Tag: suspense

Her head pounded with a vicious headache.

Astor felt like she was stuck in quicksand, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she had no idea where she was, what had happened, or what was going around her, all she could do was try to breathe through the pain.

She moved her head a fraction of an inch, and the pain was so bad she moaned and almost slid back into oblivion.

“You’re awake.”

Someone hovered above her, and wiped her brow with a cool cloth. The cold water soothed her headache a little and she summoned up enough strength to crack her eyes open. She immediately groaned and let her eyes fall closed.

“Just rest,” the voice soothed.

Who was it?

She was so confused, and the thumping in her head made it difficult to think

Fingers brushed across her cheek and a familiar rush flushed through her.

“Frost,” she murmured.

“Right here.” She felt the bed dip as he sat beside her.

“Mmm,” she moaned again as just trying to figure out what was going on hurt her head. Regardless she wanted to know what was going on. “Where are we are?”

“Can you open your eyes?”

She tried. Failed. Tried again. “It’s hard,” she groaned.

“You can do it,” Frost encouraged.

Astor tried again, and managed to crack her eyelids up enough to see Frost’s worried face looking down at her. “There you go,” he gave her a smile, a strained one, but a smile none the less.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Well, you wanted me to hit you over the head and leave you behind so your cop friends wouldn’t know about the two of us. I thought about it, I thought you might be safer with them, but you would have tried to get back into the sex trafficking ring and I wouldn’t have been there to protect you. So I improvised.”

She arched a brow, then winced at the resulting pain. “Improvised?”

“I knocked you out, but then I kind of used you as a, a hostage,” he cleared his throat. “And used you to get us off my property. I brought you to a small cabin that I own.”

Panic surged through her, momentarily pushing away the pain. “They could have killed you.”

“Well I couldn’t let you get yourself killed. I want to help you find them, the men who killed your sister.”

She’d never been so touched in her life.

He was risking his life to help her because she couldn’t let this go.

Astor tried to sit up to kiss him but the pain in her head was back and she sunk down onto the pillows.

“Sorry about that,” Frost’s brow crinkled and he leaned down and tenderly kissed her forehead. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

She didn’t care. A headache was a small price to pay for her and Frost to still be together, to be safe and away from her colleagues. She wanted to tell him that, how much she loved him and how much what he was doing for her meant, but she was getting tired.

“Close your eyes,” Frost said as he began to stroke her hair. The motion was soothing and her eyes did flutter closed.

Astor didn’t know what the future held for them but at least they were together.

He should be angry.

Astor had used him, played him, intended to send him to prison for the rest of his life. If she hadn’t gotten him killed when she used him to crack the human trafficking ring.

But she hadn’t.

Because she loved him.

Frost couldn’t do this. “Stop,” he said.

“What?” Astor tried to pull him onwards, but he was bigger and stronger than her and she couldn’t make him budge.

“I can’t ask you to go on the run with me.”

“Well I can’t let them arrest you.”

“Then we’re at an impasse.” Frost didn’t want to live the rest of his life without Astor but he couldn’t put her in danger.

“Hit me.”

“What?”

“Hit me then flee.”

“But what about you?”

“I will go back undercover, its the only way. They’ll think you saw them coming, knocked me out when I tried to stop you from running, then managed to escape.”

If he did that then Astor would be safe.

Temporarily.

She was blinded by her need to find and punish those who took her sister from her. She had already put herself through hell in her quest and as soon as she was out of his care she would do it again.

But if he kept her with him and they went on the run she could be in danger as well. If the men from the human trafficking ring found out that she was a cop they would stop at nothing to kill her. Or worse sell her to someone who would sneak her out of the country and keep her as their prisoner for the rest of her life.

He knew what he had to do.

It was risky but it was his only chance at keeping Astor alive and safe.

“I’m sorry,” Frost whispered.

“What did you-” she broke off abruptly as his fist connected with the side of her head and she collapsed.

Frost caught her as she crumpled and gently laid her down on the floor. Blood was trickling down her face and he stooped to kiss her forehead. “No matter what happens, Astor, remember that I love you. Always.”

Everything was spinning out of control.

Astor had no idea how to stop it.

When she had started on this journey she had never expected things to turn out like this. How could she? Frost was a bad man, he went to auctions where kidnapped women were sold like property. Not just went to, but participated in said auctions and bought women.

He had bought her.

He was a bad man.

Only . . . she was no longer sure about that.

“If you’re a cop why are you here? Why were you at the auction?”

She didn’t want to have this conversation, she didn’t want to tell him, she should have just kept her mouth shut. Only she couldn’t do that because any day now her colleagues were going to come bursting in here thinking that they would have enough evidence to coerce Frost into helping them infiltrate the human trafficking ring.

“Astor,” he demanded, his eyes shooting fire at her. “Tell me what is going on.” He advanced on her, backing her up until she was pressed against the wall, his large body hemming her in.

“My sister,” she said, her voice wobbling.

