They had almost seen me. My breath froze in my lungs, and only one thought managed to emerge: he’d said to go up the stairs. How far up, I didn’t know. He’d just said up.
I ran, stairs creaking and me jumping at every moving shadow on the wall. There were apartment doors on every level, but no one seemed to notice the sound of someone running like the hounds of hell were after her.
I ran until I was out of stairs, and then I huddled in the only patch of shadow I could find. Time crawled by, interminable; I tried to count my breaths and lost the count almost immediately. I didn’t cry. I didn’t think.
I heard his footsteps before I saw him, and when he pushed his way out of one of the doors, I took time to study him before I moved. I knew it was him in an instant—the air of command, the easy self-assurance, the gorgeous profile—but this man was a mystery, and I wanted to know more.
He jerked around when I sat up, and came to pull me to my feet. I handed him his keys and watched as he opened one of the two apartment doors; from the glimpse I caught, he had come out of a cross hallway. He pulled me into the darkness and closed the door gently behind us before making use of all three locks. At last he turned, his face in shadow.
For a moment, he didn’t seem to know what to say.
“It’s okay now,” he offered. “You’re safe here. No one knows about this place but me.”
It was too much. I frowned, trying to make sense of the words. He said something else, coming toward me, and I had the sense that the world, while already dark, was hazier than it should be somehow, and really oddly tilted.
I was still trying to make sense of that part when I came to. There were strong arms around me, and someone whispering my name, and when I opened my eyes, his face was very close.
I felt all the breath leave my body in a whoosh. In the living room, seated on my couch, he had looked dangerous and gorgeous all at once. In the stairwell, he had been determined—a machine, all grace, both deadly and beautiful. Now, here, with those muscles against me and the dig of what could only be a gun in a holster, there was no way to ignore the danger of him—or the beauty.
“Are you—” He broke off raggedly as my fingers came up to touch his lips. “What are you…”
“Shh.” I didn’t know what I was doing. It didn’t seem like I was doing it at all, in fact. His lips were perfect; I traced them as I looked up at his face.
“There’s, ah…” He jerked his face away and took a deep breath. “There’s a bed, over there. I don’t mean—I’ll take the couch. I should get you up—”
My fingers brushed across his cheekbone and he broke off. He paused before he looked at me.
“I could get you some other clothes if you wanted.” By the look on his face, he didn’t remember what any of those words meant anymore. He’d forgotten everything.
And I—I needed to forget. With his eyes still locked on mine, I took a handful of his white shirt. I hesitated for only a moment before I drew him down for a kiss.
Chapter 5
Jack
It had been torture to try to keep away from her, torture to hold her in my arms and not take this. And when she offered it—
Lust exploded through me and I groaned as I thrust my tongue into her mouth. Her hand was so small, clenched in the fabric of my shirt, her lips soft, opening under mine. She clung to me like she was drowning, and I felt the sudden heat between her legs, through the thin fabric of her nightgown. She pressed against me, and I knew the rush of pure need inside her. There was only desire in her eyes, no other thought.
I had her on her back on the floor in a second. My fingers cradled the back of her head as hers fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and our lips never parted. She was yearning up to me, up to where I held myself away so as not to crush her. Clearly, she didn’t care about that—her fingers wrapped around my neck to pull me down, and she moaned when my lips found her throat.
She was arching against me. Her hands skimmed over my arms, my shoulders, my hips, and every thought disappeared from my mind except one: her beneath me, legs wrapped around my waist and me buried deep inside her and her moaning against my mouth. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in her.
I heard a possessive growl burst out of me and I pulled the hem of her nightgown up, almost roughly. The skin of her legs was soft and smooth, inviting a more careful touch. Later, I told myself. Later, I’d run my hands all over her, learn everything she liked, give it to her until she shuddered around my cock. I had the thought of her on her hands and knees, pressing her round ass up as I drove into her from behind, and nearly came then.
“The bed.” My voice was rough.
She made a little noise, a question that she matched by arching her body against mine once more.
“You’ll get bruised if we stay here.” I was on my feet a second later, pulling her up to stand with me, and she swayed against me. I nuzzled her neck, licked along the front of her throat, and she whimpered, her fingers clutching around my arms. I captured her wrists and jerked them behind her back, and she struggled for only a moment before melting against me. “You like that?”
A moan was her only answer.
I nearly lost it at the thought of her with her hands over her head. Blindfolded, tied down—and begging. My breath came short. She would beg for every touch, every slip of my fingers inside her, readying her for my cock. And when I was fucking her…she’d beg then, too.
I ripped the strap of her nightgown down to bare one perfect breast and bent my head to hold her as I circled the nipple slowly with my tongue. She whimpered and her fingers clenched against my hair, trying to draw me closer. With a laugh, I caught her mouth with mine again, and saw the pure need in her eyes.
“Get on the bed.”
In a moment, everything shattered. She pushed herself away from me, shaking, looking around herself wildly as if she hadn’t known where she was or how she got here. She tangled her fingers in her hair, dragged the strap of her nightgown back up.
