Hostage to Thunder Horse. Elle James

ago, his limousine ambushed by a lone shooter taking him out in a single shot. The news reported his death as an automobile crash. Katya’s inside sources told her otherwise.

      A tear slid from the corner of her eye and dropped to the smooth skin of Maddox’s chest.

      He looked down at her, a frown drawing black brows together. His arm settled around her, his hand resting on her hip, his feet touching hers in the bottom of the bag. “What’s wrong? Are you in any pain?”

      He rubbed his foot along her calf, the warmth helping dispel the chill of her father’s death. She shook her head. “No.”

      “I checked you over for frostbite. You looked okay a few hours ago.”

      She sniffed, disturbed in a very visceral, but not unpleasant way at the thought of Maddox inspecting her body while she lay semi-comatose. As his foot stroked her calf, she stilled her father’s voice in her head, urging her to draw away. She liked the feel of his feet on her legs and especially his hand on her hip. A little too much for having just met the man. “I’m fine. Really.”

      “Then why the tears?”

      “No reason.” She sniffed again. “It’s just…” sniff, “my father was mur—died.” Katya sucked in a shaky breath and blew it out, attempting to pull away from the man’s chest to keep from letting more tears drop onto his naked skin. Hadn’t her father taught her better? Never let the public see you express untidy emotion. He had classified tears as unnecessarily messy. “I’m sorry. Ivan—” She bit down hard on her bottom lip and started again, struggling at lying to this man. “Evanses do not cry.”

      Maddox pulled her back in the crook of his arm. “I’m sorry about your father. I lost mine not too long ago.”

      Katya settled her cheek against his chest again and tilted her head up to study his face.

      “I wish I could have said goodbye.”

      “Me, too.”

      High cheekbones, a rock-hard chin, dark skin and longish black hair gave away his heritage. The man could easily step into the past, hunting buffalo and living off the land. Again, his earthiness reassured her in the confines of the cave. He appeared to be in his element, completely capable of surviving in the harsh environment. Unlike her.

      Having been raised surrounded by bodyguards, servants and political dignitaries, she had always relied on her social skills to survive. In the Badlands of North Dakota, social skills were less in demand and more of a hindrance. If she wanted to survive, she had better do as Maddox Thunder Horse said.

      “How much longer do you think the storm will last?” she asked.

      “Weather in the Badlands has a life of its own.” He tucked the corners of the bag around them more securely. “Rest. At least, it’ll pass time.”

      Although tired, Katya didn’t feel even slightly sleepy. “I guess you are correct. Nothing else to do.” Except feel his lovely body against hers. She never would have thought lying with a man could feel so good. With her nerves on edge, she could be awake for a very long time. Awake and aware.

      He reached out of the bag toward the flashlight.

      Her attention riveted on the light, Katya gulped. “What are you doing?”

      “Conserving the batteries.” He flipped the switch, plunging them into the inky blackness of complete and utter darkness. Katya’s sense of sight consisted of the residual glow of the flashlight, fading as darkness settled around her.

      Her body shook, her teeth chattering. Her fingers dug into his skin, the sensation of falling into an abyss making her hold on for dear life.

      Maddox eased her fingernails out of his hide and laced his fingers with hers. “Don’t tell me…” She could feel his head shaking back and forth over her head. “You’re afraid of the dark.”

      “Sorry. It is a curse, something that has plagued me since I was very small.”

      “I can turn the light back on, but the batteries will eventually fade, and we might have trouble finding our way back out of the cave.”

      “Do not concern yourself about me. I will be fine.” Trying to keep her teeth from chattering, Katya aimed for nonchalance, failing miserably.

      Maddox’s other arm tightened around her and he pulled her snugly against him. “Close your eyes and listen.”

      “What?”

      “Just do as I say.”

      Katya squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the cave’s endless darkness. Now it was just her own darkness she had to overcome.

      “Let me tell you a story my grandfather, James Thunder Horse, used to tell us as children.” Maddox’s voice hummed off the rocks, creating a warmth of spirit no heater or fire could generate. He spoke of a bear lost in the hills, trying to find his way home. Of a sly fox who led the bear farther away from home and a wise old wolf whose ferocity and courage helped the bear discover those virtues in himself. Ultimately, the bear found his way home, depending on the generosity of the wolf, and the assistance of the stars and the sun.

      Katya’s eyes remained closed throughout the story. Instead of relaxing, her body stiffened with increasing desire, each muscle and nerve intensely aware of Maddox, responding to the rhythm of his voice, the vibrations of his chest in a way she could not have imagined in the palace back home. “You have a gift.” A gift possessed by no man she had ever met.

      “It helps when you’re lying naked with a stranger.”

      Katya could feel the strength in his body, the tautness of his muscles beneath her fingertips. She had never been this intimate with a man. Confined as they were in a cave, miles from everyone. Alone.

      Even when she had explored sex with a classmate in the small school she had attended, she had not felt this close, as though their bodies melded into one.

      Her hand slid across the hard planes of his chest, memorizing the texture and shape with her mind, imagining what it would feel like to love a man like this. To let him make love to her.

      The heat in the sleeping bag intensified and her hand slipped lower. Would he be as hard all over? Her hand followed the ridges of his abdomen, sliding over the indentation of his belly button.

      When her fingertips bumped into the steely velvet of his erection, a big hand caught her wrist, holding it in a vise grip.

      “Don’t start something you can’t or won’t finish,” he said, his voice strained.

      “I have never been with a man in a sleeping bag.”

      “Then maybe now’s not the time to start.”

      “I must apologize. I cannot seem to help myself. You do something to me.”

      “You don’t know me, and I don’t know who you really are.”

      “What do you want to know? I am a woman. I am unmarried. I do not have any diseases and I am twenty-seven, old enough to make my own decisions.” Perhaps she said the words to appease his conscience, but more likely the words came out to quiet her father’s voice in her head. Either way, the words were for her more than him, and she recognized them for what they were. Permission to let go.

      “Sex between a man and a woman takes two to decide.”

      He was right. Playing with Maddox Thunder Horse could be like playing with fire. But she wanted the heat he could provide, both outside and in.

      Since her mother’s death when she was only sixteen, she had been the perfect daughter to her father, playing hostess to foreign diplomats, always doing and saying the right things, never stepping outside the bounds of etiquette. “For once in my life I want to make a decision for myself. For me alone. Not for my father. Not for the people around me.” She twisted her fingers around to lace them with his. “I know what I want.” Then another thought sobered her. “Do you not find me attractive?”