“We have base set up across the hall,” Nik told him. “As well as surveillance. Tehya and Kira are on-site and want to discuss Risa’s medical records with you as well as the psychological report. They asked that you come over as soon as possible.”
Micah nodded. He had some questions he needed answered and he knew the two women had consulted with one of the government scientists working to understand the drug and exactly how it worked on the human body.
“I’ll be over there in a few hours.” He nodded as he glanced toward the closed bedroom door where Risa had disappeared.
She was too calm. From the moment she’d backed down from him and agreed to the operation, she had been too damned calm.
“I’ll let them know.” Nik nodded. “We have surveillance on her apartment from across the hall, and we’ll have someone on you whenever you leave. We have Black Jack and Wild Card with the grandmother providing protection there and the Durango team is providing backup here. We should have all our bases covered.”
Should have. If. Maybe. Son of a bitch, Micah didn’t like this. He hadn’t liked it from the beginning, simply because he’d known that even if she survived, Risa would be damaged again by the whole op.
And he’d been right. Last night had been a f**king fiasco. He should have never walked away from her and left her alone in that bedroom, no matter how shaky his control had been.
Two minutes, he’d told himself. All he’d needed was two minutes to get a handle on the need to f**k into her, regardless of the tension that had begun building in her. That tension hadn’t been sexual. It had been fear. Each time she had come close to release, she had locked up, fought it back, and managed to escape the explosive release he had felt building inside her.
Two minutes had given her just enough time to run from him. Just enough time to escape before he could return and ease her into her cl**ax.
He’d been too damned hard, too horny. The need for her had risen inside him like nothing he had ever known before. No woman had ever made him as hungry, as fast, as Risa had.
Micah locked the dead bolts after Nik checked the hall and left the apartment. Turning, Micah stared around the room, wondering how the hell he was supposed to handle this one.
He’d managed to f**k up last night. The combination of the minute quantity of Whore’s Dust that he hadn’t known was in her system and her fears mixed with his own needs had made for a fiasco that had obviously ended up frightening her away. Thank God Nik and John had been outside, seen her leaving, and followed her. With the presence of the bugs in the apartment, it was obvious Orion was already on the job.
And it was obvious Micah and Risa were going to have to talk, very soon. He’d deliberately provoked her earlier, pissed her off, and pushed her into anger rather than shock.
That kidtier look of blank horror on her face had stripped his control. For the first time in years, Micah had felt something other than the need for vengeance. The need to protect, the fury at her pain, the control-stripping need to shelter her, had taken hold of him with a stranglehold he had been unable to break. It was no wonder the other members of the unit were watching him warily now.
Pushing his hands wearily over his hair, he stalked into the kitchen, checked the refrigerator and pantry for groceries, and spent time making a grocery list. Next, he moved around the apartment, except for her bedroom, and checked the windows and shades.
Then, he broached the bedroom.
Risa was on the bed staring up at the light fixture curiously. Where would someone have planted a camera? The decorative glass light cover was frosted with a series of designs cascading over it. It took her a while, but as she stared at it, she noticed that within the pattern of raised rosebuds, one was missing. Right in the center.
A glass rosebud for a camera? She imagined it could be done; technology was clearly able to produce one. Too bad that the men who used that technology couldn’t be sane.
Maybe sanity, like beauty, though, was in the eye of the beholder.
God, she was a mess. She could feel herself shaking from the inside out. It had been all she could do to sign her name to the papers the attorney had given her at the Federal Building.
Running and hiding wasn’t an option, he had assured her, as though he had known that was exactly what she wanted to do. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be a hole deep enough or dark enough to protect her from the man they called Orion.
A killer. A man who strapped his victims down and drained them of their blood. Watched them die and probably found immeasurable pleasure from it.
She had to press her hand to her stomach. Again. She fought back the need to gag, because there was nothing in her stomach to throw up.
She hadn’t even eaten today. She almost laughed as she remembered that. Hunger hadn’t been high on her list of priorities this morning. When her attorney had called requesting that she and her grandmother accompany him to the Federal Building to sign some papers, Risa had never imagined that the thought of food would only make her sicker later.
Now she understood why he had been so vague about explaining why they had to sign those papers immediately. He’d implied the papers had to do with the vast holdings the government had seized from Jansen Clay.
Risa had been fighting for years for items that had belonged to her mother, who had died years before Risa’s kidnapping. Jewelry, a few antiques Jansen’s second wife had taken possession of, and some pictures. Risa had prayed that was being resolved, only to learn that her life was only going to hell faster than it had been.
She still couldn’t make sense of it. Jansen hadn’t thought she was worth trying to sell, but someone else thought it was worth 2 million to kill her. It was enough to be laughable. She would laugh again if she weren’t afraid she would end up screaming.
Sitting up on the bed, knees bent, she laid her head against her arms, closed her eyes, and breathed out as she fought the panic rising inside her.
She had agreed to play bait. Here she sat, in her apartment, for all intents and purposes with her new lover. That was enough to make her cry. Her body was still sizzling, despite the truth of her situation, and the need to touch him again was like a fever burning inside her. Because of that f**king drug. Because it was messing with her normal arousal and making it worse. It was destroying her from the inside out.
At the sound of the bedroom door opening, she tensed, biting her lip as she swore she felt Micah enter the room.