Take Me Deeper Page 5

  Familiar fear began to twist through her. She let out a breath, trying to calm the hell down. “We’ve got to get out of here in that case. He’ll turn up sooner or later and then—”

  “Wait.” The word was flat and icy. “Tell me who he is.”

  “You know already. You guessed back in the truck.” She pulled on the handcuff holding her wrist to the bed. “Get these off me. I’m not going to escape.”

  His gaze was steady and sharper than a drawer full of knives. “I don’t believe you. I think escaping is the first thing you’re going to do.”

  The fear twisted tighter, made worse by the unaccustomed feeling of being restrained. She tugged on her wrist again, the metal digging into her skin. “I promise I won’t. Scout’s honor.”

  He snorted. “Something tells me you were never a Girl Scout.”

  “Okay, okay. My mother’s grave then.”

  “According to our records, your mom is still alive.”

  She bit her lip. “Look, if that guy comes, he’ll try and shoot you too. You really want that to happen?”

  The look on Zane’s handsome face was maddeningly unconcerned. “He could try. But I guarantee he won’t succeed.”

  “Oh sure. What are you? Superman?”

  “No. I’m just good at protecting myself.”

  “Yeah, well, you might be a ninja, but I’m not, okay?”

  Something about his long, hard mouth softened. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Iris.”

  The way he said her name sent a small electric shock down her spine. She ignored it, staring belligerently at him. “Of course you won’t. You want your money, right?”

  He didn’t look away, his gaze implacable. “You can’t escape the law. No one can.”

  Cursing under her breath, she turned her head and stared at the ceiling instead. “I was right. You’re the fucking Terminator.”

  There was a frustrating silence.

  “Tell me what the hell you were thinking of, running drugs for the cartels,” Zane finally said, though of course, again he made it sound less like an invitation and more like an order.

  “Money. Glamor. Excitement. You know, the usual.” Iris glared at the ceiling, testing the handcuffs again. Her hands were small but not quite small enough to slip out of the metal ring, dammit.

  “Stupidity in other words.” His tone was stiff with disapproval. “Or are you an addict too?”

  Frustration burned inside her. God, she hated feeling trapped and she so did not want to have the conversation about how stupid she’d been, especially not with an asshole bounty hunter.

  “Can we skip the getting-to-know-yous?” she said, impatient. “If you want to take me in, just take me in.” And then something occurred to her. She turned to look at him once more. “Actually, let me ask you a question. Why haven’t you taken me in? Why did you bring me back here?”

  His gaze dropped to her front. “You needed that scratch cleaned up.”

  That scratch? Puzzled, Iris followed his gaze, looking down at herself. And then remembered. She’d hurt herself on the window latch at the bar and her stupid T-shirt had torn in half. Except she was now wearing a loose-fitting black one that was far too big for her. Where had that come from? Frowning, she pulled up the cotton with her free hand to examine her injury. The wound had been cleaned and what looked like antiseptic cream applied.

  “I had to get you a new T-shirt,” Zane added. “I did owe you one after all.”

  For a second Iris just stared down at herself, not at all sure how to process this. He’d cleaned up the scratch and bought her a new T-shirt. He’d taken care of her.

  No one had ever taken care of her before, not one person. Not even her mother, not that her mother had been the maternal type. At all.

  Slowly Iris turned to him, this time rolling onto her side. She stared at the strong, lean lines of his face, the high forehead, the sharp blade of a nose, that long, hard mouth. The face of a man who knew what he wanted and would go out and get it no matter what. She knew men like that. She’d dealt with them before. Dylan, for example, who’d always seemed so caring—at least he had right up until the day she’d been arrested. She’d used her one phone call on him, but he’d never answered. She’d known then that he hadn’t been for real, that she’d been duped, used. Stupid, naïve little trailer-park girl that she was.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked bluntly, because of course he wanted something. No one did anything for free.

  Something that looked like surprise flared briefly in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you cleaned me up. You bought me a new shirt. And I’m here in my motel room, not back in custody. Which means you want something from me, right?”

  His winged black brows plunged, as if she’d mortally offended him. “I don’t want anything from you. You were hurt so I patched you up. That’s it.”

  “Right, and you would have done that if I’d been a guy too.”

  His gaze narrowed into strips of sapphire. “I don’t hurt women. I protect them.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that Texas Mama-brought-me-up-right guy shit. You want something, all men do. So just tell me what it is.”

  He’d gone very still, and, yeah, she’d offended him all right. He fairly bristled with it. “And what is it that you think I want?”

  “Probably sex.” Iris stared at him. “I mean that’s usually what men want. Though I have to say, you’re the first who’s been afraid to come right out and say it.”

  He was silent, his expression completely impenetrable. “I don’t want to have sex with you, Iris,” he said finally and with cold emphasis. “But if I did, I certainly wouldn’t need to ask for it. You’d be giving it to me way before that happened.”

  Another strange shiver went through her as he said the words, his cool arrogance getting under her skin in a way she didn’t like. She should have found the fact that he didn’t want her reassuring and yet the distaste in his tone rankled.

