The Renegade Steals A Lady

“Okay.” He sat her on the rim of the bathtub. “You took a little nap standing up—or falling down, rather—in the tub.”

“I mean it. I don’t faint.”

“I said okay.” He’d wet another washcloth for her forehead. Once he’d applied it, he tilted her head back and stared deeply into her eyes. This time there was nothing sensual about the gaze. “Maybe you’ve got a concussion, after all.”

She pulled the cloth from her forehead. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Why don’t you just go away and leave me the hell alone?”

“I can’t do that.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means—” he pulled a towel off the bar and snugged it around her shoulders “—that I’ll be going, all right, but I won’t be leaving you alone.”

Shock raised gooseflesh on her arms as his meaning registered. He couldn’t— He wouldn’t—

One look into his shuttered black eyes, and she knew with dead certainty that he could. Most certainly would.

“I’m taking you with me,” he said.

Chapter 4

“This is a felony!” Paige twisted her fingers in the sweatshirt beneath Marco’s open coat.

Purposely withholding his gaze from hers, he set her down on her good foot in the shadows outside her door and fumbled the key into the lock. Inside, Bravo barked like a maniac at being left behind.

Bravo, however, wasn’t the reason Marco didn’t look Paige in the eye. She had damned near passed out again when he’d told her he was taking her with him. Since then her eyes, the pupils large and dark, had held such stark animosity that he hadn’t been able to look at them.

“It was a felony the minute I forced you to drive me away from the search area,” he said, as much to convince himself as her.

“You’ve always been a renegade, but this is going too far. You can’t just…steal me away as if no one will notice. You’re making it worse for yourself, Marco.”

“How much worse can it get?” With the door locked, he hefted her into his arms again. Even through the thick down of her navy-blue ski jacket, he could feel her heart race like a startled rabbit.

“People could get hurt,” she insisted, kicking her blue-jean-clad legs and almost wiggling out of his grasp. One of her sneakers bounced off his hipbone.

He gritted his teeth. “No one is going to get hurt if you cooperate.”

“Cooperate? Is that what you think I’m going to do? Just give up? Be a good little hostage and do whatever you tell me?” She flung her fists at his back as he started down the stairs.

“No,” he said, flinching as she landed a blow on his sore shoulder. “I suspect you’re not going to do a damned thing I tell you.”

“Then why are you doing this? Why not just leave me here?”

He stopped. “Because I can’t,” he said simply, but his gaze, now that he’d finally looked at her, must have said more. He felt the pull between them, the memories their bodies shared even when their minds refused to acknowledge their past, and he knew she felt it, too.

Color flooded her cheeks. Far from being unsightly, the blush added to her sensuality, her vibrancy. He found the look infinitely appealing. He always had.

Slowly he peeled his gaze away.

She looked over his shoulder toward the door, where Bravo’s barking had dissolved into long consonant howls. “Wh-what about Bravo?”

“What about him?”

“You can’t just leave him.”

“Watch me.”

“But—but… He knows something’s wrong. That’s why he’s howling. And he’s hungry.”

“Someone will come looking for you soon. When they find you gone, they’ll take care of him.” He started down the stairs again. Starving a dog would be the least of his sins before this was over.

“Marco!”

“Forget it, Paige—”

She surged halfway out of his arms, nearly knocking him off balance on the stairs. “So help me, if you take one more step, I’m going to scream.”

He scowled at her. “Don’t do this here, Paige. Too many innocent people could get hurt.”

She raised her chin. “Then get my dog.”

“No.”

“If you’re lucky, that excuse I gave Matt about taking Bravo to the vet will buy you a couple of hours. Maybe a little more,” Paige said. “But if he keeps up that ruckus, one of my neighbors is going to complain. When they see the Expedition here, but can’t get me at home, they’ll call the police station, and you’re going to lose half of that time.”

Bravo’s howls hit a particularly shrill note. Marco’s skin prickled like someone had scraped fingernails over a blackboard.

“You could shut him up.”

“I could, but I won’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “And don’t you even think about hurting him.”

Marco almost grinned. She had a backbone of steel. He knew that. It was one of the things he liked about her. All that strength in such a small, pretty package. She wasn’t going to back down, and she was right about Bravo’s barking costing him time.

Still, he’d rather walk over burning coals than take the poodle with him. At the moment, though, he didn’t see where he had much choice.

He gave Paige a long-suffering look. “You’re really going to make me take the dog, aren’t you?”

She smiled smugly. “Are you going to just stand here all night, or are you going to get Bravo so we can get out of here?”

He studied her curiously. “Let me get this straight. Now you want me to take you with me?”

Somehow, even while he was carrying her in his arms, she managed to look down her nose at him, wearing an expression of regal superiority that would have made Queen Elizabeth proud. “As long as I’m with you, I haven’t lost you.”

He almost laughed. Backbone of steel, indeed. More like titanium. “Still figure you’re going to take me in, huh?”