Free Hostage by N.S. Moore

from him.”
    I think about that and feel a churning of fear in my gut.
    “So can we please make a deal?” Code sounds absolutely exhausted now, and his blue eyes are almost desperate. “You cooperate, and I’ll let you go no trouble at all as soon as I get to Laredo.”
    He must be heading for the Mexican border, after all. I shouldn’t be surprised. “Why should I believe you?”
    “Why shouldn’t you believe me? I have no reason to lie to you. If I wanted you dead, then you’d be dead. You know that.”
    I do know that. If he hadn’t killed me yet, then there’s no reason to assume he’ll kill me later. “Do you promise?” I ask.
    His face changes just slightly. “Would you believe me if I did?”
    “I don’t know. But I want you to promise.”
    He hesitates for a moment, something tense flickering across his face. Then he nods. “I promise. I’ll let you go in Laredo unharmed if you just cooperate with me until then.”
    I take a short, harsh breath. “Okay.”
    “Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    He exhales in almost a moan and frees my hands from the tape. “Thank all that’s fucking holy. Now can we please eat something and try to get some sleep.”
    “Okay.”
    My heart is still racing, and my skin is still chilled. My arms and shoulders and pussy are sore. But I feel a little better, now that we’ve made this agreement.
    Maybe I shouldn’t believe him. I have no reason to trust him. But it makes more sense than continually fighting a battle I can never win.
    I still have sex up my sleeve. I can try again to soften him, get him more on my side that way. I’m not completely helpless in this, after all.
    We go back to sit on the boxes, and he gives me a bottle of water and some of the food he’d stolen. It isn’t great. It’s greasy and cold and cheap-tasting. But it’s better than nothing. I feel a kind of sick churning in my stomach, but if I don’t eat anything, I might just faint.
    Not the best way to survive this ordeal.
    And I intend to survive.
    We don’t talk while we eat. I’m not in the mood for small talk with anyone, and definitely not with him. When we’re done, we put the trash in one of the plastic bags he has, and then there’s nothing left.
    “Where are we going to sleep?” I ask, trying not to sound as dubious as I feel.
    “Down here. Nowhere else.” He gets up and grabs a couple of empty boxes, breaking them down so they’re flat. “Here. We can lay on these.”
    I stare down at the cardboard. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
    He gives me a narrow-eyed look. “I mean both of us. You have to sleep right next to me so I know you’re not going to escape.”
    “We have a deal.”
    “I know we have a deal, but I trust you about as much as you trust me.”
    That isn’t very much trust.
    I roll my eyes at him. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”
    So we both lower ourselves to the cardboard and stretch out. It’s not comfortable at all, but my body needs to rest, so maybe it won’t even matter.
    My body is pressed up against him, and one of his arms is around me. I know it’s so he’ll feel immediately if I start to get up or roll away, but it feels like an embrace.
    He’s warm and hard and masculine, but I’m too tired to think much about that.
    I feel like I’m still being bombarded by those billows in the Monet painting, when all I need is that pathway of light to finally open up.
    Just before I go to sleep, I have one more thought.
    Never in my life would I expect to go to sleep in my hostage-taker’s arms.

Fourteen
    Code
     
    Something’s not right. I know it the minute I wake up. There are noises coming from upstairs, and that’s when it hits me—we overslept.
    What the fuck?
    We slept on broken down cardboard on a concrete floor, and we slept through the night? How is that even possible?
    Wren is still pressed up against me—my front to her back. Her ass is snug against my cock, and if it weren’t for the fact that we’re totally not going to be able to sneak