Page 9 of Her Enemy Dragon Captor (Dream Team Shifters #5)

CHAPTER 9

J ane slumped against the wall, staring at the scone’s crumbs on the little saucer across from her. Despite her best efforts to dislike it, the buttery, blueberry-studded pastry had been annoyingly delicious.

"It's just a scone," she muttered, setting it aside. "Not Stockholm syndrome on a plate."

I’m not so easy to brainwash.

She'd spent the morning rebuilding her mental boundaries after that unsettling conversation with Alex. The way his voice had softened when talking about her sister. How his eyes seemed to understand her mission. The unexpected gentleness beneath his gruff exterior.

My charming captor.

How cliché.

No. She would not allow herself to humanize him. Whatever game he was playing—bringing her favorite coffee, soft bedding, and now mentioning some mysterious mission to "protect people"—she wouldn't be manipulated.

The dream from last night flashed through her mind again.

She was soaring through clouds, powerful and free, then suddenly in that lush bedroom with Alex's hands on her bare skin.

What did it mean?

It means you are horny... get over it... and with a rich dream life apparently...

But she couldn’t dispel the reminiscence so easily...

Heat bloomed across her body at the memory—his fingers tracing fire down her spine, the weight of his body pressing her into silk sheets. The way his mouth had claimed hers, hungry and demanding.

Janie...

But it was no use. Her body responded instantly.

The sensation of his thick length filling her completely, stretching her, the delicious friction as he drove into her again and again. The phantom pleasure pulsing between her thighs, the slick heat gathering there as her muscles clenched around nothing. Her nipples tightened beneath her shirt, aching for his touch, his mouth, his teeth.

A soft gasp escaped her lips as the visceral memory washed over her, her skin flushing with unwanted arousal.

Or maybe it is wanted...

"Focus, Donovan," she hissed, pushing herself to her feet. “Donovan” was the alter ego she called on when she really had to dig deep.

That would be now.

This is not the time to indulge your freaky fantasies.

She went to the sink and splashed some cold water on her face.

Better.

She had to escape, report back, expose this cult. If there was even a grain of truth to Alex's claims of innocence, the investigation would reveal it. But last time she checked, kidnapping was a crime, the act of a psychopath, regardless of whatever story he chose to tell himself.

Jane moved to the door, testing it again, though she knew it was futile. But she couldn’t just give up. For what felt like the billionth time, she began banging her fist against it.

"Hello! Can anyone hear me? I'm being held against my will!"

Ouch.

Her fists were sore from her efforts.

She continued for several minutes, shouting until her voice grew hoarse.

More hoarse.

Just as she was about to give up, a woman's voice called from outside.

"Hello? Is someone in there?"

Jane's heart leapt. "Yes! Help! I'm locked in!"

Footsteps approached, and Jane pressed her ear to the door. "Can you get me out? Please! The door's locked from the outside. There may be a key..."

For a moment the handle rattled, but then abruptly it stopped.

"Wait. Why are you in there?" the woman asked, her tone more curious than alarmed.

Jane frowned. “Because I'm being held captive! Someone locked me in! I'm a Federal agent! You need to call the police!"

There was a pause. "Federal Agent, huh? I see."

“You see? Let me out!” Her voice went up an octave with her growing frustration. “My name is agent Jane Donavan... you must get a hold of Director Carlsen...”

“And you really must learn to center yourself...”

Something about the voice nagged at Jane's sense memory...

Wait a moment...

"Cindy?” That was it. She’d recognize that calm soothing meditation guiding voice anywhere. She could only pray Cindy wasn’t drinking the kool-aid too. Or that she had only taken a sip... or just had some basic human decency about her... “It’s me, Lucy, Lucy Watkins...”

“Ahhhh,” recognition seemed to dawn from the other side of the door. “We’ve been wondering where you went.”

“I’ve been here! Locked up! Please... Open. The. Door!”

“Some of the others thought you had slipped away in the night, but no... I disagree. not after seeing your dragon...”

My what?

Her dream flashed through her mind again...

Cindy continued, talking away as if she hadn’t just told her it was an emergency. “But I didn’t see this coming...”

"Cindy! You have to help me. These people aren't what they seem?—"

"Apparently not," Cindy said, but again, her voice more quizzical than alarmed, as if she were parsing new information. “So, this man, I assume it was a man? Who locked you up. Did he happen to provide a name?”

The question, like most of this interaction, caught Jane totally off-guard.

This is not a good sign.

"Alex. Alex is his name. But what does it matter? Cindy, he could be back at any time. You could be in danger too... please."

"Ahhh, Alex, of course," Cindy repeated as if she had just been told the answer to a particularly difficult riddle. "That man is so sneaky. Almost as sneaky as you are ‘Lucy.’ A Federal Agent you say?”

Jane pressed closer to the door, as her heart sank. "You’re in danger... Aren't you listening? I'm being held against my will! This is a federal crime!"

