Black Out Read online

  She moaned his name. It was the most beautiful fucking thing he’d ever heard. Her hips bucked harder, riding his tongue until she collapsed onto the couch and tried to close her legs.

  He thought about pushing her into another orgasm. He decided against it since she was still getting her strength back. He kissed his way up her body, taking her mouth in a hot, wet kiss that he knew would taste like her.

  She didn’t retreat. She kissed him, sighing.

  When he lifted himself away, she caught at him. “I want you inside me.”

  His cock ached for her, but he didn’t want to push her too far. “You sure? It might hurt a bit.”

  “After that? Hell yes I’m sure.”

  “Baby, you don’t have to do it because I took care of you. I can wait.”

  She frowned. She almost looked hurt. “Really? You can wait?”

  “I don’t want to wait, Ang. I can wait. There’s a difference.”

  She tugged at him. “I don’t want to wait. I can’t.”

  He laughed softly. “You just came. Do you really want more?”

  “Of course I do. Are you crazy? I’ve been deprived for far too long.”

  “Condoms are in the bedroom. I have to get one.”

  She reached for his cock, squeezed. Lightning streaked through him.

  “What if you don’t? I’m on the pill. I’ve been tested for diseases. I don’t have any.”

  His heart skipped. “I always wrap it up. I’ve never gone bare.”

  “Do you want to? With me?”

  “Fuck yeah I want that. Are you sure?”

  She smiled. “I’m sure. I don’t feel like this is a one night stand. Is it?”

  He stroked the skin of her belly. Dipped between her legs and into her pussy. She hissed in a breath. He loved the way it sounded. “Not for me. I care about you, Angie. I’ve cared for a long time.”

  Her eyes were luminous. “I care too.”

  “I want a lot more nights of this. Me and you, nothing but skin and heat and closeness.”

  “I want the same thing.”

  He lowered himself on top of her. “I feel like there’s a lot more we need to discuss, but I’m not capable of it right now.”

  She wrapped her legs around him. “Me neither.”

  He slid inside her, bare skin to bare skin. The rightness of it made him groan. “That’s fucking amazing.”

  She was smiling. Laughing softly. “It’s incredible.”

  He gripped her ass and started to move. “Hang on, babe. This is about to blow your mind.”

  They slept naked. Angie loved being pressed up against Colt in the night, feeling the solid weight of him. The heat of his skin. The steady beat of his heart.

  She woke a couple of times, confused about where she was in the fog of sleep. It came rushing back each time and she sighed in contentment. She was in bed with Colt, in love with Colt, and they had something between them that was new and beautiful.

  They hadn’t talked about the future. They hadn’t talked much at all. Not with words anyway.

  There was time for that.

  She didn’t know how he felt about her. He didn’t talk like a man who planned to throw her out tomorrow, but she didn’t really know what he was thinking. It worried her if she thought about it. She told herself not to think about it.

  She’d thrown herself into this thing. It was too late to back out.

  And she didn’t want to back out.

  When she woke again, something was chirping. Angie pushed herself up. Colt wasn’t in bed. It was still dark out. But really dark, like someone had flipped a switch on the world.

  “Colt?”

  “I’m here.”

  His voice came from the direction of the hall. She couldn’t see him.

  “What happened?”

  “Power outage.” A light flickered, illuminating his face as he looked at his phone. He stood near the door. He’d pulled on sweats that hung low on his hips and he held a pistol.

  Angie swallowed. “What’s that noise?”

  “The battery backup for the alarm. It’s an old system.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t replace it. Don’t you guys have state of the art stuff over there at BDI?” She grappled for her panties and the shirt she’d been wearing. Tugged them on and stood.

  Her phone was in her bag. She’d left it in the kitchen. At least he had his so they could see.

  “We do. I didn’t replace it because there wasn’t any reason. I’m renting—and I can handle burglars.”

