Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21)

by Irish Winters

  When she headed straight for him, he turned his head and closed his eyes, prepared to get slapped, punched, or spit on. He deserved whatever she dished out.

  Instead, Persia dropped to her knees, her palms clamped over his thighs with a breathy, “Hotrod.”

  In his wildest dreams, he’d never expected to see her again, surely not here. But the way she’d said his handle when she knew his real name… He turned his head and looked at her. Then he felt worse. He didn’t want her to see him like this, not so weak, certainly not in this damned clown suit and beat half to death.

  But what a sight for sore, tired eyes. Persia looked so damned pretty it hurt his heart. Dressed in black jeans and shirt, she’d already shrugged a hefty bag off her shoulder, unzipped it once it hit the floor, then pulled a bottled water out. Twisting the cap off, she offered it to him.

  His hands were shaking so much, he couldn’t get a good enough grip on the damned thing. Walker set the bottle on his knee to keep from dropping it and to keep him from looking weaker.

  Those deep, dark chocolate eyes might as well have been razors. She knew who he was, damn it, or she wouldn’t be here. Yet she seemed genuinely happy to see him. Not pissed off. Not hateful or mean. Her fingertips on his thighs were so gentle, he wanted to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her sincerely. “But I—”

  “Shush,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder. “Mr. Koning’s giving us a few moments of privacy, but we have to hurry. Can you walk?” She leaned between Walker’s knees, almost against his cock, her gaze slipping over his face, diagnosing and inventorying all she saw.

  “Who are you? Persia? R-r-really?” Not just anyone could get into the International Criminal Court building. It was too well guarded.

  “There’ll be time for questions and answers later. We have to go now. Stop shaking, so I can unlock these stupid cuffs and shackles.”

  “You’ve got keys?”

  “No, I’ve got a hairpin, shit. Of course I’ve got keys. Hans gave them to me.”

  “Hans is working with you?” Nothing made sense.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Okaaaaay.” He was all for leaving. “But where are we going?”

  “Out,” she growled, glancing at the door Hans had left open again. “The prosecutor overseeing your case is an insensitive ass, and the judge is an idiot. But Hans Koning believes you. He’s on your side, and I’m breaking you out.”

  Walker closed his eyes, sure he was out of his mind. Persia, here? Couldn’t be. Hans letting him go? None of this was real. Had to be hallucinations, which meant he was damned sick.

  “Where’s Brimley?” he asked the first random question that popped into his head. “And Doggo? Have you seen an old guy with a big dog around here?” Because they’d be real. Not—Persia. Her being here and being so nice made no sense.

  “Please shut up, Hotrod. You’re running a fever, and you’re talking nonsense. We really have to go. Now!” When the cuffs and shackles clattered to the concrete floor, she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, and damn…he was distracted. That sweet, honeyed tongue. Those lush, red lips. Her mouth. He wanted another taste of that wine. Oh, wait. She was a whiskey girl. But if this were just a dream…

  “Did you hear me?” she snapped, tugging him out of the chair by one hand, the other clamped tightly around his waist. “We don’t have much time. Alex doesn’t want anyone in the press to know you’re here, so Izza’s upstairs, creating a distraction. Come on, Hotrod. You’re a big guy. You have to help me do this.”

  Alex who? Izza? What kind of name’s that? “I am,” he muttered as the concrete floor danced beneath his stupid orange shoes. “But I look like Bozo.”

  “Yeah, well, I happen to like clowns.” She huffed, dragging him toward the table, where she opened her bag. “Here. Put this on.”

  Damned if she didn’t pull a lovely pink poncho stamped on its back with DIVA COMING THROUGH! out of that bag. Instead of tossing it at him, she lifted his arm and started to dress him like a kid.

  “I’ve got this,” he murmured, then struggled like hell getting the hole in that plastic thing over his head and facing the right direction. In the end, Persia’s dogged persistence was the only reason DIVA COMING THROUGH! ended up on his back, not his chest. Small consolation. It was still pink and clashed with his orange jumpsuit and shoes and… Who cares?!

