Abby
Abby stared down into the pot of stew, wondering how she'd come to this point. Here she was, cooking for Zed.
She'd woken late in the afternoon, around four, and recoiled immediately. Somehow, during the night, she'd curled herself up against Zed. Maybe it was because she'd been naked and cold, or maybe her body just needed the human contact. Whatever the reason, she'd had her head resting on his broad chest, her nostrils flaring as she took in his manly smell. But her middle-of-the-night cuddling didn't worry her that much.
What did worry her, though, was that she'd just laid her head back on his chest and listened to the steady thump of his heart and the insistent sound of his breath. She had just closed her eyes and remembered how his hands had felt on her the night before, how they'd manhandled her over the last two days, and how they'd so carefully tucked her into bed.
She'd stayed like that, not wanting to wake him.
“You awake?” Zed had asked a little while later, his hand stroking her hair. “Why don't you go take a bath? I'll be out here.”
When she had gotten back from the bath, Zed had allowed her to put clothes on for the first time in what felt like ages. Once fully dressed, Abby realized how restricting her clothes normally felt, and how even the finest pieces of her wardrobe were itchier and scratchier than just the air she'd been clothed in for the last few days.
Fast forward an hour or so, and here she was. Finishing a meal for her captor.
“Sorry, sir,” she said, as she set his bowl down in front of him, “Stew is really the only thing I know how to cook.” She smiled sheepishly, a little embarrassed at how unformidable she was in that area of expertise.
“But then why do you have so many cook books?” he asked with a smile. “I saw them when I was figuring out what groceries we'd need.”
Something about him was just so different now that they were out of the bedroom. It was different now that he was there, sitting at the dining room table (missing one chair, mind you, that she hoped to never see again) like the perfect husband she thought she'd never have. He was strong, determined, intelligent, and ruthless. He was the kind of man she'd always hoped for, she supposed.
She went back into the kitchen and ladled her own bowl full of meat, veggies, and rich gravy. She was surprised to find that he hadn't started eating by the time she came back to the dining room table with her own bowl. She settled in across from him, spoon in hand. He waited for her to take the first bite. Abby could tell he was doing it out of politeness, too. Not out of some worry that she had poisoned him. If he had been worried about that, or about her grabbing a knife, he could have stayed in the kitchen the whole time and watched her prepare the meal.
She brought the spoon to her mouth and sipped the broth, closing her eyes as the first savory bit of food she'd had in three days passed her lips. Smoothies and granola bars were two more things she could do without, after her time in the timeout chair.
Abby found herself watching him as he tasted the food for the first time. Even though he was her captor, she felt a little leap of joy in her chest as he tried his first spoonful and approved it with a smiling nod. “It's delicious,” he said, smiling like he'd been uncertain about how it would taste.
She smiled back and looked back down at her bowl, her mind screaming at her to snap the fuck out of it. She ignored her brain, though, at least for the moment. “Thank you, sir,” she said and took another bite, smiling around her spoon about the fact that someone was actually enjoying her food.
“Maybe we could work on some meals together?” Zed asked. “I spent a lot of time in the military, so I never did a lot of cooking. And when I got out, I didn't have anyone to cook for, and I never bothered to learn. But I always wanted to. It just seemed too depressing to cook for one.”
She kept her eyes on her food. She'd never been asked to do that kind of thing before. Growing up rich, like she had, Abby had never even seen her mother cook. She'd just bought all the cookbooks because she'd wanted to learn, but, like Zed had said, it was sad to cook a meal for just yourself.
“How about the garden?” he asked.
“What about it, sir?” Abby replied.
“Well, it looks like it's in need of a little TLC. Maybe some fertilizer, and definitely some weeding.”
She shook her head and brought her napkin up from her lap to wipe her mouth. “I just had such a huge back yard, and I didn't know what else to do with it . . . sir.”
He laughed and took another bite of stew. “How about we go out back while there's still some sun?” he asked, offering a small smile. “You know, take a look at it? My parents had a garden when Kai and I were kids, at least for a while. We could take a look at it, too.”
She hadn't been out in the sun or felt a cool breeze of fresh air on her face in days. She'd never exactly been a sun worshiper—her mother always made her wear SPF50 to protect her creamy complexion—but suddenly the idea of getting out of the house seemed amazing. She nodded. “Yes sir, that would be nice.”
