Yes.
Dirk would kill him if they let me get taken.
I understood his worry there as well. I trusted Campbell and his men because Dirk trusted them. Dirk had seen to my security for years, and I trusted him with all of it. It was easier for me to let go of that piece of control to focus on my work, and it soothed him to maintain an iron fist over my safety. What I had only confessed to him once left a mark on both of us, looking back with the perfection of hindsight, I could almost see when the indelible shift in our relationship had begun.
While my faith was absolute, my conviction was devout. I would not let them be kept a moment longer than necessary. They had not abandoned me, and I refused to abandon them. To my surprise and ever-lasting delight, Andreas had taken my side in the argument. He wanted them back, too. We were lovers again, finally. And I’d woken each day since in his arms, wrapped and safe. Yet I could not savor it the way I wanted to while I worried about what was being done to Hatch and Dirk.
They’d been kind enough to provide proof of life.
Bloodied.
Battered.
Proof of life.
All the calm I’d scraped together during my yoga fled as images of Dirk’s shaved, cut head and swollen face filled my eyes. Hatch hadn’t faired much better. There were burn marks on his skull. I didn’t need expertise to know what had been done to them. The images had been geared to show me one thing.
They were alive.
They didn’t have to stay that way.
If the Blossom Foundry did not get what they wanted, they would use Dirk and Hatch to attempt it. Lowering my leg, I dipped into adho mukha svanasana, downward dog, and let out a breath. Maybe the blood rushing to my head could cleanse it from those images.
Still, nothing could fully erase them, and I didn’t want to. I could see Hatch’s beautiful eyes, all puffy and bruised. Blood trickled from his nose. The metallic taste coated my tongue and my pulse throbbed against my eyes as I pushed down into urdhva mukha svanasana, upward facing dog, then I opened my eyes, expecting to see the blue sky and the snow white drift of clouds in the distance.
Hatch stared back at me, a corner of his mouth kicking a little higher, despite the puffiness marring the other side of his beautiful lips. A cut sliced through the bottom one, likely inflicted by a ring slamming a blow there. As if the very thought of it summoned the image, I could feel the blow, and a wet laugh escaped me.
“Hey, beautiful,” Hatch murmured, his voice a little slurred and his head leaning a little to the side as though it were a great effort to keep it up. “This is an excellent fucking dream. You look great.”
My heart squeezed. I didn’t release the pose for fear of losing sight of him.
“Yeah, I’m not pretty.” He tried to shrug, but his shoulders barely moved. A faint grimace pulled taut over his face. “But this is hardly the worst I’ve been. Gimme a hot shower and a good night’s sleep, and I’ll be all better again.”
Tears filtered across my vision, and he wavered.
“Don’t you do it, luv,” he whispered. “Don’t you shed one damn tear for me. This is my fantasy, and I just want to see you warm, drenched in sunlight, with those beautiful breasts straining against that top, and look at those nipples all peaked and ready for me.”
Heat coiled in my abdomen at those words. It was such a Hatch thing to say. A wet laugh escaped me, and his grin kicked a little higher.
“Yeah, even in my fantasies, I can make you smile.”
“You always make me smile,” I whispered. “I just hate imagining you like this.”
“Then don’t,” he ordered. “Think of me hot and naked with you wrapped around my cock while I rock your world.” A harsh laugh escaped him, followed by a racking cough.
My heart hurt as he leaned slightly and spit. Then his expression shifted.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.” Why was I answering my own damn fantasies?
Because I missed him, dammit. They’d all worked their way so deeply into my soul that I felt less somehow with them gone. I had Andreas, I loved him so much, even his god had to know it. But I loved Hatch as well, and he was suffering.
He wasn’t looking at me so much as past me, and then he flicked his gaze back to me. “Well, if she’s a hallucination, mate, I’ll take it. She looks so fucking good. There’s sun in her dark hair, and I swear it’s got these little strands of gold in it. Her eyes are…they’re fucking perfect, even if she looks like she wants to cry.” He paused and then snorted another painful laugh that set his chest wheezing, and my arms trembled from refusing to release the pose less I lose this fragile, albeit painful, daydream.
“Fuck you, she thinks I’m the sexiest thing she’s ever seen. Right, luv? Your cunt is wet for me right now, isn’t it?”
“Always,” I whispered, and it wasn’t a lie. I did ache for him, and that ache unfolded with every word he released. “I’m coming, Hatch. You have to hold on.”
“Don’t,” he snarled. “Not even in my dreams, luv. You stay the fuck away from these people.” He groaned, then jerked his gaze away from me, as if it physically hurt him to look in my direction. “Fuck off, man. Maybe they have fucked with my head too much, I don’t care. I like seeing her. But even in my damn hallucinations, she’s being her stubborn self.”
“I can’t be anyone else,” I chastised him, albeit gently. “I can’t leave you.”
Instead of answering me, he kept his focus away. His lips pressed together mutely. It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t look at me, he wasn’t speaking at all. The shaking in my arms warned I was pushing too hard, but I only lowered myself to the deck slowly.
As difficult as it was to keep staring at his battered and damaged face, I yearned too much to see him to let go of this precious moment. It was mine dammit. I…
He still wouldn’t look at me.
If anything, his expression turned thunderous. It was a blink and miss it moment, the ripple of cold fury iced his eyes, but he didn’t shift his gaze at all. Why would I imagine this? I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’d seen Hatch truly angry.
He could challenge a saint.
It was one of the things I loved about him. The rakish attitude and roguish behavior hid the intelligent depths and gifted engineering mind. He was every bit the rogue, but he was also brilliant and cunning. A dangerous combination in someone who wanted to know how things worked.
Still, he kept his gaze steadily forward and controlled. Sweat gathered along the back of my neck and dampened my hair. The trickle of it between my breasts and down my face alerted me to the fact that I was drenched.
It wasn’t hot on the deck.
If anything, the breeze off the ocean was cool and refreshing. The sun warmed me, but hardly offered more than some comfort to stave off what could be a real chill. But I was sweating.
Profusely.
Sweat beaded on Hatch’s forehead. The droplets trickling down as though he were in the throes of breaking a fever.
Stubbornness was in his DNA, but he usually preferred to tease me than ignore me. That was more Andreas’ or Oz’s style when they were truly angry with me.
My heart spasmed at the thought of Oz, hurt slicing fresh and deep. Hatch flicked his gaze to me. It was just the barest, briefest movement, but I frowned as the corner of his mouth tightened.