Capture Me Read Online Helena Newbury

Categories Genre: Action, Alpha Male, Suspense Tags Authors: Helena Newbury Advertisement1

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Just the sight of him unleashed all the feelings. They rushed into my brain and locked it solid: it sparked and smoked, a computer infected with a virus. Then he said the part about taking me over his knee and my brain just melted into a pool of molten metal. My cheeks went scarlet and all I could manage was a single, tight nod.

He untied my hands and we began to climb, picking our way carefully up the trail, clinging onto rocks and roots, crawling on all fours when we had to. I stared at the rocks without really seeing them, moving on autopilot. On the outside, I was silent and calm but on the inside, I was a hurricane. What am I going to do?

I could hear Colton climbing behind me and I started to breathe faster, my chest going tight. Something I couldn’t control was trying to tear me loose from the rocks, spin me around and just hurl me against his wide, muscled chest.

It’s impossible, I thought furiously. We were on opposite sides.

You could tell him the truth, a rogue part of me whispered.

And then what? Even if he believed me, he still had a job to do. He still had to hand me over to the CIA. Or was I going to ask him to betray his country? And I’d be putting his life in danger. There was no happy ending where we ran off into the sunset together. There never was, for people like me.

A sudden stab of pain in my chest. Pain was good. Pain, I understood. I focused on it.

A man like Colton deserved better than me. He deserved someone real, not a weapon made of lipstick and lies. He was a good man, a soldier. I couldn’t drag him into my world.

I thought of Lev, and the pain grew razor-sharp and brutal. I pressed my mind against it, letting it slash deep. I needed the clarity. People like me are meant to be alone. I’d forgotten that once, and look what happened.

I felt my face twist in agony and then I snarled and threw myself forward, climbing as fast as I could. The trees gave way to rocks and thin scrub and the full force of the sun hit us, but I let the heat drive me on, panting and sweating. I swarmed up the rocks, going in a straight line instead of following the easier, winding path.

“Jesus,” muttered Colton behind me. “Slow down!”

I went even faster, ignoring the scrapes on my palms and the burn in my muscles. I was climbing almost vertically, now, anything to get away from the tempting, wonderful, impossible fantasy that was behind me.

“Tanya!”

I gritted my teeth and hauled myself up onto a boulder, then jumped and caught a ledge above me, pulled and—

My hand slipped free and I dropped sickeningly. My feet couldn’t find the boulder below me and I dangled from one hand, legs kicking, raw fear gripping me.

I heard Colton curse and scramble up the rocks behind me. He couldn’t reach me from below so he hauled himself up onto the ledge, lay full-length, grabbed my hand and pulled me up beside him. We lay there panting. “What’s with you?” Colton demanded, his voice tight with panic. “You almost—”

I stared up into his eyes. The scare had shattered all my carefully-constructed self control. He still had hold of my hand and the heat of him throbbed up my arm and exploded in my chest. All the unfamiliar emotions slipped free and surged up inside, turning into words. “I—”

Then I saw what was behind him and stopped.

It wasn’t just a ledge we’d climbed onto: we’d reached the top. I’d been climbing so fast, I hadn’t realized how close we were getting. We were lying on a rocky plateau and I could see the town in the distance. But closer, no more than ten feet away, was something else, something far more important. A patch of waist-high weeds.

I focused on Colton again. Looked down at our joined hands…and let go. “I’m fine,” I told him.

He frowned at me. He knew. He knew I’d been about to say…something. But I just stared coldly back at him, brazening it out. A cool breeze was blowing across the top of the plateau and I let it bathe my body and cool my cheeks. I pushed the emotions down inside me, where they belonged.

I’d been saved, just as I was about to do something stupid. Everything was different, now.

Because now, I had a plan.

26

COLTON

I held her gaze for a moment longer, stubbornly unwilling to let her go. I’d seen what was in her eyes. She’d been about to say something else. I knew it.

She stared back at me, imperious and icy.

I felt all my certainty crumble away. Had I just misread it? Had she just been shaken after nearly falling? Or had the entire thing, the silent sulking, the slip, me catching her, been just a performance designed to put me off guard again? Did she know how close I’d come to kissing her, when I’d been putting the backpack on her and she was staring off over my shoulder, perfect and haughty and her lips all pouty?


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