Kitabı oku: «When You Dare»
Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Lori Foster
“Foster writes smart, sexy, engaging characters.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan
“Known for her funny, sexy writing”
—Booklist
“Foster’s latest is pure entertainment and a joy to read.”
—RT Book Reviews on Back in Black
“Foster outwrites most of her peers.”
—Library Journal
“Intense, edgy and hot. Lori Foster delivers everything
you’re looking for in a romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann
Krentz on Hard to Handle
“Lori Foster delivers the goods.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Tension, temptation, hot action, and hotter romance—
Lori Foster has it all! Hard to Handle is a knockout!”
—New York Times bestselling author
Elizabeth Lowell
When You
Dare
Lori Foster
MILLS & BOON
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Dear Readers,
I’ve launched into a new series of über-Alpha hunks. The men are similar to private mercenaries, so they’re big, capable, a little dangerous and oh-so-sexy. When it comes to rescuing the innocent, they do what has to be done, however it has to be done. I like to call them my men who “walk the edge of honour.”
Stay tuned for the next two books in the series, Trace of Fever and Savour the Danger, coming soon.
To see more about the books, visit my website at www.LoriFoster.com. And feel free to chat with me on my Facebook fanpage: www.facebook.com/pages/LoriFoster/233405457965.
I’m very excited about this new series, and I hope you will be, too!
To Shana Schwer,
Thank you for lending me your fur babies, Sargie and Tai, to be featured as the Labs in the book. Your girls are truly beautiful, and I love their unique personalities.
I hope I did them justice!
Pet owners are truly wonderful people!
Lori
CHAPTER ONE
MIDNIGHT CAME AND went with only the quiet buzz of meager traffic along the beach. An occasional horn blew or tires squealed. Two people exited a bar nearby, laughing too loud before piling into an SUV and steering drunkenly onto the road.
In the shadows of a weed-ridden parking lot at the back of the rundown motel, no one noticed them. Avoiding the glow of the full yellow moon, they stood behind the south wall beneath a broken security lamp.
A lamp Dare Macintosh had broken.
Ocean breezes stirred the air and heightened his senses. While scanning the area and repeatedly peering at the black van he’d rented when first arriving in San Diego, Dare waited. His friend, Trace Rivers, embraced his younger sister with choking emotion.
It had been a long two days filled with frantic preparation, little sleep, less food and loads of pumping adrenaline: the conditions in which Dare operated best.
With the job done, and then some, he desperately wanted something to eat and a place to sleep. Even more than that, he wanted to check on the skinny, abused woman still out cold in the backseat of the van.
“Tell me,” Trace said, not to Alani, whom he kept crushed close, but to Dare.
After again glancing at the van, Dare nodded. He’d found Alani and returned her to Trace as he’d sworn to, but neither man knew yet what she had suffered.
“She was in Tijuana, as you said. Locked in a trailer with some other women in an isolated area.”
“Heavily guarded?”
“Yes.”
Trace drew a strained breath, and uttered what they both had known: “Human traffickers.”
Dare nodded. “Not much in the way of food or drinks. Dirty, airless with the windows screwed shut. They had the women …” He hesitated, knowing how Trace would take it, but he needed to know. “They were leashed, chained to grommets in the floor, with just enough chain to reach a toilet. No sink.”
“Fuckers.” Overcome with rage, Trace knotted his hand in his sister’s hair and squeezed her tighter, protectively.
She didn’t complain.
Trace never used coarse language in front of his sister, which meant he was on the ragged edge, barely aware of what he said or did. Dare looked away from them, understanding the lack of control.
He focused on the rented van. “I had to go through several lookouts and a few armed guards to get her out of there.”
“Quietly.” Trace made it a statement, not a question.
“There wasn’t much fuss.” Dare always worked in efficient silence; an alarm would have brought more armed guards, possibly too many for him to combat. As much as he wanted to kill them all, he hadn’t.
Only those most responsible.
By the time the empty trailer was discovered, Dare was already heading over the border into San Diego—where Trace waited. Over the years he’d built up alliances everywhere, and sometimes worked with the coyotes who made a living taking people back and forth over the border.
