But because of what she knew—and how many nefarious groups and governments wanted that knowledge—she was also in danger. Some people or countries weren’t able or willing to pay for the information she had; instead they would torture her for it.
Ash had seen men three times her size break. Claire Molenski wouldn’t survive. So just watching her wasn’t going to be enough to keep her safe. But protecting her, like she needed protection, would make it harder to gather enough evidence for her arrest.
* * *
HER HEART POUNDING WILDLY, Claire awoke in a panic. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, if it had been minutes or hours since she’d been chloroformed.
Where had she been taken? She blinked her eyes wide, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and her fuzzy head. But the room was dark.
She reached out and breathed a sigh of relief that her hands weren’t bound. Her fingers skimmed across silky material, and she recognized the soft surface on which she was lying. She had been carried to a bed. She skimmed her hands down her body and breathed another sigh of relief that she still wore her dress. Maybe nobody had hurt her.
Yet.
But then a lamp snapped on, and she blinked against the brightness of the light shining in her eyes. “What—where am I?”
“Your room,” a deep voice replied.
She couldn’t see him—not with the light filling her vision field with spots. Who was he?
And why was he lying to her?
This wasn’t her room. Her bed wasn’t this soft and smooth. Her mattress was old and lumpy, but since she was rarely home, she hadn’t seen the reason to replace it. Or to make the bed, either. Her sheets were never smooth. They were always rumpled, usually kicked to a tangled mess at the foot of the bed, as she rushed to get to the office. She was pretty much always at work—before the sun rose in the morning until after it set again at night.
“Why did you grab me?” she asked, her pulse still racing. While she wasn’t bound, she had been abducted.
He replied matter-of-factly, “So you wouldn’t hit the ground.”
“I wasn’t going to fall...” She blinked again, and her eyes adjusted to the light enough that she could make him out standing over the bed.
He was tall—taller than she had even realized when she’d talked to him across the table earlier. And he was so broad. No wonder he had overpowered her so easily in the parking lot in the dark. If only she’d seen him coming, maybe she could have outrun him.
Then she remembered the heels she’d been wearing; he would have caught her and easily once she had twisted her ankle. She wiggled her toes, grateful that her shoes were gone. Maybe she could run now.
“Why?” she asked, her fears growing even more. “Why would you bring me here?”
“This is your room,” he repeated. “The one you rented at the hotel.”
“Oh...” She had rented a room. But she had changed her mind about using it. Obviously he’d had other plans.
“Why did you drug me?” she asked, although she was afraid that she knew the answer.
Was he the kind of man who didn’t take rejection well? With the way he looked, he probably wasn’t often rejected. Did he intend to take what she hadn’t been willing to offer him?
“I didn’t drug you,” he said.
“Someone grabbed me in the parking lot,” she said, “and put something over my mouth and nose...”
“Chloroform,” he replied again so matter-of-factly.
“So you admit to using it on me?” she asked, and anger joined her fear. And again she was grateful her hands weren’t bound because she would fight him. She would hurt him as badly as he intended to hurt her.
“No,” he said. “I recognized the smell. That’s why I brought you back to your room, so you could regain consciousness.”
“What do you intend to do to me?” she asked, her heart continuing to pound wildly with fear.
He sighed and pushed a hand through his dark hair. “I wish I knew...”
“Then why did you grab me?” If he had no plan...
“I only grabbed you after your abductor had been shot,” he said, as if his crazy explanation made perfect sense.
“Abductor?” So now he was trying to place the blame on someone else.
He nodded. “I don’t know who the man was.”
“Was?”
He nodded again but grimly this time, his strong-looking jaw clenched. “He’s gone.”
“Dead?” Her voice squeaked with the question. “You killed him?” Maybe there had really been another man...before he’d died.
“No,” he said. “Another agent shot him...before he could shoot me.”
“And then you brought me back here,” she said, as if she was following his preposterous story. The man was obviously deranged. No wonder he’d followed her out of the hotel and tried to grab her.
And she had thought getting to know someone in person first would be safer than dating someone she’d only met online. Maybe dating at all was a bad idea. But how else was she ever going to meet someone who could share her life—her hopes, her dreams?
Somehow she suspected that having a relationship wasn’t going to be an issue for her anymore—unless she could somehow overpower this muscular man and escape him. She tried to peer around him to determine how far away the door was.
Or maybe she could yell...
Weren’t hotel room walls notoriously thin?
She opened her mouth to scream, but his palm slid across her lips, silencing her. And he joined her on the bed, his thigh hard and warm against her hip. She tried to struggle, but he easily held her down—pushing her into the mattress. And she noticed that his sweater had ridden up, revealing a holster and a gun. He was armed.
Tears stung her eyes as fear overwhelmed her. What was he going to do to her?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, almost as if he regretted that he wasn’t. “I’ve been watching you...”
So she hadn’t been paranoid.
“I’m trying to stop you from doing something that’s going to put your life and the country in danger,” he said. “But obviously I’m too late. You’re already in danger.”
She had realized that back in the parking lot. She’d been scared then. She was terrified now.
“Have you put the country in danger, too?” he asked.
She moved her lips against his palm, as if she was trying to answer his question. As if she could actually answer something so absurd...
She only wanted him to move his hand so that she could scream. If he didn’t want her making any noise, he wouldn’t risk shooting her. Would he?
If she screamed, hopefully someone would hear her and come to her aid. It was her only chance to escape this man and his madness.
But he didn’t move his hand. In fact, it covered her entire face, his fingers covering one ear and his thumb the other. She could still hear him, though—still hear his ridiculous questions.
“Did you already endanger national security?” he asked.
“How?”