by Amelia Jade
“Keep going straight for a moment.” The car rocked wildly as Stoen shifted around.
“What are you doing?!”
“Getting us out of here. The sooner we can leave the Disney Princess-mobile behind the better as far as I’m concerned.”
Rose snorted. “You’re such a loser. There is nothing wrong with this car. I quite like the paint scheme.”
“Even the pink fuzzy steering wheel?”
“Especially the pink fuzzy steering wheel,” she said fiercely, running her hands over it with a secretive grin. “I couldn’t imagine anything I’d change.”
“Odd, I can’t imagine anything I wouldn’t. Now drive straight for a bit longer.”
“HEY!” she yelped as he smashed the rear window, the cabin growing louder as wind rushed around.
She glanced in the rearview and saw Stoen extend his hand. A trail of silver objects fell out across the roadway behind them as he moved his arm back and forth.
Seconds later the tires of the pursuing vehicle exploded and it careened out of control, smashing through a streetside table at a café and then into the shop itself.
She slowed their breakneck pace almost immediately, taking the corner out onto the next main street with far more care—though she still received a handful of blaring horns for the sudden appearance of their vehicle.
“Now what?” she asked. The other police car wouldn’t be too far behind, but they’d bought enough time that they should be able to lose it.
“Head into the next underground lot you can find. Much as you love this eye-gouging décor, we need to travel in something less noticeable for the next stage.”
Reluctantly, Rose agreed. She took a few more turns and was about to pull into one when her rearview mirror lit up with sirens.
“Go, go, go!” Stoen urged.
Plowing the pedal to the metal, the car revved and slowly accelerated up to speed. Behind them the cop car came on like a speeding bullet, easily catching up to them. Metal screeched as the driver slammed into their much smaller vehicle, rocking it violently.
“Can’t you do something?” she snapped.
“These ones are just cops. They’re not shifters. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“So take out the tires again!” She hauled to the right as they rounded a corner, buying them a bit of space, as the larger cop car couldn’t take the corner quite as sharply.
“I’m trying, but I have to be subtle about it. If this thing had the power to get in front it would be easy, but—”
The police car slammed into them again, making the rest of his point for him.
“Well if we keep this up we’re never going to escape!”
“I thought you were some kind of professional driver?”
“What? No! I took some lessons. That’s it. That’s like going to one karate class and then proclaiming yourself a black belt.”
Stoen laughed. “Try to get them to come up on our right side. At least that way I can do more damage or something.”
Rose nodded, moving into the far left lane, forcing the cop car to either go into oncoming traffic or come up on her right. They did exactly as she’d hoped.
“Anytime you want to make a move is fine with me.”
Stoen just grunted and pushed open the passenger door. “Hold it steady for a second—hey!”
He jerked into her, shaking the entire car before the police car slammed its nose into his door, forcing it shut.
“Okay, now I’ve really had it. I’m not going to lose fingers to these dicks,” he growled.
Watching out of the corner of her eyes Rose saw him lean forward, smashing his fist through their window, then that of the police officers, and casually rip the steering wheel right from the column.
“That oughta do it,” he remarked as the officer in the driver’s seat frantically slammed on the brakes, unable to control his car.
“About time.”
“Just find us an underground garage.” He tossed the stolen wheel into the trunk. “Get me out of this thing. Please.”
They ditched the car a few miles farther down the road and quickly walked through a nearby park.
Stoen took her hand as they walked. She didn’t fight it. Her heart was hammering after their narrow escape.
“You were amazing back there.”
Rose smiled at the compliment. “Thank you.”
“I would never have believed anyone could get such a hunk of junk to drive like that.”
“Stop,” she said, dropping her shoulder into him playfully. “Besides, we’re not safe yet.”
“We will be soon. Correll is going to be meeting us.”
“Correll?”
He nodded. “I told him to stay close, just in case. I’ve been texting him. He should be here shortly.”
“Well, okay then. That’s awesome.”
They reached the far side of the park and two minutes later a very familiar black SUV pulled up. Without waiting she got in.
Stoen sighed as he settled into the passenger seat. “Ahhh, now isn’t this better?”
“Shut up.”
Correll looked back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t get it.”
“We had to drive a clown car,” Stoen growled.
Leaning forward, Rose smiled up at Correll. “It was bright pink. He had to sit in the trunk with the pink fuzzy dice.”
Correll was snickering loudly.
“Really?” Stoen complained. “Do you have to give him that sort of ammunition? Seriously? That’s just mean. I would never do something like that to you.”
He went on for a bit longer, but Rose and Correll were laughing too hard by that point, ignoring whatever protests he was making about the situation.
“Bright pink you say?” Correll asked.
“Everywhere. It really suited him I think.”
“Okay, that’s enough from you two.” Stoen said, waving his hand and sticking out his tongue.
“I doubt it.”
“Let’s just wait until we get to the safehouse then, how’s that?”