"And why would he do that?" Cindy asked, as if they were discussing a mildly interesting puzzle rather than a kidnapping.

"Oh please, you know why," Jane snapped. "I was gathering evidence when he caught me and locked me up! What part of this isn't registering?"

There was another pause, longer this time. "I see," Cindy finally said. "Well, if Alex has you here, he must have a good reason for it."

Jane couldn't believe what she was hearing. "No! no, no, no... Cindy, please?—"

"I'm sorry," Cindy said, and she actually sounded perfectly sincere. "I know this must be confusing for you. But there's more going on than you understand. Just... try to be patient."

"Patient?" Jane spluttered. "While I'm being illegally detained? Are you out of your mind?"

“Try to calm your mind, Lucy...err.. Jane... and maybe trust you are here for a reason. Life doesn’t make mistakes you know...”

“Doesn’t make mistakes? Are you fucking high!”

Of course she is. And to think you actually bought that airy fairy pseudo calm voice shit...”

But how had she known about her dragon...her dream?

She didn’t. Coincidence.

Is that why she looked at you the way she did yesterday when she also mentioned your dragon?

"Cindy! Come back!" Jane pounded on the door. But the only response was the sound of retreating footsteps.

And then silence. Again.

She sank to the floor, mind racing. Cindy hadn't seemed brainwashed or afraid when they spoke the day before. But she certainly was now.

She must be.

Again, the dream pushed its way to the forefront of her mind.

Her chest burned with a powerful warmth... and she felt a flash of that feeling again. But this flash was less focused on the sensations of his hands roaming all over her. That was still there, but no, this time it was more about the start of the dream.

The soaring. The flying, and that powerful connection to something mighty...something primal. And the overwhelming feeling behind it all...freedom.

"What the hell kind of cult is this?" Jane whispered to the empty room as she rested her head against the door, exhaustion creeping in.

With the strange sensation still lingering in her chest, her thoughts circled back to Alex. Only now much of her outrage had somehow faded. The genuine regret in his eyes when she'd mentioned her sister. The strange, electric connection whenever they touched.

In her mentally, and physically exhausted state, it was getting harder to resist the pull she felt to him.

Another surge of excitement rushed through her body, even as her thoughts drifted to his broad shoulders, the way his shirt stretched across his chest, and the intensity in those amber eyes that seemed to see right through her...

"Stop it," she growled, banging her head lightly against the door. "He's your captor, not your book boyfriend."

But per usual her mind didn't listen and the dream images returned, more vivid than before: flying through the air, powerful beyond measure, with Alex beside her. His hands exploring her body, rough palms sliding across her tender flesh, igniting sparks wherever they touched. His mouth capturing hers, hot and demanding, tongue seeking entrance, claiming her completely. His teeth grazing her neck, her collarbone, moving lower to tease her nipples into aching peaks. The memory of his hardness pressing against her core, the delicious weight of him between her thighs, made her body clench with need.

Oh my God...what. is happening...again?

Jane felt heat spreading through her, a restless energy that had nothing to do with her imprisonment and everything to do with the man who'd put her there. Her breasts felt heavy, sensitive against the fabric of her shirt, nipples tight and begging for attention. A liquid warmth pooled between her legs, her inner muscles clenching, aching to be filled. She crossed her legs tightly, the pressure only intensifying the throb of desire.

She had to almost physically stop her hand from moving down to satisfy the ache that was beginning to pulse in her sex. Her fingers twitched with the urge to slip beneath her waistband, to circle that sensitive bundle of nerves and ease the tension building inside her.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, pushing herself up. "It's just... psychological stress. Or cabin fever. Or both."

She tried to channel her energy into inspecting the cabin again, searching for any weakness she might have missed. But with every minute that passed, she found her thoughts drifting back to Alex.

Would he return tonight? What would he bring? Would he look at her with that confusing mixture of frustration and... something else? Would his hands brush against hers again, sending that electric current racing through her veins? Would she catch him looking at her mouth, her body, with that barely contained hunger that made her own desire flare in response?

A sigh escaped her, heavy with a frustration that wasn't entirely about being locked up.

"Get it together, Donavan," she whispered. But her old trick wasn't working. She felt more like lovesick Janie than the FBI agent she needed so desperately to channel right now.

But as the afternoon shadows lengthened again across the cabin floor, she couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental was shifting inside her—something that terrified her far more than being locked in this cabin.

But what was so terrifying, she realized was that it wasn’t terror at all.

It thrilled her...he thrilled her, in every way...and everywhere all at once.

Her body hummed with anticipation at the thought of his return, her skin sensitive and alive with longing. She knew her resistance was slipping, and it both terrified her, as well as lit her core on fire...

She wanted so badly to just surrender to this primal pull...

But obviously that would be the biggest mistake of her life...

Well, you have done plenty of stupid things before Janie...

No, she refused to entertain the possibility. She knew what would happen if she did...