Chapter Three
Zora’s body trembled with shame as she played the scene between her and Logan in her head over and over again. How could she fall in a virtual stranger’s arms so easily? What she found even more disconcerting was the way she responded to his touch and kisses. None of her former lovers had made her body lust to the point where she thought she’d go crazy with need.
She didn’t understand why he’d been so unbothered when the other two mysterious men had entered the house? Not to mention, the two men didn’t seem particularly surprised to find them in that position either. What had she landed herself into? Had she stumbled upon some strange sex cult? The scariest part was not knowing how she’d react when she saw them again.
Zora tried to piece together what might have happened after her accident. It was apparent one of those men had brought her to this house. But had they brought the items she’d packed in Christine? She immediately thought of the cell phone she’d placed in her purse when she could no longer get a signal. If her rescuer didn’t bring her stuff inside, it was probably still there. Since she’d somehow managed to survive, maybe the wreckage wasn’t so bad. If she had it in her possession, at the very least, she could get in contact with her cousin in case she was worried about Zora not arriving when she said she would. She figured the simple task of searching for her belongings would at least give her a temporary reprieve from thinking about the men downstairs, particularly Logan.
Thankfully, none of them had come upstairs yet which provided some relief. She rose to her feet and started to look around the room. Besides the rumpled sheets on top of the bed she’d slept on, the room was neat. There was no sign of her belongings anywhere, not even the clothing she’d been wearing.
Her gaze fell upon a set of double doors in the far corner of the room, which she assumed was the closet. She sighed with relief to see her luggage and other things she’d packed for her trip inside. Zora’s purse rested on top. To her dismay, when she dug through her bag and found her cell phone, she was unable to turn the device on. Crap. The battery was dead and the charger was probably still connected to the cigarette lighter in her car. She doubted they’d taken it out and brought it inside, but Zora didn’t have time to search because she heard a knock on the door. Straightening up, she debated whether to answer the door or not say anything at all. If she was silent, maybe they would go away. She remained still but there was another knock, this one more persistent.
“Zora, please open up.”
She didn’t recognize the voice but she was sure it didn’t belong to Logan. “Go away!” she shouted, hoping by some off chance that they’d actually respect her wishes to be left alone.
“I won’t go away until we’ve talked, so you might as well open the door.”
Zora calculated how long she had to get some clothes out of her suitcase and put them on. If she wasn’t too high off the ground, perhaps she could make an escape out the window. Then common sense prevailed. Even if she could get outside before her visitor could enter the room, where would she go? It wasn’t likely that her vehicle was in driving condition and she had no clue where she was.
Another knock on the door echoed throughout the room. “Zora, if you don’t open up I’ll kick the door open, and I’d rather not do that.”
If she did as he directed, would he do what the blond had done downstairs? The thought made her tremble in fear and anticipation. She moistened her now dry lips with the tip of her tongue and called out, “If I let you in, do you promise you won’t touch me?”
Her query was briefly met with silence before she received an answer. “You have my word.”
She wasn’t sure she trusted that pause, but what choice did she have? If these men had really meant her harm, would they have brought her here and taken care of her? Zora moved toward the door on wobbly legs. Her hand trembled as she fumbled with the lock and turned the knob. Standing on the other side was the dark haired man she’d seen earlier. Thankfully he was fully clothed, although his jeans and button up top did little to disguise his muscular physique.
Zora’s eyes widened in astonishment as she got a good look at him for the first time. Like with Logan, she needed to tilt her head back in order to meet his gaze. She found herself mesmerized by a pair of deep-green eyes. It was apparent that he and Logan were related in some way. They had similar features, like their noses and their angular bone structure. But where Logan was fair, this man was dark. His midnight black hair was longer than fashionable, falling to his collar in dark waves. His lips were full and the hard, rugged planes of his face weren’t as harsh, giving him a more classically handsome look.