Zed grinned. “Good,” he said, digging back into his food.
As he finished his stew with obvious relish, Abby watched him. In this setting, sitting around at the table just eating dinner, he almost seemed normal. She looked closely at him, noting his unshaven face and the dress shirt he still hadn’t changed. This wasn't some strange courting ritual, no matter what had happened last night and no matter how good or right it had felt while she was moaning under his touch. She couldn't ever have feelings for this man, despite what her body had felt, or the pleasure it had experienced. She reminded herself that this man was the opposition. He was her prison warden, not some new beau.
He. Was. Fucking. Crazy.
And she was, too, if she didn't keep in mind what he'd already done to her, and what he'd shown himself willing to do. He'd locked her in a goddamn closet for two days! He'd spanked her, choked her, and . . . made her writhe under his hands, begging for him not to stop as he pleasured her body more thoroughly than any man ever had.
He looked up from his stew, smiling warmly, with no hint of craziness in his eyes or on his lips. “This is really good stew,” he said again.
She returned Zed's smile and returned to her own bowl, thoughts still racing through her mind.
She needed to remember that she didn't take shit from anyone, and definitely not any man, armed or not, sexy or not, gardener or not.
# # #
Zed
“Do we have to, sir?” Abby asked, as he came back into the dining room with the dog collar again.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, as he walked over and lifted the dog collar up.
She groaned and put the bag of gardening tools on the table next to her.
“Now, now,” Zed chided her. “No complaining. You agreed to the rules about following orders, and this is my order. Besides, you get to go outside. You should be happy about that.”
She sighed again, but lifted her hair so he could attach the collar around her neck.
Zed secured it in place and, together, they went to the back of the house.
The backyard was expansive, with lush grass sweeping out from the back porch. A high privacy fence surrounded the property, ensuring no neighbors would be able to spy into the yard unless they were in one of the second-story windows.
They both blinked as they stepped out into the bright evening sun, the whole world seeming to shine under its warm, yellow glow. Beside him, Abby took a deep breath of fresh air and seemed to immediately brighten a little.
“Come on,” Zed said, as gave the leash a gentle tug and began to lead her over to the garden.
Abby followed along beside him, not fighting him in any way. Zed couldn't help but wonder if it was working. Perhaps she was beginning to realize how much better it would be to help him with his brother.
They looked over the garden, bag of tools in hand. “Yep,” he said. “First thing is to get some of these weeds out of here. My mom always says a weed is just a plant that doesn’t belong.”
Abby smiled a little. “Sounds like she's a funny lady, sir.”
“No,” Zed replied, as he hunkered down next to the garden and peered at it. “She's a real bitch.”
She laughed as she got down next to him, close enough that her knee brushed against Zed's. “I can kind of relate, sir.”
He felt a little electrical tingle go through his body, where her skin grazed his slacks, and he glanced down at her. She'd worn short shorts for the outside work, and they left very little to the imagination. Her light cotton shirt was sheer, and he loved how he could see the faint outline of her bra through it. There was just a natural beauty about her, and a sort of femininity that made him want to grab her, hold her, and protect her from the outside world any way he could.
The key, though, was getting her to let him.
They spent the next couple of hours digging in the dirt, laughing together, as they told each other about their lives. Zed spoke about what it had been like growing up with a sibling, a twin brother, even. He told her, too, about their lives growing up with two parents who had been involved with their children, before they divorced.
“Kai and I look an awful lot like our dad,” he said as he worked a weed out of the soil. “And I think mom held it against us after he left. She didn't handle him walking out very well, which I can't really blame her for after fifteen years being married. What about you? What about your mother?”
“You really don't know anything about me, do you?” Abby asked, laughing.
He noticed she didn't use the proper word to address him, but he decided he'd let it slide this time.
“Sorry,” he said, “I've just never been much for celebrity gossip, that's all.”
“Well, sir,” she said. “My father died in a skiing accident when I was a little girl. After that, mom never remarried or anything.” She adopted her mother's tight jawed, teeth-clenched accent from the northeast. “'I refuse to bend to any new man.'”
Zed laughed and shook his head at the impression.
She glanced up at him, smiling in such a way that it warmed his heart just a little to see it. “She was always working, though. I was pretty much raised by nannies, tutors, cooks—that kind of thing. She never wanted me in show business, like she had been. She wanted me to be a real business woman—a woman with real power.”
