Tease Me

  He was at the end of the hallway, had checked every room, and hadn’t found Lacey. Appalled, discouraged, and sicker than he’d been in his entire life, he stood there for a minute, unsure of what to do. Of how to find her.

  As he stood there, he realized there was another staircase leading up to a third floor. Sure, that it was another wild-goose chase, but he wasn’t willing to leave until he’d checked every alternative, so he headed up the stairs.

  He tried the door, but it was locked—unlike any of the others. Hope, painful in its intensity, started to pump in his chest as he tried the door a second time.

  Suddenly, it swung open and a well-dressed man in a suit was standing there. “This room is not part of the sales.” His voice was low and smooth and finely accented. “Go back downstairs and pick one of the girls from there.” Then he shut the door, but by then Byron had gotten a glimpse of flame-red hair on the bed across from the door.

  Fury exploded in him like a wild thing, and he wanted nothing more than to ram his shoulder into the door until it gave. He almost did, would have, if not for the certain knowledge that doing so was a death sentence. Which might not have bothered him, except for the fact that no one would be able to help Lacey if something happened to him.

  Trying to control the rage eating him from the inside, he took the stairs down two at a time. Once he was outside, he ran to his truck, pulling out his cell phone as he did. He dialed 911 for the second time in two days, and this time, when the operator answered, he gave her the house’s address. “There’s a major fire. I don’t know how it started, but I think the whole house is going to go. Please, hurry.”

  Then he reached into the back of his truck, pulled out the gasoline and box of newspapers he had put there earlier in the day. He walked casually to the house next to the little shop of horrors where Lacey was being held, and went through the side gate. Once there, he raced through the backyard to the fence that separated the two houses. Flinging the box of newspapers over the fence, he climbed it—gasoline can in hand—in two quick pulls, then jumped down to the other side.

  Dousing the box of newspapers in gasoline, he set it far enough away from the fence that it wouldn’t cause the thing to light up accidentally, but close enough for it to be seen from the house. Then he reached into his pocket for the matchbook he’d stuck there earlier and lit the whole thing up.

  It caught, and he jumped the fence, then went to stand back in line to get into the house. After a minute, as the flames were starting to show above the line of the fence, he yelled, “Fire! Jesus Christ, there’s a fire!” And was nearly trampled in the stampede of men trying to get away from what they thought was a burning house.

  In the confusion, he was able to slip inside. He heard girls screaming, men yelling in Russian and, in the distance, the sound of police cars and fire engines racing toward the blaze.

  He took the stairs two at a time, completely focused on Lacey. As he made it to the third floor, he barreled toward the lone door at the end of the hallway and kicked it as hard as he could. The door splintered, and, suddenly, there she was, lying naked and trembling on the bed.

  She was alone.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, Lacey.”

  He bent down and picked her up, wrapping the sheet around her as he did. She was drugged and fairly out of it, but lucid enough to know that it was him. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she started to sob, “Byron. You came for me. You came for me.”

  “Of course I did.” He hurried down the stairs, hiding Lacey’s red hair under the sheet and hoping to God the fire and imminent threat of police would keep everyone too busy to question him.

  It almost worked. He was on the bottom floor, halfway to the front door, when someone grabbed him from behind. It was the same man who had been in Lacey’s room. Byron lashed out, kicking him hard in the stomach, and the guy hit the ground hard. But before Byron could move, he’d pulled out a gun and leveled it straight at him. Straight at Lacey.

  “Put the girl down,” he said in clipped, heavily accented English. “She stays. She’s mine.”

  Byron did as he was told, but put his body in front of Lacey’s as a shield. “Run, Lacey.”

  “But—”

  “Do it,” he ordered.

  “Don’t move!” The asshole with the gun shouted. “Don’t you fucking move.”

  “Lacey, go!” He gave her a shove in the direction of the door and headed toward the guy with the pistol. He wasn’t thinking straight, wasn’t thinking at all. He knew only that there was no way he was leaving Lacey here in this hellhole to suffer a fate worse than death.

  Byron heard the gun go off, felt a searing pain in his chest. His legs went out from under him and he collapsed right in the middle of the dirty floor. The last thing he heard as he lost consciousness was Lacey screaming his name.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Lacey was scared to death as she sat by Byron’s hospital bed. It had been three days since he’d burst into Gregory’s lair and rescued her, and still she couldn’t help looking over her shoulder. Despite the fact that the house had been raided and Gregory arrested, part of her expected him to show up and drag her back to that hellhole.

  Even worse was the guilt that filled her as she stared down at Byron, willing him to wake up. She couldn’t believe he’d rescued her. That he’d cared enough about her to risk his life—even after all the ugly things she’d said to him the night of her abduction.

  When she’d seen him lying there in his own blood, her life had flashed before her eyes. And when Gregory had taken aim at him again . . . thank God the fireman had burst into the house before he’d been able to pull the trigger a second time.

  She’d never been more ashamed of her behavior in her life—even before the kidnapping, when she’d been sitting in her apartment, absolutely miserable and missing Byron more than she’d thought it possible to miss a person, she’d known that she’d wronged him. That she’d projected her fears onto him.

