Free Bound and Determined by Shayla Black Page B

was very selfless or very stupid. Rafe wanted to be angry with her for her scheme. He wanted to want revenge. But he didn’t. The amazingly loyal, sexy woman, even if she had her ditzy moments, really intrigued him on a level he couldn’t remember experiencing before.
    “I’ll give you forty-eight hours, anything you want.” Kerry looked him straight in the eyes. She swallowed, but in no other way did she betray any nervousness. “Just don’t leave yet. Hear me out.”
    Rafe sucked in a sharp breath as he hardened yet more. So fucking tempting, the idea of taking complete control of her body here, in the bed built by someone with a wide dominant streak . . . but he had a job to do. Standard National expected him for a preliminary meeting.
    He shook his head, dropping his gaze from her pleading stare, and retrieved her clothes from the floor.
    Without waiting for her reaction, he turned toward the closet to set her clothes out of reach and find his own. But her desperation filled the air, and guilt prickled down his spine. Guilt, of all things! Damn it, he didn’t owe Kerry a thing. He’d given her thousands of dollars’ worth of his critical time, as well as a hearty orgasm. Why should he feel anything but sure that his time to exit had come?
    In the closet, he found his boxer-briefs folded on top of a built-in dresser. He quickly donned them over his still raging erection, then found his suit pants neatly hung and his shirt freshly pressed. A quick sniff told him Kerry had washed it as well. A captress who doubled as laundry service? Wow, she’d done a better job than his three-dollar-per-shirt dry cleaners.
    “Rafe?” she called.
    He heard her thrashing against her bonds, cursing softly under her breath, but he didn’t answer. Getting out of here was top priority, before he lost this lucrative job with Standard National and his shot at reaching the five-million-dollar mark prior to his birthday . . . before he succumbed to the odd urge to help her, or gave in to his desire to know every inch of her body in every way.
    Instead, he reached into his suit coat. His PDA still rested in one pocket, cell phone in the other. Quickly, he checked his phone messages. One from a former client asking for advice, two messages from his assistant, Regina, and one from an old girlfriend he vaguely recalled had labeled him an antisocial, computer-centric great lay. Not to mention three messages from Mr. Smikins at Standard National Bank wondering why he hadn’t appeared for their lunch meeting. At that, Rafe swore long and hard. Damn Kerry and her scheme to save her likely worthless brother.
    He pounded the bank’s number into his phone’s keypad, cursing himself under his breath. A woman kidnapping him and keeping him from business should royally piss him off. The hell of it was, he couldn’t muster much more than a sting of annoyance. As the reality of her bondage had occurred to her, in the face of his possible retribution, she hadn’t askedonce for mercy for herself. Nope, she’d thought only of her brother. God, the prick better deserve such loyalty.
    Finally, a recording informed him the branch had closed at 4 P . M . and would be open at 9 A . M . on Monday. Monday? Today was Saturday? The date on his PDA said so. Shit, he really had been out for thirty-six hours.
    At the prompt, he entered Smikins’s extension. At the tone, Rafe left the branch manager a message, one full of crappy lies about being sick and missing his plane. Flipping his phone shut with a grimace, Rafe sighed. Why wasn’t he calling the police? Why hadn’t he told Smikins that the sister of their former employee-turned-thief had abducted him?
    He couldn’t—not yet. Hell, he wasn’t any sort of hero. But the truth couldn’t be ignored: Kerry already had plenty of trouble.
    For some damn reason, he just couldn’t make himself turn her in and add to her mounting difficulties. Maybe because once upon a time, someone had given him a