“Was she not?” he asked.
“Oh, believe me, she was,” Abby said, her eyes wide. “She ran her own production company for decades. Did you ever watch reruns of Jeannie Riley?”
“I think I remember it. Was that the one where the woman was a single mother and a career lawyer or something?”
She nodded as she tossed some weeds. “Yes, sir, that one. My mom's company produced that show, her first big success after she semi-retired from acting. She wanted me to be like Jeannie Riley, she always said. A career woman not bogged down by family, children, or anything else.”
That made sense, Zed reasoned. Her mother was a driven woman and wanted her daughter to be the same. “So, is that why you're still single?”
Abby just glanced up at him, then returned to her work, shaking her head.
Zed didn't press the point, and they continued to garden in silence as he thought about what he was doing.
On its surface, this was all just fucking wrong. He'd proceeded without any logical course of action to get his brother out, and he'd ended up holding a high-powered, wealthy woman hostage in her fucking closet, then sexually stimulating her in her bedroom.
He shook his head. This was all wrong.
But, at the same time, he felt the connection between them slowly beginning to build and truly developing. Besides, he couldn't help but wonder if this is what life could have been like for him. —eating dinner with a beautiful woman and spending time in the garden together. This could have been his life, if Kai's psychotic break hadn't completely upended his world.
After a while, Abby spoke up. “Sir?” she said. “Can I ask you something?”
She remembered rule number two! Maybe she really was coming along? “What is it?” he asked, his voice gruff as he pulled another weed out.
“Can I check in with work? The conference should be over by now, which means they'll be expecting me soon, sir.”
She was right, he reasoned. If they expected her back tomorrow, they'd start looking for her if she didn't show up. They needed to head that off at the pass. “Yes, you can call when we get back in. Mark again?”
A look crossed her face as she shook her head. “No, sir,” she said. “Definitely not Mark. My assistant who you met at my office, Jackie.”
“Well,” Zed said, as he looked around at the backyard. “Sun's about to be down anyway. We won't be able to see if we're pulling up tomatoes or dandelions soon.” He stood up, chain leash in hand, and dusted off his knees. “Come on, let's go in.”
She stood, her eyes sweeping over the backyard. “Yes, sir,” she said.
They went back up to the porch. Standing out there, soaking in the last of the day's warmth, Zed pulled out her phone and opened it up. He pulled up the contacts list and scrolled through it. “You said Jackie, right?”
“Yes, sir,” she said again, her hands folded in front of her like a prim and proper woman.
He found Jackie and hit call, then handed the phone over to her.
Abby put the phone to her ear. After a moment, her eyes brightened and she smiled a little. “Hello? Jackie? Hi, it's Abby.”
She nodded along to the phone conversation.
“I need you to do something for me, Jackie. Can you let everyone know that I'm having to take a little bit of unexpected time off and won't be as reachable for a short while?”
She shook her head, and Zed could just barely hear Jackie ask about the car accident lie Abby had fed to Mark. “No, no,” she said, laughing a little, her laugh like a songbird to him. “I'm fine.”
A pause. Jackie asked about coming over, Zed thought. Abby's eyes flickered up to his, and Zed shook his head, his brow furrowed. “No,” Abby said, not too forcefully. “You definitely don't need to do that, Jackie. In fact, I met someone. We're just getting to know each other, and we need our privacy. That's all.”
Abby smiled a little. “Oh, believe me,” she said. “It's as big a surprise to me.”
She needed to cut this conversation short. But, still, he was surprised at her change of heart. She seemed to be really coming along on her journey, and finally coming to accept that she could only get what she needed from him.
He didn't want to startle her, though, by suddenly forcing her off the phone. Jackie might catch wind of what was going on and try to put a stop to his plan. Zed smiled at Abby. He crossed his arms across his chest, tugging at her leash a little as he did, and turned around, hoping to give her a moment's privacy so she could finish up with her employee.
“No, he's just a guy,” Abby said behind him, the smile coming through in her voice.
As he listened to her laughing with Jackie and trying to get off the phone, his eyes continued to search the backyard, just taking it all in. He pictured other projects that might liven up the space.
He almost started to believe that he'd changed her, and that she was really beginning to come around. Those thoughts didn't last long, though.
Because that was when he saw the security camera pointed at the garden.