Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel #2)(14)

“Cuff her, Chris,” Eric said, not sounding very happy at all.

The god…er, man named Chris sighed unhappily. With a wave of his hand he gestured for her to stand up and come to him. Taking another bite of chocolate for strength, she shook her head.

“Come on, sweetheart, make it easy on everyone,” he said in a deep timber voice that she could have happily listened to all day. “The faster you come out of there the faster I can get some beauty sleep.” Did the man not own a mirror? Not that he was beautiful, but he was handsome in a very sexy bad boy kind of way. If he got any hotter she was afraid she’d be limited to monosyllable words and grunts.

Again she shook her head and this time when she tried scooting back her chair banged against the tiled wall.

There really was nowhere to go, but that didn’t mean she had to make this easy on them. She was a prisoner and it was a prisoner’s job to escape or make their captors’ lives a living hell so they had no choice but to release them, at least she thought she heard that somewhere. Right now it sounded like good advice so she was going with it.

His smile deepened as he eyed her. “Oh, I bet I can find a way to get you out of there,” he murmured. Before Isabella could ask what he had planed he reached over and snatched the candy bar right out of her hand.

Seriously the man took her chocolate! His hand touched hers as it retreated and she was mentally promising herself kickboxing lessons so she could stop the next bastard that did that when something stung her.

She was vaguely aware of his curse when she looked down and raised her shirt yanking the waist of her cargo pants down to look at the area that hurt. She expected to find a bee or a spider or something, but there was nothing.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Her once light brown birthmark was now bright red. She ran the pad of her forefinger over it and moved to do it again when a large tan hand pushed her hand aside.

She was a bit surprised to find Chris kneeling in front of her, staring intently at her little crescent moon and cross birthmark. Well, at least they looked like a crescent moon and cross to her. The easy going smile he gave her a minute ago was completely gone and replaced by a look of deep concentration as he ran the tip of his finger over her mark.

A startled gasp escaped her as intense green eyes met hers. His hand dropped away from her and he stood abruptly, never taking his eyes off her. It was almost as if he was afraid she would disappear if he looked away for even a second. A little odd, but nothing compared to the oddities of the last twentyfour hours.

He gestured with the candy bar, her candy bar, for her to stand up. Again she shook her head. He glared at her as he took a huge bite out of her candy bar. Oh, when she got those kickboxing lessons she was so coming after him!

“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard-“

“Thanks,” a very beautiful woman with gorgeous silky black hair and a golden tan to die for said as she snaked a hand around Chris and stole the candy bar out of his hand. Isabella’s jaw dropped as the woman took a bite of the candy bar and closed her eyes in utter rapture, but that’s not what shocked her. No, not even close. The woman was only wearing a sheet.

Her eyes darted from the woman who looked like she just came from a marathon of sex to Chris, who was only wearing jeans, unbuttoned jeans at that. The first time she saw him he was only wearing boxers, probably just something he threw on after doing the mattress mambo with this woman. The way the woman took her candy bar from him indicated they had a close personal connection.

Yeah, they were definitely lovers.

She thought over her reaction to this man, one she’d never had for another man and she had her answer, finally. They drugged her food with some kind of hallucinogen laced with an aphrodisiac. They were probably hoping to use sex to get her program out of her.

Not in this lifetime.

Well, she may have considered, maybe using sex with this man as a means of escape. Not to see if she would enjoy it of course, that would have been a plus, but after seeing the priests she kind of hoped this was a celibate cult. She was going to use his lack of sex to her advantage and try to get him to help her escape. Well, she could trash that plan since he was obviously getting some from the Native American beauty behind him, who was nibbling the candy bar as if she was savoring it for eternity.

A horrifying thought occurred to her. What if this was the opposite of a celibate cult. What if this was like one of those orgy cults she heard they had in the seventies and they drugged her expecting her to sleep with everyone, including women?

Oh, heck no! She so did not swing that way! Just because she couldn’t get off with a guy didn’t mean she was willing to accept a substitute.

Chris sighed heavily. “I thought you were supposed to stay upstairs, Madison.”

The woman snorted and held up the last inch of candy bar. “Chocolate,” she said simply as if that explained everything. “Ephraim left to get me some, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”

“Now you have it, so go!” Chris snapped.

“I want to help,” Madison said, pouting.

“No, just go. I’ll handle this.”

“But, what if-“

“No!”

The woman’s lower lip started to tremble.

Chris groaned while Isabella slowly slid to the right, trying to get as far away from the odd couple as the large bathroom would allow.

“I just wanted to meet her,” Madison said softly.