A Kiss to Kill by Nina Bruhns Page A

nightmares .
    Her hands flew to her mouth, stifling a cry of panic.
    That’s when she noticed her arms were bare. She looked down at the rest of her body. A desperate whimper escaped.
    She was naked!
    What had he done to her?
    “Hello, Gina,” his deep voice said from nearby.
    She whipped around, and saw him.
    He was sprawled casually in a chair by the window, fingering a bottle of beer clasped between his hands. His faded jeans had holes at the knees; his signature black T-shirt hugged a torso that was still ripped from granite. Short-cropped sandy hair; hard, sculpted features; and a shoulderholstered gun tucked under his armpit completed the picture of the consummate badass. Despite his slack pose with one motorcycle booted-foot resting negligently on the other knee, his whole body oozed strength and power.
    Her throat went painfully dry. She recognized, almost viscerally, that tall, broad, hard-as-nails body. Felt the power of its impact at such a primal level she nearly cried out in protest.
    But she managed to swallow down the sensation and ask, “Why am I here? What do you want from me, Gregg?”
    His sensual lips curved downward. The movement made the hollowed angles of his ultra-masculine face even more harsh than usual.
    She should be terrified. She was terrified! And yet . . .
    A spill of goose bumps washed up her arms and over her chest. Against her will, a coil of sexual desire tightened in her center. Lord help her . Why did the bastard have to look so damn amazing? She didn’t understand why her body steadfastly refused to acknowledge her fear of him.
    “Why am I naked?” she demanded, gaining strength from her inner mortification. She clutched the bedsheet to her tightly, pulling it up to her neck. “What are you going to do, rape me before you kill me?”
    A muscle ticked in his cheek but his expression didn’t alter. “Your clothes were covered in blood.”
    She quickly touched her face, flashing a glance at her hands again. Both clean. He’d washed her, too.
    He dropped his boot to the floor and rose catlike from the chair. Her heart pounded erratically. But he just walked to a dresser and from the top picked up a pair of neatly folded black sweatpants and a black T-shirt.
    In a vase sitting next to where the clothes had been stacked, she suddenly noticed a bouquet of yellow roses and blue forget-me-nots. The flowers she’d dropped? She was so surprised, she didn’t sense him approach until he tossed the clothes down on the bed in front of her.
    She started badly, panic zinging through her like an electric shock. He halted, watching her with narrowed eyes as she frantically scrambled backward.
    They stared at each other for an endless moment. At length he said tightly, “Gina. I’m not going to rape you. I didn’t dress you because after cleaning the blood off your body, I didn’t trust myself to touch you for one second longer. Yes, we have history, and it’s pretty damn clear I still want you. But I wouldn’t take you by force. And I’m not going to kill you.”
    An uncontrollable tremble went through her. She didn’t believe him! The man was heartless; he’d sold her to terrorists! They’d beaten her, drugged her, and forced her to use her expertise in genetic research to weaponize a horrible biological agent. If not kill her, then what could he possibly want with her? Why was he doing this?
    She let out a squeak of horror as an unacceptable thought hit her. Surely, he didn’t intend to give her back to them? Please, God, no! She couldn’t go through that again!
    As the squeak morphed to a scream, he was on the bed in a flash. One powerful hand clamped over her mouth, his arm banded around her body. “Shhh,” he sussed in her ear as the frantic sound fought in vain to explode from her. “There’s no need to scream, sweet thing. No one will hear you anyway. Please stop.”
    No!
    She struggled against his hold. Against his hand. Against the worst fate imaginable. She fought him