by Em Petrova
A quiver began in her lower belly and slipped down between her legs.
“I guess they do think of me as important. Until next year when someone else makes a discovery.”
“I don’t think they’re going to top you, Pippa. And that means one thing to me—that even after this, you’re still in the spotlight. You’re not out of danger.”
A shudder rippled down her spine, icy fingers digging in and spreading over her skin. “Well, you can’t be my bodyguard forever,” she said with a light laugh to cover her nerves.
Ross fisted a hand and brought it to his mouth as if to trap any words from escaping.
Chapter Eight
Saying Pippa was different from the girl he’d known would be like saying the sky was down and the earth up.
She set him off-balance.
She drove him crazy.
And he fucking loved every minute of it.
Part of his reason for wanting to hear her cuss resulted directly from him loving how she’d grown in the past decade. Hearing her say the F word or beg for his mouth on her reminded him that she was not the kid who hung out with him and his brothers on the ranch.
Yet she was still off-limits. To hurt her would invite the wrath of not only her father but his own, along with every Wynton in Stone Pass. Hell, even his buddy Silas would give him hell for breaking Pippa’s heart.
All he could offer her was a one-night stand, like all the other ladies he’d been with. He was at the prime of his career. He couldn’t take time for relationships, family and all the crap that came with it. He’d seen enough of what his little brother, Noah, went through with his ex-girlfriend, before he found the love of his life Maya Ray.
Ross couldn’t only pump the brakes when it came to stopping his crazy libido where Pippa was concerned—he slammed them.
The second time he passed a sign for a canyon, he pulled out his phone and dialed Roman.
“What’s happening?” Roman asked.
“I’m going to make a stop.”
Pippa pushed her glasses up her nose as she often did when thoughtful.
“Next exit? At the canyon?” Roman asked.
“Yes.”
“Your gas tank low? I thought you filled up.”
“I need a break. I’ve been driving for hours.”
“I’m right behind you,” Roman said.
When Ross ended the call, Pippa spoke up, “I can drive for a bit.”
“You’re injured.”
“You said yourself it’s only a graze. I’ve had deeper cuts from shaving.”
His real reason for wanting to stop wasn’t because he’d spent long hours behind the wheel—he really wanted to spend a few minutes of solitude with her. Take in the beautiful scenery and maybe make a memory.
His thinking was a complete one-eighty from minutes before when he made the decision to back away. Yeah, his judgment might be more than a little clouded by all her cute little mannerisms like pushing her glasses up or chewing at the same fingernail. Not to mention the breathy cries of pleasure echoing through his mind.
The road to the canyon pitched steeply, but then leveled off in a place where they could park. When he got out, Roman did too. Ross nodded to him as he checked the gun at his waistband, ensuring he had a good grip if he needed it.
When Ross opened the passenger door, Pippa twisted to face him. “Am I allowed to get out and walk around?”
Christ, her beauty stole his breath. Those plump lips had a natural pink flush that made him want to kiss her harder—to use her mouth—just to see them turn red.
Their gazes clung. Finally, he held out a hand to her. She slipped hers into it, and he assisted her to the ground.
She winced at the first step, and he stopped. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I need to move. My butt’s falling asleep.”
One look at her backside told him that he was very much alive and kicking, at least. The rounded globes begged for him to cup them and lift her against his erection. Fuck, what had he been thinking to stop and sightsee?
He slowly led her across a rocky path leading to a lookout over a canyon. The white sky against the gray rock and dark pines stole his breath—or so he thought before his gaze landed on Pippa.
His heart caught. Hell, it beat out of time.
She twisted to meet his stare, and what she saw on his face made her lips part.
“I’m sorry in advance.”
She blinked. “For what?”
“This.” He hooked a hand around her nape and drew her mouth to his. Dark passion loomed beneath the surface, and it burst out the moment he tasted her.
A soft moan escaped her lips, snatched by the wind, but he took the next one and fed it back to her with a groan of his own. With a hand on the small of her back, he drew her against him. As she twisted the cloth of his coat, his heart gave another hard jerk.
“Ross,” she murmured between sweeping passes of his tongue.
“Pippa…” His own tone came out like gravel under his boot.
“Don’t ever apologize for this.” She leaned into him.
He pulled away with no intention of going back for more—but he did. What about her drove him to the brink of insanity? His brothers would believe he jumped into the gorge before they’d buy a story about him stopping to woo her in a beautiful place.
Cupping her face, he applied pressure to her chin, causing her to open wider for his tongue. When he plunged inside, there wasn’t any turning back from this now. He’d torn down too many fences, and now the bull was in the pasture, so to speak.
Ross would have her, if only for one night of madness.
When he withdrew, he slowly peeled his fingers off her one at a time, each fingertip reluctant to leave her body. He took a step back.
Her hazel eyes glimmered with the heat he’d only given her a few short minutes to experience.
“I wish I could take a selfie of us here. It’s beautiful,” he rasped.
“You’re not looking at the scenery.”