  Angie yawned. She wasn’t going back to sleep with that chirp. It was loud. Annoying. “We could make coffee. Oh, wait.” She sighed. “I guess not. I hope the power comes back soon.”

  “Me too. Maybe put on some warmer clothes in case it stays out for a while. The system’s probably been overloaded in this cold. Too many people trying to make their houses a balmy seventy-five.”

  “I can’t see to find my clothes.”

  “Hang on. I’ve got a battery-powered lantern in the kitchen. We’re gonna need it anyway, so let me go get it.”

  She heard the solid weight of the pistol land on the dresser with the television, and he disappeared through the door.

  Angie waited. The alarm kept chirping. She patted around the bed and over to the chair, hoping her clothes were there. Maybe she could find them before he got back.

  She hated being immersed in darkness so complete she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She’d never been particularly afraid of the dark. This was enough to make her rethink it.

  “Yesssss,” she said as her hand hit fabric she recognized. Her leggings. She tugged them on and patted some more. Her bra was there, but she didn’t care about that. Her fuzzy socks.

  Oh thank you Jesus because her feet were cold. She pulled on one and then the other. Her toes warmed immediately.

  “Hurry, Colt,” she called out. The darkness had weight to it as it pressed in on all sides. She hated it. He didn’t answer and her belly took a slow tumble to the floor as the silence stretched. She told herself to stop being silly. He was looking for the lantern. Maybe he’d had to step into the garage. He’d be back soon.

  She heard something banging in the kitchen. She held her breath, trying to make out what he was doing. It stopped and a light flared in the hallway. Relief made her knees wobbly.

  “I’m glad you found it. I can’t see a damn thing, but I have my clothes. They’re probably on backwards and inside out.”

  The light beamed into the room, shining in her face. Angie put her arm up to shield her eyes. It was too bright after so much blackness.

  “Careful,” she said.

  Before she could acclimate to the light, rough hands grabbed her and jerked her toward the door. She knew instantly they didn’t belong to Colt.

  Fear surrounded her heart with icy fingers.

  Angie screamed, lashing out at whoever had her in his grasp. She kicked, but it was useless because she wasn’t wearing shoes. Her toes bent painfully as they connected.

  “Shut up, bitch,” someone growled. Not the person holding her. Someone else.

  A hood fell over her head, blocking the light once more. The inside of the hood smelled sweet. Her attacker tightened it around her neck as she struggled. Angie sucked in a breath to scream again. Nothing came out. It was like her lungs weren’t working.

  “Did you bind him?” the man holding her asked.

  “Yeah. He ain’t coming to anytime soon. We should light this place up before we go.”

  “Against orders. Hey, there’s a gun on that dresser. Grab it.”

  That was the last thing she remembered.

  The side of Colt’s head—his face, actually—ached like a son of a bitch. The floor beneath him was hard and cold. He came awake slowly, wondering how the fuck he’d gotten onto the floor.

  His cheek pressed to the vinyl tile and his arms were behind him. He tried to move them, put his hands on the floor and lever up. But his arms were
restrained, and that triggered a memory. Somebody had hit him from behind. He didn’t remember falling, but his side hurt where he must have landed. He got his legs beneath him and shoved himself up to a sitting position.

  Angie.

  He knew better than to call out for her. She wasn’t there. He knew it because he was still alive, and restrained. If someone had come to kill her, they’d have killed them both. If they’d only intended to kill her, they wouldn’t have restrained him. They’d have incriminated him, which meant leaving him unrestrained and probably holding a smoking gun.

  Fuck. His gun. He’d set it on the dresser when he’d gone to get the light. Fucking stupid thing to do even if he’d already searched the house and found no breach. He’d also verified the power was out on the entire street. Everything had been dark, not just his house. He’d treated it like a routine outage when he should have been on his guard.

  His carelessness had put Angie in danger. He had to get up and he had to find her. Now.

