Page 75 of Girl in the Water

For a moment, her face was a study in tension, then she relaxed and smiled at him. “Hey.”

God, let this be a hallucination.She couldnotbe here.

“Are you okay?” She examined the room, then slipped in, careful of the broken glass, landing on her feet with a small bounce like a cat, looking more curious than scared. She wore black hiking boots, tight black shorts that ended mid-thigh, paired with a black tank top, her hair in a tight bun at her nape.

He growled at her. “What are you doing here?

“Isn’t it obvious?”

She was saving him.Hewas supposed to beherprotector. How in hell had they ended up with their roles reversed?

She walked up to him. Stopped. Took in the ropes.

“Can you untie me?” The pain in his ribs was abating at last.

“How badly are you hurt?”

“Not enough to stop me from getting out of here.”

“Good.”

Instead of cutting him loose, she straddled his lap, one knee braced on the ground on each side of him. “Just give me a moment to be relieved, okay?”

She put her arms around his chest and lay her head in the crook of his neck.

He couldn’t move away, nothing but wall behind him. “Marcos could come back any second.”

“If you’re talking about the guy who just walked out of here, he jumped into a car and drove off. I think he’ll be a while.” She pulled back to examine every inch of Ian’s face.

“Daniela?”

She brushed back his matted hair from his temples with her slim fingers, her green eyes filled with concern. “I was afraid that they killed you.”

Her voice was tender and…sexy, and he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think how intimately they were pressed together.

“Untie me. Please.”

She lifted up his shirt and carefully wiped the sweat and blood off his face. And then she lowered her head and brushed her sweet lips over his in a move so erotic and so innocent at the same time, that hot need shot though him out of nowhere, so strong that it made him dizzy.

Thank God, his hands were tied. Because there was no way he would have been able to keep them off her.

He held completely still.

She brushed her full lips back and forth over his. She was smiling as she whispered, “You’re mine now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Right, because he so wanted to run. But he said nothing. He absolutely could not encourage her.

He didn’t have it in him to reject her yet again either. He hated putting pain in her eyes.

She nibbled his bottom lip gently. Then she licked the corner of his lips. Ian was glad Marcos had focused on his midsection. His face was all right, other than what he thought was a split eyebrow.

He was harder than the steel pipes he’d been tied to, and she had to feel it, sitting on him as she was. He didn’t dare move a muscle.

She licked a slow, delicious line across the seam of his lips. Not kissing her back took every ounce of strength that he had.

She had passion. He was glad in a way. He’d been worried it might have been brutalized out of her—but he really wished she pointed her newfound passion somewhere else.

Of course, then he’d want to murder the guy.