by Eva Chase
Her jaw tightened. “Jeremy—”
I gave her leg another affectionate caress. “I want to tell you everything. I know you’d never hurt me or anyone I care about. But as long as these people have you on their radar, you’re safer from them the less you know.”
She didn’t look totally convinced, but she nodded. I kept tracing my fingers up and down her inner leg, enjoying the soft, smooth feel of her skin, and a spark of desire lit in her eyes. My earlier chill was washed away by a wave of heat. I gave her knee a gentle tug, and she slid down on the bed to meet me for a kiss.
The feel of her naked body against mine was a more potent drug than anything I’d ever tried. I couldn’t touch her enough. As we kissed, I traced the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist. She hummed eagerly and pressed her hips toward mine. I slipped my hand between her legs and groaned at the wetness there. She gasped, arching higher.
Now I was hard as iron. I rubbed against her, fingers teasing her opening, cock against her clit. Grace whimpered and ground into me. I was dying to slide right into the slick hot center of her, but one tiny part of my brain kept me in check.
“I don’t suppose you have another condom in that purse?” I said, my voice rough.
Grace ducked her head, biting her lip. “Fuck. No.” She hesitated as if considering going without, and the fact that she wanted me that much made me twice as hard. But I couldn’t risk getting her pregnant when I might have to take off any moment now.
I kissed her neck and her shoulder. “We’ll just have to mix things up a bit then.” I trailed my mouth down her body, over her collarbone, pausing to graze my teeth over her nipples until she moaned. Then I eased past her belly button, right to the core of her. The tangy sweet smell of her filled my nose.
When my lips closed over her clit, Grace shuddered and sighed. One hand fisted in my hair, the other in the sheet. I laved my tongue over her opening and swirled it over her clit. She panted, her hips arching off the bed.
“Jeremy...”
I’d never heard a sound as wonderful as my name in that desperate, wanting voice. I kissed her harder, teasing my hand over her slit at the same time. I slid one finger and another inside. My tongue slicked over her clit again and again. She rocked against me, her breath fragmented now.
“Jeremy. Oh! I’m almost—”
Her voice cut off with a cry of pleasure. Her body shook against my mouth. I rode out her orgasm with her, and then I kissed my way back up to her mouth. She kissed me back eagerly, her eyes bright. Her hand slid down to grip my hard-on. At the squeeze of her fingers, I almost came undone right then.
“That’s good,” I murmured. “Just keep doing that. Oh, fuck.”
I’d been so close already, hearing her release. She pumped her hand up and down my cock just a few times, and my balls clenched. “Grace,” I groaned as I spent myself. Not as good as coming inside her, but still damn good.
“I am definitely going to pick up some supplies on the way to work,” Grace said, snuggling against me. She paused. “Should I go to work? I could call in sick.”
I hugged her to me and shook my head. “I think it’s best if you stick to your normal schedule as much as possible. Any major changes might raise suspicions if they’re still watching you.”
“How long do you think they’ll keep looking for you here? If you don’t go back to your apartment, I mean? You said there’s no way they should be able to trace you to this hotel, right?”
“Right. You know how you’ve gotten good at tracking people down on the internet? I’ve gotten good at making fake IDs, out of necessity.” I smiled wryly. “The one I used here, I’ve never used anywhere before. They couldn’t possibly be looking for that name. I don’t know how long they’ll be keeping an eye out, though. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be able to leave here in a couple weeks?”
“Well, that’s better than you leaving completely.” She nuzzled my shoulder and sighed. “I guess I’ll have to get going soon. If I want to look as normal as possible, I’ll need to sneak back into my house from the back so I can leave for work from there.”
“One more minute?” I said, trying to ignore the squeezing sensation around my heart. I didn’t want to let go of her at all, but that was a ridiculous impulse.
“One more minute,” Grace said, and hugged me to her even tighter.
After Grace had showered and left, I got out my burner phone to call my parents. A lot had happened since I’d last updated Mom. If Langdon was still out there, they needed to know.
Dad picked up after the second ring. “Jeremy? It’s good to hear from you. I was getting worried after what your mother told me. She’s here too—let me put you on speaker phone.”
“Hi, honey!” Mom’s voice rang out.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m okay. Safe for now. But things have gotten pretty tense here. I had to leave my apartment in a hurry last night because they caught on to the name I’d used there. I’m in a hotel now with a different ID.”
“Still in San Jose?” Dad said, sounding puzzled. Of course he was. If it hadn’t been for Grace, I’d have been on the other side of the country—maybe on the other side of an ocean—by now.
“Yeah. The situation is a little... complicated. They’re still watching the woman I saved from that car—Grace. I don’t want to leave her alone to deal with them unless I have to. It’s my fault she got mixed up in this situation in the first place. I’m hoping the people looking for me will assume I’ve fled the city and give up looking here after a few more days. But I’ll keep my head low for a while after that.”
“Jeremy,” Dad started, but Mom broke in.
“If that’s what you think is best, you follow your gut,” she said. “You know what you’re dealing with better than we do.”