“I didn’t…” She sounded horrified at herself. “I can’t believe I—I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Baby girl…what do you have to be sorry for?”
“I should never have done that.” Her voice was wild.
“Why not?” I drew her back, smiling down at her as I drew my fingers up the bare skin of her arm. She shuddered and I saw the desire swirl in her eyes. When I captured the nape of her neck, her eyes drifted closed in surrender. She was up on her tip toes for a kiss. “Don’t you want this?” I murmured against her mouth.
“Yes.” It was the faintest sound, but it came with the force of a hurricane. “I want you.” She froze against me at the sound of her own voice. “But I can’t, I can’t. I made a commitment.”
For a moment, I couldn’t imagine what she meant—and then, when I realized, I couldn’t even believe it. Adrian Witte? She was still holding to a commitment with the man who had tried to kill her? The military should really revise everything it said about cheating wives. Women were ridiculously faithful—to the point of death, apparently.
Her face turned icy and she splayed her hands across her chest, trying to cover herself.
“It’s not funny.”
“You’re still worried about Witte?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“I should be trying to get back to him!”
“Are you crazy?”
“What if he’s back? He’ll have found me missing. He’ll be freaking out.” Her hand was at her mouth. “Oh, my God, I didn’t even take my phone. He’s going to think—”
“You don’t know.” The words fell out of my mouth. Oh, Jesus.
“I don’t know what?”
I let out a groan, hands clenched in my pockets. Of course she didn’t know. I hadn’t taken the time to explain it to her. I’d been too busy with the drive. And then, of course, with kissing her senseless. The memory made my cock twitch and I let my head fall back for a moment. Oh, G
od, this was the worst time to be thinking about how much I wanted her. I needed to tell her.
I didn’t want to be the one to tell her.
“I don’t know what?” She must have taken a step toward me, because I could feel the heat of her.
It was all I could do to take her shoulders and move her away.
“I, ah…” I rubbed at the back of my head. “I didn’t think this through. I didn’t expect to…have to tell you this.”
“Tell me. What?” She spoke through gritted teeth.
“Adrian’s the one who hired me to kill you.”
She stared at me for a long moment, the blood draining from her face, and I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say to someone who’d just found out their fiancé was trying to kill them. There were no polite words for this moment.
“You were there…to kill me?”
My blood turned to ice.
No. Oh, no. I had been so focused on trying to figure out how to tell her that it was Adrian that—
Oh, no.
“You were there to kill me?” she repeated, her voice very small.
“I didn’t—”
“And that’s why you didn’t expect to have to explain it to me, right? Because you were there to kill me.”
Fuck.
Chapter 6
Lara
I did the only thing I could think of—I ran. I had to get out of there. I bolted for the door without even a thought.
I didn’t make it two steps. He had me slammed up against the back of the door the next second, hands capturing my wrists when I went for his eyes. I tried to kick, ineffectually, and he pinned me against the door with his own body.
I could feel how hard he still was, could feel the tension that thrummed through him as soon as his body was pressed up against mine.
And I could feel my body’s own traitorous response to him.
“Let. Me. Go.”
“No.” His voice was flat.
“Let me go, right now.” All I had was words. A blind panic was rising up in me. He was going to kill me. He was going to kill me and I couldn’t stop him. All I had was fury. “You fucking son of a bitch, you were going to have sex with me before you killed me? That’s what you wanted? That whole thing about people coming for me—”
He let go of me, his eyes wide with horror.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
I stopped short. “Wait. Then why won’t you let me go?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re wearing a nightgown.” His eyes raked over me and he wrenched his gaze away, chest heaving. “For another? I wasn’t kidding about the people who came to find you. That was the cleanup crew.” He looked away when I flinched. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry. But now they know you’re missing, and I won’t have been in contact with them. There’s not going to be any blood in the apartment now, and they don’t have a body. They’re looking for you now, whether or not they’ve guessed what I did.”
“What you did.” I could feel my chin trembling. “And what did you do, Mr…”
“Reed,” he supplied. “Jack Reed.” He hesitated and lifted his shoulders. “And I went back on a job. I couldn’t kill you. That’s why you’re here—I had to keep you safe.”
“Safe?” I was going to start screaming, some part of me thought, and I wasn’t going to be able to stop. I knew this rush of fear. This was the rush I always felt when Adrian—
It was lies. Adrian would never go this far. Never.
“Safe,” he told me, and his voice was flat. “You’re safe here.”
“I am safer anywhere else.” My voice was shaking. “I have no reason to trust you. None. You came to kill me—and then you lied about why. Adrian would never hurt me. Whoever told you he wanted this—”
“He was there.” The words were simple.
My body took over. I leaned over as my stomach heaved. I was down on all fours a second later as everything turned over again again, and I felt him at my side, hesitating. He tried to draw my hair away from my face and fell back when I threw an elbow.
“Leave me alone.”
“Lara.” He spoke even as my body rebelled, heedless of the fact that my stomach was empty. “Please, you have to listen to me. You are not safe if you leave this apartment.”
I started laughing. “Why in hell would I trust you?”