  “There,” she said, her bag on her shoulder again, her arm around his waist and her wonderfully soft-in-all-the-best-places body pressed flush to his side. “Let’s go.”

  Too late. Attila was back, his rifle pointed in Walker’s face, and yelling, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Will you shut the fuck up?!” Persia hissed as she let Walker go, and… BAM!

  Whoa. She’d just cocked her fist back like a prizefighter and punched Attila’s square, ugly face. After he dropped his weapon and accordion-folded to his knees, she kicked and nailed his family jewels. He curled, whimpering into a fetal position.

  “I think I love you,” Walker mumbled like an idiot.

  “Will you move it?” she snapped, pulling him past a drooling Attila, into the hall, and away from the interrogation room and his prison cell.

  “Where we going? Really. You can tell me,” he murmured as he stumbled along. Not like even then, he would know where he was.

  “Home,” she snapped, her hand on his chest, keeping him upright and walking. “But first…” She rounded the corner, and he found himself pushed up hard against the wall.

  He cringed like a pussy. Here comes the slap down. Either that or he’d wake up back in his cell, and this would all be a dream and—

  One of Persia’s soft sweet hands cupped his jaw. Her fierce gaze scorched him, but her other hand on his chest was so gentle. So warm. The air between them seemed somehow full of flowers and stardust and hope. Then she was in his face, and her mouth was on his, and she swallowed every last one of his worries. He didn’t deserve her kindness or her sweet breath or her tongue in his mouth—but he took it.

  Grabbing hold of her biceps, he held her fast while he gave back what he could. A rumbling, throaty growl moaned out of her, as she returned the favor with vigor, damned near eating him alive. Walker wanted to fall on his knees in adoration of the amazing woman who was swallowing his worry. Unless this was all a dream. The one he’d had every night since he’d walked out on her. I suck. I deserted this woman. I don’t deserve her rescuing me now. Why the hell’s she here?

  She didn’t let up on him. Just kept rubbing her palms over his shoulders and down his arms. When she growled again, he was all in. Walker tilted his head to access more of her mouth. Only when both his eager hands dropped to her black-encased backside did she break the connection.

  Without saying anything, she jerked her bag off the floor, and then they were speed-walking down that long hall to nowhere again. Her pulling him along; him trying to keep up because, besides being sick, he was now dizzy from that steamy kiss.

  Then they were around another corner and running up concrete steps. Her taking two at a time; him holding tight to the handrail, so he didn’t fall backward and die before he got away. Another long damned hallway that, thank heavens, was empty of armed guards.

  Suddenly, a siren blared overhead. The overhead lights started flashing yellow. A pair of twenty-foot-high doors with long push bars blocked the exit at the end of this hallway. And Walker knew he had to save Persia. She was the important one, not him.

  “Run,” he told her. “Get out of here!”

  “Will you knock it off? I’m here to save you!”

  “But you need to leave.”

  “Not without you. Keep moving,” she ordered, her tone as hard as steel, “or neither of us will make it.”

  “Who’s gonna kill us? We’re American citizens, for Chrisssst sakesssss.” He was slurring like a drunk. Staggering like one, too.

  �
�Tell that to whoever signed the ICC’s warrant for your arrest. The judge upstairs refused to acknowledge President Adams’ signed extradition orders, and your prosecutor’s a Nazi moron. Your buddy, Hans Koning, got me into the ICC, but he told me you were in rough shape, that I might not be able to get you out. Also told me to watch out for the jerk with the rifle. Which is why I decked the motherfucker. Now move it!”

  How Walker adored a woman who cussed like a sailor.

  “Hans helped you rescue me?” Man, that sounded pitiful. Him, a SEAL, needing to be rescued by a wimpy guy in a business suit and a tie. What the hell? Had the world turned upside down and inside out?

  “Yes. He’s on our side.” Persia shoved Walker through one of those gigantic doors and all but pushed him down yet another set of stairs. Outside. Where the air was cool and free. His lungs automatically inhaled freedom.

  “That way. That one,” she hissed, steering him toward a—

  “What is it with these people? Is orange the Goddamned national color here?”

  “Shut up and get in!”