“Well, that might not be totally true.” I glanced at the card Grace had left on the night table. “Grace did some digging into the guy who talked to her and his business. At the end of a chain of shell companies, she came across some names. Including ‘Langdon.’”
The silence on the other end in the wake of that name told me everything I needed to know. Mom sucked in a breath. “So he’s still around.”
“It’s not really surprising, when you think about how dedicated he was to the ‘cause',” Dad said with a new edge in his voice.
There was a rustling as Mom must have shifted. “I don’t know, Jeremy. I don’t want you anywhere near that asshole. Do they have any reason to keep bothering Grace? I didn’t want you to have to uproot your life—but I don’t want you getting caught either.”
Shit. It said something about how much this Langdon guy had scared Mom that she was switching to extreme caution. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll have a better idea in a couple days. I know if they manage to track me down here, I’ll have to leave. But I’ve been careful. I covered my tracks.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Look, Jeremy,” he said. “I know you’re not a kid anymore. I’m not going to try to order you around. But I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew you were as far from Langdon and anyone associated with him as possible.”
“It’s been thirty years,” I said. “He hasn’t found any of us in all that time.”
“But he’ll have been looking,” Mom said. “Us escaping the Facility—I’d bet that still eats at him. We’ve got no idea how he’s changed in all those years, but one thing I’m sure of? He’ll only have gotten more obsessed with seeing Alpha Project through.”
16
Grace
The animal shelter looked—and sounded—the same as always. The dogs and cats were shuffling around in their cages, and the puppy that Ceren was exercising in the visiting room was letting out a sharp little yap. Despite all our cleaning efforts, there was always a bit of a doggy smell in the air, but I found it kind of comforting.
Usually. Today all my nerves were on high alert. Every person who walked in the door or drove past on the road outside made my pulse j
ump.
I tapped my heel against the base of my stool, trying to keep myself distracted by updating our records on the computer. I had front desk duty today, which was my least favorite. Too much time with strangers and not enough with the animals. The manager knew that and was nice enough to give me back room duty most of the time, but Britta complained if she and Ceren got stuck with all the desk shifts.
Britta came around front now, rubbing her wrist with a disinfectant wipe. Three red scratches marked her wrist. “That tom cat they brought in yesterday is a real bugger,” she said. “I know declawing is cruel and all, but sometimes I think it might be warranted.” She held up her arm and made a face.
“All part of the job, right?” I said with a short laugh. Britta really could be annoying sometimes, couldn’t she? Looking at her now, with her narrow eyes and perpetual pout, I suddenly wasn’t sure why it had used to feel so important to me to earn her approval.
Maybe because I’d been afraid I couldn’t earn anyone’s. But I had Jeremy now. And he liked me the way I was. No matter what happened with him, there had to be other people who’d feel the same way. People who at least would make me feel less insecure than Britta did.
She leaned against the other side of the counter. “Hey, this woman came in earlier this morning asking if I’d seen you hanging out with any new guys lately. I told her I’ve never seen you hanging out with any guys.”
She laughed, but my stomach flipped. “What? Why would someone be asking about that?”
Britta shrugged. “Beats me. She seemed like some kind of PI or something. Have you been hooking up with a married guy?”
“No,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “What did she look like?”
“Really short black hair, but she managed to pull it off. I think she was Chinese or Japanese or something. Not super tall, but she had a presence, you know?” She looked at me speculatively. “So you do know what that was about, then?”
I shook my head quickly. Shit. It had to be the same woman who’d been staked out outside my house yesterday. Jeremy was right. These people, Alpha Project or whatever they called themselves, were still wondering if I had any ties to him. Maybe they’d noticed I’d ducked out last night.
But they still hadn’t been sure this morning. If they’d noticed I was gone, they hadn’t known where I went.
“So that’s all you told her?” I said. “That you hadn’t seen me with anyone?”
“Well, I mentioned that you brought in that photographer guy on the weekend. Jeremy. Hard to forget him.”
My heart thumped harder. Some of the color must have drained from my face, because Britta’s eyes narrowed even more. She cocked her head, studying me. “Is something going on with him? I told her it had just been for the job, but maybe I was wrong.”
“No, no,” I said, struggling to control my expression. “It was just a job. Nothing else at all.”
“Are you sure?” A teasing note came into her voice. “You’ve gotten pretty flustered. A guy like that—he’d be quite a score for you, Grace. Are you sure you haven’t been seeing him in, ah, non-professional ways?”
I made my voice as firm as I could. “I haven’t seen him except for the photo shoot. And I don’t know why he’d matter to some random woman anyway. If I’m flustered, it’s because it’s pretty creepy that someone came in here asking some pretty invasive personal questions about me.”
I couldn’t tell if Britta was convinced by my denials. I wanted to ask her exactly what she’d told the woman about Jeremy, but that would only make her more sure I was hiding something. Had he given her a last name? Did it matter if he had, if he was using a different name now? Was there anything else she’d seen or heard that she might have mentioned, that would help these people track him down?
