stretched and craned her head. Her lips brushed over his skin, and then her teeth delicately caught the loose edge of the tape. She bit it and started to tug it free. Slowly, slowly, and then she…
Spat out the tape. “Yes!”
“Keep your voice down,” he rasped back at her.
“Don’t be grumpy with me! I just helped you!”
“You got us kidnapped.”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed. Her head swirled with options and lies. “I…did not.” She fluttered her lashes. Not nearly as effective when she didn’t have on her gorgeous falsies, but she had to work with what she had. “Alexei has obviously gone crazy.”
A muscle flexed along Ryan’s clenched jaw.
“He put a gun to my back.” Oh, the tremble in her voice had been an excellent touch.
It had also been real. She’d been quite terrified that a bullet could sever her spine during that forced walk through the country house.
“He forced me outside. Into the rain. Into the van. That’s, um, you know, around the time you appeared. ”
His nostrils flared.
“I remember fighting.” Of course, she remembered that. She’d fight, always. “I think he drugged me?” That was the hazy part for her.
“He slapped a rag over your mouth. Probably was chloroform,” Ryan said, voice low. “Or something like it.”
Chloroform? Simone swallowed. “Did you stay conscious the whole time?” Her stare darted toward the bruise near his eye. “Quite the shiner you have, by the way.”
“Got that when I rammed the bastard after he slapped the cloth over your face. When you first collapsed, I didn’t know if you were unconscious or dead. Either way,” he gritted, “I was not happy.”
She smiled at him. “You tried to save me. That was incredibly kind of you.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Wow. That had been angry. She sniffed. “Um, I get that we are in a stressful situation.”
“We have been kidnapped.”
“So it would seem.” Her gaze left him and darted around the stables. Just horses were in there with them. No people, not yet. Which meant they had time to escape. She began yanking hard at her ropes even as her gaze darted upwards.
“Who the hell are you?” he repeated.
Her gaze jumped from the rafters back to his face. “Did you hit your head after you got punched? Like, did the blow take you down?” She frowned at him in worry. “I’m Simone. Simone Sailor. We’ve known each other for a few weeks.”
Another growl from him.
“Did that help?” she asked sweetly. “Remember me, now?”
That muscle in his jaw flexed again.
“How about you and I concentrate on escaping, shall we?” Apparently, she needed to keep the man focused. “You wouldn’t happen to have a knife hidden on your person, would you? Because a hidden knife would be awesome right now.”
He stared back at her.
She took his silence to mean…no knife. “Next option…” He wasn’t throwing out options. Why did all the work have to be on her? “Is this your first kidnapping?” she muttered. “Because I believe it is, and it shows.”
“What?”
“We have to escape. Bad things are going to happen when Alexei returns.” Simone nibbled on her lower lip. “Did he happen to say anything to you after he dumped us in here?”
“Yeah.”
She waited.
Nothing.
Once more, she looked toward the rafters. This time, she was desperately trying to find patience. Unfortunately, Simone discovered none. “What did he tell you?” Why did she have to pry everything out of this man?
“Said that when he came back, he’d force us to answer all of his questions. His questions. And Frederick’s questions. Told me that he couldn’t wait to see how much pain we could take before we broke.”
Oh, no. Her horrified stare bounced down to Ryan once more.
“He predicted you couldn’t handle a lot of pain.”
Goosebumps rose on her skin. “I handle pain just fine, for the record.” Her wrists twisted, hard, against the ropes. She could feel the rough hemp biting into her skin. “I just don’t particularly like pain. That’s a normal response, by the way. Most people do not go through life just loving pain.”
“He’s coming back to torture us, Simone.”
“Yes, I heard you, Ryan!” More hair fell into her face. She tossed her head, trying to knock it back out of the way. “Look, I’m really sorry that you got dragged into this mess. Not like I intended for it to happen.”
“What did you do?”
She huffed out a breath. “Are you even trying to get out of the ropes? Because it doesn’t look like you are.”
“Appearances are deceiving.”
“What?”
A loud squeak. And a creak. And…
Her head snapped to the right.
The stable doors were opening. She was not free.
Not. Good. Because time appeared to have run out.
Alexei stormed forward, a smug smile on his face.
A smile that vanished when he realized just how close Simone and Ryan were sitting to one another.
Snarling, Alexei lunged forward. He grabbed the back of her chair. Simone screamed.
And Ryan bellowed, “Hurt her and I will fucking kill you!”