  How annoying. She knew she appealed to men on a certain level and that had certainly come in handy in the past. It had also led to a lot of pain. Still, it wasn’t as if she had much choice here, and if he truly wasn’t attracted to her, then that limited her options. Iris didn’t like having her options limited since she generally didn’t have many of them to start with.

  “Fine,” she said crossly. “Have it your way. But I could make it worth your while to let me go.” She rolled onto her back. “I give a mean blow job, just saying.” Not that she particularly wanted to give him a blow job. He was so cold he’d probably freeze her tongue off.

  Hey, remember what’s going on here. You’re handcuffed to a bed by a bounty hunter who wants to return you to jail. Where you’re going to get shanked. If you don’t get shot by the Dallas dickhead first.

  Zane was silent.

  Maybe he was thinking about blow jobs. If so, good, because she was getting really sick of these goddamn handcuffs.

  “Tell me about the man who’s chasing you.”

  Iris groaned. “Not this again. You know why he’s chasing me. Drugs. Cartels. Me ending up dead so I don’t have to testify.”

  “What about the drugs?” he asked relentlessly. “Why would you want to get involved in something like that?”

  “Can we go with stupidity and never speak of it again?”

  The bed beside her squeaked and suddenly a long finger caught her beneath the chin, turning her head so she was pinned to the bed by that inexorable gaze. “No,” he said. “We can’t.”

  She wanted to jerk her head away, but he must have felt her muscles tense because he gripped her chin, preventing her. “Why do you want to know?” she burst out, frustrated. “Why the hell would you care why anyway?”

  “Because I’m trying to decide whether to turn you in or not.”

  Iris stared at him in shock. “What do you mean?”

  “If those assholes are after you, then you certainly won’t be safe in jail. Which
means I’m going to have to figure out some way to protect you. But that’s going to be hard for me if you’re a willing part of that goddamn cartel.”

  A wave of something she couldn’t identify swept through her. Was he actually offering to help her?

  You can’t trust him. You know you can’t.

  “Why would you do that?” Her voice had gone weirdly thick. “You don’t even know me.”

  “No, I don’t. But I don’t like seeing a woman in trouble either.”

  She let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Well…that’s good. So…uh…why don’t you let me go and I’ll get out of here. Make sure that guy won’t ever—”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  She blinked at him. His fingers were gripping her chin, but somehow his thumb was moving along the side of her jaw, a soft back and forth that sent chills through her. She tried to ignore it. “Why not? Look, I’m sure you don’t want to be saddled with me. Let me go and I’ll disappear, you’ll never see me again.”

  Those deep, cold eyes were drifting down to her mouth and suddenly they didn’t seem so cold anymore. “Like I said, not going to happen. That bastard won’t stop until you’re dead, which means you’re going to need some protection while we figure out how to deal with it.”

  Iris sucked in a breath. The touch of his thumb along her jaw was insanely distracting. “Why? Why would you do that for me?”

  His gaze returned to hers, an icy winter lake heated by volcanic currents. “Why don’t you give me that blow job and we’ll find out?”

  —

  Her dark, velvety brown gaze went wide, her mouth opening, color creeping into her cheeks.

  “Or else,” he said, in the same soft tone, “you could just tell me why I’d want to do that for you.”

  Her cheeks flamed, anger sparking in the depths of her eyes. “Bastard.”

  “Well, you did offer.” Satisfied that he’d gotten the upper hand for once, Zane let go of her chin. It was harder to do than he thought. Warmth lingered on his fingertips, the touch of her skin imprinted there like a burn. She’d felt soft, smooth, and it had been a long time since he’d felt soft, smooth skin under his hand.

  And no, his own dick didn’t count.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she snapped. “It’d be like blowing a snowman anyway.”

  Her obvious outrage was amusing and he nearly caught himself in a smile. Which was stupid. He wasn’t here to smile and stroke pretty little skips who were offering blow jobs. He was here to—

  Collect said skip and deliver her to custody, asshole.

  Except that’s exactly what he wasn’t going to do, and he still couldn’t quite figure out why.

  Maybe it was the Charlie factor. Maybe it was being a soldier at heart and his training not letting him leave a civilian in danger.

  Or maybe it’s because you’re actually hoping for that blow job.

  Zane turned away from her, stalking to the hard orange couch with the cigarette holes in the upholstery. No, he didn’t want that blow job. It would be totally unprofessional, not to mention taking advantage of a woman who was obviously in way, way, way over her head. It would be something Rush would do, which meant he absolutely could not.

  He was better than that, no matter what his old man had always told him.

  Sitting down on the couch, he gave Iris a narrow look.

  Interesting that she’d looked shocked when he’d mentioned the blow job, though. As if she hadn’t been expecting him to take her up on it. Clearly, by the casual way she’d offered it to him, she was used to throwing it around as an incentive, yet given her shock when he’d agreed, she hadn’t often been taken up on it. If at all.

  Why the fuck are you still thinking of blow jobs?

  Yeah. Very good point.

