The inside wasn’t any warmer than the outside, but at least the walls blocked the cutting wind.
“Stay here,” he said.
I blinked and he was gone. How long had I been standing here? I forced myself to walk around when I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and sleep. In the faint light that filtered through the filthy windows, I saw that the front rooms of the house were mostly empty. A few pieces of broken furniture proved that someone had once lived here, but they seemed to be long gone.
“Come on,” Loch said. “I found a room with a heater.”
I followed him deeper into the house. It was dark enough that I couldn’t see what I was stepping on. He stepped into a dimly lit bedroom, complete with a tiny bed and thin bare mattress. It looked a lot like the bed in the cell on the Mayport. True to his word, the heater in the wall was struggling to warm the room. The overhead light panel produced enough light to see by, but it must have been set to its lowest setting.
Loch shut the door and dragged what looked like a broken dresser in front of it. My heart rate spiked and adrenaline cleared away some of the cobwebs in my mind. I’d followed him like a puppy into a room with a bed and only one exit—an exit he’d just blocked.
“Strip,” he said. He started pulling off his own clothes.
Oh, hell no. I backed away. He was strong and fast and not half-frozen. Even if I could grip a knife, it wouldn’t do much good. That didn’t mean I was going down without a fight.
Loch glanced at me then froze. He straightened. His eyes dropped half-closed and his mouth curled into a melting grin. My heartbeat kicked up and not from fear. The man could stop traffic with a look like that.
“Ada,” he drawled, “if I wanted to fuck you, I wouldn’t have to lock you in to do it.” He stalked across the distance that separated us while I stood frozen. “I prefer my women warm and willing. And since you are neither, you’re just going to have to imagine how good it could be.” He cupped my jaw with a warm hand and glided his thumb over my lips. “Now strip before you die of hypothermia. And leave your underclothes on.”
By the time I’d shed clothes down to a short-sleeved shirt, bra, and boxer briefs, Loch was down to his own boxer briefs and had laid out several emergency blankets on the bed. He raised an eyebrow at my clothing but didn’t say anything.
“In you go,” he said, holding up the edge of a blanket. I slid across the crinkly foil blanket to the edge of the bed facing the wall. “Lights on or off?” he asked.
“On,” I said. Definitely on. I needed to be able to see him.
“Okay,” he said. He slid into bed behind me and the mattress dipped under his weight. I tensed and held myself still on the very edge of the bed. A warm arm around my waist dragged me back against scalding skin. He cursed the air blue. “You should’ve told me you were this cold.”
Modesty forgotten, I pulled his arm farther around me and wiggled to get as close to him as possible. With the emergency blankets covering me from neck to feet and a large, warm body at my back, I finally felt like maybe I would survive the day.
I don’t know how long I’d drifted in and out of sleep before the shivering started, but once it began, sleep was a distant memory. I shivered so hard my teeth chattered. Loch turned me over so I faced him and tucked me into his chest with my head on his arm. He wrapped both arms around my back and threw a leg over my lower body.
Hours or perhaps days later my shivers slowed down and I dropped into an exhausted sleep.
When I awoke, I was alone in the bed, and I was warm. In addition to the emergency blankets, I was covered by two long cloaks. I rolled away from the wall and every muscle protested. Apparently shivering was a full-body workout.
Marcus sat propped against the wall by the door, studying a small com tablet. “Do you want the bad news or the worse news?” he asked without looking up.
“What happened to the good news?”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” He continued without waiting for