Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(30)

There might not have been a choice in bringing her here, but he had a choice when it came to whether he was going to lose control around her. He would stand firm. He would not let her get under his skin.





Ten




The shower felt better-than-sex-good. She winced beneath the spray, certain it was no coincidence that she had sex on the brain. Probably had something to do with the living and breathing female fantasy one room over. Well, minus the whole escaped felon thing. That didn’t figure into most fantasies. At least not hers. Dangerous men that held her against her will were not the fodder of dreams.

Even so, she could imagine all the inappropriate things Holly would say about Reid if she clapped eyes on him. I’d like to lick his lollipop. He could tie me up any time. If Holly were here, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her, and she doubted if Holly would mind. The two of them would be going at it like beasts.

Jealousy flared inside Grace. God. She was mental. Was she actually jealous of a fictitious scenario her overactive imagination had cooked up?

She rested her forehead against the wall of the shower. Her libido had turned into a full-fledged chorus in her head.

The water pounded over her battered and sore muscles. The temperature was lukewarm, but she didn’t care. Pushing the clamoring chorus of her libido to the back of her mind, she closed the door on them.

She shampooed with a generic shampoo that smelled decidedly unfloral. Definitely a brand for men, but she didn’t care about that either. She was blessedly clean, and after this she would sleep on a bed and not the steel floor of a van.

She dropped her head and moaned as the sudsy water sluiced down her spine. It was a struggle to hurry through her shower. She just wanted to stay under the water forever, but she knew twenty minutes would fly by, and the last thing she wanted to do was take him up on his threat.

Her face burned at the prospect of him walking in on her. She’d seen him naked. God. That image of him was singed to her eyeballs. She wasn’t experienced enough to say with one hundred percent conviction, but Reid was endowed. Well endowed. God. Why was she even noticing that? It had to be the stress talking. Or shock. Or trauma.

They’d shared a bed together. He’d touched her intimately. She’d been stripped down to her underwear, but there had always been darkness between them. He hadn’t seen her naked and she intended to keep it that way.

Reluctantly, she shut off the water and wrung out her hair, flipping the heavy rope over her shoulder. Stepping from the small shower, she wrapped her body in a towel and faced herself in the mirror. She was pale underneath her olive complexion, the bruise on her cheek a bluish-yellow tinge that only made her eyes look bigger, darker, like some wounded animal staring fearfully out at the world. No one would probably even recognize her if she were to turn up looking this way.

She was a far cry from the well-packaged First Daughter paraded about the country—not that she was any Grace Kelly by any stretch of the imagination. No, not even on her best day. There’d been enough skits on Saturday Night Live featuring her awkwardness for her to know precisely how she was perceived.

But this woman staring back at her didn’t possess even a fraction of her usual polish. She was a hot mess. Gone was the tightly contained hair. She normally wore it pulled up or blown out into smooth sleekness. Also missing was the power suit and heels that her stylist insisted slimmed her down, giving her body length and her girlish features an aura of maturity. Whatever the hell that meant.

She angled her face from side to side, studying herself. She could use some makeup. She looked defenseless without the armor of cosmetics. Her fear and uncertainty were too readily visible.

She sucked in a deep breath and schooled her features, attempting to deaden her face. To not look so nervous. Her father lived by that mantra. Never let them see you sweat. No matter what he confronted, he never showed fear. The only emotion that leaked out of the man was carefully planned and orchestrated. He expected the same level of control from her. He drilled that into her often enough, even if nine times out of ten she came up short and disappointed him.

Sometimes it baffled her why her father didn’t simply let her go live her life somewhere away from the spotlight. She could come around during the holidays and on important occasions. He’d refused her request to attend graduate school, claiming he needed her on his “team” even if she wasn’t a sparkling First Daughter. Her mother brought the sparkle. She was beautiful, if not the cleverest. She looked good on his arm. Grace simply completed the picture of family man.

Her father insisted the excitement of a wedding would give his campaign additional life. He imagined that the buzz could escalate along the lines of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding mania. He was delusional.

Shaking her head, she wished she had just given her father a flat out no instead of ditching her detail and making a run for it. She didn’t have to do what he said. In the past it was just easier to give in rather than fight him. She was an adult. Everything she was going through now was decidedly harder than a confrontation. Facing down her father after all of this would be easy enough.

Another thought trickled in, clouding her features as she gazed at her reflection. She wondered if he was disappointed in her now. If he blamed her for this. He must know she had slipped her Secret Service detail by now. Those guys would not hesitate to reveal the truth. They never wanted to be assigned to her. She’d picked up on that vibe often enough. They thought it was a joke. A powder puff detail. They would be looking to protect their own butts. Not that the truth would save them. They were probably fired anyway for letting her slip out undetected.