  Walker obeyed, ducking into the orange clown car parked at the curb. They’d exited into an alley. But it was a damned tight fit getting his long legs, big orange feet, and much too large ass into the passenger seat of a car the size of an extra-mini Geo Metro. “Didn’t know they still made these things.”

  Persia climbed in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. “We’re in one, aren’t we?”

  “My brother bought one a loooong time ago. Only it wasn’t orange. It was greeeeen. Hey, it’s a stick.” Walker cupped the plastic knob lovingly. You didn’t see many manual transmission vehicles in America anymore.

  “Yes, it is, genius,” Persia breathed. Impatiently, she brushed his hand aside, pressed the ignition button, and stepped on the gas.

  Just as Walker expected, gears screamed when the car lurched forward and died. “Take it easy. On standards, you got to use the—”

  “Don’t tell me how to drive,” Persia snapped, restarting the car, shifting swiftly from neutral to first gear, her left foot pumping the clutch pedal smoothly. Man, she worked this baby like a guy.

  Walker slumped into the seat when she hit second and stepped on the gas, cranking the wheel while the car squealed away from the curb. His knees were in his chest, but his eyes were still on Persia. “I think I love you,” he murmured, mostly to himself. He thought.

  “Heard you before,” she hissed, the tiny toy car hurtling at warp speed and straight into oncoming traffic.

  “You’re on a one-way street!”

  “Yeah, well…” Tires squealed, and she was now fishtailing on what looked like a busy frontage road paralleling train tracks. “Hang on while I lose our tail.”

  “What—?” Oh, that tail. The puke green sedan on the other side of the tracks where a silver bullet train was suddenly blurring by.

  Silver bullet… Hmmm. His dizzy head jumped to the memory of icy cold beer and—

  “Hold tight!!” she ordered.

  “Y-y-yes, ma’am!” he yelled back.

  The clown car drifted into a perfect one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, just as the final train car rumbled by, sending them back in the same direction they’d come from. No sign of puke green then, only another dizzying turn and squealing tires, followed by a thousand blurred buildings and more course corrections than Walker could track. Too many bikes and canals and…

  Automatically he slammed both palms to the dash when she brought the car to a sudden stop and yelled, “Get out!”

  If only he could make his fingers work to open the tiny handle to his door. Shit. He was all thumbs, and that was kind of funny—him being in clown shoes like he was—

  Until she jerked it open and hissed, “Do I have to do everything?”

  Umm, yeah. Maybe. Instead of saying that, he manned up and said, “Almost had it.”

  By then, Miss Impatience had a stranglehold on his scraped raw wrist, and he was on his feet. Just a little too quickly. He didn’t see the curb because he was looking at her. One clown shoe landed sideways in the gutter; the other only half made the curb. His ankle collapsed, and over he went, on Persia.

  They fell onto the sidewalk together, but somehow, he managed an outstanding quarterback save that put him on his back and her core on his belly. And just that fast, he was home safe with his nose buried in the wonderfully warm valley between her pillowy breasts. He loved it there.

  His lungs reacted instinctively, inhaling deeply and sucking in every last glorious feminine pheromone. Clean womanly sweat. Fresh laundry detergent. Some kind of flowery, female deodorant. Walker stretched his neck, his tongue ready to lick those tantalizing scents off of her body.

  But just as his hand cupped her ass, she pushed to her knees. “Knock it off, Hotrod. We need to get inside and you out of sight.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He knew that.

  Once she’d climbed to her feet, he rolled to his knees. Shit. The thousand step staircase ahead of him might as well have been to the stars.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Man, this guy was heavy. But at least Hotrod was on his feet and moving forward. Mostly. But he was damned sick, and everywhere she touched, his skin was burning hot. Had to be running an awfully high fever. But that poor eye. And his forehead. Who had he been fighting?

  “One more step,” Persia urged encouragingly.

  Her left hand was now splayed over the center of his chest, her other hand clenching a balled-up knot of his pink poncho. She’d dressed him in that because the orange, government-owned jumpsuit beneath it had ICC Detention Unit stamped in bright red on his back. Guess the ICC wanted to make sure escapees would be easy to spot in a crowd. A big guy like Walker certainly would have been.

