Chapter 12 #3
She climbed into the bed, trying to make herself as small as possible, clinging to one side of the mattress.
Bastien made a derisive sound and turned off the light as he got in on the other side, and he was everywhere around her, and she thought back to her cousin Emmy’s house, where she and Bastien would share a smaller bed.
She’d always enjoyed it, pressed up against him, but now this was a travesty.
She tried to edge away from him, but there was no bed left.
“You’ll end up on the floor if you move any farther away.” His bored voice came from out of the dark.
“Good. I can sleep there,” she shot back.
“I’ve already told you you’re sleeping with me. I suggest you don’t try my temper anymore. I’m not the most patient of men.”
She couldn’t help it, she snorted. Fortunately, he didn’t take any action, and she tried to will her body to relax. It wasn’t a strange man intent on molesting her, it wasn’t Flambeau with the brutal hands. It was Bastien, whether he knew her or not.
And he smelled like Bastien, that ineffable quality that she loved so much. It lured her, and it took everything she had to keep still. She was still clinging to the side of the bed, and she could feel him behind her, feel his long legs brush up against hers.
“Relax, chérie,” he said, more an order than a suggestion. “I’m not going to rape you. I just want to sleep, and I can’t if you’re lying there stiff as a board.”
“I can’t,” she said. It was a mistake. He pulled her into his arms, and she was too surprised to fight.
Tucking his body around hers, he spooned her, his arms holding her in place, and she knew she should struggle.
But her body recognized Bastien’s, even if her mind was protesting, and the tension drained from her.
“That’s better,” he murmured, his voice low and seductive. Except he wasn’t seducing her. “You should stop fighting me. It will do you no good except make me angry, and you really don’t want to make me angry.”
He was right about that, she thought reluctantly. She had to remind herself that this wasn’t Bastien, not the Bastien she knew.
“Why do you need me?” she dared to ask him. “Why don’t you just let me go somewhere far away? I won’t tell anyone about you.”
Now it was his turn to snort. “Of course you won’t, chérie. But you don’t really want to go, do you? I’m the closest thing to your missing husband, and you’re infatuated.”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re a criminal who’s holding me hostage,” she snapped.
“Ever hear of Stockholm Syndrome?”
Chloe felt like she’d been punched in the gut as memories came flooding back. He’d teased her about Stockholm Syndrome when they were first together and running for their lives. They’d even named their first child Swede.
“Stockholm Syndrome is a myth,” she said sharply. “Women do not fall in love with their abductors.”
“If you say so, chérie.” There was amusement in his voice, and she wanted to punch him. He’d taken a cherished memory and perverted it, and she wanted to slam her elbow into his hard stomach.
But maybe it was something else. Maybe he was just beginning to recognize the bond between the two of him, and his subconscious had reminded him of their old game. Maybe his memory was slowly coming back.
He seemed in an unexpectedly sanguine mood, and she decided to push it. “Why do you want me?” she asked.
“You’ve got a great ass and beautiful breasts and—”
“I mean, what is it you’re going to want me to do?” she interrupted him hastily.
“Nothing too hard. You’ll get dressed up in something elegant and accompany me to a party, where you’ll mingle with the rich and the famous. All you have to do is stand by my side and be beautiful.”
She ignored her reluctant gratification that he still found her beautiful and persisted. “And then?”
“And then you will not stand by my side while I take care of business, and then you will rejoin me and we will leave. It will be like Cinderella—you Americans all like Cendrillon, don’t you? Dress up and go to the party and leave before midnight.”
“What do you have to take care of?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said. “Now go to sleep and dream of beautiful dresses.”
She wasn’t going to be put off. “And what happens afterward?”
“Afterward, I let you go, of course,” he said smoothly.
She didn’t believe him. Jean-Marc wouldn’t leave loose ends lying about, neither would Bastien when he was a member of the Committee. And where was Peter Madsen—wasn’t he looking for them? The Committee had eyes and ears everywhere—why hadn’t they found them?
“I don’t—” she started to say, but his arms tightened around her, and the warmth of his skin, the touch of his body was having its mesmerizing effect.
“No more talking. Go to sleep, chérie. If you keep me awake, I may have to do something about you.”
She froze in his arms. “You promised you wouldn’t rape me.”
“I don’t make promises. And it wouldn’t be rape. Now go to sleep and you’ll be safe.”
Her body had a mind of its own—it softened into Bastien’s embrace, and she lay there, surrounded by him, drowning in him.
If she were alone, she would cry, but if she did now, he would probably find a way to comfort her that she didn’t want.
She couldn’t say that sex was the last thing on her mind, not with him all around her, but she needed time.
She needed her husband, not this lethal variant.
She closed her dry eyes. She just had to hold on. For what, she wasn’t sure. But for now, she had Bastien, and that was enough.