Though he was as tall and broad-shouldered as Logan, he had a more slender build. But it was no less imposing in his stance. Zora felt dwarfed by him. What puzzled her was how she instantly felt at ease in his presence when she had no reason to. Usually she was wary of men until she got to know them better, yet with this stranger she felt none of her usual tension. Instead, her body tingled beneath the heat of his jade stare. First Logan and now this guy? What the hell was wrong with her? When it appeared as if he was moving toward her, she took a few steps back allowing him in the room.
Zora suddenly felt self-conscious of her outfit and she wished she wore more than just a pajama top. “What do you want?”
He gave her a thorough perusal from head to toe. His eyes darkened, making her even more self-conscious than she already was. Zora took another nervous step backward. His lips slanted into an easy smile. “There’s no need to be frightened. I won’t hurt you.”
Zora opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out at first. She swallowed and tried again. “And I’m supposed to know that how? I don’t know any of you men from Adam, except that you and your friends like to walk around in the buff.”
His lips turned down into a sympathetic grimace. “I regret that was our first meeting, but I hope you don’t hold that against us. Name’s Gavin Lamere.” He held out his hand to her.
Zora looked at the large, muscular hand he stretched out to her, but she didn’t take it, not trusting herself to touch him. He didn’t seem put out by her hesitation, instead he walked farther into the room. “How are you feeling?”
His question caught her off guard. What was he playing at? “What do you mean?” she asked, taking yet another step away from him.
“Relax, I won’t bite, Zora.”
“Stop calling me that!”
He raised a dark brow. “Your name is Zora, isn’t it? According to the identification we found on you, that’s what it is.”
“It’s my name, but you’re speaking to me as if we’ve known each other for years. We’re strangers, and I’d like it if you stopped pretending we’re old friends. I need to know where the hell I am so I can leave.”
“That’s not possible right now. First off, you have no means of transportation because your car is totaled beyond repair and you were badly injured. Though you may be feeling better, you’ll need to take it easy for the next couple days.”
He didn’t say anything she hadn’t already expected with her vehicle, but she certainly didn’t feel like she’d been hurt unless his definition of ‘serious injury’ was different from hers. “I feel just fine. If you’d allow me the use of a phone, I’ll call someone and arrange to be out of your hair as soon as possible.”
“If we had a phone here, I’d be happy to let you call whomever you’d like. However, we don’t. And cell phone reception in this area is nonexistent.”
“No phone? How do you communicate with the outside world?”
“We don’t. That would ruin the point of vacationing. But if we really need to get in contact with someone, we go into town about a half hour away.”
“Well, could you take me into town? And where exactly is here?”
“Back Swamp, Tennessee. Not too far from the mountains. You’re not in any shape to go anywhere until you’re completely healed. You should probably hop back into bed and rest before you wear yourself out.”
“I don’t need to lie down. What I need is to get out of here. I have someplace to be.”
Though the slight smile that still curved his lips remained, an unfathomable expression flickered in his eyes. “The only place you need to be is back in bed, so we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your decision.”
Zora placed her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. “Look, I appreciate you taking me in, but I’d very much like to get dressed and get out of here. I’ve already told you, I’m fine.”
“The hard way it is.” He spoke as if she hadn’t said anything. Before she realized what he was up to, Gavin advanced and scooped her up in his arms. He carried her the short distance to the bed and gently laid her down on its center.
Once Zora got over the initial shock of her wishes being ignored, she tried to scramble off the bed, her blood boiling with fury. “I said I didn’t want to lie down!”
He placed a hand on her thigh to keep her still. “I’d hate to restrain you, but I will if I have to.”
She tried to squirm from the grip he had on her but to no avail. “Isn’t that what you’re doing to me already? Look, just because you allowed me to stay here for the night doesn’t give you the right to dictate to me.”
He chuckled in seeming amusement, which further served to piss her off. Her fists balled at her sides. If she were a violent person, she would have smacked the smug look off his face. “What’s so damn funny?”
