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  He cupped a hand over his ear. “I’m sorry?”

  “I need your help! Are you deaf?”

  “Nah, I heard you.” He smiled at her. “I just wanted you to say it a couple of times.”

  With a sigh, she lay back on the bed. “You’re a jerk.”

  “I know. Oh, and you’re stripping yourself this time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my brain fails when I strip you.” He waggled a finger at her shirt, a stretchy number that was hugging her curves and messing with his brain pretty badly. “Get moving.”

  “You’re so romantic.”

  Brody opened his mouth and then shut it again, deciding not to touch that one with a ten-foot pole since it happened to be true. He didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Well, other than the one that wanted to indeed strip her and then kiss every inch of her body as he exposed it. But since what he wanted to do after that involved him stripping, too, he kept it to himself.

  Then he heard the unmistakable hum of a cell phone vibrating from somewhere close. “You?”

  “It’s just my alarm. Can I have some tea?”

  “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “I’ve fallen for that one before.”

  “No, really.” Her big eyes met his, all warm and soft and hurting. “I need some tea. I told you, I can’t take my medicine without it, or it tears up my stomach.”

  “I thought you were done with the meds.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  He looked her over for a sign she was just fucking with him again, but she really did look pale and weak. “Okay, but if you’re gone when I get back, I will find you.” On that ridiculously empty threat, he left the room, then waited a minute, pressing his ear to the door.

  He heard nothing.

  Deciding to take her at her word, he made his way to the front desk, having to admit that a big hotel would have been nice for the room service alone. He asked for hot tea. The woman there took her sweet time making it, too. By the time he had a tray in his hands, he was nearly crawling out of his skin with impatience.

  Once again, he swiped Maddie’s room key, watched the lights flicker green, giving him the go-ahead, but when he turned the handle, the door didn’t budge.

  She’d bolted the door. “This isn’t funny, Maddie. Let me in.” When she didn’t, he headed next door to his own room, walking directly to the connecting door.

  She wasn’t in her room.

  His heart dropped into his gut until he realized the shower was running. Okay, so he’d overreacted. He sat on her bed and waited.

  And waited, trying not to picture her in there, naked and soapy and wet . . .

  Then he saw the cell phone on the nightstand, which immediately distracted him. With only a small zing of guilt, he flipped it open and checked her alarm. It was off. He moved directly to last received and dialed calls. Nothing he recognized. Then he got to text messages, where the last one stopped his heart.

  Be late and Maddie pays, I promise you.

  No longer feeling so patient, he knocked on the bathroom door.

  Nothing.

  A bad feeling curled in the pit of his gut right next to where his heart had dropped. He waited another minute and then decided the hell with this and broke in.

  The room was filled with steam pouring over the top of the closed shower curtain. “Maddie?”

  More of that silence.

  Okay, so clearly they were going to do this the hard way, not that that was any big surprise. “I snooped on your phone and saw the text.” With a quick jerk, he pulled the curtain aside. “And—”

  And Maddie sat on the shower floor, head on her knees in rare defeat as the water pounded down over her, and the sight absolutely broke the heart still sitting in his gut.

  Steam rose all around her but did not quite cover her. Nor did her hair, plastered to her shoulders. Not looking would have been physically impossible, but still, he wasn’t prepared for the visceral punch the sight of her gave him. “Maddie?”

  She didn’t move.

  Resigned, he stepped over the edge of the tub and got in with her.

  With a sudden gasp, she bolted upright, giving him a quick flash of her pale, shocked, horror-filled face.

  And more. Way more.

  Water ran over her in rivulets. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in a silent scream, and two things hit him at once.

  One, she hadn’t been ignoring him—she really hadn’t heard him coming in because she’d been asleep.

  And two, he’d caught her in mid-nightmare.

  Processing the information took a moment because she was naked, dripping wet, and extremely earth-shattering, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Which is the only explanation he had for how she managed to wrap her foot around the back of his knee and tug so that his leg collapsed.

  He fell like a ton of bricks to the floor of the tub, where he lay being pelted by the shower.

  What the hell?

  He blinked through the water raining down over the top of him to focus in on the very naked, very wet, very furious woman, hands on her hips, standing over him, glaring into his face.

  Chapter 14

  “Did I hear you say you snooped on my cell phone?” Maddie demanded.

  “Yes.” On the floor of the shower, fully dressed, drenched, Brody glared back at her. “And you neglected to tell me that if Leena doesn’t make it to the meeting you’re trying to stop her from making, you pay.”

  Maddie had no intelligent response, so she kicked at the inch of water in the bottom of the tub, splashing an already drenched man. She wanted to hurt Rick for the nightmare. She really needed to hurt him. Instead, she splashed Brody again.

  “Hey—” He spit out a mouthful of water and came up on his knees, his shirt plastered to his tough body like a second skin as he held up his hands. “I’m not the bad guy here!”

  Another kick of water helped, but her breath was still hitching, her body coursing with fury, hatred, adrenaline. Never mind the cell phone threat, she was caught on the stupid nightmare she hadn’t had in years, but she’d had it now and she couldn’t erase it from her brain.

  She’d been sixteen again, back on that last night on Stone Cay, sleeping until she’d heard Leena cry out. Running through the compound trying to find her, running, running . . . desperate to find her—

  “Maddie—”

  She kept splashing him, and with an oath, a string of oaths really, he managed to surge to his feet and grab her, holding her against him.

  But that just really did her in. She was so furious she saw stars, and yeah, way back in a corner of her mind, waaaaay back, she knew it wasn’t Brody that was making her so crazy with fear and fury and guilt, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care.

  Her nightmare had reminded her of a time when she’d been young, alone, helpless, and in her head, she was there again. Memories, none good, had crashed down on her, pelting her, hurting her, killing her. “I can’t—” She shook her head wildly. “I can’t—”

  “Sh-h.” He softened his hold. “Shh, it’s okay.” He pulled her in against him. “It’s okay, Maddie, you’re okay.”

  But it wasn’t. In spite of the hot water, she was cold, iced to the bone, and even worse, she couldn’t control herself. Yet somehow, Brody’s voice came through, achingly soft and so gentle she couldn’t handle it.

  “I’ve got you,” he was saying, holding her to his big, steaming hot body while the storm raged both outside the building and within her. “It’s me, Maddie, just me.”

  Pride and ego kept her struggling, but he just held her tighter. “Come on now. Stop.”

  “I can’t.” She fisted her hands in his drenched shirt, feeling that welcome heat of his body coming through, the comforting steady beat of his heart, and she gripped him for dear life. “I can’t stop.”

  “I’ve got you now; you’re not alone.” He was holding her, his hands on her bare skin, his grip easy, soothing, firm.

  He had her.

  He real