“Safehouse?”
Correll spoke up. “I have a place here that I keep ready for emergencies. Just in case, you never know. You guys can use it for now.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “We need to examine the pictures and figure out the new course of action. They’re going to be pissed about this.”
She worried about her brother. What were they going to do to him as punishment for this? It had been a necessary action on her part, but she was terrified that it might cause the situation to spiral out of control. Rose would never forgive herself if something bad happened to Teddy because of her.
“They won’t harm him,” Stoen said, reading her mind. “Not after they realize we have the originals. Next they’ll want to arrange for a trade between the two of us.”
“Isn’t that what they wanted originally?” Correll interjected.
“Yes, but they didn’t know we didn’t have them. The bank trap was probably set up by the police officers they have on their payroll, not the boss. Now we can make sure such a meeting actually does occur.”
“It’ll be a trap again, won’t it?” she asked.
Stoen nodded. “Bet on it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Stoen
“Thank you,” he said to Correll as they hopped out in front of his emergency hideout.
“Don’t mention it. Call me if you need any backup once you figure out what to do next.”
“You’ve done enough, little cousin. Go home, I can handle it from here.”
“I’m not incompetent, you ageist dick. I can hold my own in a fight, and you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Stoen looked at Correll, then nodded. “I’ll keep you informed.” He closed the door and jogged up to the big condo building where Rose waited with the door open.
“Hell of a spot for a hideout,”
she observed.
They were in the heart of the city’s entertainment district. The streets were crowded with people, and everywhere he looked there were pubs, bars, and nightclubs, or signs for them. Come nighttime it would be packed with fun-seekers. Hopefully they could blend right in.
“Hopefully it’ll be the last place they look for us.” They went in, found the elevators, and went up to the sixteenth floor. The penthouse.
He keyed in the access code and strode inside, stopping dead after just two steps.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Behind him Rose came inside as well, letting the door shut. “What?” There was a moment of silence. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“When he said this place was for emergencies, I think he meant something other than being on the run from the law, didn’t he?”
Stoen’s eyes roved across the massive single-roomed penthouse suite. In the center of it, under a spotlight that had come on when he’d entered, was an oversized circular bed. As he watched it started spinning slowly. Music started to play from speakers everywhere—slow, sensual, with a deep beat to it.
“Whatever gave you that impression?” he said slowly.
“I don’t know. The 70s-esque disco bed could have done it. Or maybe it was the giant rack of sex restraints and other equipment on the wall there.”
Stoen shook his head. “I am going to have some words with that boy. He has got a serious, serious problem.”
His mate pinched his butt. “I don’t know, not all of them look so horrible. A couple look a little fun. Like what about that one?”
“You’ve got sex on your mind right now?” The words just sort of slipped out, his surprise at her forwardness overriding the filter.
Rose shrugged, swaying close to him with the music. “I mean, the adrenaline is flowing through me right now after driving the car. And we are alone and safe. You were also quite…impressive back there.” With each sentence her voice was dropping, becoming more sultry, more seductive.
“Listen, Rose. I feel it too, but it’s just chemicals. Like you said, adrenaline.”
“Stoen, if you don’t take your clothes off and fuck me on that ridiculous spinning bed over there, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.” She pulled her own shirt over her head to emphasize her desires. “Trust me,” she added in a softer voice. “I know what I’m doing, and I’m okay with it.”
That was all that he needed. Grabbing his mate around the waist, he lifted her into his arms and carried her across the tiled floor to the bed, tossing her back onto it with casual strength.
Wide eyes looked up at him, pupils dilating into the blue circles as he reached down and stripped her pants from her in one move. Then Stoen dove onto the bed and buried his face between her legs, eager to taste her, to please her. This wasn’t about romance; this was about pleasure, and he wasted no time.
“Oh, Stoen,” she moaned, biting her fingers in an attempt to keep the noise down.
Nobody was going to hear them, but it turned him on to watch, so he didn’t stop her. Instead he focused on what he was doing with his tongue, and the slow, continual strokes of it across her center. He started with the lightest, most featherlight graze he could, and gradually increased it from there as Rose’s arousal grew.
At one point he slipped a finger inside, adding to the sensations. His eyes stayed laser-locked to her face. Every twitch of her muscles and lick of her lips pumped more blood between his legs, getting him harder and harder. He could barely maintain his composure by the time she arched upward, forgetting all about keeping silent as she cried out wordlessly as her climax tore through her body.
Kissing his way up her body while she recovered, Stoen paused to appreciate the beauty that was his mate. Short, somewhat curvy, and deliciously explorable, he knew he would never, ever tire of seeing her like this. It was all in her eyes, the way they were thick and heavy with lust as they focused on him. There was nothing quite like knowing that his mate wanted him, and only him.
“Don’t tease me,” she begged, but Stoen wasn’t.
