in, setting both on fire. When her knees buckled, he swore. Then brought her against him, held her steady.
“Give it a minute,” he ordered, the words harsh, the warmth of his body solid, reassuring.
It had always been that way. The strength of his arms, the force of his will. The only time in her life she’d truly felt safe.
The only time she’d truly felt anything.
“Try it again.” His hands gently gripped her hips, eased her away.
Her legs trembled, but held her weight. After giving them a moment, Sandra straightened. The pressure eased from her wrists, left her arms weak.
“Hold still. I’m almost done.” Booker pulled a handcuff shim from his watchband. His hands stretched to meet hers, his touch gentle but urgent.
Hip to hip, chest to chest, the air thinned, then hummed. But this time Sandra ignored the quakes that rippled down her back, kept her legs rubbery.
“Got it,” he murmured.
Her arms dropped and she cried out. A thousand needles stabbed at her. Sandra bit her lip, unable to lift either limb.
He sat her in the chair, then took her right wrist between his palms and rubbed. “You’ve been tied up for a long time. This is going to hurt.”
Sandra gasped as the needles morphed into white-hot knives, slicing through every nerve to the muscles beneath.
“Fight through it.” Booker didn’t let up. Rubbing her skin, forcing her blood to move beneath.
Seconds turned into a minute, then two. Her jaw tightened against another torrent of stabs and spasms. “This is taking too much time.”
“Let me worry about that.” He dropped one arm and grabbed the other. His hands worked the blood flow, warming her skin, soothing the needles beneath.
“You can stop now,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from the pain or something far more dangerous. She couldn’t be sure. Didn’t want to find out.
She tugged her arm free. “I’m much better. Let’s go.”
Her chin shot up; her eyes dared him to argue.
Booker didn’t. Instead, he took in her ivory silk blouse, the matching dress slacks. Both cool in the heat, and a dead giveaway in the dark.
He glanced at her shoes, noted the flat, thinly strapped sandal over the feminine arch, the delicate ankle. “No wonder they caught you.”
“I wasn’t thinking ‘desert escape’ when I dressed this morning.”
“And yet, getting on a plane unprotected was your logical solution,” Booker countered. “You have an IQ bigger than my phone number, Doc. You couldn’t come up with a better strategy?”
“I had little time and very few choices,” she snapped.
“You could have asked me for help.”
Lord knew she’d thought about it. Almost called him twice. In a laboratory or with a patient, he’d never question her skill. In danger, she should have never questioned his ability to protect her.
No one knew Riorden Trygg better than Booker.
No one had a better reason than Booker not to trust her.
“I killed fifty of your men with the serum I created. I couldn’t ask you for help.”
“We’ve been through this. I don’t hold you responsible, Doc. I never did,” Booker snapped, then caught her hand in his fingers. He leaned down until his face was mere inches from hers. “You won’t believe that.”
She still didn’t. Not enough to stay with him. Trust him. Love him. Too much history, too many deaths lay between them.
It had been a year since she walked out. A year and two months, she corrected.
He’d changed since then. Leaner than she remembered. Timber-wolf lean, with shaggy brown hair that curled slightly over his back collar.
His face was the same, the cobalt eyes set beneath a high forehead, framed by the broad sweep of his cheekbones, and the hard lines of his jaw and mouth.
“Trygg’s on his way,” she said, then tugged her hand free. “Maybe if we wait. Catch him unaware. We could stop this all now.”
“I’ll stop it. But not with you around,” he stated, his tone now brisk, businesslike. “You’re going back to the palace.”
Muffled gunfire ripped through the night air, moving closer.
“Company’s coming.” Booker stood, his body unyielding, ready. Almost as if he welcomed the confrontation. He stepped to the window, peered through the two-inch gap between the curtains. Tires screeched on the street below. “A sedan. Four men.”
Doors slammed; men yelled orders.
“They’ll have the exits covered.” In two strides he was back at her side and he pulled her to her feet.
The streetlights glared through the window. She grabbed his arm, pointed at the long shadowy bars that crisscrossed outside the window. “A fire escape.”
“All right. Let’s go,” he said,