Trace of Fever - Lori Foster [93]
“So give me some money!”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Helene.” Shuddering in real reaction, he whispered, “I wouldn’t wish that fate on any guy. Well, you know, some guys are into that perverse shit, but Trace…no way. He’ll puke. He’ll wash his skin in bleach. He’ll—”
Priss slapped him.
Jackson’s head snapped around with the strength of the blow, but came back slowly, his eyes narrowed and mean. “Damn it, woman—”
She grabbed a fistful of chest hair and yanked his face down close to hers.
“Oeowww!”
Priss had no sympathy for him. “Let’s. Go.”
Through clenched teeth, with the first real anger she’d seen from Jackson, he ordered, “Turn me loose. Right now!”
Nerves twitching, Priss opened her fingers and Jackson stepped back, rubbing his chest. He glared at her.
“Be reasonable,” she said, trying for a more cajoling tone. “He needs us.”
“All right. I suppose I should— Wait…what did you say? You want to go with me?”
He made it sound like it was the most absurd thing ever. Priss tried to be very clear. “I will not stay here. If you don’t go, I will. If you try to go without me, I’ll find a way to get there on my own.”
As he strode into his bedroom, he said, “You’re asking the impossible.”
“Not asking. Stating as fact.” He returned, pulling a T-shirt on over his head. “I am going. With you or without you. Now what’s it to be?”
He glared at her. “Okay.”
“Really?” She was surprised at his quick turnaround.
“But only if you promise me that you’ll lay low and do exactly as I say, no questions asked and no arguments.”
She wouldn’t promise him anything. “We’re wasting time.”
“Promise me, or I swear I’ll hold you here and neither of us will go.”
Her mouth fell open. “What do you mean, you’ll hold me here?”
“You’re not dumb, Priss. You know what I mean.” Leaning close, nose to nose, he enunciated, “By force. Hell, woman, I’ll sit on you if I have to.” Only half under his breath, he murmured, “I’ve kinda wanted to do that anyway.”
She drew back, but he caught her fist. “Promise right now that you’ll behave.”
She’d behave, all right. She’d behave any damn way she pleased. “Sure. I promise.”
Disgust showed on his handsome face. “That’s about the most insincere promise I’ve ever heard.” He rearranged his hold on her to take her hand in his. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She was still barefoot and hardly dressed appropriately, but this time, Priss didn’t give a single thought to their audience. She cared only about reaching Trace.
For his part, Jackson was as cautious as ever, and even knowing it was necessary, it drove her nuts because it slowed them down. In her mind she kept imagining what Hell might be doing to Trace, and how Trace might react.
Jackson was right; he wouldn’t like it. That much she knew.
But if Helene truly had a drug that’d make him more agreeable… No, she wouldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t.
Not that long ago she’d left her home, entrusting her business to nasty old Gary Deaton so she could pursue her need for revenge. She’d expected to come up against danger, rejection, abuse.
But never, not once, had she considered anything that had transpired so far.
She definitely hadn’t considered falling in love at light speed with a man opposed to all her plans.
Yet…she had.
She’d fallen hook, line and sinker, irrevocably, head over heels, madly, impossibly in love.
“Drive faster,” she ordered Jackson, and then ignored his grumbling reply.
The question was, now that she’d accepted the truth, what should she do about it?
Or would she get a chance to do anything at all?
TIED UP WITH HIS ARMS behind his back, his pants below his knees, his legs parted, Trace finally regained use of his limbs. Unfortunately, Hell had secured him tightly to keep him in that exact position.
Propped upright against a heating unit on the wall, Hell used an exposed pipe to secure his wrists. It kept him in an awkward sitting position. He tried moving his arms, but realized she’d fastened them together with handcuffs.
Using the same nylon restraints he favored, maybe taken from his own stash, she’d bound each of