Free Hearts Under Siege by Natalie J. Damschroder Page A

breath and opened it.
    Brady rose from the bed, closing his cell phone as he did. He didn’t make eye contact, but started moving around the bed toward her.
    “Shower’s free,” she announced stupidly, and hurried on in as normal a voice as she could muster—if “normal” meant “uninflected.” “Did you check the flight?”
    “Yeah, it’s on time. We have a couple of hours before we have to be at the airport.”
    “Okay, good. You have time to get cleaned up. I’ll—” She waved a hand vaguely around the room. Neither had left anything unpacked, and Brady had made the bed. Kind of. Pulled up the covers. Crap. She couldn’t look at it. Window . She’d look for suspicious characters.
    She started toward the window as Brady said, “Moll, about last night.”
    “How did you sleep?” she cut him off, still aiming for the window but unable to get by him.
    “Surprisingly great, actually.”
    His hand came up to her upper arm, his fingers squeezing gently, and Molly fought not to close her eyes, to give into the comfort of touching him. It had been far too long since they’d been this close, in any capacity, and she was on pleasure overload. Or something.
    “Good. Better get in the shower. Water’s nice and hot.” She slid past him and hid her face in the gap between curtain and wall. What a moron she was. So much for normal .
    “I need to apologize for last night,” he said from behind her, obviously still standing in the same place.
    Crap. Crap-crap-crap-crap. She scrambled to come up with another topic to head him off. “No, you don’t.”
    “Yes, I do. I was selfish.”
    No! She could not do this! She could not have this conversation with him! She blurted, “No, you weren’t. Jessica was probably sedated, and I let your parents know we’d call when we got back in the country.”
    Dead silence. What the hell was she thinking? Bringing up Jessica and his parents and therefore, indirectly, his brother would definitely head off a discussion of sex. But now they were in even more painful territory.
    “I just called them, actually.” His voice was subdued. “I talked to Jess. She’s having a hard time, but said she’s managing without the tranquilizers now.”
    “Good,” Molly managed to choke out.
    “Mom said to tell you how grateful they are that you came to get me. She’s a little confused on why that was necessary, but we’ll come up with something.”
    “ Mm-hmm .” The soft rasp of his voice, the sorrow behind it, was killing her. Strap in , she told herself. This is just the beginning .
    “So, that wasn’t what I meant when I said I was selfish. But I get the picture.” She heard the soft swish of fabric. His hand closed over her shoulder for a second, then he moved away. When the bathroom door clicked shut, she let out her breath in a whoosh and leaned against the wall. That had been a narrower escape than yesterday’s car chase. She focused on the scene outside, one she hadn’t paid any attention to, and started cataloging details. Then realized none of them were relevant. She hadn’t seen their pursuers yesterday, could barely remember the vehicle they’d been driving, and there were several on the street below that looked like it. So this was pointless. She released the curtain and backed up to double-check the room for anything they’d dropped. Oh, lovely, there was the condom wrapper on the floor between beds, Brady’s jeans in a heap next to it. She vaguely remembered hearing a thump last night and bent to check. Brady’s wallet had fallen out of his pocket; it lay under the jeans. She picked up both and crumpled the condom wrapper into her fist as he emerged from the bathroom in a billow of steam.
    She straightened, turned, and froze, every nerve in her body jumping to attention and shouting “ Hell- o!” Brady stood wrapped in a skimpy towel, water beaded on his sculpted chest and shoulders, dripping off his shaggy hair. She hadn’t seen him like this in…ever,