“Well, maybe he’s just got an overprotective wife or something. You never know. Some chicks are crazy.” Britta shook her head. “Suspecting you of getting up to something sneaky—that’s a good one.”
“Yeah,” I said, forcing a giggle. “Pretty ridiculous, huh?”
She ambled into the back again, but I couldn’t concentrate on the paperwork at all now. All I wanted to do was tell Jeremy what had happened. But he didn’t even have his phone anymore, and me rushing out of work in the middle of my shift would look really suspicious. How closely were they watching me? They’d obviously known when my shift started so they could avoid me for their questioning.
I nibbled on my lower lip as I stared blankly at the computer screen. Jeremy should be safe where he was. He had a lot more practice at this keeping a low profile thing than I did. I had to try not to worry, try to act normal, and hold out until I could slip back to the hotel at the end of the day.
I just hoped no creepy people in sedans had chased him off before I got there.
There was no sign of a sedan with tinted windows as I walked down my street toward my house. I kept my pace brisk but steady, like I was eager to get home and relax but not anxious to dash right back out of there.
Nothing strange had happened at work other than what I’d heard from Britta. It was possible the people after Jeremy had dropped me as a lead now, but I didn’t want to take any chances. From what he’d said, his freedom and maybe his whole life might be on the line. He needed to know that they’d have heard at least a little about him from my coworker.
I headed up the front steps. My feet faltered before I’d made it onto the porch. The door was standing slightly ajar.
I’d been distracted this morning, but there was no way I’d been so distracted I’d forgotten to close up the house.
I edged closer, my heart thumping. With a careful hand, I nudged the door open wider. The view on the other side made my breath stop.
The side table in the front hall had been shoved over, the drawer pulled free, the papers that had been in it scattered across the floor. Farther down the hall in the kitchen, dishes and cookware lay in a heap on the tiles. All the cabinet doors had been flung open.
I stood there for a minute, still and silent. No sound reached me from inside the house. I swallowed hard. It seemed like whoever had been here, they were gone now.
I crept inside to survey the damage. The display cabinet in the living room was open too, the china figurines there cast across the floor, most of them in pieces. The couch cushions had been ripped open and tossed aside. The contents of the dining room hutch lay strewn across the table. Framed photos of me and Gran or Gran and my grandfather that’d been hanging on the walls had been broken open, the photographs tossed aside to fall amid the wreckage.
Upstairs was even worse. The bags I’d been filling in Gran’s sewing room had been upended and the shelves swept clear, leaving a jumble beneath them that was an even bigger mess than before I’d started. The mattresses in both bedrooms gaped from cuts down their length. I’d already donated most of Gran’s clothes, but mine had been thrown every which way, covering the bedposts, the desk, even the window ledge.
I sat down on the edge of the sagging mattress. Tears burned in my eyes. Why would anyone do something like this? Even if they thought I might have something that would lead them to Jeremy in here... To ransack the place this savagely...
Maybe that was the point. To make the invasion as disturbing as possible in the hopes that it’d scare me. They wouldn’t have found anything, after all. But what I did next might help them anyway.
I dropped my face into my hands. What should I do? Just start cleaning up and pretend nothing was wrong? What would it take to convince them I wasn’t going to help them?
A sob caught in my throat. No. If I pretended everything was fine, that would be more suspicious than anything. I had to think as if I really didn’t know why anyone would do this. As if I was just a regular woman who’d come home and found her house looted. What would that woman do?
As soon as I shifted my thinking, fresh resolve rose up inside me. The answer was obvious. Any remotely normal human being would call the cops. Probably would have a
lot sooner than now.
Despite the ruin of my belongings around me, my spirits lifted. Yes. The police. That wasn’t just the normal thing to do. It might be the thing that solved both my problem and Jeremy’s.
I grabbed my phone and quickly dialed the number that had been drilled into my head by my grandmother when I must have been no more than four years old. When the 9-1-1 operator picked up, I dragged in a breath.
“Hi, I need to report a break-in.”
17
Jeremy
It hadn’t occurred to me how difficult it would be to just sit around a hotel room all day doing nothing in particular. Especially when I’d ditched my regular phone, and I didn’t dare contact Grace using my burner. Giving away that number could mean giving up my entire family. She knew where I was, of course, but we hadn’t made a specific plan about when we’d see each other next. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that while she was here?
I was stuck in limbo.
At least I had my computer. By the evening, I was all caught up on celebrity gossip, travel deals, and local apartment buildings that looked low-key enough that I might be able to make my move there when the current furor died down. I was just setting the laptop aside to call for room service when someone knocked on the door.
I tensed for the second it took before Grace’s soft voice carried through. “Jeremy? It’s me.”
My heart leapt with way more excitement than was really practical. I sprang off the bed and hurried to the door. When I opened it, Grace was beaming. I could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that it was more than just happiness at seeing me.
First things first. I tugged her inside, kicked the door shut, and pulled her into a kiss. A pleased sound reverberated from her chest as she kissed me back. I’d been with her last night and this morning—I shouldn’t have still felt so hungry for her. But fuck, I wanted her moaning under me all over again.
