Dominate (Deliver 8)

Her truck.

It parked several yards away, pointed in the opposite direction.

Her heart pounded, and her skin shivered, for perched on the open tailgate was the silhouette of a man.

A cowboy hat angled low on his brow, casting his face in shadow. But it didn’t hide the bristling tension surrounding him nor the rage in his unmitigated stare, burning as hot as the Texan sun.

Tommy hadn’t left her for dead, but she might wish for that before he was done with her.

CHAPTER 5

Rylee lay on her side, her hair stuck to her face and stiff with sand. As she slowly rose to sit, her head swam with fuzz. Dehydration. But her arm was free. Tommy had removed the cuff.

He lifted a water bottle to his lips and drank deeply, watching her, taunting her.

She followed the movement of his throat with longing, swishing her tongue in her mouth, trying to gather moisture where there was none.

“I need water,” she croaked, her voice covered in dust.

The plastic crinkled in his hand, and he tossed the empty bottle in the truck bed behind him.

“You think I can survive out here for three days without water?” Her anger fired on all cylinders as she attempted to stand. “Is this my punishment for reading your emails?” Her legs gave out, sending her back to the prickly earth. “Fucking harsh, don’t you think?”

He stretched out along the tailgate, crossed his cowboy boots at the ankles, and reclined against the side of the truck bed.

Hard to make out his form in the blackness of night, but there was something about his presence that intrigued and allured. Maybe it was his brooding silence. Or the cocksure tilt of his hat. Or the dark, intimidating confidence that radiated from his posture.

Whatever it was, she had no business admiring him with female appreciation. She wasn’t here for that. Besides, the motherfucker had just put her through ungodly hell, and he wasn’t finished.

“You’re going to regret this someday.” She ran her hands over her hair and clothes, attempting to put herself back together. “I know you’re ruthless, but you’ve never harmed an innocent woman. I’m no one, Tommy. I’m sure as hell not your enemy.”

“Tell me your full name and date of birth.” His gravelly voice rumbled from the shadow of his hat as he produced another bottle of water and set it beside him.

So this was his plan. Take away the basic requirements for survival and dangle them piece by piece as a trade for information.

“What did you do while I roasted in the desert for the past three hours?” she asked. “Did you contact Cole to initiate an investigation on me?”

As expected, he gave no answer.

All they had to go on was her first name and the city where she grew up. There were a lot of Rylees in El Paso. It would take time to identify her and those she cared about.

She had an ex-husband who never remarried and a neighbor with benefits. That was the extent of her liabilities.

But the moment he learned her occupation, address, and boring background, the mystery would be over. He would send her home with a threat to kill her loved ones if she ever leaked information about him. Then he would disappear forever.

That outcome was inevitable, but before that happened, she had a desperate, reckless need to help him.

She cared about him. Deeply. It was a one-sided sentiment, a motivation he couldn’t possibly understand because he didn’t know her the way she knew him.

He wasn’t happy. Not today, not last week, not one second in the past ten years. His friends, the family of ex-captives who had his back, didn’t know the extent of his suffering. He concealed it from them because he didn’t want to be a burden. He didn’t even know how to open up to someone. For a decade, he carried around a terrible weight in his soul, confiding in no one. Except a dead girl.

That in and of itself troubled her.

After his abduction, he lived with his vigilante team. But over the years, his roommates found partners, some of them married, and the dynamics of their tight-knit clan changed. They were moving on.

Unless something changed since his last email, he and Luke were the only bachelors left.

“What happened with the cartel?” She squinted at his shadow, unable to see his eyes in the dark.

Silence.

Exasperated, she glanced around and spotted a black smudge on the ground several feet away. She crawled toward it, marveling at how quickly the sand had already cooled.

“I assume the cartel bought your undercover story? Either that or you escaped.” She focused on the dark object and quickened her movements when she realized it was her backpack. “Where’s Luke?”

She pulled the pack onto her lap and dug through the contents while watching him out of the corner of her eye. His silhouette didn’t twitch. No sound. No attempt to take away her belongings.