Let Me In. Donna Kauffman

right away, despite needing caffeine like a bleeding person needed a transfusion. If she had any hope of figuring things out enough to get them both through the next couple of days without unwanted visitors and the very unwanted consequences that would follow, she needed to be as alert as possible at all times.

      And yet she continued to watch him for a few more moments, turning things over, sorting, analyzing. Hating. She still had some work to do on the detached and unemotional thing. Had he been telling the truth about CJ? Or was that just a hallucinatory effect of the drug? Except where in the hell would that have come from? And if this wasn’t about CJ, what else on earth could bring him, literally, to her doorstep, or anywhere even remotely close?

      He’d seemed somewhat certain when he’d told her that much, but then he’d also commented on things like how incredible she would taste, and how long he’d wanted to do just that. “Come on,” she demanded angrily, tightening her arms even further as she finally shoved away from the door, hating how her body continued to respond so readily to even the mere thought of his garbled ramblings. “Wake up, dammit. Tell me the things I need to know so I can keep us both breathing. Because when it’s all over, I really want the satisfaction of kicking your ass myself.”

      She turned toward the kitchen and the freshly brewed transfusion that awaited.

      “I wouldn’t blame you.”

      She turned back around to find him blinking his eyes open, but making no effort to move. Which was a good thing, since a lot of his movable parts really shouldn’t be for the time being. “For?”

      It took him a moment, during which he blinked a few more times, apparently trying to clear the mental haze, then turned his head fractionally, almost experimentally, in her direction. “Kicking my ass,” he said, sounding more groggy than alert. “Least I deserve.”

      She stepped into the room, but didn’t go near the side of the bed. This was the most alert he’d sounded since he’d conked out after dropping the CJ bomb on her. She had no idea how long he might have been awake, or what was going through his mind. Or, for that matter, what state his mind was in. Which was why she maintained a safe distance.

      In the past, they’d always been on the same side, with the trust that naturally comes from playing on the same team. Now it was different. Completely different. Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere. For him to be out here, attacked, drugged, and presently in the bed of a former agent who’d buried her previous life in favor of a brand-spanking completely anonymous new one—one which only he’d known about…yes, something must have gone horribly wrong. Better damn well have.

      “I’ll agree with that,” she replied at length. She drew close enough to see his eyes, which looked clear, or clearer, anyway. Still, she stayed on his weaker side, where he’d sustained most of his injuries. If he’d made it to her door, from God knew where, in the condition he was in, there was no telling what he was still capable of. Or what, in his delirium, he might think he needed to do.

      You would taste so damn incredible, do you know that? Do you know how badly I’ve wanted to know that?

      She blinked away the memory. Of his face turning toward her, pressing into her breast, as she hauled his semi-lucid self onto her bed. She hadn’t been intentionally burying his face in her chest, it had been happenstance, as she’d tried to minimize any further damage to his very damaged self.

      His eyes had been glassy, overly bright, and his smile far too sexy, as he’d sprawled on his back in her bed, keeping her pinned on top of him with a fist of her shirt in his hand. He’d used it as leverage, but hadn’t released it—or her—even when he didn’t need leverage any longer. She’d been an inch from his face, had clearly seen the unfocused look in his eyes…and yet her skin had gone all tingly, her nipples hard as rocks, and the muscles between her thighs tight to the point of aching.

      She’d levered herself off of him immediately, or as immediately as she could, while simultaneously disengaging his fisted hold on her shirt and trying not to hurt him any further. It was ridiculous, letting herself get jumpy over a guy who was clearly half out of his mind and saying things he’d never remember, much less ever mean.

      He wasn’t glassy-eyed now, despite still sounding a bit groggy. He seemed to know where he was, and who she was. Which would hopefully preclude his ever discussing any fantasy that involved taste tests of any kind. If he did remember. Which she hoped he didn’t.

      “How long have I been out?”

      Her gaze darted from his mouth back to his eyes. “You arrived in a heap on my foyer floor approximately thirteen hours ago. That was around three in the morning, which makes it almost four o’clock now.” She stepped closer. “Your turn. How long have you been watching my cabin?” Watching me.

      He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them, blinked twice, then slowly shifted his head until his gaze found hers. “What day is it?”

      “Tuesday. Twentieth of May.”

      She saw his jaw tighten, and his throat work. “Ten days, then.”

      He was angry, upset, she assumed with himself. Get in line, she wanted to tell him. “And how many of those did you spend drugged, unconscious, and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey?” She’d asked him before, but, as a gauge, she wanted to see how accurate his assessment had been when he’d been mostly out of it.

      His gaze narrowed on hers then, but he didn’t otherwise react. “I was tranq-darted approximately sixty hours ago.” He cleared his throat again, trying to get the rest of the gravel out.

      She could have offered him more water, and she would, but now that he was more awake and alert, she wasn’t approaching him that closely. Yet. She was close enough to see the frustration in his eyes as clearly as she could hear it in his voice. A man like Derek Cole was rarely, if ever, caught with his guard down. It made her wonder how they’d found him. And who the hell “they” were. At least his assessment of the length of time that had passed while still fighting the effects of the drugs had been spot on, which was good. She hoped his other training had been working subconsciously as well. “Of that time, how long did whoever tranq’d you have you?”

      “Can’t be sure. But not very long. If they’d had time, they’d have kept me clearheaded and worked me that way. Tortured what they needed out of me, make sure it was the truth.”

      “Looks like they did a pretty good number on you anyway. Maybe you weren’t all that responsive, even drugged.”

      “I think the method they used and the act itself was as much a message being delivered as whatever they got out of me, or really wanted to know.”

      “I’m guessing you didn’t escape as, given your condition and being bound, you wouldn’t have been that hard to retrieve. So, why do you think they left you alive, but trussed up?”

      He didn’t answer that. Instead, he asked, “Have you been outside? Tracked?”

      She shook her head. “You haven’t exactly been stable. It took me awhile to assess your injuries, get you out of sight. I’m still not sure I can really assess how bad off you are.”

      He turned his head very slowly, just enough to take in the room around him. “Yours?”

      She wanted to ask him if he was being disingenuous. He’d mentioned being here. Perhaps he hadn’t been inside the cabin itself, which made her feel slightly better, both from a security position—though that was clearly an illusion—and, pride forced her to admit, from a personal one of having had someone in her home and not detected it. “I only have one. Don’t get used to it.”

      His gaze tracked back to hers, but again he remained enigmatically silent. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure about anything.

      “I found the dart mark on the back of your left shoulder. Pressure syringe marks on your neck.”

      “Plural?”

      “Yes.”

      He just grunted at that. “Explains