Maverick and Mistletoe (Hell's Handlers MC 10.50)

“But you’ll call him, all right.”

Each word he spoke sent a gust of putrid air across her face.

He chuckled. “Boss said maybe Curly will answer to action since talk didn’t do shit. What do you think?” He ran a grungy thumb across her lips.

Steph wrenched back as far as possible while turning her head to the side. Her skin crawled as though roaches had marched across her face instead of one dirty finger.

He grabbed her chin, forcing her face forward.

“What do you think?” he growled in her face. “Think if we spend a little time together, you’ll be willing to beg Curly for the money?”

She’d been here before. Felt this same fright and dread. God, how she’d hoped and prayed she’d never end up back here again. In some ways, this was worse. She now knew just how far fear could go. How her mind and body would react to sustained levels of terror and despair. How much it would hurt to see someone she cared about harmed to spare her pain.

She knew what was coming, and it made the experience even more bone-chilling.

His grip on her chin tightened to the point of bruising. Then he yanked her face forward and mashed his mouth to hers in a kiss that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power. Somehow, she managed to turn her face to the side despite his punishing hold.

This mouth dragged along her skin to her cheek.

Stephanie whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut just as footsteps from the outside had the scumbag straightening.

Relief coursed through her. Thank God for the reprieve, no matter how brief.

The door swung open, and in strode two bastards dragging a struggling Maverick. Blood had dried on the side of his face in crusty, reddish-black streaks.

“Mav!” She shouted. Nothing else mattered. Not what they had in store for her. Not the fear. Not the tearing pain in her wrists and ankles. Not the ache in her jaw where Digger had squeezed her. Mav was alive and well enough to be kicking, spitting, and fighting. If it weren’t for the chair beneath her and ropes holding her up, she’d have collapsed to the disgusting floor in stark relief.

The second he heard her voice, her husband quit struggling. The same joy she felt at seeing him flashed across his face. Those shrewd eyes raked over her, cataloging every inch of her and searching for injury.

The men muscled him into the room and onto the other chair. He allowed it, probably to keep anything from happening to her, and within seconds he’d been treated to the same rough limb-tying she’d endured. The only difference—he didn’t seem to notice the discomfort as he continued to take in her appearance.

Neither spoke—no point in provoking these assholes.

Once they had Maverick secure, one of the guys who’d hauled him in said, “Boss wants a word. Let’s let ’em cook in here a while.”

And then they were alone. The snick of the lock barricading them in the room might as well have been a beautiful song. Funny how something that would have terrified her before now brought comfort. A locked door and distance between the captors and prisoners meant reprieve. Time to breathe, relax, plan, and regroup. And while Stephanie wanted to curl up in a ball and lose her shit in the corner, she refused to allow panic to override reason.

“Baby?” Mav asked.

Given the situation, she gave him as much of a smile as she could muster. “I’m all right.”

He stared at her.

“I promise.” The key to keeping Mav focused on escape rather than murder was to prove their jailers hadn’t broken her, she wouldn’t freak out again, and she wasn’t hurt.

Much.

When he continued to watch her, she sighed. “The ropes are cutting into my skin. I’m sore all over and scared out of my mind. But I’m all right. I’m calm and in control.”

The hard mask of fury he wore transformed into concern. “Steph, no one will think less of you for losing your shit right now. So please don’t pretend you’re okay for me.”

She wanted to say she’d agree to those terms if he promised what she’d asked of him in the van and vowed not to put himself in harm’s way for her. But he wouldn’t.

“How about this? I will freak the fuck out all over you the second we get free of here. Then you can hold me and remind me how much you love me over and over until I’m dehydrated from crying. Sound good?”

His lips went from compressed in a thin line of displeasure to quirking up in a tiny half-smile.

God, she wanted to kiss those lips and rest against that muscular chest.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m holding you to that, so you better fall the fuck apart as soon as we’re free.”