Rachel
I WOKE UP with my face pressed into a hard chest, and for a moment, I smiled and curled myself into the warm body as much as possible. My smile quickly faded when I took a deep breath in and didn’t catch a hint of cinnamon or Kash’s cologne. What I smelled was a dirty mattress below us, and the body wash I’d been using my first week and a half here.
Trent.
Trying not to wake him, I slowly began uncurling my aching body to move away from him—but one of my knees was sandwiched between his legs, and the movement had his arm tightening around me and a low grunt bubbling up from his chest. Giving up my efforts, I failed at keeping my focus off every part of my body that was hurting. Including my full bladder and empty stomach, the entire front side of my body felt like I’d been run over.
“Go back to sleep,” his deep voice rumbled.
“I don’t know if I can. I hurt all over, and now that I’m awake, it’s all I can think about.”
Trent began pushing me away from his body, and I hissed out a curse when his hand touched my shoulder. Withdrawing his hand, he grunted as he rolled away from me, and suddenly his dark eyes came into view above mine. Even without light, I could see the worry embedded in his features.
“Is it that bad?” he asked and moved so he was on his knees, his hands planted on either side of my body.
“I’m fine, just sore. Are you okay?”
“Just?” he asked, his tone clearly disbelieving. Before I could respond, he brought his hand up to my cheek and I tried to hold back a whimper when my face automatically tightened from the pain. “This is going to hurt, but let me make sure you didn’t shatter any of the bones in your face. I can see the bruises even though it’s dark.”
His hand pressed down hard against my cheek, sweeping back and forth as he made his way to my nose and chin. To keep myself from crying out in pain I had clenched my jaw so hard that by the time he was finished I was sure it would break if I tried to unlock it.
“Did you fall on your right side, or did you just turn your head before you hit?” he asked and ran his thumb lightly just under the cheekbone as he waited for my response.
“I turned my head, I fell flat.”
“Okay, try not to move,” he mumbled and sat back on his knees so he could press his hands to the front of my shoulders, across my collarbone and back again, and down my arms. I brought my hands up to his wrists to stop him when I finally noticed his body.
“Are you okay? You’re shaking.”
“Fine,” he said on a shallow breath.
“Trent—”
“I’m fine, please just let me make sure you’re okay.”
With a nod, I released his wrists and let my arms drop to my sides. I tortured my bottom lip as he felt along the bones that stuck out, and stopped breathing for long seconds when his hands hit my hip bones, and then worked their way down my legs to my knees and ankles. The image of him in the shower a couple nights before was dancing through my mind as his hands started making their journey back up.
When my chest began rising and falling quickly, he grimaced and whispered, “I’m sorry if this is hurting you. I’ll be done soon.”
That wasn’t what was making my breathing ragged and, ultimately, causing me even more pain. It was the internal battle I was having with the sane Rachel, and the genuinely confused Rachel.
Sane Rachel was screaming Kash’s name at the top of her lungs in order to keep him forefront in her mind. She was going over wedding details and imagining what their wedding would be like once she got out. She was picturing her future with Kash and the family they would have. The other Rachel was trying not to moan over the way Trent’s large hands felt running over her body. She was replaying that night when he was in the shower, and imagining walking in there and taking over for him. She was fighting to break free from Sane Rachel so she could move Trent’s hands over other parts of her body that were aching to be touched.
My body was so on fire I could hardly feel the pain anymore.
“I don’t feel anything wrong, you’re just bruised.”
I huffed loudly when his hands suddenly disappeared from my body. My eyes shot open to see him kneeling over me; his labored breathing matched my own, and there was a look in his eyes that I’d seen plenty of times before. Only before, I hadn’t comprehended what I was seeing. There was heat, and there was passion—and it was scaring the shit out of me.
“We can’t stay in here, Rachel. We have no food, no water . . . there’s no bathroom, and everything I have that can protect us is in my room.”
“I know.”
His eyes searched my face before he sat back and ran a hand through his thick hair. “Leaving this room could be a suicide mission. If we get out of here without anyone seeing us, it won’t be long before they find out. We have to make it to my room, get what we can, and try to escape.”
I knew he was right, but despite all my fantasies of getting out of that place, I had the sudden urge to never try to leave. I didn’t want to know what faced us outside those walls. “I thought you said it would be impossible to escape.”
“It still might be. There’s more ammo and guns in my room, but we just have to hope what I still have in here is enough to get us there,” he said grimly and pulled out his gun, released the magazine, and stared at it for a second before replacing it and setting his gun aside. “I only have four bullets left.”
“You’re thinking . . . that . . . we, uh . . .” I trailed off when I realized his breathing had suddenly spiked. Before I could bring it up, he spoke.
“We’ll have to fight our way out, I have no doubt of that. They’ll either wait us out in here, or they’ll eventually get in. So, Rachel, if you still want to get out of here, then this is what we have to do. I know I gave you an alternate plan yesterday, but after last night, it’s not an option anymore.”
I wanted to get out of here, needed to get out of here. But the risk was proving to be too great; someone was going to get hurt. “I can’t let you get hurt because of me.”
“And I can’t let you die because of me. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t be in this position.”
“But, Trent—”
“I’ll take whatever’s coming for me gladly. I should have never stolen you, and I hope you’ll find it in you to forgive me one day. Rachel, meeting you changed my life.”
Tears were sliding down my cheeks, and when he brought a hand up to the uninjured side of my face to wipe them away, I held his hand to me and begged, “Please don’t let anything happen to you.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get you out of here alive,” he promised, and suddenly his lips were on mine.
Trent
A SURPRISED NOISE SOUNDED in the back of Rachel’s throat, and I pulled back, breaking the kiss almost as soon as it’d started.
“We need to move,” I said before she could protest what I’d just done. “And we need to move fast.”
Her blue eyes found mine, and I hated that I hadn’t gotten enough time to look at them like this. Even wet with tears, they were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. “All right, I’m ready.”
Using my good arm, I forced myself off the mattress and made my way to the door. Moving around the chairs, I put an ear against the metal and held my breath, listening for any sounds until my lungs protested the lack of oxygen. Stepping back, I removed one of the chairs and bit back a curse from the pain that kept shooting through my arm as I went back to the door to listen again. There wasn’t any noise, but that didn’t mean much. The door was solid metal, and they could be waiting.
“Come here, Rachel.”
Turning around, I watched her struggle to stand and flinched when she gasped in pain.
“Are you sure you’re okay to do this?”