  But she had been afraid, deathly afraid of making another mistake. Deathly afraid of losing her heart to another man who wielded affection—and the lack thereof—like a weapon.

  Deathly afraid of opening herself up and being vulnerable again.

  When she’d fought with Byron, it had been because he made her realize just how susceptible she was, and she hadn’t liked it at all. Had, in fact, been damn sick of feeling out of control—or worse, like someone else in her life had control over her.

  She smiled, a rueful little upturning of her lips that had a lot more to do with acknowledgment than it did happiness. But one day in Gregory’s sadistic, psychotic clutches had changed how she thought about the world—especially when she saw everything Byron had sacrificed for her.

  Leaning forward, she smoothed his hair away from his face and prayed for him to get better quickly. He was in a drug-induced coma—the doctors had put him in it to give his brain time to heal—and they had told her his prognosis was good. That he was young and healthy and more than likely going to recover from his injuries. But he hadn’t provided any guarantees, and when it came to Byron, that’s what she wanted. She wanted everything wrapped up in a neat little bow, with the promise of his recovery the pièce de résistance sitting on top.

  They’d know more after he was awake, the doctor had promised when they’d spoken again last night, and had told her that today might be that day. They were easing back on the drugs and giving him the chance to wake up on his own.

  She was dying for him to wake up, but at the same time, was absolutely petrified at the thought of facing him with all of the harsh words between them. She didn’t know where to start apologizing—or, for that matter, how to thank him for coming for her.

  What was she supposed to say? What could she say that would explain all of the complex feelings inside her?

  The day passed slowly as she waited for Byron to open his eyes, each hour that ticked by leaving her more and more anxious. His friend Mike had stopped by to check on him in the morni
ng, as he had every morning since the shooting, and the doctor had come by twice. The first time he had been relatively unconcerned about Byron’s prolonged unconsciousness, but the second time he hadn’t been happy. That much had been obvious from the way he’d looked Byron over. It was different than the other times he’d been in during the past four days. As if he’d been expecting something more from Byron.

  It made her nervous. Very, very nervous.

  Getting to her feet, Lacey crossed the room to look out the window. The ambulance had rushed him to Tulane Medical Center, and outside she could see the skyscrapers of downtown. Cars were driving down the street, people walking on the narrow sidewalks.

  The world going on as normal. Amazing, wasn’t it, that her entire world was crashing in on her, yet for other people it was just another day as usual.

  “God, Byron. Come on. Wake up.” She muttered the words to herself, not even bothering to say them aloud as she wrapped her arms around herself and started to rock. She’d been talking to Byron for days now, and it had done absolutely no good.

  Leaning against the window, she touched the cool glass with shaky fingertips. How is this going to work out? she wondered for at least the hundredth time in the last few days. Had she finally found the man for her, just to lose him because she’d been too stupid to trust him?

  Losing him seemed a worthy punishment, but not like this. Please, God, not like this—Byron in a hospital bed, slowly slipping away.

  She heard a noise behind her and turned, heart in her throat. Maybe he was waking up, maybe it would be like all those cheesy shows, and—Miranda, Byron’s nurse for this shift, stood in the doorway, bearing a tray of food.

  “You need to eat, Ms. Adams. You’ve been here almost nonstop for three days, and I know you’re not taking proper care of yourself.”

  Lacey knew she was right. Except for the time she’d left to go home and shower Byron’s blood off her, and talk to the police and the press about the shooting and her kidnapping, she hadn’t left the room. “Thanks.” Lacey smiled briefly at her, then watched as she put the tray on the table next to Byron.

  “No problem. I’ll be back in an hour to collect this—make sure you’ve eaten at least some of it.”

  Lacey nodded, though she didn’t know if she could choke anything past the huge lump in her throat. It had first appeared as she’d watched Byron gunned down in front of her, and it hadn’t gone away yet. If Byron died, she didn’t think it ever would.

  There was a muffin and a cup of coffee on the tray—a large, paper one that she knew hadn’t come from the cafeteria. Figuring Miranda had gone out of her way to get her coffee, then the least she could do was drink it. Lacey crossed the room and picked up the cup. Took a long sip of the fragrant brew and felt her insides begin to thaw out.

  She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one. The numbness had been her constant companion for the last few days. It had kept her safe. The idea of losing it so abruptly was disquieting, to put it mildly.

  That numbness had helped her talk calmly to police—somehow, in Lieutenant Genevieve Delacroix, she’d gotten one of the few honest cops in the NOPD, and that had made a huge difference in how the case was handled.

  It had also helped her to talk to the press. She hadn’t wanted to, but she’d wanted Byron as safe as she could make him from retaliation from Alexandrov’s organization. Putting him in the spotlight had seemed the best way to accomplish that.

  On the plus side, between Byron and the police raid the other night, Alexandrov’s men seemed to be in chaos. She could only hope things stayed that way for a while.

  Taking another sip of the hot coffee, savoring the warmth as it spread through her, she sank back into the chair by Byron’s bed. She didn’t know what made her look at him at that exact moment—maybe fate, maybe desperation, maybe hope—but as she glanced at Byron’s face, she realized that his eyes had just opened.

