Desire Unmatched: 4 (Coded for Love) by Lynne Silver Read Free Book Online Page B

unbuckling and tugging it from the loops of Paulson’s
pants.
    Now it was a waiting game.
    The hours until his evening meal was shoved through the door
ticked slowly by. He occupied himself by leaning against the wall next to the
door and reciting every fact he could recall about the Program. He started with
his cohort, listing every man alphabetically by last name, then birthday. When
he’d finished with their height and weight, he started in on the other cohorts.
“ Know your enemies. Know your comrades ,” had been what his dad had
drilled into him from an early age.
    When he ran out of people, he allowed himself to think of
Emma. She’d been the calming factor in his brain every night when the fear that
he might die in this tiny basement room, never seeing home again, overwhelmed
him. Her sunny smile and silky hair made his hands ache to touch her, but
mostly it was her disposition. She’d been held captive for three months,
probably in a room like this, and she’d managed to hold on to her smile and her
hope.
    Within hours of him rescuing her, she’d smiled at him and
chatted with Loren easily. If she had nightmares, he didn’t know about them.
Then again, he’d never spent the night with her. No, he’d fucked her fast and
hard on a threadbare sofa, then took off.
    If, no, when he escaped tonight and returned to the
campus, he promised himself one more night with her. This time he’d touch her
gently and try to give her pleasure. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing
when it came to a woman’s body, but he’d touch her and kiss her everywhere he
thought sexy and hope for the best.
    He ignored the tiny part of his brain that told him it would
be cruel to have sex with her and leave her again, but he didn’t really have a
choice. As long as his father was a respected member of the Program community,
he’d remain unmatched.
    His gaze shifted to the window and he judged it to be around
4:00 given where the light was hitting the glass. A little while longer until
it was go-time. Only the sound of footsteps outside his door had his muscles
tightening. He crouched on his sock-clad feet, slipped a little then tore the
socks off, sticking them in his pocket along with the handkerchief. The belt he
held tightly in one fist, ready for anything.
    The second the door cracked open, Xander grabbed the wrist
holding the plate of his food and twisted. The plate shattered and a howl
emerged from the wrist’s owner.
    “Shut up,” Xander said, “or I’ll break every finger on your
hand.” He planned on doing it anyway, but he needed leverage or every occupant
of the house would come running to rescue his guard.
    Xander twisted hard, contorting the limb into something
useless. It felt good to be inflicting the pain. The long days of anger at his
forced captivity burst out of him in a rush and he battered the guard’s arm,
dragging him closer and closer to the door until he could reach his arms
through and grab the man’s torso.
    In a swift, violent move, he snapped the leather belt
through the opening, then around the man’s neck. With his airway mostly cut
off, he couldn’t call for help.
    “Open. The. Door,” Xander said against the man’s scalp.
    No answer. He knew he had roughly four minutes to keep his
tight hold on the belt. The thousands of sit-ups and push-ups he’d done during
his incarceration had kept his strength up, but without proper nutrition for
the last month he was weaker than he’d ever been.
    Now that he was this close to the exit with his eye to the
narrow opening, he could see the chain bolted from the door to a metal bracket
on the floor opposite. The chain was taut, granting the door enough give to
allow them to stick a small plate of food inside, but not enough for a man to
squeeze through the opening.
    Crap, he was going to have to kick the door down in his bare
feet. This was why his terrorist captors had been sanguine about not tying him
up. They knew it was going to be damn