Hush by Cherry Adair Page B

out a way to get out of here,” she finished logically.
    â€œYeah. That too.”
    â€œToo?”
    â€œThey found us in bed.” Zak paused, then turned his head to give her a cool look. “In bed. Bare-ass naked. They put us together so they’d have something to entertain them later.”
    â€œGood God. Watch us , you mean?” She grimaced, then opened a flap over her left breast, removed a tangled knot of rubber bands, chose one, and stuffed the rest back inside the pocket. “Surely they don’t think we’d have sex … in here?” She stretched out her arms, her fingertips brushing the walls.
    â€œI presume they don’t have Wii or TV reception way the hell and gone out here.” He pointed to a peephole in the wall about eye level behind her. Acadia gave him an even look as she scooped her hair into a haphazard ponytail on top of her head and off her neck. As she messed with her hair, her vest, heavy with all those damned pockets, parted, exposing the soft curve of her belly. It looked smooth and vulnerable, velvety soft. He’drubbed his face there last night, nuzzled his lips against her fragrant heat.
    She’d look just like that after a shower, glistening, with damp tendrils of hair the color of honey streaked with butter clinging to her neck and shoulders and curling over her breasts. Pebbled apricot nipples—
    Zak let his forehead thump against the rough, rusted bars. The small pain jolted his brain. Fuckit. She was just a pretty girl. Nothing extraordinary, nothing special. Just one of a million available blondes out there.
    â€œI hope you have a plan to get out of here sooner than later.” She looked at the card-playing, booze-swilling guards, then back at him. “Do we have a plan? Or are we going to wing it?”
    A drop of sweat rolled slowly down his temple, stinging like hell as it hit the slash beside his eye. Appropriate. Obviously he hadn’t paid enough attention, with the first injury so close to his eyes. He needed a second for the lesson to really sink in. “Wing it.” Mostly. The plan he and Gideon had come with relied on fast thinking as the opportunity arose.
    â€œOkay. Just give me a few minutes’ heads-up.” Apparently their daring, insanely dangerous escape was as simple as that.
    She rummaged around in another breast pocket and took out a flat packet of something or other.
    He should hang the woman upside down and shake her, Zak thought, half baffled, half amused, and all so damned horny he couldn’t see straight. He’d like to start by sliding his hand into that pocket and cupping her—
    She jumped off the ledge and came to stand beside him. “Since we seem to have the time, would you do me a favor?”
    â€œYou want sex?”
    â€œUm …” She pretended to consider it, then rolled her eyes, “No.” She pulled a moist towelette from the pack in her hands. “Would you mind cleaning the um … the b-blood off my back?” Her voice shook, suddenly not nearly so calm or composed. “It doesn’t bother me—blood, I mean. Not usually, I’m pretty tough that way. Sort of. Kinda. Most of the time. But that was just …” She walked back to the shelf, where there was at least an ounce more privacy, and turned her back. She waved the cloth over her shoulder. “Please?”
    There was no blood on her clothing because she’d been naked when the rapist had been shot by Piñero. Zak stood at the bars and realized he’d gripped one in each tense fist as she waited, her back presented like an offering.
    â€œZak?” She still had her back to him, but it was obvious by the way her elbows and shoulders moved that she was unzipping her vest.
    He’d rather have faced a thick-necked psychotic guerrilla with an Uzi and a shit attitude than Acadia’s pale, slender, naked back right now. There was something about her that was insanely