  At last, they were at the front door to the safe house. “Lean against the wall here, and please stay on your feet. I might not be able to get you up again.”

  “Won’t have to. I’m…I’m not going anywhere,” he huffed, even as he leaned backward and his head hit the doorjamb. “I’m good.”

  Good and stubborn, she thought.

  They’d known they’d get separated after running into the media mob camped outside the ICC, so Izza had ordered Persia to locate Hotrod and break him out, while she created a distraction. It seemed reporters from the entire world had shown up today. Evil, nasty, lying sharks, all of them. Wonder who they’re after? Couldn’t be Hotrod, could it? How’d they know he was there? Who told?

  Ignoring her panic, Persia pushed the door open, then shrugged her bag off her shoulder and let it hit the floor. Thank goodness, she’d brought a ruggedized TEAM laptop. It was unbreakable. “Okay, let’s do this, big guy. Slow and easy. I’ve got you.”

  Hotrod palmed the doorjamb over his head with one big, sweaty hand, then ducked into TEAM safety. “Christ, it’s freezzzzzing in here.”

  “No, it’s quite stuffy, but you’re sick. You’ve got a fever, and you’re chilled. Bed. Now.”

  Persia led him to the first room down the hall and pointed him toward the double bed against the opposite wall. “My room’s next to yours, so if you need help, holler. Izza’s is across from mine. We’re here to get you out of the country and back home.”

  Like most TEAM safe houses, this one had no windows except for the bullet-proof, darkly tinted, four-paned one alongside the front door. But what it lacked in see-through glass, this home made up for in security cameras and a wealth of other failsafe measures. Like a steel-walled safe room, which seemed redundant to Persia. A safe room in a safe house? That was Alex for you.

  Hotrod muttered something as he fell face down across the bed. Sounded like, “Good night.”

  Man, he was a long drink of water, as her father would’ve said.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Out of those clothes first,” Persia ordered as she undid the Velcro on his ridiculous shoes and let them drop to the hardwood floor. How embarrassing to outfit an adult man like a clown. “Let’s
get you undressed, so I can see what we’re dealing with.”

  She’d meant if he had any other injuries, but that might not have been the best way to have said it. She already knew what she’d dealt with in Florida, and it was f-f-fine with a capital F.

  Persia shook the delicious memory out of her head. Now was not the time for daydreams. She needed to take stock of whatever antibiotics Alex kept in this safe house. She’d brought her own first-aid kit, but he was a bugger for details. Surely, he’d provided plenty of first-rate supplies and, hopefully, stronger antibiotics than those she always carried.

  The second Hotrod rolled to his back, she tackled getting him out of his pants, which were simple orange pajamas with an elastic waistband. Would’ve been easy, but he decided to help. With a growl, he lifted his backside and scraped those britches over his hips and off. Wayyyy off.

  The orange pajama top flew next, and there he was, sitting on the edge of the bed in his all-over tanned, very manly birthday suit. All of him. With his hands on his knees and his legs spread like every other guy on the planet. Totally unashamed of his nudity. Bleary-eyed and sick and smiling up at her like the bad, bad boy he was.

  “Hey, Persia Coltrane,” he murmured. “Sure is good to see you again.”

  Man, he was adorable. He’d shaved since she’d last seen him. His scruff was gone, but his light brown hair was longer and mussed, sticking up at odd angles. He’d been in the sun; strands of his hair now streaked with light gold highlights. His chest seemed wider. But those poor eyes were not only black and blue, the whites were red with blood. Two of the four butterfly stitches over that same puffy eye were half off. He needed a doctor, but he was only going to get her and Izza, when she returned.

  Drawing the sheet over his lap before she acted on the feminine impulse to straddle him, Persia knelt trembling like an idiot at his knee. “Who… who did this to you, Hotrod? Who beat you?”

  His shoulders lifted. “Not sure. Might’ve happened when they boarded the yacht. Or maybe in jail on São Miguel. Hell, I don’t know.”