I wake up from a dreamless sleep and even though I hurt all over I’m grateful to be alive.

I don’t know what I was thinking by trying to kill myself. Actually, I do know. I felt scared and desperate and backed into a corner. That’s not who I am. I won’t make the mistake again. I’m going to write it off as a moment of weakness and concentrate on escaping.

I look around and realize I’m no longer in the cell. I’m in a bed. A big one. It’s soft and the sheets and blankets are simple but smell clean.

I’m also completely naked.

Fuck.

I sit up slowly, pulling the blankets with me to cover myself. The pain doesn’t hit me like a hammer although I’m still very sore.

Smoke appears in the doorway, naked from the waist up. His chest is broad and so are his shoulders. His abs flex from underneath the colorful tattoos that cover almost every inch of his skin. He walks past me, crossing the room, He opens a door in the far corner. He disappears inside, and I hear water running. He comes back out and rips the sheets from my body.

I’m naked, and his gaze is trailing over my body. I can feel his stare on me. His eyes grow darker.

“No!” I shout, pushing him away as he grabs me by the waist. I turn over on my knees and try to scramble from his grasp.

“You want a bath or not?” he asks.

I still and turn toward him, covering my chest. I search his face for any trace that this might be a joke, but I don’t find one.

I nod because there’s nothing in the world that sounds better to my aching muscles than a bath. He lifts me again into his strong arms as if I weigh nothing, and I breathe through my nose deeply and try to calm the urge to push off his chest and run.

Smoke is much larger than me, but I don’t realize how much until I’m cradled in his arms. He’s massive. Taller than me by a foot and outweighing me by at least a hundred pounds.

He carries me over to the bathroom while I try and keep myself covered the best I can with my hands over my chest and my legs crossed at my thighs. He sets me on my feet beside the tub but I’m weaker than I thought. My legs shakier. I stumble.

Smoke catches me. His arm around my waist. He dips his hand into the water to check the temperature.

“I’m surprised you even check. Imagine what joy you could get out of tossing me into scalding hot water.”

“Don’t fucking tempt me, hellion.”

I look around at the white tile and high window. “Where are we?” I ask. The last thing I remember is the prison cell.

“We’re still at the same place,” he says. “This is the warden’s house. Or at least, it used to be. I figure I can keep a better eye on you here.”

The small bathroom doesn’t look anything like the abandoned prison. There’s no graffiti or peeling paint. Everything in it is at least twenty years old, but it doesn’t appear to be abandoned at all. The white tile lining the bottom half of the walls and covering the floor is clean and the claw foot tub, although rusted at the drain, is otherwise intact.

Smoke, seemingly satisfied with the temperature of the water, lifts me again.

I brace myself to cringe from the contact against my bruised skin but he’s surprisingly gentle as he sets me down in the tub.

Why the hell is he bothering?

He’s been a brute. Rough. Now he’s suddenly Florence fucking Nightingale? I think I liked the aggression better. At least, it wasn’t confusing.

I hiss through my teeth as I sink down in the warm water as it makes contact with my wounds. It’s only a temporary sting. After a few minutes, my muscles begin to relax. I moan out loud. I’m so far gone, lost in the wonderful sensation I drop my hands from my chest and almost forget that I’m not alone until Smoke speaks.

He’s looking down into the water. “That guy in the cell, did he…was I too—”

“No!” I cut him off, repeating my answer. “No.”

“Good,” he says with a curt nod. His lips turn up in a snarl like he’s remembering what had happened.

“Why do you care?” I ask.

Smoke crouches down next to the tub. “Because you belong to me. Your fear, your anger, your fury, your fucking defiance. It all belongs to me. And nobody fucks with what’s mine but ME.”

I gasp, his words twisting my insides into a mess that can rival the tangled vines of the prison yard.

ME, not Griff, the man he’s supposedly working for, the man my father stole from. His one eyebrow, the one with a scar through it, twitches. He looks down into the water. There’s more to this situation than he’s letting on.

Much more.

I remember my nudity and cover my body to shield myself from his gaze.

He chuckles. “Who do you think is the one who undressed you? Hate to tell you, hellion, but I’ve already seen it all. Every inch of your bruised and cut flesh.”

He might have a point, but I refuse to uncover my body. He may say he owns me, but it’s a lie.

I own me.

No one else.

I close my eyes as if to block him out in every way I’m capable of, but they spring open again when I feel a sting at my lip. “Ouch!”

Smoke is holding a cotton ball to the corner of my mouth, a medical kit open on the side of the tub, a bottle of rubbing alcohol open on the floor. He’s cleaning my cuts. I’m about to ask him why but choke down the words. I can’t think of a single positive outcome that will come of that question so I ask him another one.

“Who was that guy? The one in the cell?” I ask.

“An asshole sent to check up on me by an even bigger asshole,” he grates out.

“He doesn’t work for you?” I ask.

Smoke shakes his head. “No. I work alone. At least, I do now.” I can see the regret on his face the second the words are spoken.

I remember Dr. Ida’s rules. Relate to your captor. “I’m better by myself, too,” I say.

Smoke raises an eyebrow and moves the cotton ball to a scrape on my shoulder. That’s when I notice the gauze covering the top of his right shoulder and the bloodstain underneath from the bullet I meant to shoot into my own head.

Smoke stills and turns his head to the side. There’s an unspoken question lingering on his lips.

“What?” I ask. “You think you’re so different from everyone else in the world? You’re not. There are a lot of people out there like you. Hell, I’m even more like you than you think.”

“That’s not fuckin’ possible,” Smoke mutters, closing the kit.

This is the first time I’m attempting to relate to him in a non-panicked state so I take a moment and choose my words wisely.

“Well, you’re a lone wolf. Just like me. Governed by nothing and no one except his own fucked up set of rules and morals, and believe it or not, that’s just like me.” I meant to lie to him, but the words I’ve spoken are the truth. I am alone in this world and so is he.

“You think that matters?” Smoke asks.

“Yes. I think it does.” I argue then decide to stretch the truth a bit. “We both use what we’ve got to make others do what we want. I use my looks to get the guy from the grocery store to make deliveries by promising him things I’m never planning to go through with. I get the neighbors to fix the door hinge or rewire the stove by offering hints of a friendship I’m not capable of giving them. You do the same except you use your intimidation to get what you want. It’s your own brand of manipulation. So, you see? We may have our differences, but there’s a lot between us that’s the same too. And I have a feeling that you’re just as lonely as I am.”

“Maybe,” he says calmly.

I’m taken aback by his agreement. Stunned.

This might actually work.

Smoke washes my body with a washcloth. He’s gentle and careful. His face twists in concentration as he maneuvers around the worst of the road rash on my arm.

This man is a lot more complicated than I initially thought.

He washes between my legs, never taking his eyes from mine. He drags the washcloth up, dragging it lightly over my nipples then lingering over the cut below my collarbone where he stares down with an expression of awe.

A LOT more complicated.

Smoke blinks rapidly, dropping the cloth into the tub. With a small plastic cup, he rinses my hair, careful not to get any water in my eyes. “There is one major difference between us you’re forgetting about. The most important one.”

“And what might that be?” I ask, as Smoke helps me to stand and wraps a towel around my shoulders.

Something cold and hard juts into the base of my spine and trails up the bone until my entire body is taut.

Smoke’s lips move against the tip of my ear, his voice rolling through me like thunder.

“I’ve got the balls to pull the trigger.”