Run Among Thorns

Read Run Among Thorns for Free Online

Book: Read Run Among Thorns for Free Online
Authors: Anna Louise Lucia
easy.
    She felt sick.
    “Do you have any family, Jenny?” he asked again, softly, pouring more milk over his mountain of cornflakes, acting like he wasn’t her enemy.
    In spite of her fear, or perhaps because of it, she answered him.
    “I have a brother. He’s older than me. Five years older.”
    “And you’re, what? Twenty-seven?”
    You know how old I am, you bastard . “Twenty-six.”
    He flicked a glance at her again, and she wondered suddenly if she’d spoken her first thought aloud. Then he turned back to his breakfast, curling one arm around the bowl and leaning on his forearm.
    “What’s his name? What’s he do?” he asked.
    “His name is Alan. He does a few things. But at the moment he’s a landscape gardener.”
    “In England?”
    “Yes.”
    He looked up again, waved his spoon at her empty bowl. “Aren’t you having any breakfast?”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    The ghost of a smile haunted his lips for a moment. “Sure you are. You haven’t eaten anything since that tray of food in your cell approximately …” he glanced at his watch, “thirty-eight hours and forty-three minutes ago. You had a bowl of soup and half of a bread roll.”
    A little shiver passed over her. It was a control thing, she knew. He was taunting her with his knowledge of what had happened to her, telling her he was in charge. She said nothing.
    “Don’t make me force-feed you, sweetie. Eat something.”
    She swallowed, stared down at her empty bowl. There was a pattern of daisies around the rim. Pretty , she thought, absently. “I feel sick,” she admitted.
    The steady munching of cornflakes ceased for a moment. He was watching her again. Then, “That’ll be the drugs,” he said, matter-of-factly

Chapter
        THREE
    A nger.
    Jenny had always embraced anger as an antidote to pain. If she got angry, she didn’t hurt quite so much, didn’t cry so woefully easily. Now she welcomed the bitter fire that burned in her suddenly, that lightened the blood in her veins.
    “Drugs?” she asked carefully.
    “We gave you a sedative. To make sure the journey was uneventful.”
    These people. These people, whom McAllister worked for, had walked all over her rights, taken her freedom, bullied her, all but broken her spirit, abused her mind, and now she found out they had poisoned her body, too?
    In a swift move she threw her hand forward, grasped the milk jug, and dashed the contents in the face of the man opposite.
    He barely had time to blink.
    There had been a good half pint in the jug. Full cream. It soaked his hair, plastering it down on his brow. It ran into his eyes, dripped off his nose and chin, soaked his T-shirt. He sat there like a statue, staring at her while she watched with a sort of horrified appreciation.
    Then anger froze in cold fear.
    Jenny forced herself not to run, forced herself not to flinch away. She swallowed, breathing fast and hard, gripping the chair under her with white fingers.
    He began to wipe his face with a tea towel, eyes on her, measuring, gauging.
    She lifted her chin. “You deserved that,” she said.
    He didn’t answer. Still watching her, he rose to his feet and caught his T-shirt by the hem and drew it off, using the wadded material to wipe his chest. There were drops of milk clinging to the dark hairs, like pearls.
    Mercy . Jenny fought to keep control, to keep holding his gaze. Not to blush, not to look away. Against her will, her eyes drifted down over his chest. Oh, dear heaven . She had never, but never seen a body like that before. In magazines, yes. In films, on TV, maybe. But not for real. Not in front of her, within touching distance.
    The bulk of the shoulders, muscles pulled taut across the collarbone. The hard sweep of his pectorals, tanned flesh half-hidden by a shadow of dark hair. The hard ridges of his abdomen and that trail of hair that arrowed down to the waistband of his jeans. The arching line of his hips, lean and powerful, and full of latent sexual

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