Sunlight filtered through the tinted windows. The silent sentries stood motionless outside the car, watching the traffic on the street and surrounding buildings. Apparently, when Jay told them to wait, they did so with patience.
Beneath her, his muscles began to relax. She traced her nose along the hard line of his throat, rousing a low-pitched rumble in his chest. He tilted his head to give her more room and a spicy, earthen aroma flavored her inhales. She retraced the path with her tongue, continued the lazy tour over his jaw, and into his waiting mouth.
His sharp inhale stole her breath, and he crushed their lips together. The kiss was hungry and jaw stretching and her heart thudded as if it would burst from her chest. He chased her licks in his mouth and curved his body into hers as much as his arms on the seatback would allow.
She moved her mouth to his nose and he flinched. She laughed. “I won’t bite.” The bright white of his smile and the intensity in his eyes made her chest ache to move closer. “Still good?”
His pupils dilated, and his shoulders strained toward her. “Never been this good, Charlee. Come back here.” He raised his mouth in invitation.
Wow. It really was just the hands he had a problem with. Groin to groin, chest to chest, she shifted her boots from the outside of his knees to the inside, using her toes to open his legs. She rubbed her body along his, sliding her tongue over his bottom lip. It did feel good. “I think we passed the test. You trust me not to put my hands on you, and I trust you not to take my control.”
The erection trapped in his leather pants jerked between them. He seemed oblivious to it as he regarded her with dark unsmiling eyes. “To be trusted by you is the greatest compliment I’ve ever received.”
She melted into him and his body pulsed against her. She wanted to free him from the confines of his pants and work them both into a mindless fog where boundaries didn’t exist. “I feel the same way, Jay, and all I can think about is…” She caught his ear lobe between her lips, drew it into her mouth, and released it with a pop. “How I could fuck you like thi—”
His hands flew off the seatback, grabbed the back of her head, and yanked her mouth to his. Rough and penetrating, he ate at her lips, his teeth scraping and nibbling, his hips grinding. She opened for him and met the thrusts in her mouth and the rocking of his body, trembling against the fervor bolting through her.
Despite his aggression, there was a measure of restraint between kisses. She pulled back to test it. He allowed the slack, his gaze tracking the roll of her swollen lips as he gasped through his own.
The freedom to stop and start ignited something inside her. She wanted him, wanted to surrender to him. A slow throb kindled and warmed between her legs. She dove at his mouth, submitting to the strength of his jaw and the urgency of his tongue.
The car filled with his breathy moans and the squeak of leather. His hands shook as they traveled to her neck then her shoulders, and separated. One moved up to tangle in her hair as the other pushed down her spine to rest over the crack of her butt. “Where’s your gun?”
Arousal trembled through her limbs, cranking her hips, and curling her fingers. “Moved it to my messenger bag.” She peppered kisses on his wet lips, the sculpted contour of his jaw, and the arch of his fevered cheek. She lingered over his eyelid, brushing her lips along the delicate skin. He was so soft there, so unlike the rest of him. “I want to touch you so badly.”
A low groan escaped from deep within him. He dropped his head back and stared at her with his mouth hanging open. “I want that, Charlee. More than anything.” He shoved his hands through her hair and gathered it off her face. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are grinding on me and looking at me like that?”
Only a man would define grinding as beautiful. Holding his eyes, she rotated her hips once, twice—
He gripped her thighs and the sinews in his neck bulged against the skin. “Christ. Okay, stop. I’m about to embarrass myself.”
“I’d like to see that.” She smiled, and the blissful feeling panicked her. How could she let herself want someone so unobtainable? He was a celebrity and she was on the run. He had some kind of fucked up tactile defensiveness and drug issues, and she didn’t have the background or expertise to deal with it. Yet, all the shitty circumstances faded away as he leaned in and took her mouth.
A vibration buzzed in her pocket. Creases bracketed his scowl as she slid off his lap and tugged out her phone. “It’s Nathan.” She gave him a shaky smile and hit Answer. “Hey.”