Thanks to those contacts, even with the extra cargo slumped in his backseat, no one had stopped him as he went through the border checkpoint. The van had been given only a cursory inspection, his weapons ignored, and the excuse of the women being tired—never mind that one was beaten and haggard, only half-dressed—had satisfied all questions.
Both men were damn good at what they did. But Trace couldn’t go after his sister himself as he’d wanted, because the men holding her knew what he looked like. Before he’d have even gotten close to Tijuana, Trace would have been spotted by lookouts.
So Dare had gone—and come back with more than he’d bargained for.
Making a small sound, Alani tucked her face in closer to her brother’s shoulder. The siblings shared blond hair and light brown eyes, but that’s where the physical similarities ended. Trace was thirty, of an age with Dare, eight years older than his sister. He stood six foot three and weighed over two hundred pounds—all of it muscle.
Next to him, Alani looked tiny and fragile and, presently, wounded. Even since Dare had removed her from the trailer, fresh bruises continued to show on her arms and around her narrow wrists. Because the bastards had planned to sell her, they hadn’t harmed her face.
Innocence was a huge commodity, and at twenty-two, having led a sheltered life, Alani gave off a definite vibe of innocence. Blond-haired, blue-eyed women brought the most profit, but he had a feeling that Alani’s golden-brown eyes, in contrast to her very fair hair, would have fascinated the sick pricks.
Dare prayed they hadn’t raped her, knowing a woman ill-used would bring less, but he left that uncomfortable discussion for Trace.
Hearing a noise like a soft moan, Dare zeroed in on the van with his senses on alert. He’d left the rear door open so he’d hear her if she moved, if she awoke…. But she did no more than readjust.
Three hours had passed since he’d carried her out of that trailer. Worry gnawed at him.
Why didn’t she awaken?
“Dare?” His eyes filled with pain, rage and relief, Trace whispered, “Thank you.”
Alani gave an audible swallow, and then she, too, said, “Yes, thank you. So much.”
Putting a hand on her shoulder, Dare replied without words. He’d known Alani for years, watched her grow up, and felt like a pseudo big brother in many ways. He’d attended her graduation, both from high school and college. He’d been there with Alani and Trace when they buried their parents.
They had become part of his hodgepodge family.
Two days ago human traffickers had snatched Alani outside her hotel while she vacationed near the beach. Tomorrow she would have been sold, and finding her after that might have become impossible.
Right now, what the siblings needed was time alone, and Dare needed to sort things out with his remaining passenger. “I should get going.”
Trace followed Dare’s attention toward the van, saw the slim, dirty foot that appeared out of the open rear-passenger door, and lifted one eyebrow in an expression of disbelief. “You have a passenger?”
“A small complication, that’s all.”
“You’re serious?”
Dare shrugged. “There were six women in that small trailer, Trace. Four of them were local and scattered as soon as I got them free.” He nodded his head toward the van. “That one was drugged, near starved, grimy.” And in many ways, even in the cramped confines of the rusty trailer, she’d been separated from the others, kept alone.
For certain, she wasn’t the typical woman kidnapped for the growing sex trade.
Trace grew curious in that quiet way of his. “An American … complication?”
“I think so.” From what he’d seen of her grubby face, she didn’t look foreign. “She hasn’t come to yet, so I haven’t been able to talk to her.”
Alani turned in her brother’s arms, and she, too, looked toward the van. “She fought them whenever she came to. She called them names and almost … egged them on.” Alani shivered in remembered fear. “It was so horrible. The men slapped her around for being mouthy, but she didn’t stop. She just cursed them more.”
Dare frowned. The little idiot might have been killed. “Foolhardy.”
“I think she was really … angry.” As if she couldn’t fathom such boldness, Alani took a breath. “Even when they held her down to force more drugs on her, she didn’t cry. She … raged.”
“Did she speak English?”
Nodding, Alani said, “She sounded American to me. I mean, no accent or anything.”
Considering all that, Dare said aloud, “She wasn’t there for the same purpose as the rest of you.”
“Probably not. Sometimes four or five of them would come in the trailer, but they’d stand around her and I couldn’t see what they did. As far as I could tell, they never really leered at her like …” She bit her lip, shivered again. “Like they did the rest of us. They never seemed to be sizing her up for anything. They just picked on her.”