“I have better things to look at than a bunch of rock walls.”
Her soft smile and the way she tucked her chin swelled his heart.
Taking her hand, he led her back to the truck. Roman leaned against his SUV. Seeing them, he straightened and circled to the driver’s door. If he had questions about what they were doing—or had seen them—he didn’t say.
Ross broke the code of honor a bodyguard lived by. If one of his employees at WEST Protection laid a hand on his ward, Ross would fire him, brother, cousin, friend or otherwise. Rationalizing that he and Pippa would be equally as attracted to each other if she’d come to the ranch for a friendly visit wouldn’t make it right, even if it was absolutely true.
As he assisted her into the truck, he saw her wince. “You’re taking painkillers.”
“Fine, but I only need a couple pills, not the morphine in your first-aid kit.”
He quirked a smile at her and retrieved the kit from the back seat. After he handed her a bottle of water and dropped two pills into her cupped palm, he couldn’t resist reaching out and brushing his thumb across her lips.
“They’re swollen,” he murmured. “I’d say I’ll be gentler next time I kiss you, but I’d be lyin’.”
Her breasts heaved as she sucked in a sharp breath at his words.
Driving back to the exit to get on the highway lulled him into a sense that everything would be okay. He’d get Pippa safe. Even the weather was cooperating, the deep gray snow clouds breaking up to create an expanse of white sky.
As they entered the roadway, he checked his side mirror—and spotted a vehicle flying up next to him. He braked but not before they were cut off.
Pippa gasped and braced a hand on the dash.
He saw the driver of the other vehicle raise his arm. In a blink, Ross assessed the danger.
“Get down!” he barked to Pippa.
She folded in half as a volley of bullets sprayed his truck. He whipped out his weapon to
defend them. Roman hit the gas and zoomed by in pursuit. Ross’s phone buzzed.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Roman demanded.
“No fucking clue. I’m hanging back. I can’t put my ward in the line of fire.” No sooner did the words leave his mouth that he glanced in his rearview to see another vehicle bearing down on him. Roman took off after the shooters in a high-speed chase, which left Ross on his own.
“What’s going on?” Pippa cried.
“Don’t lift your head. Stay. Down.” He stomped the gas to outrun the asshole coming at them from behind. All his tactical training kicked in. He gauged distance, speed and calculated the velocity of his bullet.
“Ross!”
“I’m handling it. Just do as I say,” he commanded her.
Up ahead Roman and the other car were engaged in a rolling shootout, and if Ross didn’t get the hell away from this other pursuer, he’d be in the same situation with Pippa.
“Hold on.” He hit a speed of eighty. Then eighty-five. The vehicle kept up. Why had he agreed to take this highway? On a back road, he’d have side roads to jump on and lose this motherfucker.
Pippa’s labored breathing reached into his brain and snapped his focus to her.
“Take slow breaths. You’re hyperventilating.”
“Wynton, what’s your status?” Roman’s voice came at him.
“Holding my own. Can’t shake this guy off my tail.”
“Try to cut across the median and into the eastbound lane.”
“Never make it through that deep snow. I’m going to take a shot,” Ross said.
Pippa issued a strangled cry.
If he could hit a tire, he’d make a getaway.
He also ran the risk of being shot in return.
“I’ll get you first, you bastard. Come on.” He let off the gas, dropping back to allow the pursuer to catch up. As soon as he had the car within firing range, he hit the brakes. The truck went into a skid, the back end fishtailing to the right as they started into a donut.
“Oh God!” Pippa screamed.
Ross had a perfect shot. He’d never fired through a windshield before, but he’d seen it demonstrated. His stare jumped between the rear tire of the vehicle to the figure in the driver’s seat.
The truck continued in its skid, but he had control. As they swung past the vehicle, he fired.
* * * * *
Pippa had never hyperventilated in her entire life. Not when she was on that swinging bridge over a precipice during her time in Asia and she realized just how deep her fear of heights ran. Not even after her attack in the airport, though she’d been dizzy from breathing so hard.
The truck seemed to spin. Then she realized it really was spinning on the roadway. If being out of control wasn’t scary enough, the shots Ross fired made her blood run cold in her veins. She lifted her head to see him firing straight through the windshield.
“Get down!”
She dropped her face to her knees again, fear an icy cloak. She started to shiver.
More popping sounds had her heart stalling in her chest.
“They’re shooting at us!” she cried out.
Ross said nothing—he was engaged in a battle for their lives. He brought the truck out of the donut with all the ease of a stunt driver. Which way was which? Without her vision, for all she knew, they were facing backward on the road.
“Holy shit!” he burst.
“What’s happening?”
“Stay down! Roman drove that other vehicle off the road and it just flipped about eight times.”
“Is Roman okay?”
The man’s voice projected through Ross’s speakers. “I’m fine. Even the jaws of life can’t help that bastard, though.”
“I have to get us out of this situation.” Ross’s voice was tight.
Next thing she knew the vehicle surged forward, picking up speed by the second. Terror had Pippa clinging to the seat, her fingers aching from holding on so tight.
