She’s injured, dickhead. Get your mind where it belongs.
Shifting in his seat, he adjusted himself as best he could, opened his computer, and started scanning through emails. Not exactly the mandatory work he’d led Sophie to believe, but he didn’t trust himself to stay in that room a second longer and not do more than just kiss her.
For the next hour, Jason responded to the messages in his inbox, all the while trying desperately not to picture Sophie hurt and bleeding. Fuckingshot.
Just like...
Nope. He was not going there. He couldn’t go there.
Forcing the memory and fear away, Jason reminded himself over and over again that she was upstairs right now...and that she was okay.
When the emails had been taken care of, he moved his focus to the file next to him. The one containing the latest intel on Colton Moore, who was still nowhere to be found.
Jason read over the reports again, hoping something might stand out to him. That he might find an answer as to where the man was or who his possible abductors were.
They’d received no communication from him or anyone else claiming responsibility for his disappearance. There’d been no ransom demands or political propaganda with Moore at the forefront.
It was the one thing that continued to nag at Jason’s insides.
Usually, when a journalist was taken hostage—especially an American one—the group behind the kidnapping can’t wait to show off what they’d done.
Groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State—formerly known as ISIS—were notorious for their so-called political statements and public executions in the name of a God they couldn’t possibly worship.
So far, there hadn’t been a single form of communication with or about Colton Moore. A fact that settled in Jason’s gut like a pot full of lead.
With sleep finally calling his name, he closed the folder and stood. Glancing at the aforementioned futon, he decided instead to sleep on the couch.
In the living room—which would allow him to hear Sophie better if she needed him—he removed his gun and holster and laid it on the coffee table. Slipping off his jacket, he flung it over the back of his leather recliner before toeing off his shoes.
With sluggish movements, he proceeded to remove his socks, pants, and shirt, placing them on the chair with the jacket. Wearing nothing but his boxer briefs, Jason pulled the gray throw blanket from the back of the couch and flopped his tired body onto the cushions.
As far as sleeping went, his couch wasn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture he owned, but he’d sleep on the damn floor if it meant Sophie was comfortable and safe.
Though he was both mentally and physically drained, sleep still didn’t come easy. Jason’s mind replayed that terrifying scene from Sophie’s house, over and over again like some sort of nightmare marathon.
Then, when he did manage to make his way past the horrifying loop, he found himself the newest contestant in the what-if game from hell.
What if he hadn’t heard her scream?
What if that bullet had hit her chest and not her arm?
What if he’d found her dead instead of unconscious?
What if I lost her?
Sometime during the vicious cycle, sleep finally,finallypulled him under. His dreams were a mixture of his worst fears and his strongest desires.
Both versions starring the woman who was quickly worming her way into his hardened heart.
It was in the midst of a particularly good dream when Jason woke to the sound of Sophie screaming his name. On reflex, he shot up from the couch, grabbed his gun, and sprinted toward the stairs.
Heart racing, he burst through his bedroom door. With his gun held out in front of him, he was ready to take on whatever threat dared to loom over his woman.
Head on a swivel, he did a visual sweep of the room. Within seconds he realized the only intruder was the one Sophie was seeing in her dreams.
Lying in the middle of his king size bed, she tossed and turned. Kicking and pushing away a man who wasn’t really there.
Jason had no idea which form of evil her mind had created—Abdul Qasim or the man who’d attacked her in her own home. All he did know was that she was trapped in a nightmare and the sight was breaking his fucking heart.