Sleeves (18 page)

She choked on a gasping sob when they both kicked him and then locked the door behind them as soon as they were back out.

A few moments later, she crawled over to him. He was sprawled out in the center of the floor, and she rested her ear over his heart to listen for breathing and then she felt for a pulse.

He was alive. His chest was moving, but barely, and his heart was thumping evenly.

She stroked over his shirt, wishing she was touching his skin, but he might not want her to, and the last thing she’d even consider would be causing him more pain.

Oh, he was still so beautiful. She watched his lashes flutter as his eyes jerked around under his closed lids.

He moaned a few times and twitched.

His fingers flexed and then bunched. Was he stuck in a bad dream?

She tried to wake him the way she had when he’d been in her home two weeks ago, but nothing seemed to work this time. Whatever they’d drugged him with had him completely out.

So, she got up, moved the mattress next to him and she grunted, straining as she tried to roll him on top of it.

The moment she had him there in that spot, his eyes cracked open.

“Casey,” he said with a hoarse, croak.

“Yeah, sweetheart . . . I’m here.”

“Why are you in the cage with me? Did I pass out from . . . Did I come?” He blinked, and his eyes went glassy, then he swallowed. She could see he was trying desperately to focus, but then he was out again.

She scooted closer, stroked his hair and brushed her fingertips across his eyebrows. Using his hair as a buffer might help since she didn’t have any ice or some other way to cool her fiery touch on his flesh.

She wouldn’t stop though. He needed to be soothed while he slept, since she knew what his nightmares did to him.

As he relaxed and his fists uncoiled, she braved brushing her hands over his clothes, albeit gently so as not to disturb him or cause him any further anguish.

She curled onto her side on the cushion next to him but made sure to avoid contact so he could continue dozing peacefully.

No one said anything to her.

Hannah and Johnathan were content to stay at their work stations and watch them every now and then. Casey could feel their eyes on her, but she ignored them. All that mattered was this shattered man in front of her.

“I’m sorry . . . So sorry,” she whispered repeatedly as she stroked her apology into his body.

When his face smoothed and his breathing deepened, she gave a few whispering grazes across his forearms with the pads of her fingers. She blew on the spots directly before touching, hoping it would be enough.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen to you. I should’ve listened, and we should’ve run like you wanted us to. I just thought . . . Christ!” Tears splashed on the soiled mattress, revealing what were muddied red stripes that could only be seen while moist.

She cringed and tried her hardest to keep from thinking about exactly how disgusting this mattress was if she hadn’t even noticed it had thick two inch red and white stripes across the entire thing.

Her skin was prickling in revulsion, and her breathing became labored as she considered he probably slept on this thing for years on end with no blanket, no pillow, never having it cleaned for him. Poor, poor man. No wonder he was so starved for any kind of affection at all.

Her body shook with racking, quiet sobs. Her heart splintered as she stared at his angelic, innocent face.

Such a strong, resilient man. So brave and worthy of all the worship those women at the club gave him, but not for the reasons they did it.

Her fingers moved and slipped into his hands, interlocking their fingers.

“I love you,” she whispered and blinked the loose tears out of her lashes. “There’s not a soul as brilliant as yours—no one can match what a beautiful person you are. I’m sorry I didn’t see that before. You’ve been through so much.”

She wanted to protect him—keep him safe somehow.

But instead, she just sat there and let her eyes grow heavy from so much staring and crying.

* * *

Casey woke with the feeling of being weighted down.

Her arms twitched and nothing moved. She jolted up, or tried to, but nothing happened.

She was able to tip her head up, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw what was going on.

Her entire body was chained to the mattress, set back on the cot frame and she was in the furthest corner away from Hannah and Johnathan’s desk. The chain looped through the cage’s bars so she couldn’t even wiggle-worm the bed away from this spot.

Kel was sitting in the opposite corner, one leg stretched out, the other bent with his arm laying lax over it. His head was down, but he was watching Casey through his dark lashes.

“Don’t move. I don’t want you to get bruised.” Kel’s voice was rough and dispassionate; all feeling gone out of it.

He wore an expression of resignation.

Oh God, it felt like her heart dropped through the mattress and slid across that grimy floor over to him.

“I want to be with you . . . Let me out of these,” she said.

“No. You’re safer this way.”

“From you?” She gaped at him. How could he think this way after all they’d been through? “You’re afraid of me touching you is what is really happening here.”

He blinked, and his expression remained impassive. “They’ll have to go through me to get to you. I can protect you better if I know you’re in one spot and out of the way. I’ll kill them all if they get anywhere near you.”

“Kel! You can’t!” She struggled, her fists bunching, her wrists and arms being dug into by the cold metal chains. Her legs were so tightly bound she couldn’t move them at all. Then she realized something was different.

She glanced down as best she could and realized he’d removed his shirt, tucked it all around her legs to protect them from being rubbed raw.

Her eyes flung back over to him. He was shirtless; more vulnerable against their attacks.

Oh my God! Her heart squeezed so hard it hurt more than she could stand.

“You’re not going to survive this way. You have to be touched. You’ll grow weak if you don’t have it.” She remembered all the things she’d been told about him and learned from him. Maddie questioned Max like crazy, and he was more forthcoming than they would’ve ever thought he would be.

“Exactly. They won’t want me if I’m weak. They put you with me on purpose to see how strong I’d become if I had constant touch, and they know you can’t keep your hands off me, and I like it—the bastards.”

