Raintree. Linda Winstead Jones

That was close enough to home for her. For now, she just wanted to sleep in the bed she was accustomed to.

      Without warning, the door opened and he stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, as vital as if the night hadn’t been long and traumatic. He’d showered, too; his longish black hair, still damp, was brushed straight back to reveal every strong, faintly exotic line of his face. He’d shaved, too; his face had that freshly scraped look.

      He was wearing a pair of very soft-looking pajama pants…and nothing else. Not even a smile.

      His keen eyes searched her face, noting the white look of utter exhaustion. “We’ll talk in the morning. I doubt you could form a coherent sentence right now. Come on, I’ll show you where your room is.”

      She shrank back, and he looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Your room,” he emphasized. “Not mine. I didn’t make that a command, but I will if necessary. I don’t think you’d be comfortable sleeping in the bathroom.”

      She was awake enough to retort, “You’ll have to make it a command, otherwise I can’t leave the bathroom, anyway.”

      She had decided that his command not to leave the bathroom had been meant to short-circuit her own will, and by his flash of irritation, she saw she’d been right.

      “Come with me,” he said curtly, a command that released her from the bathroom but sentenced her to follow him like a duckling.

      He led her to a spacious bedroom with seven-foot windows that revealed the sparkling neon colors of Reno. “The private bath is through there,” he said, indicating a door. “You’re safe. I won’t bother you. I won’t hurt you. Don’t leave this room.” With that, he closed the door behind him and left her standing in the dimly lit bedroom.

      He would remember to tack on that last sentence, damn him—not that she felt capable of making a run for it. Right now her capability was limited to climbing into the king-size bed, still wearing the oversize robe. She curled under the sheet and duvet, but still felt too exposed, so she pulled the sheet over her head and slept.

      Chapter Ten

       Monday

      “Are you okay?”

      Lorna woke, as always, to a lingering sense of dread and fear. It wasn’t the words that alarmed her, though, since she immediately recognized the voice. They were, however, far from welcome. Regardless of where she was, the dread was always there, within her, so much a part of her that it was as if it had been beaten into her very bones.

      She couldn’t see him, because the sheet was still over her head. She seldom moved in her sleep, so she was still in such a tight curl that the oversize robe hadn’t been dislodged or even come untied.

      “Are you okay?” he repeated, more insistently.

      “Peachy keen,” she growled, wishing he would just go away again.

      “You were making a noise.”

      “I was snoring,” she said flatly, keeping a tight grip on the sheet in case he tried to pull it down—like she could stop him if he really wanted to. She had learned the futility of that in the humiliating struggle last night.

      He snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “How do you like your coffee?”

      “I don’t. I’m a tea drinker.”

      Silence greeted that for a moment; then he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. How do you drink your tea?”

      “With friends.”

      She heard what sounded remarkably like a growl, then the bedroom door closed with more force than necessary. Had she sounded ungrateful? Good! After everything he’d done, if he thought the offer of coffee or tea would make up for it, he was so far off base he wasn’t even in the ballpark.

      Truth to tell, she wasn’t much of a tea drinker, either. For most of her life she’d been able to afford only what was free, which meant she drank a lot of water. In the last few years she’d had the occasional cup of coffee or hot tea, to warm up in very cold weather, but she didn’t really care for either of them.

      She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to have that talk he seemed bent on, though what he thought they had to talk about, she couldn’t imagine. He’d treated her horribly last night, and though he’d evidently realized he was wrong, he didn’t seem inclined to go out of his way to make amends. He hadn’t, for instance, taken her home last night. He’d imprisoned her in this room. He hadn’t even fed the prisoner!

      The empty ache in her stomach told her that she had to get out of bed if she wanted food. Getting out of bed didn’t guarantee she would get fed, of course, but staying in bed certainly guaranteed she wouldn’t. Reluctantly, she flipped the sheet back, and the first thing she saw was Dante Raintree, standing just inside the door. The bully hadn’t left at all; he’d just pretended to.

      He lifted one eyebrow in a silent, sardonic question.

      Annoyed, she narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s inhuman.”

      “What is?”

      “Lifting just one eyebrow. Real people can’t do that. Just demons.”

      “I can do it.”

      “Which proves my point.”

      He grinned—which annoyed her even more, because she didn’t want to amuse him. “If you want to get up, this demon has washed your clothes—”

      “What you didn’t shred,” she interjected sourly, to hide her alarm. Had he emptied her pockets first? She didn’t ask, because if he hadn’t, maybe her money and license were still there.

      “—and loaned you one of his demon shirts. You’ll probably have to throw your pants away, because the stains won’t come out, but at least they’re clean. They’ll do for now. Your choices for breakfast are cereal and fruit, or a bagel and cream cheese. When you get dressed, come to the kitchen. We’ll eat in there.” He left then—really left, because she watched him go.

      He was assuming she would share a meal with him. Unfortunately, he was right. She was starving, and if the only way she could get some food was to sit anywhere in his vicinity, then she would sit there. One of the first lessons she’d learned about life was that emotions didn’t carry much weight when survival sat on the other end of the scale.

      Slowly she sat up, feeling aches and twinges in every muscle. Her newly washed, stained-beyond-redemption pants lay across the foot of the bed, as well as her underwear and a white shirt made out of some limp, slinky material. She grabbed for the pants and dug her hand into each pocket, and her heart sank. Not only was her money gone, but so was her license. He either had them, or they had fallen out in the wash, which meant she had to find the laundry room in this place and search the washer and dryer. Maybe he had someone working for him who did the laundry; maybe that person had taken her money and ID.

      She got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom. After taking care of her most urgent business, she looked in the drawers of the vanity, hoping he was a good host—even if he was a lousy person—and had stocked the bathroom with emergency supplies. She desperately needed a toothbrush.

      He was a good host. She found everything she needed: a supply of toothbrushes still in their sealed plastic cases, toothpaste, mouthwash, the same scented lotion she’d used the night before, a small sewing kit, even new hairbrushes and disposable razors.

      The toothbrush manufacturer had evidently not intended for anyone without a knife or scissors to be able to use their product. After struggling to tear the plastic case apart, first with her fingers and then with her teeth, she got the tiny pair of scissors from the sewing kit and laboriously stabbed, sawed and hacked until she had freed the incarcerated toothbrush. She regarded the scissors thoughtfully, then laid them on the vanity top. They were too small to be of much use, but…

      After brushing her