Trace hugged her again. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
She nodded, shored up by the courage her brother had given her, and faced Dare. “She was there when we got there, already looking pretty bad. Once, before the men drugged her, she told me her name was Molly.”
“Molly what?”
Alani shook her head. “We weren’t supposed to talk, so I was afraid to ask her anything.”
Trace tucked her back in close and asked over her head, “What are you going to do with her now?”
“No idea.” Dare thought of her insubstantial weight when she’d been over his shoulder, of that tangled, light brown hair that had concealed much of her bruised face. “Hopefully someone will pay me for bringing her home.”
Without releasing her brother, Alani reached out and punched Dare for the callous comment. He grinned, caught her wrist and kissed her knuckles.
She’d been given a terrible fright, and two days had probably felt like a month, but Alani had spirit. She’d get through this, thank God.
But the other one … How long had they had her? And why? Impatient with thoughts of her, Dare said, “I gotta run.”
“Hold up a sec.” Trace caught his arm, then dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out a fat envelope.
Pissed, Dare took a step back. “What the hell is that?”
“Expenses. And don’t curse in front of Alani.”
Hell, just because he usually hired out didn’t mean he’d charge a friend—a brother. He’d have gone after Alani if he’d had to crawl the whole way. “I don’t need it.”
Solemn, Trace held the envelope out to him. “But I need you to take it.”
It hit Dare anew how difficult this was for Trace, not just that his sister had been hurt, but that he hadn’t been able to go after her himself.
Dare took the envelope. “Thanks.” He leaned in close. “And for future reference, I resolved the issue of you being recognized.” There was no one left who knew Trace.
Deep satisfaction glittered in Trace’s eyes. He gave a sharp nod. “I should have doubled the amount.”
“No.” Dare’s smile wasn’t friendly. “That was all my pleasure.”
With no further discussion of money, Trace and Alani said their goodbyes and left the lot in Trace’s silver Jag. They’d stay in an upscale hotel for the night and fly home tomorrow. Until then, Trace would keep his sister under very close guard.
Dare stood there, watching them until the purr of the engine faded and their taillights could no longer be seen. Moon shadows surrounded him. Night creatures gave a gentle call.
The peaceful ambiance didn’t deceive him.
Hands on his hips, he looked again toward the van.
Now what?
The hospital, with all those questions and a lack of answers?
A hotel room? That would be his preference, but not with a woman on the brink of death.
If she was on the brink of death. Drugs could be a real complication, giving false symptoms and concealing a true state of health. It was possible that if she’d just come to, she’d be okay.
But maybe not.
Dare needed her to drink, to eat. And it wouldn’t hurt to get the bugs out of her hair.
Before he even realized it, he strode that way, anxious to look in on her again.
One hand on the top of the open door, the other on the side of the car, Dare leaned in—and found her awake. Enormous, bruised eyes dominated her face.
Before he could register that she’d come around, he got a very dirty foot to the face. Hard.
He jerked back. “Son of a—”
The attack took him by surprise, and even with her meager strength, a heel to the nose hurt like hell. But he didn’t want to compound things by overreacting. She’d recovered with a vengeance and most probably a lot of confusion. Though blood trickled from his nose, Dare wasn’t disabled in any way.
With no help for it, he leaned into the backseat and, after a very brief struggle, pinned her down with her arms over her head, her legs caught under his.
Those large, slightly unfocused eyes glared at him. They were dark brown, like rich chocolate, and at the moment filled with a wealth of fear and rage.
She didn’t scream, thank God, just breathed hard and fast and strained against him.
“You’re safe now,” Dare told her while trying to control her in a way that wouldn’t allow her to hurt herself. “You’re in San Diego, not Mexico.”
She blinked fast, giving away her nervousness.
Dare sought the right words to reassure her. “I was there to retrieve a friend, one of the girls trapped in the trailer with you. And there you were, too, so …” Lacking a sound business argument for his decision, Dare rolled one shoulder. “So I took you.”
She stilled a little, wary, uncertain. Hopeful.
“Your options now are the hospital, hotel or police. Take your pick.”
Seconds ticked by. A drop of blood from his nose landed on her chest to mingle with dark bruises, numerous scratches and dirt. She didn’t flinch, and short of releasing her, there wasn’t much Dare could do about his bleeding nose.