“Because I would never kill an innocent!” His voice rang out against the walls and he grabbed my shoulder to jerk me upright. His eyes met mine, blazing, giving lie to the belief that blue was a cold color. His eyes looked like they were on fire. “Whatever else you believe about me, believe that. I. Do. Not. Kill. Innocents.”
For a moment, it sounded sincere. And then I remembered the truth.
“Then what were you doing in my apartment?”
“They didn’t tell me who you were.” He shook his head. “I take out crime bosses. That’s my reputation. I never dreamed they’d hire me for…someone like you.” He was still shaking his head, helplessly, like he couldn’t stop himself. He looked me in the eyes. “Please, Lara. Please. I do what I to do protect people like you from people like—”
Me. He hadn’t said it, but we both knew it was there, the word floating in space.
“Who are you?” I whispered, before I could stop myself.
Something slammed down behind his eyes. “I’m no one,” he said flatly. “No one you should know. But the one thing you can trust about me, La—Miss Thomas—is that I won’t harm you.”
We were frozen, kneeling on the floor, and he made a sound of frustration, balling his hands into fists, looking away helplessly.
“What do I have to say? What can I do to prove to you that you can trust me? Because you have to.” His eyes were bleak. “There is no one else you can trust right now.”
“Help me find out who really hired you for this.” The words came to my lips before I thought about them. “Help me find them and take them down. It wasn’t Adrian. He wouldn’t. Help me get my life back.”
I saw the instinctive retort in his eyes and my jaw set.
He saw it, and sighed. “Okay.”
I was caught off guard. “Okay?”
“Okay.” He stood and offered a hand to haul me up. “I’ll help you figure it out. I’ll help you make sure whoever did this—” his tone was a warning “—can never hurt anyone again.”
He still thought it was Adrian, I knew that. I’d prove him wrong, though. I pushed away the tiny flicker of doubt and drew myself up to my truly insignificant height.
“Okay, then.”
He stepped toward me, and we felt the flare of heat at the same moment. He froze, the pulse beating wildly at his throat.
“You should…take the bedroom.” He turned away, one hand out to point. “Go.”
“I can sleep on the—”
“No.”
The tone brooked no argument and I went without a word. I turned at the doorway, hesitating. Was I supposed to thank him for not killing me? I felt like I should, but that would be…
Ridiculous.
“You don’t have to say anything.” His weary voice told me he knew what was going on in my head. “Just…go.”
That stung for some reason. I closed the door harder than I needed to and proceeded to trip over my own feet. With a curse, I gave up on finding the light switch and found my way to the bed by touch. It was made neatly, which seemed awfully unusual for a hit man, but what did I know about hit men?
Nothing, apparently. I bit back my sense of the ridiculous as I lay down and pulled the covers up over me. They smelled like him, I noted: clean, spicy. Amber? I wasn’t sure. It smelled sweet and fresh, almost wild.
My eyes drifted closed, and before I had any chance to marshal my thoughts, he was there in my head. The press of his hips, the way he’d pulled the hem of my nightgown up. He’d touched me like I belonged to him, held my wrists and smiled when I struggled.
My breath came short. The thought made me melt, even now. I reme
mbered the first touch of his lips. He hadn’t wasted time on being sweet. His tongue thrust into my mouth and his fingers had drifted close, almost to—
I arched on the bed with a little cry. I clapped my hand over my mouth, heart pounding, and froze. Had he heard?
I waited, counting to thirty in my head, but there was no sound from outside the door. I flopped back on the bed with a little whimper of disappointment and relief. I was biting my lip to keep the sound back. I needed to sleep. Sleep, and forget him.
He had wanted me. The thought made my eyes fly open in the dark, and my lips parted. He had wanted me. It had been there in his eyes from the moment I came into the living room. I had seen his gaze travel over me like he was stripping me naked then and there, ready to take me on the floor of my apartment.
Jack. My lips formed his name. He wanted me, and what he wanted was enough to make me melt. He didn’t just want to be inside me—at the thought of him sliding into me, I heard another moan escape my lips—he wanted to possess me. He wanted to hold me down. He wanted to command me, and God help me, I wanted it, too.
“I want you,” I whispered, traitorous to my core. I had been the good girl for so long, absolutely pure, the virgin untouched even by Adrian, and I thought—more the fool me—that I had locked all of that away. I had never been tempted to be unfaithful, not until this man set his hands on me and woke something I had never felt before in my life.
My fingers were between my legs, slipping inside myself, unpracticed. My mouth opened at the feeling, my head tipped back and even biting my lip, I knew a sound escaped me. I didn’t know how to do this, I only knew that I wanted it. I wanted it so badly that I thought I might burn up from the inside out. My hips were moving against my fingers, and that one, sweet spot, the one I had touched before but never like this, was bringing me closer to something I feared and wanted desperately all at the same time.
The climax broke over me like a wave. I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t think. Every thought was of him—his fingers in me, his lips on my breast, his hands trapping my wrists.
HUNTED: A Bad Boy Romance (Books 1-5) Page 3