  He got his legs beneath him. Got to his feet. Concentrated on the way his wrists were bound. They were behind his back and he could feel the bite of plastic in his skin.

  Fucking amateurs. Though could he really call them amateurs when they’d gotten the jump on him?

  Colt growled. Then he bent at the waist, lifted his arms as high as he could behind him, and brought them down fast and hard.

  The zip ties broke free. His wrists stung, but it didn’t matter. No amount of pain mattered right now. It was still dark outside but the room was no longer black. The clouds that’d been blocking the moon had drifted part and light shone into the kitchen.

  Colt’s eyes were acclimated to the dark so he didn’t bother trying to find the lantern he’d been looking for. He only needed his phone.

  If they hadn’t taken it. He’d been holding it in his hand, shining the light as he’d walked. And then something heavy crashed down on him. He thought he’d been holding the phone when he fell, but he didn’t know if they’d taken it from him.

  Why was he thinking in terms of they? What made him think there was more than one?

  Because he’d heard voices. He remembered it now. Two voices. In the seconds before he’d lost consciousness—or maybe he’d been drifting between being out cold and awake—he’d heard them talking in low voices about restraining him and taking the girl alive.

  Alive. Thank God.

  The glimmer of a light from the floor caught his eye. He fell to his knees and reached beneath the table. Tugged out a smooth rectangle and turned it over. The surface was cracked as if someone had stomped on it.

  Fucking idiots. They’d have done better to take the phone with them. It might look like an ordinary iPhone, but there were modifications. There had to be for a man in his profession.

  Colt tapped the surface. His contacts came up, and he conferenced Ian and Jace. They both answered immediately though it wasn’t yet two a.m.

  “What’s happened?” Ian asked.

  “Angie,” Colt said, his throat tight. “Somebody took her.”

  Jace swore. “I’ll be right there.”

  “I’m heading to the office to manage this,” Ian said. “But I’ll send Ty and Jared so they can help evaluate the scene and bring you in. I assume you’re in no condition to drive.”

  He wasn’t. Not yet anyway. “Thanks, boss. And Jace,” he added. “Don’t leave Maddy alone. I feel like that’d be a bad idea.”

  “Gotcha, brother. I’ll take her to BDI and wait for you to get there. Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

  “I know,” Colt said. They had to find her.

  Failure wasn’t an option. He couldn’t contemplate failing. Angie meant everything to him—and he hadn’t told her. It’d seemed too soon to tell her something so important.

  But it was never too soon when your heart was on the line. You had to tell people you loved them. Before they were gone forever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Angie woke, she thought she was still wearing the hood. It was black as pitch. But as she moved her head, she realized the hood was gone. There wasn’t any fabric impeding her air. She could breathe easily.

  Angie bit the inside of her cheek to stifle the panic rising like bile in her throat. Had she been closed into a room with no windows?

  Tentatively, she moved. She wasn’t bound. She lay on a lumpy mattress with a blanket on top of her. Which she needed because the air she breathed in was cold. Not freezing, but definitely not warm.

  The air was also dank, musty, like you’d find in a basement or a room that hadn’t been used in a long time.

  When she put her legs over the side, she discovered the mattress was on the floor. She put her hands in front of her, searching for walls.

  There was nothing so she turned and tried behind. Nothing there either.

  “Hello?” she said softly.

  Her voice echoed back to her. An empty room. An empty something.

  Except for her and a blanket and a mattress. Her legs trembled as she stood. Every bit of her wanted to stay on the mattress and not move away from it, but a small corner of her brain told her she had to search the space.

  Carefully. Slowly.

  She put her hands in front of her again. They trembled as she took a shuffling step. She strained to hear any sound. There was nothing, not even the muted shuffling of her feet. But she was only wearing socks so they wouldn’t make noise, would they?

  There were no cars driving by, no planes, nothing she could for certain make out. There might be something in the distance, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Banging? The rumble of a diesel engine?

