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CHAPTER ELEVEN

emma

N aked.

Oh, so naked.

I’d seen sexy Logan Blackwood naked, and it hadn’t been in the front seat of his truck. The contractor extraordinaire had an incredible, muscular body with the most gorgeously shaped man business I’d seen… maybe ever.

But something was wrong.

Logan had been in my sacred woods, near my campsite, crouched down by my car as though he’d been watching me at the campfire for hours and hours.

Now my skull felt like it was being split from the inside out, like something clawing to get out, and the void in my stomach had grown cavernous.

I wanted to blink away the piles of sand in my eye sockets, yet my eyes wouldn’t open.

Fabric scratched my cheek as I shook my head back and forth.

Logan must have followed me and drugged me after I’d skipped out on him, leaving him turned on and alone in Vixen’s parking lot. However, even as the accusation bumped through my fractured thoughts, I didn’t— couldn’t —believe it.

He wasn’t that kind of guy, but how could I be sure he wasn’t? How could I possibly know? I didn’t know him. Not really. Had he kissed my hip?

I hadn’t eaten in weeks. With as empty as my insides felt, I was sure of it. My body wanted to kill me, or maybe it already was. I wasn't sure where I was or how long it was taking me to wake from the nightmare I’d been dragged into ass backwards.

The bedsheets pulled tight around my kicking legs, and the floor creaked as though someone was beside me or moving away. The pillows still weren’t right. The cover was rough on my skin. I always bought higher thread count sheets than this, didn't I?

Lightning struck in my memory, bringing flashes of what couldn’t possibly be real. I’d been a bear, and I’d been a fox. My arms had been furred, and Logan had watched it all.

I’d screamed his name, and he’d been there as I’d morphed into something other than Emma the human and sent the mountain lion tumbling over the ground.

Logan! It thundered in my head. He was a part of whatever happened to me now. Somehow, he was tied to it all.

None of it made sense, and I thrashed in the strange bed, still fighting the mountain lion, trying to scream while no sound came out.

Finally, I rolled over, slipping from one reality to the other as the mattress disappeared from beneath me.

It felt like a million miles to the floor below, and days condensed to seconds.

I was flying and falling, and a part of me was dying all at the same time.

Insanity circled me, yet a part of me knew I was being dramatic and over-the-top, since nothing could be as bad as all that and humans didn’t actually turn into animals.

When I hit the ground beside the bed, I couldn’t catch myself. My chin slammed into the wooden floor, knocking me straight into a version of consciousness accompanied by a swirl of spots, and a rush of dizziness rolled through me. My room spun around me.

“Oof. Mother of all…” My voice trailed away as I blinked into the brightness and craned my head to figure out where I was. No wounds from the mountain lion attack met my fingers, and I should have been gushing blood after that fall.

Shit. What the hell was going on? I should have had injuries all over me. How long had I been out of it? It had to be at least mid-morning on Sunday, gauging by the light streaming into the room. It couldn’t be Monday. I had patient appointments on Monday.

However, this room wasn’t mine at all. The light fixtures were antiques, the walls whitewashed wooden planks.

The gnarled wood flooring creaked beneath me, and the bed frame held a patina older than anything in my house.

Maybe I’d gotten conscripted into a living museum.

On some level, I should’ve been screaming and crying and trying to get away, but my situation didn’t seem that dire.

Another swivel of my head brought a window into focus.

I couldn't be sure, but based on the view of tree limbs outside the windowpanes, it seemed like I was on a second floor. Carefully, I eased to all fours and crawled to the window to peer over the cushioned window seat. No city beckoned me, no town, none of the high-rises in downtown Willow Creek, not my suburban neighborhood. Yep, I was definitely on the second floor of a home I didn’t recognize, so I wasn’t going to escape out that way.

If I needed to, that was. Because a historic home with a manicured lawn didn’t seem like a prison, and nobody sat in the room with me. A key rested in the keyhole beneath the crystal knob on the door, so it wasn’t locked. Kidnapping didn’t seem likely.