“A night? Try five.”
“Look buddy, I don’t know what the—”she broke off when his words finally sunk in. “Five? That’s not possible.”
“Believe it. You’ve been here for a total of five nights, not one.”
She placed her hand over her forehead to feel for knots or any other trauma. Everything felt normal. “I couldn’t have been here for that long. I would have woken up at some point. And if I was out so long, why didn’t you take me to a hospital? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do after an accident?”
“Look, Zora… May I call you Zora?”
She nodded absently, trying to fathom how what he said was even possible. Beyond a mild headache and aching muscles, she felt no ill side-effects.
Gavin sat next to her, relaxing the grip he had on her thigh, but not removing it completely. “Zora, in most circumstances we would have taken you to the hospital like you said. But when I saw you—when we saw you, we couldn’t do it. Let me preface what I have to say next by mentioning, I’m a medical doctor and I’ve handled the majority of your care while you were unconscious. If at any point in time I thought your injuries were beyond anything I was capable of healing, you’d be at the hospital as we speak. Fortunately, you responded well to the medicine I administered as well as to the treatment I provided.”
Zora raised a brow, waiting for him to finish because there was obviously a but in there. “And the reason you decided to keep me here was why?”
His warm green gaze locked with hers. “Do I need to say? Can’t you feel it too?”
Zora wanted to argue that she had no clue what he was talking about, but they both would have known it was a lie. There was an intangible pull between her and this stranger—Gavin. Perhaps she’d felt it from the second he’d entered the room, but she’d ignored it. Now with him so close and his hand still on her thigh, there was no ignoring the instant chemistry she felt with him. A chemistry she found confusing, exciting and frightening at the same time.
Here was a man she’d known for less than five minutes and yet the simple feel of his hand on her skin made her want more. It was the same reaction she’d had with Logan downstairs. She’d never considered herself promiscuous despite experimenting in college, but she couldn’t explain these feelings whirling within her for two men she didn’t know. Had he given her some kind of drug to make her respond to them this way?
Zora opened her mouth to speak, but the words remained trapped in her throat.
Gavin smiled, this time revealing a row of perfect white teeth. “You don’t have to say it, your expression gives it away.”
He reached over and grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. Zora’s normal instinct would have been to flinch away from his touch, she didn’t know him after all, but the touch of his fingers on her face felt like they were meant to be there. She couldn’t help leaning in to the hand that now cupped her cheek.
His thumb slipped across her bottom lip, sending an involuntary shiver through her entire body. Goosebumps formed along her arms as she became lost in his hypnotic stare. Her heart pounded so hard she could almost hear it, her throat went dry and she darted her tongue across her lips to moisten them. He leaned closer as if he would kiss her and she had every intention of letting him. The part of her brain that was supposed to sound the alarm in situations like this didn’t go off, and she wasn’t sure if she would have listened even if it had.
Gavin moved so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. Zora felt her lids go heavy and she waited for their lips to connect, when someone called out, “Everything all right in here?”
Feeling like a kid with her hand caught in a cookie jar, she backed away from Gavin. She looked up to see the third man she’d seen downstairs. He was just as large as the other two, tall and broad-shouldered. What the hell did these men eat?
There were enough similarities in his appearance to Logan and Gavin to tell her that he was related in some way, but his wavy russet hair hung haphazardly across his forehead, giving him a devil-may-care appearance. His looks were devastating. Though she’d found each man attractive so far, this guy was the most classically handsome of the three, with green bedroom eyes that seemed to invite one to spend a day or night frolicking in bed with him. His lips were fuller than average, but they suited him. They immediately made her think of kissing.
As he walked farther into the room, his eyes narrowed. He looked at her and then at Gavin. “What’s going on in here? I thought you were just going to see if she was okay, not pull a Logan.”
At the sound of the harshness in his tone, Zora snapped out of her trance. “Okay, I’m going to need you guys to tell me what the hell is going on.”