“I,
uh
. . . don’t like to fly.” She didn’t talk about this. The only person who really knew about her . . . problem . . . was Gina. Rainie was not about to discuss it with this man, who oozed peril and adventure from every pore of his body. Even if he wasn’t Nathan Daneby.
“Tell me about these people,” she called back instead, tossing the handcuffs on top of his jacket, which was still on the nightstand. “The ones threatening you.”
He popped his head out of the bathroom and drilled her with a frown. “No way. It’s too dangerous.”
There.
See? He
was
a good guy. Trying to protect her.
“But don’t you think I should know something about them?” she reasoned. “Just in case.”
His frown deepened. “In case what? Forget it. These are not people you want to mess with.”
A frisson of gooseflesh sifted over her arms at the distinct warning tone in his voice. “I don’t plan to mess with them, Kick,” she assured him. “But what if something really happens to you? Someone should know what’s going on. To report it.”
He made a derisive noise. “Report it to whom?”
“The police?”
“Trust me, that wouldn’t help,” he said, sliding back into bed, wincing as he did. He tugged her into his arms.
His skin was scorching hot. She pulled back a fraction and looked up at his face. His pupils were dilated and his face flushed. But not in a sexual way. More like, a fever way. Or . . . an anxiety attack way. Surely, not . . .
“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned.
He gave a deep yawn, his body shivering a little at the end of it. Then he yawned again, squeezed his eyes shut, and grimaced. Cursing under his breath, his expression was suddenly filled with . . . guilt?
“Kick?”
“I’m sorry, baby. I really wish . . .”
He looked so miserable, a tremor of unease went through her. “What’s going on?”
He swallowed, swiped an unsteady hand over his sweaty brow. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to blurt it out.”
Her pulse inched up.
Now what?
“Okay . . .”
“You were right about me. I denied it, of course, but you hit it right on the head.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“About the drugs.”
“But . . .” Suddenly she remembered that first thought when he’d pointed the gun at her outside the hotel. And her chest squeezed. “My God!” she gasped, scrambling backward across the bed, out of his embrace. “
That’s
what this was all about? You’re after
drugs
?”
Her heart felt like it had been run over by a truck. How could she have been so wrong about him? So totally fooled?
“You
bastard
!”
“No.” He shook his head with another wince. “Trust me, I’m not after drugs. But”—he swallowed again—“I am . . . an addict.” His face screwed into a portrait of angry frustration. “And I’m about to go into withdrawal.”
He leaned forward and reached for her, but she backed safely out of range.
Trust?
She didn’t think so. She stared at him in numb disbelief. Had he deliberately stalked her? Somehow found out that she was the go-to person in the ER when it came to drug overdoses and withdrawals? “What exactly do you want from me?”
“Help.”
“
Help?
”
“To get through it.”
Hurt seeped from her heart through her whole body as the awful truth dawned on her. So he
had
stalked her. “You planned this all along! You came to the hospital’s speed dating night specifically to find me! Deliberately set out to seduce me and then use me. Didn’t you?”
“Rainie, no—”
“
Didn’t you?
” She almost spat the words. She didn’t know whom she was most mad at, him, or herself for all those naïve, idiotic things she’d been feeling about him just moments before. What a romantic, delusional fool!
He shuddered out a pained breath, flopping back onto the bed. “No! Not you. Not specifically. But yes. That was the plan. To find someone with medical knowledge to help me through these next couple of days. But I never thought I’d meet someone who—”
She thinned her lips. “
Save it.
” She’d worked with hundreds of drug addicts in the ER. She knew all about their manipulation and lies. “Give me one good reason I
should
help you.”
She tried not to think about the gun lying right next to him on the nightstand. Or the fact that even hurt as she was, she doubted she could turn down a genuine plea for help. It was how they’d talked her into heading the most hazardous program in the ER. She was too damn gullible for her own good.
