“It’s time for me to take over.” The gruff voice had Tina’s head jerking up.
She’d actually fallen asleep. How was that even possible? Tina blinked bleary eyes and found herself staring at Drew.
He was right in front of her. His gaze held hers an instant, then he turned his head and looked at the guy who’d just come into the room.
Tina had no idea who this blond man was. As he watched her, his hard brown eyes glittered. There was a holster at his hip—she could see the butt of his gun. And he had a knife strapped to his left side.
After her last encounter with a knife, Tina wasn’t exactly eager to go another round with a blade.
“Lee said for me to relieve you,” the man said in that same gruff voice. He shrugged. “So here I am.”
Tina wanted to reach out and hold tight to Drew, but that wasn’t possible.
Mostly because she was still tied up, but at least the gag was gone. That horrible, terrible gag. If she hadn’t gotten her medicine just a few hours before the men had taken her, she wouldn’t have been able to handle the gag. Tina wouldn’t have been able to breathe.
“Keep that knife in its sheath, Carl,” Drew told him flatly.
Oh, no. Oh, that wasn’t good.
Drew’s face—handsome, hard, fierce—seemed to tighten even more as he studied the other man.
Drew Lancaster was a warrior. She knew it. Had known it from the first moment she’d seen him. He’d been dripping blood at the time, courtesy of a fresh bullet wound. He hadn’t even flinched when she’d dug that bullet out of him.
He was big; about six foot three, with wide shoulders, narrow hips and what she thought of as a go-to-hell golden gaze. His skin was tanned from hours under the Mississippi sun, and that slow drawl that crept out every now and then...
That drawl was temptation in a dangerous package.
She knew how lethal Drew was. She’d gotten a glimpse into his file once, thanks to her friend Sydney Ortez. Sydney controlled all the intel at the EOD, and when she’d noticed that Tina was spending a bit too much tim
e gazing after Drew, Syd had wanted Tina to know exactly who she was day dreaming about.
Not a white knight.
More like a killing machine.
Drew’s gaze slid to her once more. His face was all tough angles and planes. The scar that cut across his right cheekbone just made him appear all the more dangerous.
Her breath felt too hot in her lungs.
After a tense moment Drew gave a curt nod and rose to his feet. There was a tiny window in the room and sunlight spilled inside that window. The light fell on Drew as he passed it.
“Told you she was pretty,” the one he’d called Carl mumbled.
Drew leaped at the other man. In an instant Drew’s lower arm was under the guy’s chin and Drew had him pinned against the wall. “And I’m telling you...keep your hands off her.”
The other man blinked. Then Carl smiled. “Like that, huh? Calling her yours already?”
I am in a nightmare. And Drew wasn’t calling her anything.
But he was leaning in even closer to the blond male. “If you hurt her, if you so much as bruise her, I’ll make you pay.” A deadly promise.
The blond man gulped. “No worries, man. I’m just watchin’ her.”
Drew stepped back. “See that you do.” He fired one more glance at Tina.
She had to press her lips together so she wouldn’t cry out and basically beg him to stay.
He was undercover. He had a job to do. But she knew that he’d get her out of there.