Hush Read Free Page B

long-awaited big adventure really began.
    Her muscles, especially in her legs, felt as weak and unsubstantial as tapioca pudding, and the erratic pounding of her heart throbbed loudly in her ears. Locking her knees, she told herself to think hard and smart.
    She was good at thinking. At preparing. She just had to get the fear untangled from the process. Breathing deeply, and several stages beyond abject terror, she considered the facts. Waking to find herself in a living nightmare was bad enough. Waking up naked in front of all thesemen was beyond unacceptable and took humiliation to a whole new level. Though the travel agent had said to expect unusual customs in Venezuela, Acadia doubted he’d been talking about this .
    Oh, she’d been warned that there were military types, but she certainly hadn’t expected them to be crotch-to-face with her in her own damn hotel room first thing in the morning, waving guns about, forcing her to stand there naked in front of them.
    Leering at her. Touching her.
    She struggled uselessly to break the soldier’s grip on her arm while her one-night stand—stood there doing absolutely nothing . Zakary Stark was hot in bed, but he was piss-poor at hero stuff. He looked shockingly bored and disinterested—he might as well be sunbathing on a nude beach on the French Riviera, for all he was doing.
    Without warning, the man let go of her arm to jam a hand between her legs. She let out a wild, choked-off scream, grabbing his wrist and digging her nails into the sinew and bone with all her strength. For all the effect it had. He jammed his hand against her harder.
    â€œWhoa, whoa,” Zak protested. Too little too late.
    It was the man in charge whose sharp warning made the soldier slowly withdraw his questing fingers from between her legs. He grinned lasciviously, his eyes promising worse to come.
    Panting, light-headed with dread, and holding back hysteria by sheer determination, Acadia fell back against the wall. Her skin crawled, and bile refluxed in the back of her throat.
    â€œÂ¡Ponte de pie nojoda!” The barrel pressed hard against Zak’s throat. Raising his hands higher, he appeared completely relaxed as he kept his attention on the guy in front of him. God. How could he be so calm? Acadia was trying not to blubber like a baby; her breathing was so erratic she felt dizzy enough to pass out.
    Pull yourself together? she thought furiously, incensed by his dictatorial attitude that so far had done absolutely nothing to help either of them. Clearly unconcerned by his nudity—well, sure, because none of the men seemed interested in his spectacular physique—he just stood there, big and bold and naked. Even the fully armed soldiers didn’t seem to give him pause. Acadia envied him his sangfroid.
    She’d never felt so exposed, or so vulnerable, in her life.
    And this on the advent of one of the biggest life-changing things she’d ever done. Only she could be so unlucky as to wake up to a roomful of armed men days before embarking on what she’d thought, until now, was the ballsiest thing she’d ever done in her life.
    Somehow, enrolling in architectural school at her age didn’t seem so daunting anymore. She’d spent most of her life with constraints that hadn’t allowed her to move forward. This trip was supposed to jump-start her “new normal.” But the men holding her weren’t going to let them go. They weren’t going to stop leering. No point drawing any more attention, or hands, to herself than necessary. She had to calm down, had to start thinking rationally and methodically. There was a way out of thesituation; there was always a way out. Letting her brain run around like a rat in a maze was counterproductive. Acadia drew in a calming breath and let it out slowly. Keeping her attention on Zak, she blocked out everyone else.
    She knew his features by feel and taste better than by sight. He wasn’t