by Sophia Rae
As Nick dialed, he scanned around the deserted parking lot. Other than his car, there were only two others. He kept his back to the hotel as he dialed Grady’s home number.
“Hello,” the groggy man answered
“Hey, man, sorry to wake you,” Nick said, glancing around the lot again. “We’ve made some progress.”
“Tell me.” Grady’s voice was full of sleep, but Nick knew he had the man’s full attention.
“I would’ve called you earlier, but I didn’t want Eve to hear and I couldn’t get away until now. She’s asleep inside the hotel.”
“What couldn’t she hear?” Grady asked. “Did you step outside?”
“I’m in the parking lot. She made some progress tonight,” Nick began. “Her boss, Hank, called her into his office and told her he had a business associate who was interested in hiring her for a side job.”
“Really? What kind of side job?”
“He would only say it was an escort service, but while I was at the bar before Eve’s meeting, I overheard Hank and some other guy talking about her. They said they could get a good bit of money from her.”
“Shit,” Grady muttered.
“Exactly. Anyway, while Eve was in the office she asked who this business associate was who wanted to hire her.”
“Did this Hank guy give a name?”
A knot fisted in Nick’s stomach. “Roman Burke.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, this is the part I didn’t want Eve to hear,” Nick confessed.
“I don’t like that tone in your voice, Nick,” Grady warned. “What can’t Eve know?”
“Roman is my stepbrother.”
“What?”
Nick looked back inside the glass door toward the room Eve lay sleeping peacefully. “Roman Burke is a cold-hearted bastard and it doesn’t surprise me a bit that he has his hands in this operation.”
Grady sighed. “Why don’t you want Eve to know?”
“Because I’m afraid it may have been Roman who killed Roger. Until I know more, I want to keep this between me and you. If she had any idea my stepbrother may have murdered her father, do you really think she’d let me protect her?”
“You seem to know her well already,” Grady said. “But you’re right. She’d freak out, but in the end, she’ll be pissed. You’re screwed either way.”
Nick nodded, even though Grady couldn’t see him. “I’d rather her be pissed than alone on the hunt for a killer.”
“If that’s what you think is best, but I don’t know if this is the best approach. Do you need to be taken off this case? If this is going to be too uncomfortable for you, I can try to find someone else… I’d rather not, though. You’re the best one to keep Eve in line.”
“I don’t need to be replaced,” Nick assured him. “Run a background check on Roman. You won’t find much in the past five years or so, but he had some shady dealings before then. He’s been careful not to get his hands too dirty lately.”
“Do you know where he is?” Grady asked.
“Not exactly. I haven’t seen him in years, but he used to own a rather large estate in Florida and a smaller house in North Carolina somewhere along the coast.”
Grady muttered under his breath the potential locations for Roman and Nick could only assume he jotted the information down. Grady would have Roman’s current home addresses by mid-morning.
“Anything else?”
“Nope,” Nick answered. A shadow at the other end of the parking lot caught his eye. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything more.”
He ended the call and slipped the cell back into his pocket as he watched the dark figure move toward his car. Nick took small steps in the same direction, cringing when a pointy pebble got stuck to his bare foot.
The figure, dressed in all black, pulled something out that caught the reflection of the dim light.
A knife.
When the stranger crouched down in front of Nick’s front driver’s side tire, Nick took off running. Just before he could say anything, the figure stood and turned toward Nick.
“Get the fuck away from my car.”
This had to be a man, Nick figured. The tall, wide build couldn’t be that of a woman. He had dark hair, but his face remained in the shadows.
With the knife blade out, the man charged Nick full force. At the last minute, Nick side-stepped and the guy missed. Nick spun around just in time to see the blade before it came in contact with his side.
Damn it!
Nick grabbed his burning side as the assailant took off. It would be ignorant for Nick to chase the guy, seeing as how Nick didn’t have his gun or freakin’ shoes on his feet. Not to mention the fact his side burned like hell. He’d been stabbed before, even shot once, but it always hurt like a bitch.
With Eve’s safety his number-one priority, Nick raced back into the hotel. With one hand still holding his bleeding side, he used the other to unlock the door.
The bathroom door still remained cracked from when he’d showered. Light filtered into the room. He wouldn’t turn on the main lamps for fear of the attacker knowing which room they were in. They needed to get out of here. Now.
“Get your stuff,” he said gruffly. “We need to go.”
Eve sat up on her elbow, rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Go where?”
He went into the bathroom and grabbed his damp towel he’d used minutes ago. He held it to his side, trying to clean up some of the blood.
“I don’t know, but I want us gone in thirty seconds.”
Eve came to the doorway of the bathroom. “Nick… Oh my God! What happened? There’s blood all over your hands.”
With easy movements, she pulled the towel away. She gasped as her eyes darted back up to his. “You have to go to the hospital.”
“I can’t risk it,” he said between clenched teeth.
Eve put the towel back against the gash and held it firm. “You can’t bleed to death, either.”
“I won’t bleed to death. Now would you please throw some shoes on and grab your bags. We need to leave.”
