Captive At Her Enemy's Command. Heidi Rice
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you pass out when it happened?” he asked, his expression set in grim lines.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not an idiot,” she managed round the clump of cotton wool that seemed to be clogging her tonsils. “If I thought I had a concussion, I would have said something.”
One eyebrow cocked. “You should have said something, period. If you didn’t look so done in right now, I would be forced to revise my rule on spanking women.”
To her horror, even in the depths of her exhaustion a flare of heat crossed her buttocks. She stiffened and tugged her elbow out of his grasp.
What was wrong with her? How could she get some weird, prurient thrill out of being threatened with a spanking like an unruly kid?
“Then I guess I’d be forced to revise my rule on chopping off men’s arms,” she managed at last. But the comeback wasn’t one of her best, as hopelessness began to engulf her. Not only was she at Caine’s mercy, for tonight at least, she also appeared to be at the mercy of the wayward libido she thought she’d tamed five years ago.
She clasped her arms around her waist, rubbing the goose bumps which had risen on her flesh despite the warm evening air.
He took a bottle of water out of the glove box and dampened a wad of tissues. Tucking a finger under her chin, he lifted her face to hold the cold compress to the bump on her forehead.
Grasping her wrist, he lifted her hand to replace his. “Keep it pressed to the wound,” he said. The shuttered look he sent her made the churning in her stomach worse. Being pitied was hardly an improvement on being patronized.
“My launch is docked at the Marina Grande,” he said, mentioning Sorrento’s main port. “I’ll call ahead and get a doctor to meet us there, so they can check out your head before we leave Sorrento.”
“That’s overkill. It’s only a graze.” And she hadn’t actually agreed to go to Capri with him. But the thought of having that argument again felt overwhelming—seeing as she could hardly string a coherent sentence together.
He sent her a quelling look and she knew she wasn’t going to win this argument either. “How did it happen?” he asked.
“The battle for my pack got a little out of hand.”
Temper flashed in his eyes, disconcerting her, because it didn’t appear to be aimed at her. For once. “How many of them were there?”
“Two, but they were just teenagers. I don’t think they meant to hurt me.”
“So what? They did,” he said. “I want a description. I’ll file a report with the local cops and brief my team on Capri. Those little bastards need to be caught and punished.”
There he went, assuming she was going to Capri with him again... But her objections remained locked in her throat, beaten into submission by the low fury in his tone and the news he was going to get his men to help find her muggers. The wobbly sensation it caused in her tummy had to be exhaustion.
She didn’t want an avenging angel any more than she wanted a white knight. And especially not one like Jared Caine whose control-freak tendencies were only slightly less disturbing than his ability to make her insides vibrate as if she were plugged into an electric socket.
He shifted into gear and pulled back onto the road. The sun was setting, adding a vivid glow to the stunning landscape as they approached Sorrento. Colorful terracotta houses perched precariously over the vivid blue of the Mediterranean, punctuated by orange groves and trellises of grape vines. A train decorated with colorful graffiti rattled past on the hillside above them.
After calling his PA to arrange a doctor to meet them at the port, and coaxing a surprisingly detailed description of Pinky and Perky out of Katie, Caine contacted the local police force on speaker phone to report the crime. She let her mind drift as she listened to him talk to the dispatcher in Italian, the lyrical language making his deep voice sound even more compelling. She’d only been in Italy a month, and her Italian was still patchy, but his accent sounded perfect. Why was she not surprised? Was there nothing the man didn’t excel at?
The dying sunlight cast the angles of Caine’s face into sharp relief. No wonder she’d had such a crush on him as a nineteen-year-old—the man was scarily gorgeous with a confidence most women would find irresistible. But not her, she told herself, determined to believe it.
He finished the call as they entered the city’s narrow streets, and she forced herself to make one last-ditch attempt to salvage her pride and self-respect, not to mention her sanity. Because four days on Capri with him was liable to threaten all three.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just lend me some money and let me stay here?” she asked. “I really don’t need a keeper. Whatever Dario thinks.”
He took his sunglasses off as the twilight descended and sent her a level look. “Not gonna happen, so give it up,” he said with a determination that dashed her last hope. “And, just for the record, Dario’s not the only one who thinks you need a keeper.”
She huffed out a breath. She should have been upset by the high-handed comment. But she was now officially too tired and too miserable to care. Her head was throbbing, her feet hurt and her nose was beginning to sting from what felt like third-degree sunburn. And then there was the blasted hum to consider, which was making her giddy.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bully?” she muttered.
“Frequently,” he said, then a strange thing happened. The sensual line of his lips lifted on one side drawing her attention to the scar on his top lip. She might have missed the movement, because it was there one second and gone the next. But even that tiny flicker—the infinitesimal crack in the controlled facade—had a devastating effect on her equilibrium as the hum plunged.
Her face heated, the atmosphere suddenly too close, too intimate, despite the salty breeze as they took the road down to Marina Grande.
Lights glittered on the cliff top as Sorrento woke up for the night, the Palladian splendor of the Hotel Excelsior Vittoria beaming down on the harbor like a reigning queen. But the view wasn’t anywhere near as breathtaking as the barest hint of a smile on Jared Caine’s lips.
Had she ever seen him smile before? She couldn’t have. Because that crooked half-smile—rare and rusty—was a secret weapon in the man’s arsenal she had been unaware of. As if he didn’t already have enough weapons at his disposable.
“Just so you know, I make a terrible house guest,” she added, not happy that he’d managed to get the upper hand so easily. “I always leave the top off the toothpaste and I never put anything away. You’re going to hate having me there.”
“Our villa has two bathrooms,” he replied as he took a left past the main port at the bottom of the cliff road. “And staff to clean up after you. I’ll manage.”
Our villa? So they were going to be sharing a villa.
The hum became a deep primal buzz.
They drove past the concrete dock where passengers were boarding the evening ferry to Ischia. He slowed the car to a crawl to inch past a couple of waterfront restaurants already filled with tourists watching the last of the sunset. The pungent scent of raw fish and garlic wafted past as they approached rows of fishing boats, leisure dinghies and small yachts bobbing on the water. The car edged to a stop at the very end of the waterfront where a private dock protruded out into the bay. A huge motor launch stood at the end of the floating wooden platform, the stainless-steel stanchions gleaming red in the fading sunlight.
He braked and got out of the car. Reaching into the back, he lifted out her art box and hefted it under his arm. The sunset shone on his onyx hair as he came round to open her door. “How are the feet?” he asked. “Do you need me to carry you on board?”
“No. My feet are fine.” Give or take a million and one blisters.
She