Festival.
Pineapple.
Girls.
Beautiful.
Then male laughter, full of bravado and innuendo.
A minute later, female voices joined the deeper ones.
A booty call? Now? Clearly, they weren’t the least bit worried about him.
Devin moved his fingers faster. This could be the perfect opportunity. If he could just loosen his bounds, the guards might be distracted by the women long enough for him to make a dash for it.
The knot slipped. He turned his wrists more and flexed his hands until the rope fell. Blood rushed into his fingers like a bullet train full of oh-fuck-that-hurts burning its way through his veins. It stung like a son of a bitch, but he pushed past the pain and bent over to untie his ankles. At least his guards hadn’t used duct tape.
He stood, pins and needles streaking down his legs, and looked for a weapon in the small, dusty storage room. There were a few wooden crates, but the guards had taken the crowbars and other tools with them.
The doorknob jiggled.
He had half a heartbeat to make a decision.
He grabbed one of the smaller crates—which still weighed about forty pounds—and stood behind the door so it would block him from view when it opened.
The knob turned.
Centering his stance, he lifted the crate above his head as high as he could, his arms screaming in protest.
One of the guards and a short-haired woman in pink sashayed into the room, arm in arm. He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t give a damn who it was. He just needed the perfect shot at the guard’s head.
On a jetted exhale, Devin brought the crate down, knocking the man out cold and pushing the woman to the side. Without pausing for a breath, he kicked the door shut, grabbed the woman, and slapped a hand over her mouth.
She squirmed against him, trying her damnedest to land an elbow or crack the back of her skull against his face.
“Look lady, I’m not going to—” That was all he got out before her heel slammed into his instep.
White hot pain shot up his leg. His palm on her lips faltered for a second, but he managed to keep his grip around her waist. He pulled her close so that her back lay flat against his chest and her short, dark curly hair tickled his cheek. The scent of cinnamon hiding in her ebony hair made his brain hiccup.
She took advantage of the momentary lapse to bite down on his hand hard enough that he reflexively whipped it away from her.
“I’m here to rescue you, you idiot.” She went limp in his arms. A move that would have made someone less familiar with fighting tactics drop her on her ass.
As he tightened his grip, his mind tried to put the sound of that voice together with the stranger swathed in the pink, filmy dress standing snug up against him. Luckily, his body immediately recognized that toned, curvy flesh, even if his brain didn’t. “Ryder?”
“Yes. Now let me go. We don’t have a ton of time.”
“What the hell are you doing here? You should be gone. It’s too dangerous. I have to protect you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t fight for me. We fight for each other.”
The truth of the statement knocked the heavy weight from his shoulders and he couldn’t find the words to express the lightness and certainty that she was right.
“How many times did they whack you in the head?” She whirled in his arms, grabbed his face between her palms, and stared hard into his eyes, presumably searching for signs of brain damage. “What day is it? Who’s president?”
“They whacked me plenty.” Not that he was feeling anything o
ther than awareness now that the feel of her skipped up his skin. “But I’m pretty hard-headed.”