Edge Walkers by Shannon Donnelly Read Free Book Online Page A

take me back to my lab, or to where you found me. Or, if you’d rather…Listen, I don’t know how this works, but if you are going to kill me like you said you had to with...with one of my guys, I’d rather get it over with. Kind of like we...”
    S he waved a hand, couldn’t bring herself to say more. Energy ticked out of her, left her shaking and hollow. She had put everything into flight and struggle, into trying to crawl into him. Her tears had stained her face, left her cheeks sticky. But she wasn’t going to talk about that. She folded her arms and braced her feet wider.
    Lifting his hand, he rubbed his temple with a thumb and dropped his hand again. “You can be a little impulsive, can’t you?”
    “What? That?” She nodded to where he’d held her against stone. “It’s…unusual circumstances, I’d say.”
    “Shock?”
    “I could use it as an excuse,” she admitted. She wasn’t going to add anything about the temptation he was still offering.
    She’d pushed herself past the stage where bad boys got under her skin—but that had been before Gideon. And before this. It seemed stupid, as well, to worry about the tug of attraction she still felt for him, like locking the barn door after the STDs might have gotten in. But maybe this was like Stockholm syndrome on steroids. She was relating too much to him, only she’d been with him what—a few hours, with most of that spent unconscious? He also wasn’t much of a captor since he didn’t seem to know what to do with her.
    He rubbed his palm across his chest, and he shook his head as if he didn’t like his own thoughts. “Can we make a deal? Right now I’ve got to get some sleep, and if I do, you’ll leave and get yourself...well, that’s not going to happen, so I’m going to tie you up, and you’re going to have to sleep with me or at least lie down with me and you’re not going to trust me at all after this.”
    He sounded unhappy and she hated that, so she gave a small shrug, forced an awkward smile. Exhaustion was already filling her, seeping into her muscles, the aftermath of what they’d done, and everything else, and she skirted thinking about her lab and her guys.
    She shook her head. “I didn’t say I trusted you before, did I. But…just, don’t make the knots tight enough to cut off my circulation. And, no offense, but I’m really going to hope I wake up in a hospital.”
    He reached out and brushed his thumb across her chin, his skin still damp. Still warm. He didn’t smile, but his lips lifted. His eyes, however, filled with sad. “I hope you do, too. And in the morning...before we decide anything, we’ll have to wait until Temple gets back.”
     

CHAPTER SIX
    Is Temple your name, or what Gideon calls you? [silence] Okay, let’s try it this way, you’re from what Gideon calls…the other side? [silence] He said you came through the Rift with him, traveled from…an alternate reality? [silence, followed by feedback] What the hell…shut that…[recording ends] — Transcript of Interview with Person Known as “Temple”
    Temple turned out to be nothing like anything Carrie had expected. But neither was what passed for morning here, or the rest of the night.
    As he’d said, Gideon had tied her. He’d led her to the bedding by the altar, had told her to lie down. She had because what else was she going to do—run again? A shiver had taken her at that thought, arrived with the physical recall of stone on her back and Gideon pressed against her, sweat slicking their bodies. He seemed too busy to notice her reaction.
    He tore strips from the bedding and wrapped them around her wrists. He worked with care, tied double-knots that she couldn’t reach because she had her hands pressed together as if for prayers. He sat behind her, tied her left ankle to his before curling himself around her. He tucked her against him, his chest warming her back. He smelled of dust and sex and a musky tang from his own skin.
    Three deep breaths