Page 14 of Dark Lover

His eyes widened.

She kept her mind blank. “I want to see your digs.”

A slow, hot smile began. He slid into the cab and Sam slid in with him. She shut the door. As he leaned forward to tell the driver where they were going, she reached into her bag. “1101 Park Avenue,” he said.

Sam snapped the handcuff on his wrist. He started, his gaze slamming to hers as she snapped its mate on her own wrist. She smiled at him. “This should be fun.”

SHE HAD JUST handcuffed herself to him.

He started to laugh, amused. Did she think to dismay him? He’d been lusting for her since he’d first seen her. He would never get over her face. Those striking features, those amazing eyes and that cropped platinum-blond hair. He looked forward to the day she rubbed her face over every inch of his body…

He raised his wrist and said, “All ye had to do was tell me, Sam. I’d have brought the handcuffs myself.”

“We stay together tonight,” she said coolly.

But he didn’t hear. As he tugged gently on the handcuffs, his gut churned, the sensation sickening. They were speeding up Central Park West, but the old, stately apartment buildings started to swim in his vision. They became dark ominous shadows…

He could not have a flashback now.

But he recognized the shadows—the small, tight walls of a cellar. The iron on his wrist was attached to one wall. They’d left him in there, like that, for months. His only company had been the rats. He’d been nine years old.

“What’s wrong, Maclean?”

“What’s wrong, Ian? Are you afraid of the dark? The rats? Me?”

He stared up at the demon who had captured him. The demon who had killed him, and then brought him back to life so he could be tortured. Used.

Soft evil laughter sounded.

And although he hadn’t used his voice in months, not since the beginning when he’d screamed and screamed for help, he begged. “Please let me out. Please. I’ll do whatever ye wish.”

“Good, because I have so many uses for a pretty boy like you,” his grandfather said.

“Maclean?”

He’d lived with horror and pain—and abject fear—for sixty-six years. But he heard Sam Rose, and somehow, he looked at her.

He was sweating.

“What’s wrong with you?” Her vivid blue gaze moved over him. “Hot flash?”

Her mockery brought him firmly back to the present and the taxicab they shared. He looked back at her and shook his wrist, so the handcuff wriggled between them. “Of course I’m hot. We’re shackled together.”

For one more moment she stared. He was fairly certain she did not believe the excuse he’d just made. He didn’t care what she believed. He was aware that she thought him selfish and a user—and she was right. He had one and only one interest in her.

Pleasure was an escape. He never had flashbacks during sex.

The first time he had seen Sam Rose, she had been crossing the street in Oban, Scotland, causing male pedestrians to trip and stare. Traffic had come to a screeching stop. His mouth had gone dry and he’d become as hard as a two-by-four. He’d known then and there that he’d have her. No woman had ever denied him. He’d been honest when he said he always got what he wanted.

He’d felt her warrior power instantly and that had added to her allure and appeal. Most of the women he used were rich and bored, the highlight of their day a trip to Cartier. Now he knew even more about her. She was a powerful Slayer. The highlight of her day was a bloody fight with the devil. He would never forget the sight of her battling the possessed teens in her little red dress and spike heels just moments ago—fighting as he’d never seen a woman fight before. She’d taken down the five possessed teens effortlessly. And she had not been afraid. He’d have felt it. Evil did not frighten her.

It frightened everyone else.

It frightened him.

He hid beneath a pile of towels, trying to make himself as small as he could. His grandfather had returned and he had guests—and he was calling for him. Fear made him sick. He lost control of his bladder. He was throwing up. He knew what they’d do to him. They were bored and he’d be the evening’s sport—until they went to hunt the Innocent on the streets. There was nowhere to hide and they wouldn’t let him die. He’d heard Moray telling his captors that he must be kept alive—at all costs.

He prayed to his father, begging him to hear him, begging him to come rescue him.