A little of the fire in his eyes dimmed. “What happened to your sister?”

“She was kidnapped, sold into the sex trade by the same people who run the auction where you bought me. She was killed.” Astor’s eyes dropped, she couldn’t look at Frost anymore. He wasn’t like those evil men. She knew it, she felt it every time they were together.

“You wanted to find the men who bought her?”

“I wanted them to pay. All of them. I convinced my boss to let me go undercover. They were going to give me a few months to get the information we needed to blackmail whoever bought me into helping us.”

“Why would you do that? Those men beat you, raped you, you let me bring you here and make you live for months without talking to another living soul.”

She could feel Frost’s eyes on her but she wouldn’t look up. “Because I loved my sister.”

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Astor couldn’t. She had betrayed him. He loved her and she had been keeping this from him all along.

“I said look at me,” he repeated. His voice was harsh, but when he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up, his touch was very gentle. “Do you love me?”

The question caught her by surprise.

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to say she could never love a man who had done what he had.

But that would be a lie.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He crushed his body against hers, his mouth claiming her, kissing her until her lungs screamed for air, but she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop.

“I’ll help you find the men who murdered your sister,” he said against her lips when he finally broke the kiss.

“No,” she said, panicked, shoving him away. “They’ll arrest you. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“At first before I knew you, before I loved you, but now, I can’t lose you,” she said desperately.

He smiled, and leaned down to kiss her again. “When are they coming?”

“I don’t know. There’s a tracking device in-between my two little toes. They know where I am, they can come whenever they want.”

As though speaking the words made them come to being, Frost’s alarm system buzzed.

“It looks like they’re here,” Frost said.

“We have to go. Now.” She grabbed his hand and began to drag him towards the door. “If we’re not here when they come then they can’t take you away from me.”

Yanking on her hand, Frost dragged her up against his body. “No one will ever take you away from me,” he told her fiercely.

“You’re not mad?” she asked anxiously. “About my lies.”

“I think its safe to say we both made mistakes, but I love you Astor.”

Relief washed through her and she stood on tiptoes so she could kiss him. Then as though they realised they were both stark naked, clothes were drawn on hastily, and barefoot, shushing him, she cautiously opened the bedroom door, advancing slowly into the dim, narrow hallway.

“What?” he asked, what could his sweet Astor possibly have to tell him that he didn’t already know?

She drew in a breath, opened her mouth, then closed it. “I can’t do this with you touching me.” Her gaze dropped to their hands, he still held hers, his thumbs circling round and round on her palms.

“Okay,” he said slowly, releasing her and she immediately scrambled off the bed.

Instead of saying anything, she just bounced about, moving from one foot to the other, her hands twisted together. He’d never seen her like this before.

What could possibly be making her this nervous?

All of a sudden it hit him. “Oh, are you pregnant?”

“What? No,” she said emphatically.

“Because there’s something you don’t know as well, I want to have kids one day.” Growing up the way he had, no mother, just a father who bought and sold women like they were real estate, and a string of nannies who he knew his father killed when he got bored with them, he had always wanted what everyone else had. A family, people who loved him, something real, he thought he and Astor could have that.

The color drained from Astor’s face and he started to worry. What was going on here? What was wrong with her?

“I’m sorry, I can’t say it,” Astor said, her eyes growing watery.

“You can’t act like this and then not tell me what’s going on,” he said, sharper than he intended but he was getting scared.

“I’ll write it,” she said, now refusing to look at him. She went to the nightstand, and scribbled on a piece of paper. With a shaking hand she passed it to him.

With an equally shaking he took it and stared down at the piece of paper, ice streamed through his veins.

Not this.

Not now!

He’d been stupid, allowed himself to fall in love, and now he learned the truth about her.

“I’m sorry,” Astor whispered.

“You should be,” he growled as he advanced on her. “You’re a cop?”

Had she heard right?

He said he loved her.

No one had ever said that to her before.

This was crazy.

It was all wrong.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She had played her part as best she could, being the good little spoiled slave, she’d seen that Frost was developing feelings for her that he shouldn’t be, she knew he was falling in love with her, what she hadn’t known until he said that he loved her out loud was that she was falling in love with him too.

She was a mess.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Frost moved to climb out of the bed.

“No. Stop,” she said, reaching out to curl her fingers around his hand.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Frost said again.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “But . . .”

“But?” he asked hopefully.

“But I think I love you too.” Astor hung her head. How could she love a man who had bought her, who had made her live without human contact for seven months, who thought of her as his possession? “This is wrong.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He knelt on the bed before her and took her hands, his thumbs brushing small circles on her palms. “I’m sorry. I never should have gone to that auction, I never should have bought you. I love you, Astor. You don’t belong to me, but you’re the woman I love, the woman I want to share my life with.” He brushed a lock of hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, then gently cupped the back of her neck, pulling her closer and touching his lips to hers in a feather light kiss. “Can we start over, Astor?”

Start over?

It was way too late for that.

“Frost, there’s something you don’t know.”