Eve spun from the room and went to retrieve her stuff. She put her small bag down inside his and pulled it onto her shoulder, then grabbed her suitcase. Nick’s car keys sat on the small table by the television. She grabbed them as well. No way would she let him drive.
By the time she got back to the bathroom, Nick’s hard body leaned against the counter. His coloring didn’t look so good.
His boots were by the door, so she kicked them into the bathroom. “Slip your feet in those. Then you can lean on me and I’ll take you to the car.”
Since he didn’t argue, Eve knew the pain had to be worse than what he’d let on.
She slipped an arm around his bare waist, keeping the towel between their bodies. “Just lean on me and we’ll be in the car in no time.”
It was a struggle, but Eve managed to get Nick and his firm, heavy body out the door, through the parking lot and settled into the passenger seat. It wasn’t until she’d thrown the bags into the trunk that she noticed her shaky hands.
Queasiness and fear were two emotions she did not have time for right now.
She glanced over to Nick after she got in and started the car. “Nick!”
Her hands rushed to his bleeding side as he sat slumped against the door.
“I’m not dead,” he mumbled. “I’m just tired. Now get us the hell out of here.”
Eve’s heart started beating again. God, for a second there he’d looked so…lifeless.
She had no idea where to go. Another hotel? Try to find out if Nick had any family members they could stay with? They only had a half tank of gas, so Eve figured she would drive until they had to stop.
“Talk to me,” Eve said, resting one hand on the gear shift.
“About what?”
“Anything. I just want to know you’re not passed out and I need you to keep me awake.”
The leather seat creaked as Nick shifted his body. “E
ve, I can drive if you’re that tired.”
“I’m not that tired that I would let a stab-wound victim drive me in the middle of the night to God knows where when there’s somebody who seems to want one or both of us dead.”
“First of all, my wound isn’t that bad. Second of all, the guy didn’t try to kill me.”
Tears pricked her eyes and Eve turned her head slightly to the left so he couldn’t see the shimmer. “Don’t give me the bullshit about your wound not being bad. I saw it.”
“It’s not bullshit.” Nick covered Eve’s hand with his. “I don’t think it’s that deep. It hurts like hell, but I’ll live.”
Eve wanted to turn her palm up and lace her fingers with his, but she resisted the urge. Her defenses against this man were weakening and it wouldn’t take too much more for them to come crumbling down.
“Tell me what happened.”
“After you turned off the light, I took a shower. Then I stepped just outside the hotel to call Grady.”
“What did you tell him?”
Nick’s hesitation made her wonder if he was going to tell her the truth, part of the truth, or a flat out lie. She found it hard to concentrate on anything right now because he was rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. It was, no doubt, a gesture he didn’t notice. But that light, friendly gesture had her aching to feel those rough fingers all over her body.
“I just wanted to let him know we had a name and you were going to be meeting with him soon.”
“Go on,” she prompted.
“When I hung up I saw someone creeping through the parking lot, heading toward my car. When I saw him crouch down to my tire with a knife, I took off running after the guy.”
“Are you sure it was a guy?” she asked.
“Positive. The build was too big, too filled out and I heard him grunt when he charged at me.”
Eve waited for him to continue, but silence filled the air. She glanced over, afraid he’d finally passed out.
“Nick?”
“It’s funny how your mind works,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“You automatically wanted to know if I was sure the person was a man.”
Eve shrugged. “It was a logical question.”
“Yes, but regular people wouldn’t have thought of something like that. Most would have assumed it would be a man.”
Eve eyed him for a second before looking back onto the dark road. The headlights sliced through the night, leading a path to their unknown destination. “I don’t assume anything. Did you see his face?”
“There was a shadow over it.”
Since they’d left the hotel nearly thirty minutes ago, there hadn’t been a single soul on the highway. So far, they weren’t being followed.
Eve scolded herself for letting her guard slip. She couldn’t act so aware of details and her surroundings. To Nick, she was a regular civilian. Actually, in the eyes of the government, she was a regular civilian, too.
No standard-issue gun, no badge. No FBI.
She would give anything if this whole shitload of a mess was done. She wanted her life and her job back. She wanted her father’s murderer brought to justice. Which, in her eyes, meant dead.
They drove in silence for a while. Occasionally Eve would glance over to make sure Nick’s chest still rose and fell. His large, warm hand remained on hers; his thumb, however, had stopped stroking her.
Eve wasn’t sure exactly where they were. She’d circled around quite a bit when they first left before she headed south. She hadn’t seen anybody follow them. If she figured right, they should only be about an hour from the club.
As she pulled into the lot of a small hotel, she wondered if she should call Grady, then immediately dismissed the notion. That call could wait until they got settled into a room and she could clean Nick’s nasty-looking wound.
He slept with his head resting against the glass, the towel still wedged perfectly between his side and the console. She slid her hand from beneath his and turned off the car.
Just as she started to open her door, he grabbed her wrist.
“Holy shit,” she cried as she looked over her shoulder. “You scared me.”
“Where are we?”
“About an hour away from Charleston. I’m going to get us a room. I’ll be right back.”
