Forbidden Captor. Julie Miller

man made her decision a quick one. If she could face down the guns of Dimitri Mostek’s men, she could certainly handle a shadowy passageway and an unarmed man who was locked safely behind bars.

      The stones were smooth with age but sticky with moisture and dust as she trailed her fingers across them. Leaving her cart behind, Tasiya headed toward the shaft of moonlight. When she reached the end of the wall, she peeked around into the cell.

      She caught a silent breath.

      On the other side of those shiny steel bars stood the hardest-looking man she’d ever seen. He wore only a pair of jeans that hung loosely enough on his hips to reveal a strip of the white briefs that hugged his waist. He stood with his back to her, his arms reaching above his head. He was fiddling with something at the base of the window, doing something with the rusty iron brace at his wrist. He wasn’t any taller than her father’s six feet of height, but he was massive across his shoulders, arms and back. Twice as broad as her father. Muscled and formed in a way that reminded her of tanks and mountains.

      He was all male from the short clip of his dark brown hair to the flexing curve of his powerful thighs and buttocks.

      And even in the moonlight that mottled his skin, she could see he was horribly disfigured.

      Raised, keloid scars formed a meshwork pattern from his waistband up to his left shoulder, where the dimpled terrain of a faded burn mark took over and disappeared over onto his chest, up the side of his neck and down to his elbow.

      Tasiya pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle a gasp. Her stomach clenched and her heart turned over in compassion. My God, how this man had suffered.

      To her horror, he froze at her nearly inaudible gasp. With precise deliberation, he lowered his arms and slowly turned.

      Shrinking back against the cold stone wall opposite his cell, Tasiya stared. The front view was nearly as harsh as the back. She could see, now, that the shadows that dappled his skin weren’t all tricks of the dim light, but from bruising, as well. The old burn injury covered nearly a quarter of his chest and one side of his neck and jaw. His chin was square and pronounced. One carved cheekbone was bloody with the slash of an open wound. And the swelling around his left eye distorted the shape of a face that would have been harsh and forbidding under any circumstances.

      Without a word he took a step toward her. But when Tasiya, trapped in a circle of moonlight, flattened her back against the wall, he stopped. His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he shrugged instead. Tasiya’s gaze instantly darted to watch the fascinating ripple and subsequent control of all that muscle.

      When she realized he’d stopped and was even retreating to the rear of his cell to alleviate her fear of him, Tasiya’s breath seeped out on a deep, embarrassed sigh. This man knew he was frightening to look at, imposing to get close to. Others had cowered from him before.

      What a lonely, terrible existence that must be.

      Sensing some of his pain, Tasiya looked up into his face.

      The only thing not forbidding about the prisoner was his eyes. Enhanced by the glow of the moon, they were a cool, soothing shade of gray that reminded her of the quiet, wintry skies of her homeland.

      And they meant her no harm.

      Unlike the lechery she’d seen in Marcus’s and Dimitri’s eyes, the cold condescension she’d seen in Boone Fowler’s expression, or the blank, preoccupied stares she’d seen from the other prisoners, this man was making a point of putting her at ease.

      Responding to that unexpected civility, Tasiya summoned her courage and retrieved her cart. She wrapped the last small, crusty loaf, which couldn’t be more than a snack to a man his size, in a napkin and poured some water into the last metal cup. Then she knelt down in front of the steel bars and laid the bread and water just in front of them, the way she’d been instructed.

      When she heard the rattle of his chains as he moved to pick up his meal, she shot to her feet and backed well out of arm’s reach. Compassion or not, he still made two of her, he was still a prisoner, and he still frightened her.

      But in her haste to put distance between them, she’d kicked the cup over and spilled the water. Tasiya watched the puddle quickly seep into the cracks between the stones on the floor.

      She couldn’t leave the man without water.

      She glanced up at him. He was staring at her, with ever-watchful eyes, but he wasn’t condemning her. He glanced down at the cup, and she knew what she had to do.

      Shaking her head at her own skittishness, Tasiya picked up the pitcher of water from her cart. She had far greater things to fear from men far more handsome than this one. Good looks didn’t make a hero. Scars didn’t make an enemy.

      This was her job. This was for her father.

      “I am sorry,” she whispered, picking up the cup and pouring him fresh water. “Here.”

      With a show of bravery, prompted by human compassion, she reached through the bars herself and held the cup out to him. He stared at it for a moment, as if he didn’t understand the gesture. Long, silent moments passed. But she waited until his agile, nicked-up fingers closed around the cup. She quickly pulled away as he gently took it from her grasp.

      “Thanks.”

      The deep-pitched voice startled her. The husky tone resonated in that big chest and washed over her like a warm caress.

      Tasiya looked into those wintry gray eyes and felt the first human connection she’d known in the four days since Dimitri Mostek had kidnapped her father. She didn’t know if making that connection with this beast of a man should be a comfort or an omen. But she sensed that when he looked at her, he saw her. Not the foreign trash hired to cook and clean and be forgotten. Not a blackmailed mistress-to-be. Not the tool of betrayal.

      Her.

      “You are welcome.”

      He retreated to his cot and sank onto the bare mattress to eat and drink.

      Tasiya quickly replaced the pitcher and turned her cart to leave.

      “I’m Bryce Martin,” he said between big bites.

      She stopped midstride. He wanted to make personal conversation with her? No one else, not even her employers, had. The idea was almost as disconcerting as the darkened hallway and the threats she’d received.

      Turning back to his cell, she watched him take a long drink. The ripple of muscles along his throat fascinated her. How could one man be so much…man? The visible proof of all that physical and mental strength was daunting. She didn’t need any female intuition to sense that Bryce Martin was a very dangerous man. And that she should be careful around him.

      She quickly returned her gaze to gauge the trustworthiness of those assessing eyes. “I am Anastasiya Belov. Tasiya to most.”

      “Your accent’s foreign, i’n’t it?” His wasn’t like any of the others she’d heard here in America yet, either. She detected a lazy articulation in his bass-deep drawl.

      “I am from Lukinburg. In Europe.” She wasn’t revealing any secrets with that much information.

      He stuffed the last bite of bread into his mouth and stood. She tilted her chin to keep those gray eyes in view, her heart rate doubling as his size and scars moved closer. His wrist chain grated across the bars as he thrust the empty cup between them.

      The keys at her wrist jangled as Tasiya snatched the cup and hugged it to her chest, dodging back a step to avoid contact. Bryce Martin scowled, as if her aversion to touching him neither pleased nor surprised him.

      “Next time, Tasiya Belov,” he warned, “be more careful ’bout stickin’ your hand inside the monster’s cage.”

       Chapter Three

      The monster’s cage?

      Smooth move, Sarge. Had he really said that out loud to that woman?