“I’m sorry. Believe me, if there’d been any other way—”
“There is,” she gritted out. “It’s called a rehab center.”
“Too public. The people after me would know where I was within an hour of checking in. I need to be completely off-grid for the three days it takes to get clean.”
“Three days?” It was her turn to snort. “What are you addicted to, caffeine?”
“Oxycontin.”
Hell.
She did a small mental backpedal. Oxycontin was a painkiller. A notoriously and severely addictive one. And to be fair, a lot of innocent people got hooked on it before they even knew what was happening.
Which didn’t excuse Kick’s actions last night. But . . . at least he wasn’t talking about cocaine, heroin, or eX. Something disgusting like that.
She sat up Indian style on the bed, drawing the sheet over her nakedness. “You were injured?”
“You could say that.” He sat up also, and stretched out his left leg so she could get a good look. Her stomach clenched. The skin was riddled with scars. He extended his left forearm, also scarred. Then turned his back a half turn to her. Thin scars crisscrossed the tanned expanse of his left shoulder. She vaguely remembered feeling them last night, but because of what she saw every day at the hospital they hadn’t really registered as unusual. Or maybe she’d blocked them from her consciousness, afraid of what thinking about them might trigger within her. Like it was now.
She fought down a sick wave of nausea. “It must have been a terrible accident.”
“Tell me about it.”
When she opened her mouth to ask more, he raised a hand to stop her. “The point is, I’ve been lazy. I left the hospital well over a year ago but it was easier to buy the painkillers on the street than to go through withdrawal.”
“Your doctor cut you off?”
He sighed. “A few months ago. I was supposed to be gradually weaning myself off them. Then a guy I knew, Jimmy Tang, offered to supply me. I didn’t see a reason to stress out getting clean.”
“But now you do.”
“Yeah.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Imminent death has a way of setting one’s priorities straight.”
Okaaay.
“What are you talking about?”
“If those people I told you about catch me . . . where they’re planning to send me, I’m as good as dead if I start going through withdrawal.”
Surely he couldn’t
really
mean—“Dead? As in . . .”
“A doornail. Seriously, permanently dead.”
She swallowed. Who the hell was after him? And how could anyone send him somewhere he didn’t want to go?
More importantly, did she believe him? Though it was obvious he certainly believed it himself.
“Just so you know,” she said, “three days isn’t going to do it. It’ll take at least—”
“Three days will get me through the worst,” he countered. “If they come for me, at least I won’t be curled up in a fetal position puking my brains out. And if I’m running from them, I won’t be worrying about where to find my next bottle of pills.”
She studied his face, the horror of what he was actually saying barely registering on his all-but-neutral expression.
How could a person live like that? It was inconceivable to her. Rainie had battled a constant, gnawing fear of random violence ever since she was twelve, when her parents had died senselessly at the hands of a carjacker. But to have someone deliberately hunting you down was different. That was downright terrifying.
Or . . .
Or was this all a drug-induced delusion?
Oxycontin didn’t usually cause paranoia, but every user was unique, and individual reactions were always possible. . . .
“Who are these people, and why are they after you?” she asked. “What makes you think they want to send you anywhere?”
He eased back against the headboard and closed his eyes, the corner of his lip lifting in a grim parody of a smile. One that told her he knew she doubted him. “Because I used to work for them, and that was my job. Getting sent places to do things nobody else would do. Now they want to send me back. To a place just like the one where all this happened.” He waved a hand over his scarred limbs.
A shiver went down her spine. She really didn’t want to know. It was probably better she
didn’t
know. But she couldn’t help asking. “And where is that?”
“Hell,” he said without hesitation.
Ho-boy.
Opening his eyes, he gazed at her with wide black pupils and red-rimmed lids. “So, Lorraine Martin, nurse practitioner. Are you going to help me? Or are you going to help them send me straight back to hell?”
RAINIE
took a deep, calming breath. What was she supposed to say to that?