“Everything okay? Tony said you haven’t left the car yet.”
Jay slipped his fingers into the neck of her shirt and caressed the outline of her collarbone. A chill raced up her spine and she sighed. “Are we in a hurry?”
“I’m packing our shit. I assumed you’d be helping.”
What? They were there to grab her tattoo supplies only. “You’re packing?”
“Yeah, Charlee. I’m packing. We’re going, if not to L.A., then somewhere. I just got the call. Photos of you and Laz have started popping up faster than my guys can delete them.”
The folly of the previous night flashed through her mind, suffocating her with replays of the restaurant, the cameras, and their overnight at the hotel. Roy controlled Craigs all over the country. She knew without a doubt he had thugs in New York. The photos linked her to The Burn, and if Roy knew where the band stayed, Jay would not only be targeted… “We could’ve been followed from the hotel.”
“We watched for tails, didn’t see any. But, yeah, we could’ve been followed. I’d prefer you stay in the car. I just wanted to check on you.”
She didn’t want him in the apartment alone. Not with their whereabouts broadcasted all over the Internet. Damn. Double damn. That restaurant was only a few blocks away. She should’ve been up there with him, watching his back. “I’m on my way up.”
She hung up on him, pocketed the phone, and faced the deep dark night of Jay’s eyes. It was so fucking painful, having to distance herself from people she cared about to keep them safe. A familiar loneliness spread out around her, cold and harrowing. Pushing Jay away would propel her further into that cavernous pit. Her hatred for Roy tunneled through her like poison, seething in her gut, tightening muscles, and burning her eyes.
She met Jay by chance the first time. Destiny brought them together a second time. If one were to believe in such a thing, perhaps they would find each other again. She needed him alive for that to happen, and the best way to ensure that was to stay the hell away from him. She had to believe it wasn’t too late. If she separated herself from the band immediately, Roy would leave them alone.
Goddammit, this was going to hurt. “I’m heading up to meet Nathan.” A red hot burn seized her throat. “Alone.” She grabbed her messenger bag, slipped his sunglasses inside it, and opened the door.
He reached for her, crawling after her. “Wait. I’m coming—”
“You are going back to the hotel, back to L.A.” She stepped away from the door and put as much toughness as she could gather into her glare. “That’s my decision.” All the yearning of their moments together swelled inside of her, weakening her knees, making her stumble.
“Bullshit.” Spit sprayed from his shout. He shoved his hand over and between the seats, searching for the glasses. “Something happened. Who followed us?” He punched the seat. “Tony!”
Tony jogged from around the car and stuck her head in the door. “Yes, Mr. Mayard?”
“What the fuck is going on?” His yell rolled across the lot.
Backing away, Charlee strapped the bag across her chest and reached under the flap where she’d moved her Bodyguard 380. She secured her fingers around the grip and trigger guard. Colson watched her from his post by the car, but didn’t follow.
A car motored by. Two young men exited a pizza shop across the street and walked the opposite direction. Rows of trees shaded the lot and furnished a living wall. They also provided an abundance of hiding spots.
“Colso
n,” Jay shouted. “Stay with her.”
The lot spread over what must’ve been two blocks. Charlee covered it as fast as she could run, flying over the concrete to the side of the building and putting the safety of its brick foundation at her back.
Four stories up, the roof was a stark flat horizon against the glaring sun. Heaps of leaves and garbage lined the back alley. There were so many places to lie in wait. The urge to run back to Jay’s car made her legs tremble.
The alcove for the back entrance to her apartment was around the corner. She side-stepped along the building, back to the wall, paranoia spiking her heart rate. Jay would come after her as soon as he found something to cover his face. What could she say to convince him to leave? Think, think, think.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‡
Jay pushed off the seat, shouldered past Tony, and sprinted across the parking lot. The endless pavement, the streak of passing cars, and the gathering crowd dimmed away.
Charlee huddled with her back against the corner of the building, her eyes on the trees that lined the back fence.
