a tired smile. "I imagine you probably didn't."
They looked at each other for an uncomfortable minute. Captor and captive. Shaun knew that she must never relax her guard. She was quite literally residing in a den of thieves.
"I'll sleep on the couch." She inserted a colder note into her voice and turned swiftly away from Jozef. Before she could walk away from him though, he reached out and snatched her hand, pulling her back.
Shaun glanced at him fearfully, afraid he'd changed his mind about sharing a bed with her. Instead, he released her hand and reached behind him, gathering up a blanket and pillow, pushing them into her arms. He pointed at the couch, which was sitting to the right of the fireplace at the end of the bed. It would make for a cozy warm place to sleep. Shaun had slept in worse places; she wasn’t going to complain.
Shaun held the bedding against her and walked to the couch, sinking into the cushions. It was comfortable enough, though not very long. She would have to sleep on her side with her legs curled up. Hopefully, it wouldn't take long for her to get out of there. She had absolutely no intention of actually marrying the mobster, which left her two options: escape or be rescued.
She heard Jozef rustling around, then the light went out and minutes later his deep snores filled the room. She was amazed that he was able to actually fall asleep with a person he barely knew in the same room. Not just any person, but a surgeon who knew dozens of ways to make him die before he could ever touch her. Either he was ridiculously unflappable, or he was just that tired.
Shaun stared at the door, then back at Jozef’s form on the bed. He was bathed in shadows and flickering firelight. She could leave. Just walk out the door and try to leave the premises. She gripped the edge of the couch as she thought about it, then shook her head and forced her body to relax. She was physically and mentally exhausted, in no shape to launch an escape attempt. She was confident she wouldn’t make it out the front door. Jozef seemed like an extremely vigilant man, and there would be security all over the place. No, what she needed to do was sleep, regain her strength and mental faculties. Then she’d think her way out of this situation.
Shaun set the pillow on the end of the couch, curled onto her side and dragged the blanket over her body. She stared at the glowing embers of the fireplace until her eyelids grew heavy and sleep claimed her.
Chapter Twelve
Dasha fussed relentlessly until Krystoff finally gathered her against his chest. “Stop, Wife,” he murmured against her rich chestnut hair. “I promise, I won’t disappear if you stop touching me.”
Rather than feeling comforted, Dasha burst into tears and sobbed into his shirt while he held her, running his hand over her smooth hair. “I know!” she wailed. “But they cut off your finger, Krysto!”
She pushed away from him and paced the length of their bedroom, tears streaming down her face, hands thrown up in the air as she talked and walked.
Krystoff took her momentary distraction to sink tiredly onto the mattress of their bed. He nearly groaned out loud at the pleasure of being in his own bed again. A hard, lumpy single mattress on a wooden plank with no pillow or blanket had been the extent of his accommodation for a week.
“It could have been much worse, Dasha.”
“No, it wouldn’t have been,” she snapped, going from despair to anger in a flash as she paced the room in front of him, giving him an excellent view of her shapely legs as they peeked from beneath her robe.
Dasha was fifty-one years old and still as fine as the day he'd married her. In fact, he thought she looked even better. Age and experience suited his wife. “Vasiliy doesn’t have the balls to do more than cut off one small finger.”
Krystoff shook his head at her phrasing. She’d gone from wailing over the loss of his precious finger to dismissing it as trivial, in almost the same breath.
“Vasiliy may be ineffectual, but he could be dangerous in his stupidity.” Krystoff snatched her hand as she walked past him. He dragged her toward him until she was standing between his spread legs, looking down at him with solemn brown eyes. “Until I understand his motives, we