Lifting her head, she looked beyond him, but it was dark, too dark to see and recognize the dubious safety of an American parking lot.
Then, just as suddenly as she’d attacked, she went limp, her head falling back, her muscles weak. Either from her recent exertion or continued terror, Dare felt a fine trembling in her slim body.
Voice quaking, she whispered, “Hotel, please.”
Unexpected.
But appreciated. “Wise choice.” He waited for theatrics, for that scream that didn’t come. Cautious, Dare eyed her. “I can let you go without more violence?”
She gave one jerky nod.
Slowly, he sat up and levered himself out of the van. She didn’t move. She didn’t look capable of moving.
Stripping off his shirt, he used it to clean the blood from his busted nose.
What to do now? If he went to the front desk to register them, would she try to skip out on him? Dare could see that she wasn’t yet herself, didn’t have much left of strength or composure. If panic sent her running, she wouldn’t get far, and could end up right back in trouble again.
But he couldn’t very well traipse her into the motel with him.
For one thing … she reeked.
Not that he held that against her. Thanks to the conditions he’d found her in, personal cleanliness would have been impossible. But to add to that, the space they’d provided her hadn’t been much better than a dump. He’d seen rat holes near the moldy mattress they’d supplied her, as well as a variety of bugs crawling around.
For another, she wore only a long T-shirt that didn’t quite reach her very dirty, scuffed knees, with another oversized man’s button-up shirt over it. The clothes dwarfed her small body, looking absurd. Mud and more caked her bare feet. Her brown hair looked like it had been through a blender.
While he tried to sort out his next move, she slowly sat upright, holding tightly to the back of the seat for balance. She swallowed convulsively. “Do you have anything to drink?”
Without a word, he opened the front passenger door and fetched a bottle of water from the floor. Knowing she was weak, he opened the cap and handed it to her.
He started to caution her about guzzling, but she didn’t. She sipped, made a sound of pleasure, sipped again. “Oh, God, that’s good. My throat is so dry, I think I could drink a river.”
“No problem.”
Sitting back against the seat, she closed her eyes, but only for a moment. “What day is it?”
Fascinating. Little by little, she pulled it together, and instead of hysterics, she wanted to make sense of the situation. Dare admired that—because it’s what he would have done. “March ninth. Monday.”
As if that made her head pound, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “They’ve … they’ve had me for nine days?” Lower, more to herself, she said, “I lost track, but … it felt so much longer.”
Dare gave a low whistle in surprise. Nine days—and she was still alive? Unheard of. Captured women were not kept around that long, because hanging on to them upped the risk of being caught. “You were in that same trailer the whole time?”
“The whole time.” Struggling with emotion, she sipped again, rolled her lips in and turned toward him. “I’m sorry about your nose. I wasn’t sure …”
“Don’t worry about it.” In his line of work, he’d had worse injuries. Already it had stopped bleeding, and probably wouldn’t even bruise.
For some reason, his reassurance made her look ready to cry. But she rallied. “I’m still a little woozy. I haven’t eaten for days.” She touched her hair and flinched. “God knows I need a shower. And a real bed would be like heaven.” She took a few more sips, swallowing painfully.
Dare watched her, impressed that she showed great intelligence in not gulping the water, which would probably have made her barf.
She scrubbed at a bruised eye with a small fist, then sighed. “I can’t very well be seen like this. Humiliation left me long ago, but it would raise too many questions.” She looked at him for a solution.
“I can check us in.” With each passing second, he grew confident that she wouldn’t skip out. She was more clear-headed, more reasonable than he could have hoped for, given what Alani had told him.
Again she sipped, and Dare knew it was to buy herself some time, to think for a quiet moment.
Holding the bottle tight, she drew a breath. “I have money, Mr….?”
“Just call me Dare.” He didn’t share his name, or his identity, lightly. He still didn’t know enough about her to trust her.
After a nod, she stuck out a dirty hand with chipped fingernails. “Molly Alexander.”
Ridiculous. But Dare took her very small hand in his. “Molly.”
Even though she’d initiated the handshake, his hold must have alarmed her; she drew back after barely touching him. “I have money to reimburse you, Dare. I promise. But obviously … not on me. For reasons I’d sooner go into later, I don’t want to involve the police in any of this.”