Someone moved behind the building, just feet from where she stood, but the angle of the corner probably shielded the movement from her view.
Jay rubbed his eyes, his legs burning. The profile of a man shifted toward the corner where she lingered. The man’s walk seemed off, unnaturally stealthy, and too zeroed in on that damned corner.
“Charlee! Behind you.” Jay’s wig shifted sideways as he dodged a parked car.
The stalker reached inside his jacket. A black metal barrel flashed.
“Charlee! Charlee!” Jay ripped off the wig and tossed it, where it hit the man flanking him as he ran. “Goddammit, Colson, I told you to stay with her.”
“The perimeter’s not safe.” The older man gasped, maintaining Jay’s pace.
Charlee slipped around the bend and out of his sight.
“Charlee, no!” The scream barreled from his chest, and he ran harder, faster.
The race to her building was the longest moment in his life, one in which timing and speed could change everything. His heart thundered, his muscles heated, and his legs wouldn’t move fast enough.
Footfalls pounded after him. “Mr. Mayard,” Tony shouted from his other side. “Go back to the vehicle.”
The concrete blurred beneath his Chucks. He neared the side of the building and was slammed into it with the force of Tony’s body.
Her chest pressed against his back, and her hands and gun on the brick caged him in. She bent her neck and shoved her face in his. “The threat isn’t neutralized.” Her gray eyes became steel cannons. “I need you out of the kill zone. Back. In. The vehicle.”
Any other time, her look alone would’ve had him checking his pants for his balls. He bucked her off his back and skirted around her.
She shoved an arm out to block his forward motion. The downside of a top-notch bodyguard was her over-the-top-fucking-notch guarding.
“There’s someone back there with Charlee. Move.” He spiked the last word with venom.
Her lips peeled back in a snarl. “Argh!” She spun ahead of him and put her back to his chest, positioning his body behind the cover of hers. Her left hand hovered a wobble away from his hip. Her right aimed a Glock up and out in front of her. “Stay behind me.”
Ahead of them, Colson led with his raised pistol, his other hand on the device in his ear as he spoke low into a mic. “This is Colson. Possible gun threat. The principal will not leave the kill zone. Need a mobile support team yesterday.”
They inched forward, and Tony’s hand brushed his leg. It was a haunting presence of his aunt’s hand on tattered little boy briefs. He recoiled and grabbed his head against the images of the shed, the soiled mattress, and Aunt El’s cruel smile.
He stumbled toward the corner of the building. Fight it. Focus on Charlee. Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the nasal bottle. A lift would sharpen his concentration, numb his trigger, and nourish his strength. Fuck, his grip on the present was spinning, darkening.
Tony crowded him, her nearness invading his focus and conjuring pollution from the sewer of his mind. He could taste the soot in the oven. He could hear the hollow reverberation of his aunt’s mewling. You’ll stay in the Bolo until you warm up to me, little boy.
A wall of hot ash and rust blackened the sun. Not now. Stop. Fucking stop. His fingers scraped uselessly on the brick building, on the Bolo oven’s door. Charlee could be struggling, hurting, and he was fucking trapped, couldn’t reach her. He fumbled with the inhaler from his pocket and huffed two burning squirts into each nostril.
The rush tipped his balance, and Tony caught his elbow. The sensation from her hand rippled over him, through him, like water. He was sailing, driven by the wind.
“Mr. Mayard?”
A strong sense of buoyancy sighed through his body, and the mist of scared boyhood evaporated into the cloudless sky. Vigor pumped through his limbs and strengthened his spine. He broke away from Tony, racing past her. Urgency flogged his thoughts, pushing him faster, harder.
At the corner of the building, arms wrapped around him from behind and the ground dropped away from his feet.
The same old shit rose in him, but he was fueled now, his senses were armed to fight it. He threw his head back, colliding with Tony’s. She grunted and released him.
He needed to catch up with Colson, who had already vanished around the corner. He held his fear tightly within him and burst into the rear alley.