“No, Kelly, listen to me—it’s not like that. They already did something to me. What if I have to be touched now, too? What if I’m just like you? What if we’re both strong? We can defeat anyone that comes near us; we only have to stick together.” She struggled once more, wishing she was some kind of comic book hero with bunching, cording muscles that could cut through mountains at will. Why wouldn’t he listen? She was panting, sweating, willing herself to bust out and get to him.

“Please, stop this . . . They already told me why we’re here.”

“Well, what did they say?” She kept rocking her arms back and forth in tiny increments, hoping something would loosen or work its way free.

“I’m not gonna tell you.” He swiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist and continued to look absolutely defeated.

“Tell me, goddammit! I love you, and I want to know what they did to the man I care about more than anything!” She yelped when a portion of the chain bit into her wrist as she tried her hardest to get free.

He skidded on his ass across the floor over to her.

Like an animal, he rubbed the top of his head across her chained arms. “Please, don’t fight it. I don’t want you hurt. If I don’t touch you, they’ll most likely let you go. They’ll have no reason to keep you here. And I can’t bear to have you in here with me. I won’t survive if they touch you.” He turned his eyes on her when he lifted his head. They were bloodshot and filled with tears. “I love you, too, Casey, so much, and I can’t forgive myself for ever putting you in danger like this.”

She cried, and her neck strained as she tried to get to him. “Please, you need me. I need you, too. Let me free.”

“I can’t. I’m keeping you like this because you mean more to me than anything.” He blinked and slid back a few inches, wearing an expression that clearly told her he didn’t trust himself to be that close to her.

“You don’t love me, or you wouldn’t break my heart like this.” Her chest was throbbing, seeing him this way. She hated saying this, but it was true. How much could he really love her if he didn’t trust her to be free?

“We can’t figure this out together—I know that’s what you want—but things are different.” He shook his head and kept his eyes on the ground. “If you’re thirsty, tell me and I’ll give you some water. You can have all the food as well. I don’t want any of it.”

“If you’re not going to eat or drink, then neither will I.” She turned her head away from him, toward the bars.

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“A know-it-all-bitch,” she whispered.

“Yeah—that. Don’t be
that
. Just do what I say, and you’ll be back to your normal life without even remembering this place. I’m sure they’ll erase your memory of it, just like they did to me. That’s why after . . .”

“My life won’t ever go back to normal, you asshole, because I won’t ever forget about you even if they scrub my brain with acid and then light it on fire.” She tried to fight off the torrent of tears, but it was useless. They kept coming and tickling their way down her cheek and some even made their way to the creases in her sweating neck.

She could hear him shuffling closer to her, and then there was the weight of his hand or some other part of him pressing on the mattress behind her back. But she ignored it since it did nothing but make her want to scream and spit in his face for keeping a damned imaginary wall made of stone and misconceptions between them. How could this protect her? She was more vulnerable than ever. They’d knock him on his weakened ass and then come straight for her.

When they pulled out her uterus and wore it for a tiara, maybe then he’d realize he was wrong.

Tears flooded and bitterness enveloped her.

“Who’s the know-it-all-bitch now, huh?” She licked her dry lips, but it didn’t help. Her thirst was amplifying with each wretched breath. “You think you know what’s best, but you don’t take into account I’ve worked with the biggest dickheads in society for several years. You might have the muscle, but I can help lend some of my brains here.”

“How’re you gonna do that? They’ve heard every word we’ve exchanged, and they’ll continue to. How could we even make some type of plan in these types of circumstances?” His fingers flexed under her back, fisting her shirt and then flattening out. It was uncomfortable, but at least he was kind of touching her in a way. Not what she wanted, but still better than nothing at all.

Better than him trying to put a mile between them in every way possible.

She turned her head back to him and let him see her disgraceful tears spread out all over her disheveled face. “I understand your thinking—I do.” She nodded a little. “But this is wrong. It’s not a sin to want to protect me, but I want to do the same for you.”

“We can’t wi—”

“Shush!” she bit out. “Just listen to me for once.”

He smiled, but it was weak and labored like it took everything in him to even enjoy this small bit of normalcy between them.

“Yes, ma’am.” A hint of a smirk was there.

“I love how you want to keep me safe. It makes my heart race, thinking about it. But how long were you here last time they had you?”

“Years.”

“And did any of your words get through to them? Did they ever give any intimation they felt sorry for you or wanted to free you?” she asked, jutting her chin out, motioning over to the bastards behind him.

“No. Nothing worked with any of them but Hannah and Max, and maybe one other person.” He grimaced for a second. “And now we know Hannah was playing me. I couldn’t do anything to change the rest of their minds. I only got out the second time after they caught me when I’d thought Hannah had died, because after they wiped most of my memories clean, they’d hired a new body guard to keep me imprisoned. They had no idea Max was an FBI agent. He came on the job undercover.”

“Then he knows where this facility is?” she asked, her entire body warming and lighting up. Yes, Max would save them.

“Case—this is a different location and,” his face paled, “they killed him. When he was missing, I cleared out the club, and then I found him in a puddle of blood in the back office. That’s when I figured out what was going on. I watched the video surveillance at the club and saw them take you. After that, I got their license plate, using some of Max’s software and tracked where they went.”

She cried out in anguish, and this guttural careening sound flew out of her.

“Shhhh . . . sweetheart. I won’t let them touch you. I swear it.” He leaned forward and his eyes filled with utter devastation.