  Her blood rushed in her ears, and that didn’t help. She wanted to turn and collapse on the mattress again. Hide beneath the blanket. Close her eyes and pray.

  But she’d been in this situation before and she’d been useless. They’d had light then, and she’d still been useless. Not this time.

  She stood very still and thought for a minute. What would Colt do? He would try to find a wall and then he’d make his way around the room, searching for a door or a window. He’d get the lay of the room, then he’d make a plan.

  She could do that much, even if she didn’t have the first idea what to do about it. It was terrifying to move in a space with no light. She didn’t know what was in front of her, what kind of obstacles might wait. What if the space was endless and she lost the mattress with its warm blanket?

  “That won’t happen,” she said to herself. “You heard the echo when you said hello. It’s not that big. Hello,” she said again, louder this time.

  The word echoed back to her and she did it again, moving slowly. The room wasn’t too big. There were walls. Metal walls, maybe.

  The floor beneath her was solid. She shuffled so she didn’t accidentally step into a hole. What if there was an opening to a room below and she fell through?

  “You don’t even know if there’s anything below you, fool.”

  It was stupid to talk to herself, and yet it might also keep her sane.

  “Bend over and feel the floor. You haven’t done that yet.”

  She dropped down and put a hand to the surface beneath her feet. It was concrete. She knew because it was rough like concrete. It was also cold. She was thankful she’d found her fluffy socks before the men grabbed her. They were thick, with a non-skid bottom. Almost like a boot, except for the lack of structure.

  She stood again and shuffled. And her fingers connected with metal. A metal wall. She felt her way along it until she reached a corner, then she felt her way along that side until she reached another corner.

  She felt for windows or doors, but there were none. When she encountered a chair, she almost wept for joy. It was something.

  She left it where it was and continued on again. There was a crate against one wall. She decided it was a shipping crate based on the feel of the wood. Rough, not polished. No opening for legs so not a desk. Not a cabinet because, again, not polished. She felt around it, looki
ng for a way to open it, but there wasn’t one she could feel.

  Angie continued like that until she came to a door. Excitement flared as her hand landed on a metal door knob. She turned it. It didn’t give way. She grabbed it with both hands and shook it.

  Nothing happened.

  “Keep going,” she said.

  She moved around the room. She didn’t find another door, but she reached the chair again. She knew it was the same chair because she’d been counting the corners. The crate was on the opposite wall from the chair and the room was a rectangle.

  After she’d mentally mapped the exterior of the room, she felt her way into the center. There was a pole, probably for support, that she hadn’t encountered before. It was metal, square. An I-beam.

  If there was one, there was likely another. She thought about the length of the longest wall and decided there were two or three beams. A warehouse?

  “With no windows?” she grumbled.

  She felt around the beam, then moved forward. Her toe kicked something. It stung and she cussed a blue streak. She reached out again—and discovered a much narrower metal beam.

  Except it wasn’t a beam. It was the support to a step. Angie moved her hands around until she connected with the railing.

  Stairs…

  Angie started to climb, pulling herself along carefully.

  Something rattled and she froze.

  A door squealed open on creaky hinges and a light swept the room. Angie cowered on the steps, her head turning away from the light. She told herself to concentrate on whatever the light revealed. The mattress was in the middle of the room, close to a steel support beam. There was a bucket nearby as well.

  The light swept from the bed, hooked around the walls, and then upward until it stopped on her. “Where do you think you’re going, bitch?”

  Colt retrieved the lantern and made his way to the bedroom to pull on some clothes. His chest tightened at the sight of the bed. The sheets were rumpled and the covers thrown back where Angie’d been the last to leave it.

  He swept the light through the room, methodically checking everything. Her leggings were gone. Her thick fuzzy socks. Her bra was still hanging over the chair, and her sweater was there too. She’d been wearing his shirt, he remembered. Whoever’d abducted her hadn’t taken a blanket or a coat for her because her coat was still in the kitchen where she’d left it.