She wished she could see what was happening. Anticipating them flipping eight times like that other vehicle, or Ross being shot, tore her apart with terror.
A whir of a window going down stood the hair up on her nape. Freezing air rushed over her.
Ross fired five shots in a row. “Yes!”
She couldn’t resist jerking upright, danger or not. She swept her gaze over the roadway to see they were facing forward, and the other vehicle zigzagged all over the place before leaving the road.
The vehicle hit the snow humped on the side from the snowplow and launched upward. Flipped. And continued to roll.
“Hell yeah!” Roman exclaimed as he spotted the victory.
She threw a look at Ross. His jaw clenched into a steel vise, but he didn’t speak or look her direction.
“I have to get us the fuck off this road. Roman, get us on a better route.”
“Got it. Follow me.”
As Ross drove by the wreckage, she turned to try to make out any survivor.
“Did you…shoot the driver?” Her voice wobbled.
“Yes.” How he slipped the syllable out between his tight jaw, she had no clue.
“How did they find us? What is happening?”
“Pippa, give me your phone.”
Her eyes widened. Her phone?
She scrabbled in her bag and held it up. “Why?”
“Hand it to me.”
“It’s my personal device. I don’t think anyone—”
The blazing fury in his eyes stopped her.
Gulping, she held out the phone. Was it possible someone was tracking her through it?
He dropped it to the floor by his feet, jerked his knee upward and then crushed her phone under his boot. Several stomps later, he reached down and lifted the busted remains. He opened the window and hurled it out.
The cold air worked another shiver through her, but so did the truth of the situation.
More lives than her own were on the line. She’d put Ross, and Roman too, in danger. In her crunched pose, she had no idea what the roadway must have looked like, but she pictured them using their vehicles like steel horses. In their younger years, Ross and his brothers used to race, and she could still see them galloping fast and furious across the fields.
“Do you think they were tracking me through my phone?”
“Most likely.” He glanced toward her feet, where her computer bag sat.
Panic rushed through her. “No way. It can’t be my computer too—it’s secured with top level passwords and my thumbprint. Nobody could enter it. Not even MIZR.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he muttered. “You might believe your company and everyone in it is on your side, but at least one person is your enemy, Pippa. Wake up and look at what’s going on.”
She held the breath until her lungs burned.
He was right.
Someone she worked with, maybe even closely in the lab, backed these attacks. They wanted her data enough to threaten her life, along with those of her bodyguards. They hunted her to the airport in Detroit and now to the West Coast.
“M-maybe I shouldn’t go to Seattle,” she whispered.
He swung his head toward her. “No, we’re going. And as many of my men as I can muster will be there to lay a trap. We’re going to put an end to this forever, Pippa.” He twitched his jaw toward her laptop bag again. “If you won’t let me smash the fucking thing, then you’re going to let my men analyze it.”
Seeing no other way around his demand, she nodded.
The quivery feelings he’d raised in her with his kisses on the edge of that canyon hardened into dark coals. Ross Wynton’s kisses made her forget her reason for being with him. It lured her into a false sense of security, and for those few breathless, heart-pounding seconds, she stopped being afraid.
They’d been driving for what felt like days now. Everything started to look the same. Mountains in the distance, snow and sky.
After an hour of silence, Ross said, “I’m sorr
y I had to break your phone.”
“I understand.”
“Usually the first thing a person ditches when they’re on the run is their phone.”
“Since I’ve never been on the run, I never thought of it.”
“Of course not, honey.”
The endearment trickled through her, bathing her with warmth.
“We’re stopping for the night so you can sleep.”
She studied his profile. Lines rimmed his eyes, from stress, fatigue or both. She’d caused those lines.
Minutes later they turned into a sleepy little town. She’d believe it to be abandoned if not for a random vehicle parked in front of the bar or small grocery store. The motel was as small as the last, clad in dark wood siding and the tan shutters lent a quaint appeal. A carved bear stood sentry next to the hand-hewn sign declaring a vacancy.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Somewhere in Washington.” Ross’s humor gave her the first glimpse of his old self since the shootout.
“That’s good enough.”
Roman went inside to secure two rooms. She hated how her heart beat too fast and her legs felt weak when she left the safety of the truck to follow him to the room. With two big men sandwiching her the entire walk from parking lot to motel, she felt much more important than she actually was.
While Ross searched the room, she sank to the bed and pulled her jeans up to inspect the wound on her calf.
Ross walked out of the bathroom after inspecting every corner. His gaze landed on her. “Are you in pain?”
“It stings a little but it’s fine.”
“Is it hot?”
“I know how to look for infection. Besides, that penicillin shot should kill off anything. Where did you get your first-aid kit? A farm supply store?”
His lips twitched. “We have our sources.”
They faced each other.
His eyes burned with anger unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
Shocked silent, she peeled off her coat and dropped it to the nearby chair.
He did the same, and his eyes never lost that flicker of fury.