Interesting. What secrets could this skinny bit of a woman be hiding? “Ditto on hospitals?”
“Definitely.” She shrunk away at just the thought. “No hospitals.”
If she went to the hospital, they’d need a name, and then they’d want to call the police. Why didn’t she want them involved?
“You’ve been drugged.” Dare wondered what they’d given her, and if there would be any side effects. “You know, Molly, you could be sick, hurt—”
“No, not hurt.”
Her definition of hurt differed greatly from his. With a raised brow he eyed several bruises and scrapes on her delicate skin. “Someone hit you. More than once.”
Her eyes clouded again, and her voice went gruff. “Yes, and it was the worst experience of my entire life. But I’ll be fine.”
“Are you convincing me, or yourself?”
“I will be. I promise.”
Lots of promises, Dare thought. He glanced down at his bloodied, ruined shirt, and tossed it toward an overflowing garbage container in the parking lot. Intending to find a new shirt, he reached around her for his overnight bag.
Gasping, she covered her face and scuttled back into the corner of the seat. But she almost immediately caught herself and sat up again as if in challenge.
Unwilling to press her, Dare paused. “We’re on the same side, remember?”
Pained, she closed her eyes and nodded.
Gutsy little thing, he decided. He pulled on the fresh shirt and then waited, arms crossed. If she didn’t want to pass out in the van, she’d have to hurry it up and make a decision. Already she looked on the verge of keeling over.
After swaying from what looked like a wave of dizziness, she cleared her throat. “If you could arrange for a room tonight, I’d be really, really grateful.”
“I could do that.” Her continued formality confounded him. Most women would be babbling and crying for their mommy or daddy, or maybe a husband. Did Molly have a husband, a significant other?
Avoiding his gaze, she rolled her lips in again, took a few deep breaths and then whispered, “One room please, but perhaps with two beds.” Tears welled, and she blinked them away before saying in a voice broken by fear, “God’s truth, I don’t want to be alone right now.”
NOW THAT SHE WAS safely inside a small but clean motel room, Molly tried to organize her thoughts. In order to keep from collapsing, she had to prioritize her most immediate needs, which were food, clothes, sleep, shower …
One glance down at herself, and she shuddered. Shower first, definitely. Now that she was free, she wasn’t about to spend even one more night sleeping in her own filth. And as hungry as she was, she refused to eat with such dirty hands.
Mustering her flagging courage, she turned to Dare. He was so damn big, and very gruff. Seeing him without his shirt when they were still in the parking lot should have alarmed her; even in the moonlight, she’d detected several scars over his chest, rib cage and shoulders that looked like healed knife and bullet wounds. Even now that he was dressed again, doing no more than settling into the room, he looked powerful, with noticeable strength.
But after being threatened endlessly for nine days by the most corrupt animals imaginable, Molly knew foul intent when she saw it.
Dare wasn’t foul. She had the feeling he used his incredible strength to protect, not to inflict pain. Though he hadn’t been sent for her, had no promises of payment for his efforts, he’d rescued her rather than leave her behind.
And now, whether he realized it yet or not, he was stuck with her.
She would pay him—once she got his agreement to keep her safe. “Excuse me, please, but if I could impose further …”
“Look.” The big man turned away from the twin bed where he’d set a battered leather overnight bag. “Enough with the proper bullshit. You’ve been through hell, yes?”
Blue eyes, fringed by the thickest lashes, took her measure. The pulling of his black brows drove home just how disgusting her physical state was right now.
Molly nodded. “Absolutely.” Hell times ten. Never in her wildest imagination—and as many could attest, her imagination could be pretty wild at times—had she envisioned the awful scenario she’d survived.
But she had survived it. And now she had to figure out how to proceed while still protecting herself.
“I don’t need you to be formal.” He set the bottle of water on the nightstand by her. “I don’t need you to put on a good front, either. You’re a small woman, probably not weighing more than a buck ten.”
Molly glanced down at herself. She’d always weighed one twenty-five, but now … she just didn’t know. She had lost weight. But that much?
“You’re hurt,” Dare continued, “and hungry, tired, dehydrated and pretty damn dirty.”
