Page 12 of Stranded with the SEAL

She held her breath.

Who the hell is that?

Terror sluiced through her. She snuck another peek at the room around her, her eyes focused on the embers glowing brightly in the fireplace, then shifted to take in a gold-flecked bottle on the mantel. Alcohol. The man moaned and snuggled closer to her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

She must have been drinking.

Light-headed with panic, she worked to keep her breathing as normal as possible. She took stock of her body, clenching her thighs and the muscles inside her pelvis. Neither were sore or tender like they would be after sex, which didn’t help to explain the man currently pressed against her backside, or what felt like his growing erection.

She inched away, pain shooting through her left shoulder and down her side and surprising her into stillness. She struggled to remember what she’d been doing before she went to bed, a memory like the smallest thread she could pull and trace back to a sweater, but was unable to think beyond her sore body and the throbbing inside her skull.

She couldn’t remember anything.

What if he slipped something in my drink and brought me here without me knowing?

Her senses were instantly on high alert. As slowly as she could, she eased away from the man and rolled from the couch onto the floor, the movement once again throwing pain through half her body and making her previous headache seem like child’s play.

She looked back at the still-sleeping stranger, menacing with his sharp jaw and dark stubble. Her eyes stuck on the wide set of his enormous shoulders. There was strength there, enough to make her willowy limbs quake with the possibilities of what had happened to her.

Come on, Olivia. Think! How did you get here?

The man rolled to his side, his silhouette dramatizing his bone structure and physique. He was so masculine, like an image of primitive man in a museum somewhere, the kind of man she would have found attractive if her reaction were not threaded with this heavy fear.

The kind of man she’d have a hard time escaping from in her current condition.

She needed to get the hell out of here before this guy woke up.

As she carefully crawled away with her good arm, the pounding in her head begged her to be still as her panic egged her on. There’d be time later to coddle her headache, once she was safe and sound and out of this place. She needed to get home.

The thought resonated in her head like a punchline and she froze, her eyes widening.

Home — a word that should conjure feelings of security and peace — brought up only a blank page in her mind. She mentally shook herself.

Come on.Home.

Nothing.

Her breath came faster, too fast now.

The man mumbled something under his breath and shifted in his sleep, forcing her to move. If she couldn’t even remember where she lived, there was no more doubt in her mind that the sleeping creep had drugged her before bringing her here last night.

Dear God, she hoped it was last night. She swallowed the possibility she’d been here longer.

As quietly as she could, she used the coffee table to lift herself to a stand. An overwhelming wave of dizziness had her knees buckling, and she fell back down to the floor, her knee banging the coffee table with enough force that her eyes immediately shot to the man.

His eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling.

He was going to grab her and have his way with her, and suddenly she wished for the vacancy in her mind to rescue her from this reality again. She wanted to throw up. Damn it, she was going to throw up. She hugged her knees, fighting the need to vomit.

“Are you okay?” the man asked.

Now she’d done it, woken the bear who was bound to try to keep her in this cave. His voice was deeper than she’d been expecting, its tone vibrating in her chest. She looked to a doorway, knowing it was too far for her to run.

She had to pretend she wasn’t afraid, had to keep him at ease. She threw him what she hoped looked like an embarrassed glance over her shoulder. “I feel sick to my stomach.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Yes.”