  “So what was it?” he asked, concentrating on more important things like figuring out whether she was a dealer or not. “You wanted the money and couldn’t be bothered working for it like a normal person?”

  “Oh my God,” she said in disgust. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  “No.” It was the truth. He’d inherited a healthy dose of the famous Redmond stubbornness, which meant he never gave up and he never backed down. His superiors had found it very useful in combat because when he had a mission to accomplish, Zane made sure he fulfilled it, no matter what.

  The downside was that it made family occasions very, very difficult since his father and his brothers were also exactly the same. To get what he wanted, Quinn would order people around and make them do what he told them, while Rush would smile and charm people into getting his way. But Zane didn’t bother with either. He ignored everyone else’s opinion and did what he wanted.

  They hadn’t called him Relentless Redmond in the army for nothing.

  Iris made an annoyed sound. “Okay, look. I wasn’t a dealer or anything, I just needed money fast. And I thought…” She stopped, her pale skin coloring.

  “You thought what? That being a drug mule would be easy and super fun?”

  She wriggled on the bed, pushing herself up into a sitting position with her free hand and leaning back against the headboard, eyeing him with dislike. Her hair fell over one shoulder like a silky, glossy spill of ink. “No. Do I look stupid?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” Actually, she didn’t look stupid in the slightest. She looked disheveled and rumpled and sexy as hell. Good thing the T-shirt he’d gotten her at the mall was way too big for her, because he really did not need to be distracted by the outline of those pretty little tits of hers.

  Lifting her hand, she raked her black hair back from her forehead. “I have my reasons,” she said shortly. “Can we leave it at that?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “He won’t help you, I’m afraid. I, on the other hand, will. But only if you tell me—”

  “I needed money for my little sister,” she interrupted, looking daggers at him. “I wanted to put a deposit down on a house so we had somewhere to live that was safer than the trailer park, and there really wasn’t any other way for me to get money quickly.” She paused, her straight dark brows drawn down in a ferocious scowl. “Unless I went with plan B and stood on a street corner somewhere.”

  So. Not a drug dealer then. He was inexplicably relieved, not that it should matter to him what she was. Though, he didn’t really want to end up protecting that kind of low-life scum.

  He sat forward on the couch, studying her. “How old is your sister?”

  “Eleven.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “None of your goddamned business.”

  “So where is she now?”

  A flash of pain crossed her face and then it was gone, like it never existed. “She got put in foster care when I was arrested.”

  “That possibility didn’t occur to you before you started running drugs?”

  Her jaw tightened, chin jutting. “Like I said, none of your goddamned business.”

  He knew that look. He’d seen it many times before on the faces of his brothers. The look that said, I’m not gonna tell you one single, fucking thing. Which usually meant that this was a very sore subject.

  Briefly he debated pushing her on it, but then what for? Did he really care that her sister was in foster care and that she was obviously upset about it? Okay, she’d made a stupid decision to get involved with the cartel, but at least she wasn’t dealing.

  “You have any plans to go back to doing that?” he asked instead.

  Her eyes widened in sarcastic surprise. “Oh sure. Being nearly killed by some random hit man was so much fun I’d love to do it again.”

  “I need to be sure.”

  She tilted her head against the headboard, giving him a look from beneath her long, silky black lashes. “So, knowing about my sister makes all the difference, huh?”

  “You think I want to let some drug-dealing scumbag escape justice?”

  “Oh sure, you’re a real hero.”


  That was the thing though. He was no one’s hero these days and it was the last thing he wanted to be. But that still made her an ungrateful little witch. He stared at her. “I saved your ass, didn’t I?”

  She at least had the grace to blush, looking up at the handcuff around her wrist and rubbing absently at it with her free hand. “If you want me to thank you, then let me go.”

  “So you can kick me in the balls again, then run off to get yourself killed? I don’t think so.” He pushed himself off the couch in an impatient movement, suddenly conscious of how much time he’d spent here.

  While she’d been asleep, he’d checked out the motel, then made a couple of calls, organizing flights to get himself to Carolina and Fort Bragg. Then Quinn had sent him a couple of texts asking him where the hell he was, and he’d replied with a terse dealing with it.

  He moved to the windows overlooking the parking lot, reflexively scanning the area for anything suspicious. He’d been expecting the cartel guy to turn up at some point, and it was strange that he hadn’t. The cartels didn’t like leaving loose ends lying around, and Iris was one hell of a loose end. So what was he doing? If Lone Star could find out where Iris was staying, then that guy must know too. Then again, he wouldn’t have been expecting her to be protected, would he? And Zane had clearly been protecting her. So maybe the guy was reassessing his strategy or…

  He went to get reinforcements.

  Zane froze. Shit. One asshole with a gun Zane could handle, but any more and things could get difficult.

  Going instantly into military mode, Zane turned sharply from the window. “We need to go. Now.”

  Iris looked up, brows arching in surprise. “Why? What’s happening?”

  Digging around in his pocket for the key to the handcuffs, Zane pulled it out and strode over to her. “I was expecting the guy from the bar, the one who shot at us, to show up and he hasn’t. And there’s only one reason for that.”