Absurdly close to tears again, Molly scowled. “Your point?”
“If you want to fall apart, feel free. I sure as hell won’t judge you, and it’ll stay between us.”
How kind that Dare would offer to keep her confidences for her. “No, thank you.” She hadn’t survived that hell just to crumple up now. “I’ll be fine.”
He folded muscled arms over an equally muscled chest. Beard shadow roughened his jaw. His knuckles looked as if they’d recently struck something—or someone.
She sincerely hoped it was one of the pigs who’d treated her so badly.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I need you to drink that bottle of water, and then another after that. Slowly.”
Right. Water would be good—if only her stomach weren’t so jumpy.
“And the phony, unaffected act has got to go.”
Fresh anger wrung through her already aching muscles. “Look, buster, I’m not going to lose it now, got that?” She chugged a few sips of water and returned the bottle to the small table between the beds. Then she clutched it for support. Her knees wobbled; her voice went husky. “I’ve held it together this long, and not for you, not for anyone, am I going to let those miserable bastards break me down.”
One brow lifted in surprise as Dare studied her for long, silent moments, and then he shook his head with annoyance. “Sit down before you fall down.”
She didn’t take orders well, but this time she gladly sat. It required all her willpower not to sprawl back on the bed and just fade into oblivion. But if she did that, she’d wake just as dirty, and it turned her stomach to even think it.
Dare stopped in front of her. He examined the bottle of water and must have been satisfied—so far. “What do you want to do first?”
“Shower.” She needed to be clean again. “Oh, God, I want a shower.”
“I’ll get it started for you.” He hesitated. “Can you manage on your own?”
Her heart almost stopped. “Yes, of course.”
Still he didn’t move away. He crouched down in front of her, and his powerful thighs strained the material of faded denim. Those blue eyes were eerily intense as he studied her face. “You’re safe with me, Molly.”
“I … I know.” She sensed that much. She just didn’t have the wherewithal to start asking questions yet. Priorities, priorities.
“If you need help—”
“I’d stay dirty first.” She was quite certain about that. No way would she invite a man to bathe her. She shuddered at the thought.
His mouth flattened. “Suit yourself.” He straightened and started toward the tiny bathroom. “While you’re in there, I’m going to run across the street to grab you something to wear. I’m guessing a size six?”
Something to wear. Like her own personal angel, he would buy her clean clothes to put on after her shower.
God bless the man.
Those blasted tears threatened again, clogging Molly’s throat, making her nose feel stuffy. “Yes,” she croaked out around a giant lump of emotion. “Anything simple would be … wonderful. Something for my feet, too, please. Size seven. I’m not picky.”
She heard the water start, and through the open door she saw Dare set out towels, open the packaged soap, the shampoo and conditioner.
So remarkably considerate.
Her empty stomach cramped and recoiled, but she couldn’t think of food just yet. She tried a little more water, knowing he was right, that she had to get some fluids back into her system.
Moving with a silent grace uncommon to a man so large, he came back into the room. “I’ll get you a toothbrush, too. Anything else?”
There were so many things she needed that she couldn’t fathom a list just yet. Her dry and cracked lips hurt when she licked them. “Something bland to eat?”
“Already thought of that.” He paused by the door. “You sure you’ll be okay until I get back?”
After what she’d survived, no way would she risk herself in any way. “I’ll be very careful. If I get dizzy, I’ll shut off the water and just sit in the tub.”
Reluctant still, he stood there, and finally agreed with a nod. “Don’t put the chain on the door.”
As he spoke, he walked over to the desk to retrieve his belongings, including a big black gun and a very lethal-looking knife that folded together. The gun went into a holster at his back, fastened to the waistband of his jeans. He slipped the knife into a pocket, then covered the gun with the hem of his shirt. He treated the weapons as casually as he did his wallet and cell phone, fascinating Molly.
It would make her nervous just to touch either one.
He stopped in front of her again. “If you pass out, I want to be able to get in without breaking anything and causing a scene.”
“Okay.”
“I won’t be gone long,” he cautioned. “So don’t linger in there.”
If he didn’t leave soon, she’d be asleep before she could hit the shower. “No, I won’t.”
Using the edge of a fist, he brought her chin up so that she had to look at him. “You’re weaker than you realize.”