  “Oh, my God, Byron.” She threw herself at him without conscious thought, draping her body gently over his legs in an effort not to hurt his wounds. She reached for his hand and squeezed, and was reassured on a purely visceral level when he squeezed back. It was faint—more a twitch than an actual squeeze, but she would take it. God, would she ever.

  “Lace—” His voice was a croak as he tried to talk, his eyes panicked as the pain began to register.

  “Hold on,” she murmured, pressing the button for the nurse. “You’re fine. You’re in the hospital, but you’re doing fine. You’re going to be fine.” She reached over and smoothed a thick lock of blond hair from his forehead. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  When the intercom by his bed crackled a minute later, she told the nurse, “He’s awake. Oh, God, he’s awake.”

  Within minutes, the room had filled up—two nurses, Byron’s doctor and three medical students had all come to evaluate him. They were more than satisfied with what they saw—for a man waking up for the first time in three days, he was doing great. Or so the doctor said.

  Of course, great was a relative concept—Byron was still pasty gray, and he was sweating a little despite the frigid temperature of the room. The doctor had assured her it was a side effect of the pain, and had ordered more medicine to be given to him through his IV.

  When the exam was all finished, when the room had been vacated and Byron was drifting peacefully from the new pain medication, Lacey laid her head on the bed railing and wept for long minutes, so relieved that it was a physical ache within her.

  “Lacey.”

  She looked up to see Miranda standing at the door again, a smile on her face. “He’s going to be out of it for a while. Why don’t you take this chance to go home and change, take a shower. He should be pretty much gone for the next couple of hours.”

  “Okay. Maybe I will.” She said the words, but even as she did, she knew she wouldn’t take Miranda’s advice. If Byron did wake up again, she wanted to be right there, next to him, when it happened.

  “Don’t—” She jumped when she felt Byron’s calloused palm glance over the back of the hand she had resting on this thigh.

  His eyes were closed; his color still wasn’t good, but at least it was a little better than the pasty gray it had been when he’d first woken up. “What’s the matter, Byron?” She leaned forward until her ear was almost directly above his mouth. “What do you need?”

  He smiled then, a brief, heartbreaking twist of his lips. “You,” he whispered. “Don’t go. I need . . . you.”

  “Oh, love.” She gently cradled his beat-up face in her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The next few days passed in a blur as Byron became more alert. He was still on pain medication—a bullet in the chest could do that to a guy—but at least he was able to stay awake for a little more each day. His color was back to normal, and for the past two days they’d actually let him get out of bed and walk the halls for a while.

  On the fourth day after he’d woken up, Lacey had deemed it safe to leave for a while, and had run home to take a quick shower and change her clothes. Her apartment was a mess, and a fine film of dust they’d used to check for fingerprints after her disappearance covered every surface. But she wasn’t complaining, not now that she and Byron were safe.

  She’d also taken a few minutes to call her editor, and fill her in on the change in the scope of the book. Melissa had been excited about the changes and was waiting anxiously for the final manuscript. Of course, she’d have to wait a while longer, as Lacey was a lot more concerned about getting Byron well than she was her fast-approaching deadline.

  When she returned to the hospital, freshly washed and with a huge cup of coffee and a box of doughnuts for the nurses, Byron was once again up. And clearly out of sorts.

  “I don’t want a damn sponge bath,” he was telling the young nurse’s aide, who was standing over him with a basin of soapy water. “I want to get up and take a shower like a real man.”

  “You can’t, Mr. Hawthorne,” the girl argu
ed with him. “You’re not able to get your incision wet yet.” She gestured to the giant bandage on his chest, under which there was a large cut that ran the length of his sternum, where the surgical team had worked to save his life.

  Recognizing the obstinate look on Byron’s face, Lacey figured she’d better intervene before things went down the drain fast. “Stop hassling the pretty woman,” she told him, “and I’ll let you have a sip of my coffee.”

  His eyes lit up when he saw her. “Is it the real thing, or more of that decaf shit they keep giving me?”

  “Wow.” Her eyes met the poor nurse’s aide’s. “You are in a mood today.”

  The girl’s vigorous nod wasn’t lost on Byron, who seemed to be gearing up for another tantrum. “Tell you what,” she said in an attempt to head him off before he got started. “How about you cooperate with her while she gets your vitals, and then I’ll give you the sponge bath myself.” She held her cup of coffee to his lips so he could have the sip she’d promised him.

  She glanced at the aide. “Is that okay?”

  “Absolutely.” She seemed relieved—and a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be getting her hands on Byron’s glorious body, but Lacey chose to ignore that. After the girl had gotten Byron’s temperature, blood pressure and the other stuff, Lacey settled in the chair by his bed.

  “Hey,” he complained, “I thought I was getting a bath.”

  “Do you want one?”

  His eyes darkened. “From you, absolutely. From the eighteen-year-old teenybopper from hell, no, thank you!”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Shrugging out of her sweater, Lacey murmured, “I guess the first thing we need to do is get this gown off you.” She helped him slip the hospital gown down his arms, grateful that the nurse had unhooked the IV the night before, though she’d left the capped-off port in his vein in case of an emergency.