At first, all he saw was the stiff back of Colson’s shirt. Tony positioned herself in front of him, panting and steadying her gun. “Stay behind me.”
Fuck that. He ran around her and froze.
At the farthest end of the building, a man faced Charlee where she stood with her back against the wall, the barrel of a handgun pressed against her jaw.
Rage buckled through him and dread knotted in his gut. He blinked against the sun beating down on him, whirling under weight of the sky and the buzz of cocaine.
The man looked his way, met his eyes. The wind beneath Jay’s high dispersed and his nervous system crashed. Sweat slicked his palms and panic rode in on a wave of tremors.
If he ran toward them, would the fucker shoot her? Even with Tony and Colson aiming their guns behind him? Not a chance he would take.
Charlee’s hand twisted in her bag. Was her hand on her gun? His heart panted with indecision.
The bag shifted. If she adjusted the angle right, could she point at the kneecap? Jay sucked in a breath. Not without the gun at her face going off.
The man jerked his head back to her and wrenched the bag strap from her chest, the barrel of his gun sliding over her cheek.
Jay ran toward them, air heaving from his lungs, and tension straining his muscles. Tony and Colson shouted his name, their footfalls trailing.
The man wrestled the strap over Charlee’s head and Jay’s panic unfurled in a roar. “Get the fuck away from her.”
Wrinkles marred the unfamiliar Asian features. The barrel twisted against her cheek, but his gaze turned to Jay.
The bag flew up with Charlee’s hand wedged inside and paused at the man’s chest. Jay’s heart rate skyrocketed.
Boom…Boom.
Chapter Thirty-Five
‡
The double gunshots stunned Jay in mid-stride, shattering his pace into a stumbling stagger. The man dropped to the ground, as did Charlee.
The echo of the blasts lingered in alley, ringing in Jay’s ears. A river of red seeped from beneath her face where it lay on the man’s chest. Not her blood. No, it couldn’t be hers.
Hands shaking, heart roaring, he skidded beside them, fell upon his knees and pulled her into his arms. Was she hit? Breathing? Other than the spots of crimson dotting her chest, her shirt was free of bullet holes. Yet, she hung lifelessly in his embrace, eyes closed.
Blood caked one side of her face. It also puddled on the pavement. Streams of it trickled from the hole in the
Asian man’s chest, who lay on his back, unmoving.
Colson squatted and touched the meaty neck. “Dead.”
The validation did nothing to soothe Jay’s hammering heart. He let her legs drop to his lap as he groped for a pulse in her throat, uncertainty resonating in his constricting chest. Then he felt a steady thump against his fingers. He choked, exhaled.
Hand on her chin, he turned her head, wiped the blood from her cheek, and searched for injuries. There. A graze marred her earlobe and another at her hairline behind it.
Life was made up of a series of defining moments, but the instant his eyes rested on those wounds, the very second he realized how fucking close that bullet came to killing her, every harrowing moment of his life before it burned away.
Her lashes fluttered and she looked up, squinted. “My head hurts.”
He ducked his head and kissed her cheek. “Because you just used up another one of your nine lives. Problem is, I don’t have nine lives and I fucking die every time you do. No more near-deaths, okay?”
A small smile shook her lips. “’kay.”
Momentarily paralyzed by her eyes drifting closed and the memory of the gun in her face, he blinked through the shock, and alertness snapped back in a painful spasm. He needed to get her the fuck out of the alley.
Gathering her close, he climbed to his feet and whirled in a circle, marking an overfilled dumpster, parked cars, an iron fence peeking through wild vines. Were there more men with guns out there, watching?
Around the corner, the parking lot woke with approaching footsteps and excited voices. At his feet, the blood was drying beneath the sun and breeze. And somewhere Roy fucking Oxford was orchestrating his next step.
Colson nodded to Tony and took off toward the lot and the growing crowd. Tony moved to Jay’s side with her gun hand out between them, muzzle pointed skyward. She tilted her head with a finger on her ear piece and glanced up at the top of the building.
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 126
