Chapter 86: Chapter 86

Consciousness didn't return with a flood, it was a more gradual ebb and flow, like waves lapping on a shoreline. She heard sounds first - a creaking chair, the hum of a furnace or air conditioner, the sound of someone breathing. Then she faded out and when she surfaced again, her eyelids tried to open but didn't. They were stuck, she thought, glued together somehow. Before she could move a hand to rub her sticky eyes, she drifted back to sleep. The next time she woke there were both sounds of someone moving and the smell of food. This time she tried to blink harder and the tug of her gummed-up eyelashes hurt enough that she cried out.

"Easy, ma petite." A big hand held her shoulder to the bed, the touch nearly as soothing as the deep voice. The accent was familiar and comforting as were the French words. But she couldn't place the voice. It was so husky, so...sexy that surely she'd remember it if she'd heard it before.