***
Ty looked down at the angelic face of Tanesha and couldn’t suppress his smile. Looking at how innocent and peaceful that face looked, one wouldn’t think she was the same girl who had actually had the guts to spit and rain insults on the head of ZONKAI the day before. He shook his head in amusement and left to go take a shower.
He’d had to go away from the camp to have a good talk with his team. He had to tell them what he’d gathered from Ghost to enable them sort out other issues that were apparently breeding. Ty was in good spirits because he’d been told that more of the conspirators in the Jamaican government had been identified. From the look of things, they just might get lucky and end the mission before the scheduled time. He couldn’t wait to get Tanesha safely back to her parents. She’d been through more than others went through in a lifetime.
When Ty came back from the bathroom, he pulled on a t-shirt with a small chuckle and switched on the light, flooding the room with brightness. His intention was to wake Tanesha up since the bowl of food on the table was an indication that she hadn’t taken supper yet. By the time Ty turned back to the bed, a squinting Tanesha was sitting up in bed.
“Hey.” He said softly. “You have to eat your supper.” He said reaching for her hand with the intention of helping her off the bed.
But pointedly ignoring Skull’s offered hand, Tanesha got off the bed and headed for the bathroom. When she came back to the room, she stood with her arms folded beneath her breasts and looked at Skull. As usual, he was in jeans and a t-shirt and damn did he look good. He was so hard, tight and so virile it was impossible to look at him and not admire him.
“Are you okay?” Ty asked.
Tanesha shrugged and turned her eyes to the food on the table. “I’m not hungry.” She said. “I had a heavy lunch.”
“Would you like something to drink then?” Ty asked, gesturing towards the fridge. But Tanesha only shook her head. “We’re awfully quiet today aren’t we?” Ty murmured as he turned towards the fridge.
He took out a bottle of water and drank it, not noticing how captivated Tanesha seemed at just that simple action of him drinking. He threw the empty bottle into a small bin beside the fridge and went to open the door. He went outside for a short while and returned with Mickey.
“Are you sure you don’t want dinner?” Mickey asked a still standing Tanesha.
“No Mickey. I’m fine, thanks.” She said quietly.
“Okay, see you in the morning.” He said, picking up the bowl and leaving the room.
Ty locked the door behind Mickey and went to sit on the couch.
“You can have your bed,” Tanesha said a little harshly than she’d intended.
“It’s yours.” He said simply, looking into the TIME Magazine he’d pulled out from under one of the cushions. He relaxed into the couch and gave the magazine his full concentration till he noticed that Tanesha still stood in the same spot. “Are you going to stand there all night?” He asked dryly without turning to look at her.
Tanesha realized she was actually missing her old room, surprisingly. There, she didn’t have another person in there with her and could therefore relax. In her current situation, however, she had to lie on the bed, wide awake as she wasn’t feeling sleepy, with no other person than Skull as a roommate. How was she supposed to feel free…pun intended. Tanesha walked to the bed and sat on it, staring at a particular spot on the wall. This was going to be a long night she thought.
“Everything alright?” Ty asked.
“Will you stop asking me that kind of question already?” Tanesha snapped. “How can everything be alright when I’m being kept here against my will?”
“By here, do you mean this room or this house?” Ty managed to ask innocently.
“Urgh. Please tell me you’re not that dense.” She groaned, making Ty laugh.
“Look at it this way.” Ty placed the magazine beside him and leaned forward. “You’re on an island, relaxing and meditating. Sometimes it helps to just let everything go once in a while you know.”
“Who in their right minds can see what’s happening to me as meditating.” Tanesha screeched, her brows snapping together to form a scowl, which questioned his sanity. “If you don’t have anything sensible to say, just shut up please.”
“Okay,” Ty replied and stood up to go and switch off the light, and then went to pick a pillow from the bed. Then without another word, he dropped the pillow on the arm of the couch and stretched out. Within a short time, he was fast asleep.
Tanesha sat in the darkness, the only light coming from the moon outside, and stared at Skull. He was so tall, his legs couldn’t fit into the couch. He should be on the bed and not the couch she thought. She knew he was actually trying to treat her better but she couldn’t bring herself to act nice around him. Tanesha stretched out on the bed and just lay there, listening to the wind howl outside.
After about two hours of just laying down doing nothing, she got out of bed and went to the fridge to drink some water. On her way back to the bed, she noticed that Skull was partially lying on the magazine he’d been reading earlier, and decided to go pull it out to read. There was a bedside lamp so she could use it to read, she thought. Tanesha squealed when Skull’s hand shot up to grip her wrist.
“What are you doing?” Came the raspy whisper.
“Nothing…”
“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Skull growled.
“I only wanted to take the magazine to read.” Her voice shook.
With a twist of his hand, Ty flipped Tanesha onto his chest. Then he coiled a leg around hers so she couldn’t move off him.
“Don’t ever sneak up on me, do you hear me?” He rasped, looking up into Tanesha’s frightened eyes.
“I wasn’t…”
“Do you hear me?” He growled, tightening his hold painfully on her wrist.
“Yes.” She gasped, very close to bursting into tears.
“Good. Now get your arse into bed and stay there.” Ty instructed gruffly, releasing her wrist and uncoiling his leg from around hers. “And whilst we’re on the subject of sneaking, I don’t know what you thought you’d find in my bag. Why don’t you just ask me next time?” With that, he threw an arm over his eyes, dismissing a pretty shaken Tanesha.