Obviously this man was deep in some very serious shit.
She was furious with Kick about deceiving her, and still couldn’t decide whether he was a good guy or a bad guy, but she could never turn away a person in real need. That wasn’t in her nature. It was the reason she had chosen to work in the ER, a place that pumped her anxiety higher for every minute she spent there. But despite her irrational fear—or perhaps because of it—she had a deep, ingrained need to help people get through their worst nightmares, like when the ugly, unpredictable world out there left them bleeding, helpless, and dying. As it had her parents.
“Of course I’ll help you,” she told Kick.
But that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Thank you,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
Or sleep with him again.
She ignored his hand and his searching eyes and slid out of bed. “How long do we have?”
“We don’t. It’s already started.”
She felt his gaze on her as she padded to her dresser and got out jeans and a T-shirt. “I’ve seen the fever sweats and the yawning. What about nausea?”
“Not so far.”
“Pain?”
“Yup. My leg is hurting pretty bad.”
“It’ll get worse. Soon you’ll be hurting all over. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She pulled the T-shirt over her head. “If you went with me to the hospital, there’s an experimental—”
“I told you, no hospital.”
“Okay. Then
I
could go there and get you a prescription of Buprenorphine. That would help with some of the withdrawal symptoms, anyway.”
He was standing behind her before she even knew he’d moved off the bed. His fingers tightened around her shoulders. “You wouldn’t by any chance be thinking of turning me in?” he asked softly.
She held herself perfectly stiff. “No. I said I’d help you and I will.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it.”
“Funny thing, I don’t like being lied to and used.”
He forcibly turned her around to face him. “I know. And I’m truly sorry about everything . . . before. But, Rainie, you have to know what happened in that bed, that wasn’t a lie. That was real.”
Pain zinged through her again. How could he
say
that?
She shook her head, keeping her gaze riveted on the floor. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over and done. You can stay in my apartment to detox, and I’ll help you as much as I can. But then you’re out of here, and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
There was no place in her world for a crazy wild card like Kick. Aside from anything else, she was all about order, and he was the very definition of havoc.
“I understand.”
His fingertips touched her cheek, then brushed lightly along her jawline. His knuckle caught her chin and lifted her face to his. But before his lips could reach hers, she turned her head.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
He let out a breath that soughed warmly over her temple. Then he let her go.
Before she could change her mind, she strode out of the bedroom and went to the sofa where she’d left her purse. She grabbed it, slipped on her shoes, and headed for the front door.
“I’ll go pick up the prescription and a few other things you’ll need.”
“Like what?” he asked from the bedroom door. He was still naked, leaning a hip against the frame, arms crossed. He didn’t look happy. Good. She wasn’t happy, either.
“Electrolyte fluid. Maalox. Ginger ale. You should try to get some sleep while I’m gone. I doubt you’ll get much during the next few days.”
“When will you be back?”
The words were quietly spoken, but the tension behind them was palpable.
He didn’t trust her.
Didn’t trust that she would return to help him, but instead thought maybe she intended to call the cops.
She gazed back at him, still feeling the sensation of his powerful body on hers, of his hard length filling her; she could taste the flavor of his tongue in her mouth.
He
didn’t trust
her
?
“An hour,” she said, stifling the urge to scream with bitterness. “Maybe an hour and a half.”
“Okay.”
“Will you still be here?” she asked. She figured there was just as good a chance he would bolt as soon as she was gone.
Because he didn’t trust her.
He hesitated infinitesimally. Then said, “Unless they find me first.”
She did her best not to feel resentful. “If they do, it won’t be because of me.”
His lips curved up but his eyes were empty. “Won’t matter. They have their ways. I just hope I can keep one step ahead of them this time.”
There was nothing she could say to that. So she just nodded, unlocked the door, and swung it open.
She froze. Standing in a semicircle around her door were five men wearing black ski masks. All holding guns.