I took the coffee over to her.
“Here, drink this.”
I held the mug up to her lips. She didn’t have her hands free so couldn’t hold it herself. The hot liquid touched her lips, and she blinked and jerked her head away.
“It’s okay, it’s just coffee. You look like you could use it.” I tried again, moving the cup back to her mouth.
Her lips parted, and her pink tongue sneaked out and swiped across her plump lower lip. Some awareness had come back to her eyes, and she drank some of the coffee.
“Good girl,” I told her.
A little colour came back to her cheeks.
It suddenly struck me that she was fucking gorgeous. I hadn’t thought that about a woman since Jodie had died, and the fact hit me like a punch in the gut.
“That’s enough.” I took the cup away. “Are you talking now.”
She nodded. “I can talk.”
“Want to tell me what the fuck happened back there?”
She blinked at me as though I was stupid. “You locked me in a cupboard?”
“So, you went into a coma?”
“I told you I was claustrophobic.”
“That wasn’t claustrophobia.”
“I disassociate when I can’t handle something. It’s from...a trauma.”
“What trauma?”
Her lips pressed tightly together. She clearly had no intention of telling me. I wasn’t sure I even cared anyway. Putting her in a confined space had clearly freaked her out, and I wondered how I could use that to my advantage.
I noticed she was still shaking.
“I brought back some food. Are you hungry? I can make you something.”
Her gaze darted around, as though she didn’t want to answer me, and then she nodded.
“Yes, I’m hungry.”
Her accent was beautiful, exotic.
“Okay, I won’t be a minute.”
I went back to the kitchen and took the items I’d bought out of the bags that I still hadn’t managed to unpack. I found a plate and loaded some of the potato salad and some sliced smoked sausage onto it, and carried it back to her, together with a fork.
“It’s a strange breakfast,” I said, and then realised how dumb it was of me to apologise for the kind of meal I was supplying when I’d strangled her and torn her from her bed in the middle of the night. Maybe I should just let her starve, but I needed her in some kind of decent state if I was going to get her into England. That reminded me of something else I needed to do, but it could wait until she’d eaten.
“Is it even breakfast time?” she commented. “It feels closer to lunch.”
I forked up some of the potato salad and held it to her mouth. I was going to have to untie her before I’d be able to get her on a plane, but again, I wasn’t sure how that was going to work.
There was something strangely intimate about feeding her like this. She held my eye, opening her pretty mouth obediently for each forkful, chewing slowly and swallowing. I found myself mesmerised by those lips, and something I’d thought was long dead stirred inside me.
“That’s enough,” I snapped, taking the plate away from her. She was only half done, but I hadn’t liked how it had felt feeding her. “I need to take your photo now. You need to stand against a white wall.” I looked around. The whole of the interior was wooden-clad. Damn. “Wait here.”