Eve popped the trunk and pulled out a T-shirt from Nick’s bag. Even though it was huge on her, it was either that or go inside wearing boxers and a tank with no bra.
She pulled out a black—could there be any other color?—T-shirt and slipped it over her head. It hit her knees. Oh well, now she just looked like she had on only a shirt and tennis shoes.
The elderly woman running the desk didn’t take a second glance at Eve or her attire once Eve whipped out cash. The woman pocketed the money and handed over a key.
Their room was at the end of the lot. Eve pulled in front and took all the bags in, then came back out to help Nick, but the stubborn man was trying to get in by himself.
If she weren’t so worried about his injury, she would’ve taken more time to appreciate his male form. Well, maybe she could worry and appreciate at the same time. His bare shoulders looked broader, stronger. All that golden skin wrapped over one hundred percent muscle tone. Eve ached to run her fingers along all that bare flesh.
First things first. She had to get him inside, clean him up and make that call to Grady.
Nick winced when he stepped his bare feet onto the gravel. When Eve came to his side, he shook his head.
“I’m fine.”
Eve hovered just the same. She didn’t touch him, but she stood close in case he needed her.
Once they were inside the musty room, Nick sat on the bed. That’s right, the one and only bed. Just freakin’ wonderful, Eve thought. It was like a scene from a bad B movie.
“I have a small first-aid kit,” she said as she unzipped her bag.
Nick scooted over and lay back against the headboard and grinned at her when she came to sit by his side. “You asked for one bed, didn’t you?”
Eve popped open the kit, set it on the nightstand and pulled out some alcohol pads, gauze, tape and scissors. “No, smartass, I was too worried about you to ask for anything. I just said I wanted a room. But as soon as I’m done here, I’ll go see if they have another room with two beds.”
When she pulled the towel away from his side, she sighed with relief. The bleeding had stopped.
“Let me get a wet cloth.”
Eve went into the tiny bathroom and wet a white washcloth with cool water. When she sat next to Nick once again on the bed, she had a hard time focusing on her task.
His spicy male scent filtered through her senses. His smooth, naked flesh nearly burned her fingertips. His breath came slow and easy.
Worst of all, she could feel his heated gaze on her as she dabbed the dried blood from his side. If she kept her hands moving, perhaps he wouldn’t notice how they shook.
How could cleaning a stab wound be so arousing?
Once she had the area cleaned off, she could see the actual gash. It wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought, but it was still bad enough.
“Don’t even think of putting that alcohol on me.” His deep, soothing voice cut the silence.
“Don’t be a baby. You don’t want it to get infected,” she said as she looked up.
Big mistake.
Her hands stilled on his side. The way he looked at her made her wonder what he was thinking. His eyelids were heavy, his head tipped to the side and he had that damned cocky smile back.
Why did she have to find him so damn charming? Worst of all, he knew it.
“What?” she finally asked.
“You’re shaking.” He reached down with his large hand to cover both of hers.
“Well, if I am, it’s only because I don’t like blood,” she retorted.
He sat up a little higher, leaned his face down within inches of hers. “That’s not why you’re shaking.”
>
Eve looked down to their adjoined hands. She couldn’t figure out why she let him get the upper hand. She’d never been this easy to read before, so why did she have to be with the one man she wanted more than her next breath?
“Eve.”
When her eyes drifted back up, his face had taken on a serious look. He no longer wore a smile, his breathing had become heavier and his eyes were completely open and concentrated on her.
“You were right,” he whispered.
Her heart thumped so hard in her chest, she was afraid he could hear it. “About what?”
“This tension between us. It won’t go away.”
With her hands sandwiched between his warm body and his strong hands, Eve couldn’t get up and run the way she wanted to. This must have been how he’d felt back at the other hotel when she’d tried discussing this sexual awareness.
All of a sudden, she didn’t feel so confident.
“I think it would be best if you let me work alone from here on out,” Eve said once she found her voice. “It could be dangerous if we get preoccupied with…sexual thoughts.”
Nick quirked one corner of his mouth up. “I want to have more than thoughts. I want you, Eve.”
Eve jerked her hands from beneath his and stood. “Well, it isn’t going to happen. You are going to go back to…wherever it is you live, and I am going to find my father’s killer. Grady will help me if I ask him.”
Nick came to his feet as well, dumping all the contents from his lap into the floor. “Like hell I’ll leave you alone to do this. You aren’t trained to handle these people, Eve. They’re not messing around. If you give them a chance, they’ll kill you.”
“Well, I don’t want to be responsible for you,” she cried back.
“Responsible?” Nick asked, taking a step toward her. “Why would you be responsible?”
Her eyes drifted to his side as she felt the burn in her eyes. Damn it, she would not let him see her upset. She turned around, wrapping her arms around her waist.
When his gentle hands settled on her shoulders, she thought it would undo her. Fortunately, he couldn’t see her eyes and she had enough time to will the tears away.
“Eve, my getting stabbed is not your fault. I’m the one who went after the guy. If I had stayed in the room with you, where I should’ve been anyway, the guy would’ve only slashed my tires.”