Using the bed to steady myself, I climbed to my feet, but a wave of dizziness sent me tumbling back down to my knees. The stained-glass lamp on the bedside table rattled with the force of my fall.

A rush of footsteps sounded from somewhere well below me, moving closer and upward as though a group of people were coming up a stairway.

Fitting for the home I’d been deposited in.

At least I was in my own T-shirt and shorts.

They hadn’t been what I was wearing last time I was conscious, and I didn’t want to think about how I had gotten into them or who had put me in them.

Instead of scrambling to unsteady legs, I curled into a ball, flattened, and tried to scoot beneath the bed, but the gap between the bottom of the mattress and the floor wasn’t tall enough.

Instead, I edged as close to the bed as I could, drawing toward the wall until I wasn’t in immediate view when my captor stepped into the room.

Hiding under the bed wasn’t going to be the way I escaped.

Think, Emma. Think! But my brain was still a muddle of sludge.

The floor creaked in the hall outside, and the doorknob jiggled as though it didn’t work. I held my breath. Finally, the heavy door slammed open. The crystal knob shattered upon impact with the wall, sending a shower of glitter-shards over the floor.

I took a deep breath and held it.

Three sets of people came into the room, their legs visible under the mattress. They whispered together before coming around the corner of the bed to stare at me. I glared back at a blonde I didn't recognize, another man I didn't recognize, and…

Fuck me sideways.

It was Logan Blackwood.

Not naked this time.

Traitorous disappointment knifed through me, and my mouth practically watered as he stood there. Apparently, my body hadn’t given up on the idea of a sexy reunion.

His black T-shirt had to be a size too small, conforming to his pectorals, his abs, and every other muscle in his upper body. Blackwood Construction had been printed across the front of the T-shirt so long ago the white had faded. His ripped-up jeans hugged his hips, and he wore no shoes.

Logan turned to the other man. “Will you stand outside the door? Nobody gets in. Understand? Not until I say so.”

The man’s eyes flicked to me and then back to Logan. Then the stranger nodded and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

Logan turned back to me, and the blonde tipped her head, studying me with a blatant curiosity, as though I were an animal in a zoo.

He gestured to the woman. “That’s Olivia, and you’re up much sooner than either of us expected.”

“Because you drugged me? Did you kidnap me?” I spat the words with as much vitriol as I could muster, hoping the fury lodged somewhere it would hurt Logan most. “And I don’t give two fucks who she is.”

But I did care, even if I didn’t want to think about why I cared.

Logan's eyes widened as he stared at me, and the bright blue of his irises glittered in the morning sun. “That’s who you think I am? After the night in my truck?”

The blonde snorted. “You think he kidnapped you?” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a withering look. “He saved you.”

“Saved me from what?” I snarled back, unbothered by her attempt to strong-arm me. I’d seen enough snapping jaws in my life to know when it was all bluster.

Logan crossed his arms and stared at me, his face frozen in an emotion I couldn't read, and I was good at reading body language and expressions. As a vet, I’d had to be.

“You were stalking me.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said softly.

“You kidnapped me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

With a groan, I moved until I was seated on the ground, feeling like I’d been beaten with a two-by-four. “Well, what else do you call it? You took me from where I was and brought me here without my permission. I’d be willing to bet a judge would rule on my side.”

“Well, he wasn't going to leave you out in the park alone, now, was he?” she demanded.

“But I still didn't ask him to help me. I didn't want any help, especially from a naked-assed man who invited himself into my campsite. I was out there in the park on purpose.”

Olivia gave me a look. “Yeah, where you got attacked by a mountain lion, and…”

“Probably attacked by Logan, too,” I snapped. “He’s the kidnapping asshole, right?”

How the hell had I gotten stuck in this mess?

And why, oh, why, did I keep remembering Logan’s fingers on my tattoo?