Security for Sleeping Beauty - Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Had her prince finally come? The man was handsome enough—his face all chiseled features, shadowed with dark scruff. He stared back at her with deep-set dark eyes framed with thick black lashes like the thick black hair hanging nearly to his nape. She’d heard what he’d been saying, though.
“Don’t...” she began again, but her voice was just a weak rasp, her throat so dry that trying to talk was painful. She grimaced and flinched when the machines near her started loudly beeping.
The man vaulted out of the chair, looming over her, and he was tall as well as dark and handsome. “I’ll get help,” he told her before turning away, as if he didn’t trust the alarms to bring anyone to her aide.
He had a gun, the handle stuck out of a holster strapped around his wrinkled shirt. Why was he armed?
Was he as dangerous as he was good-looking?
She needed help all right—help to get away from him. She shifted against the bed, trying to sit up, but her body felt limp and as heavy as lead. And the machines and tubes pulled at her, holding her down.
Maybe what he’d been saying...
“She’s awake!” he yelled out the door. He’d opened it, but he stood inside her room yet, his hand on that gun in his holster. As if he needed it...
She couldn’t fight him. Not like this...
Not yet...
But if he was holding her here...
She had to fight. Drawing in a deep breath, she summoned all her energy and pulled herself from the pillows behind her to sit up. The motion sent a wave of dizziness and nausea crashing over her, and a moan slipped through her lips.
“Wait,” he said. “Don’t move.” He reached for her, his big hand closing over her shoulder. The heat of his skin penetrated the thin cotton of her gown, warming her, making her tingle with life.
She cleared her throat and managed to whisper, “I’m not dead...”
His brow furrowed slightly with confusion.
“I’m not a corpse,” she said. Not like he’d called her...
To whom had he been speaking? She glanced around the room now and found no one else in it but her and him. “Where am I?” she asked.
It wasn’t a cold drawer in a morgue but a room in a hospital. She wasn’t dead. Yet. But she wasn’t sure what else she was. Or even...
Panic pressed on her lungs now, stealing her breath away. She searched her mind, but she could remember nothing but the sound of his voice, the words he’d spoken.
Her voice cracking with fear, she uttered the most important question yet. “Who am I?”