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The low hum of voices outside the bathroom was too muffled to hear what was being said, but it didn’t take a genius to know I was the one they were talking about. All I wanted to do was leave this shithole of a town behind, but now I was stuck with this damn motorcycle gang who were dead set on seeing me punished for trying to steal one of their bikes. Never mind the fact that I’d failed.
Swearing under my breath, I fumbled my backpack off one shoulder. With my wrist shackled to the shower, it was an awkward effort, to say the least, but I managed to unhook the safety pin from my zipper and set to work picking the lock on my cuffs.
I guess there are some perks to having a criminal douchebag for a brother. If he could see me now, he’d never let me live it down.
See, little sis? You should listen to me more often. I taught you that. I’m the one who saved your ass. And you never appreciate it.
I growled under my breath and worked at the lock harder, shoving my brother’s voice to the back of my mind. The complicated part was that I felt bad for him. Even though he treated me like dog shit, I understood why he did it.
Life had been hard for us growing up, and as the oldest sibling, Ryan got the brunt of it. I was only six years old when Mom died, so I didn’t remember much. Just bits and pieces of our mother passed out drunk on the couch, and a father who raged with his fists.
Ryan was old enough to remember it all.
He watched our mother spiral, slowly wasting away as she drowned herself in a bottle of alcohol every night to escape her shitty marriage and the children she didn’t love.
He shielded me from the beatings as often as he could when our father came home once in a blue moon, angry about everything—bills unpaid, the messy house, the filthy starving children who served as an ugly reminder that he was failing as a parent.
So, Ryan became mean in order to survive. He got involved with the wrong people—dangerous people—running drugs and guns for them. And I was his golden ticket. In a world of cutthroat, backstabbing men, I easily flew under the radar. A scrawny little thing, beaten into submission by my older, bigger, stronger brother.
The safety pin slipped and cut a jagged slice across my fingertip.
“Damn it,” I hissed.
I hastily wiped my hand on my jeans and continued to dig at the lock. My grip grew slippery as my fingertip kept bleeding, but I couldn’t afford to waste precious seconds to deal with it if I wanted to escape.
Ryan would have figured out I was gone by now. He would be looking for me. I needed to get out of Buckeye Junction before our paths crossed. It was a small town in the middle-of-nowhere Montana. We were bound to run into each other eventually. And he would comb every damn inch of the place to find me.
The door knob twisted.
My time was up. Shit.
Gideon stood on the threshold and propped one shoulder against the doorframe. He was a beefy, barrel-chested guy, with red and black tattoos roiling up his arms. A hint of more dark tattoo ink peeked out at his collar, along with a dusting of silver chest hair. My brain took off with possibilities, wondering just how much of him was inked.
“What did I tell you about getting washed up?” he said.
I brandished my cuffed wrist.
“Have you ever tried to take a shower this way? It’s a little complicated.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me.”
Gideon stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. My heart thundered against my ribs, and a flush of heat swept up my neck. The arousal I felt earlier began to fade as adrenaline took over when I realized what a bad position I was in. Cuffed to a shower, alone with a man I didn’t know.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat as he approached the tub.
“If you lay a finger on me,” I said, my voice wobbling slightly. “I’ll kick you in the balls so hard, you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your miserable life.”
Gideon arched an eyebrow, but he didn’t seem concerned about my threat. He stopped next to the tub, towering over me. It struck me all over again how big he was. Maybe I shouldn’t be mouthing off like this…
He gave a lazy flick of his wrist.
“Strip.”
I curled my fingers into a fist until my nails bit into my palm. The arousal was completely gone, replaced by the urge to fight. The odds weren’t in my favor, though. If I managed to get past Gideon, I’d have to contend with his buddies. But I wasn’t going to wilt like a little wallflower and simply take whatever came my way without raising hell.
“No,” I shot back.
A beat of silence settled over the room. Gideon gazed at me with steady, dark eyes. Then he crouched down and rested his forearms on the edge of the tub.