He was taking his time, letting her body stretch to fit him. She was tiny, and he was…not. It wasn’t something he ever really bragged about, but Stoen was aware of it.
An eternity came and went, both of them agonizing over the slowness of his entry, but it was worth it in the end. Rose gasped in satisfied delight, nearly setting him off from the sheer eroticism alone. Stoen was grappling with control, trying to regain it even while she was thrusting up, greedily trying to capture more of him.
Instinct took over and he pushed back. They warred like that, him giving, her taking, barely moving except to rock against one another. Their faces inches apart, not kissing, but focused on every tiny change in the other, more obsessed with their partner’s pleasure than their own.
The world closed in around them, blocking out the gray daylight from the floor-to-ceiling windows, and certainly ignoring the ridiculousness of the bed upon which they lay interlocked. His entire universe boiled down to one thing, to this one thing, and her name was Rose. The beauty of her namesake was reflected in her every time he looked. The quirk of her lips as she smiled at him from the corner of her mouth, or the relaxed ease with which she settled to sit next to him, comforted by his presence.
What had started out with every intention on both sides as being a raw, hungry romp had transformed itself into something more intimate than he’d ever experienced. They traded little kisses and gentle touches, and at one point Rose ended up on top of him, but it never degenerated into anything less. Slow and tender they explored one another, uncaring of how much time passed in the outside world.
“I’m ready,” she whispered into his ear, and squeezed tight around him.
Stoen didn’t stand a chance. He’d been balanced on the edge for ages, holding on by a few ragged strands that parted now. With a low roar his hips lifted from the bed before slamming back down. He bucked wildly as he came, and Rose cried out in unison.
Forcing his eyes open, he watched her as her own climax erupted, brought about by his. He was still inside her, something that surprised him, but he didn’t worry. She was his mate; whatever fate had for them, it would happen. This was what Rose had wanted anyway, and he wasn’t going to deny his mate anything.
Eventually she settled down atop his chest, kissing his nose and then his lips. “Stoen, that was…wow.”
“Different,” he agreed, his chest rising and falling, his heartbeat elevated but not hammering.
“Amazing.”
“That too,” he agreed, giving a small laugh. “That too.”
“Lots of fun,” she mumbled.
“Fun enough to do it again?”
“No. No, I’m a little sore,” she admitted with an embarrassed giggle. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not ever.”
“I know, Stoen,” she said, looking up at him dreamily. “I know.”
He hugged her tight, never wanting to let go.
All he had to do was save her brother and ensure anyone threatening her was dealt with, and he wouldn’t have to. No big deal.
Chapter Eighteen
Rose
“What’s the next step?”
They were lying in bed, cuddling. The vibes of sex had worn off, and their conversation had drifted all over the place, from talking about one another, to the world at large, and everything in between. Now Rose was ready to start planning out their strategy.
“You haven’t heard from anyone yet, have you?” Stoen rolled onto his side to look at her more directly.
“Not a peep. There’s no way word hasn’t made its way up the ladder yet. What are they waiting for?”
“Probably trying to track us down themselves,” he said.
Rose thought that over. “Maybe. Though you’d think they would have learned by now not to mess with you.”
“You’d
think,” he agreed, sounding a little distracted.
“What do we do in the meantime?” She didn’t want to just lie there and indulge in her hormonal urges with Stoen. That wasn’t to say she didn’t enjoy it. Quite the opposite in fact, but now that they’d calmed down after their escape, she couldn’t ignore the situation with her brother any longer. Rescuing him had to be her top priority.
“I suppose that maybe I should take a look at the pictures,” Stoen said thoughtfully. “If there are shifters involved, maybe I will recognize them? Or…I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But I don’t suppose it can hurt, right?”
She nodded. “Okay. But we don’t have the camera anymore.”
“My laptop. Just plug the card into it.” He pointed past her to where the bag he’d brought with him from Correll’s car sat on a chair. “It’s in there.”
Rose got up and took out the laptop. She didn’t feel like getting back into bed, so instead she set up on the black marble countertop in the nearby kitchen. Stoen got up, the two of them still naked, and handed her the memory card. Putting it in, she let the computer start to read it, pulling up his picture viewer.
Clicking on the taskbar she went to hit “open” to find the pictures on the disk, but her finger slipped, and she accidentally hit “open recent.”
“Stoen.”
“Yes?” he asked from the opposite side of the counter, pouring a pair of glasses of water from the fridge’s water system.
“Why is there a photo of me on your laptop?”
Stoen didn’t answer, frozen in place. Water spilled over the brim of the glass and started to splash on the floor, breaking his trance. “Uhhhhh.”
She frowned, and clicked the next button. Then again. “These are recent, Stoen. From the past month or so. What the hell is going on here?”
“Listen, Rose, I can explain.”
Pushing off the counter, she walked over to the bed and her own bag, thankful that Correll had brought all their stuff. New underwear came out and went on quickly, followed by her bra, then pants, and finally a shirt.
