She pulled her thoughts in and managed to stop her body from shaking by thinking about the fact that Nicolas needed help. He might be a doctor and an alien, but he still needed help. Her help.
She hated putting the same singed and smoke covered clothes back on, but it was all she had for now.
She walked out to find him standing behind a curtain, looking out the window. He’d taken his shirt off and shards of glass were sticking out of his back. She gasped moving over to him.
“Your back.”
“It was my back or yours. I was sure I could handle it better.” He gave her a quick smile. “You’re going to have to take them out for me. First, take the pills I set out for you.”
“What are they?”
“Something that will take away the pain and increase your ability to heal the burns. They won’t harm you. Trust me.”
She went over and took the pills. If he’d wanted her dead, she would be. Nicolas was the reason she was still alive and she knew it.
“Is the glass just in your back?”
He nodded his head before going to lie down on the bed. “My beast is pushing it up towards the surface, but I still need you to take it out. I laid a pair of forceps out as well as tweezers. Use whatever works the best for you.”
Janis looked over his back. It looked like a mine field with the glass being the mines. She picked up the empty glass that just held the water she used to take the medicine. His back was red and angry looking, yet he never flinched.
She reached out and began carefully pulling out the bits and pieces of glass. She watched with fascination as more glass was pushed out of his body to take the place of the bits she’d finished pulling entirely free. His beast was doing his best to help the process. At least she wouldn’t have to try and dig below the surface for stray slivers of the stuff.
Once she was done, she pulled out several square bandages and used them to carefully wipe down his back. She stopped as pieces of glass she’d not seen with her eyes but felt with her hands came to her attention. She pulled them out and continued the sweep downward. She did an entire sweep of his back four times before she was satisfied both she and his beast had gotten all of the glass out.
“What next?”
“I laid out a cream. Apply it to my back and any burns you see.”
She took the glass that was almost filled to the bar. The red tinged glass bits shone dully from the slivers of sun coming into the room. Turning her attention back to the matter at hand, she quickly washed her hands, before grabbing the cream and spreading it over Nicolas’s back.
He never flinched, but she flinched enough for the both of them. When she was done, she spread it over his burns. They were much more severe than hers.
“What do we do now?”
“We rest. I need several hours of rest in order to heal, but I believe I can make do with an hour. Janis, I need to put myself into a trance-like state. You need to be as quiet as possible. Don’t answer the door under any circumstances. If anything happens, like someone breaching the door, I’ll be alerted and wake.”
She nodded her head.
“Janis, this is important. If they say the building is on fire, you don’t respond. If there is an issue, I’ll wake. I need your word.”
“I understand. I promise I won’t respond to anyone. I won’t put our lives in any more jeopardy than they are already.”
He gave her a weak smile before he closed his eyes. Janis made herself comfortable on the bed, sitting by his side.
Was it just this morning she’d said she wanted adventure? What was she thinking? She needed to confine her thoughts of adventures to normal things, like the male with a great ass sleeping beside her.
Not that he was normal. He was an alien and that seemed to be the only thing making sense right about now. Funny how being born with a condition that didn’t officially have a name made you more agreeable to the things in life others would run from. Nothing made you agreeable to being marked for death though. Shying away from that thought, she turned to look at Nicolas again.
She thought of how it felt to have him pressing down on her. Ok, so it wasn’t how she wanted it to happen. He’d jumped on her to keep her safe, but her body called it semantics.
He was on her and that was all she’d cared about. Her heart started racing. She wasn’t sure if it was the danger of almost being burned alive by a homemade bomb or the threat of going up in flames from the feel of his body pressing into her.
She’d even made herself believe that she’d felt a response from his body to hers. She was crazy. He couldn’t have been as excited as she was. The smell of him in her nose almost eclipsed the smell of the gasoline product they used.
She licked her lips as her eyes caressed his badly bruised back, his taunt ass leading to a nice pair of long legs. She could stay in this room forever. She allowed her eyes to close, drifting off into a fantasy that was all about wicked satisfaction.
There was a sharp knock on the door causing her eyes to pop open.
“Housekeeping. I’m here to clean your room.” The feminine sounding voice came from the other side of the door.
Janis sat on the bed and struggled to control her breathing. The desire to open the door so the woman could do her job battled with her natural mistrust of all humans as well as the promise she’d given to Nicolas. In the end, she sat silently and listened.
The woman knocked again. “If you don’t open up, I’ll assume the room is empty and let myself in.”
Janis looked at Nicolas. He’d said he would wake if there was a problem, but he was still in his trance-like state.
The sound of the woman messing with the lock pulled Janis’s gaze back to the door. She glanced around the room as her heartbeat picked up. She would need a weapon, she was done letting people hurt her. The handle rattled for several minutes until the woman gave up and began beating on the door.
“I know you’re in there. What did you do to the lock?” The light feminine voice took on a deeper sound, still feminine but filled with animosity. “You won’t be happy when my supervisor comes back.”
Chapter Six
Janis moved closer to Nicolas before lying down. She inhaled his scent, allowing it to calm her shaking body and her overly frayed nerves. She pondered the cleaning lady. Why would she come to clean their room when they hadn’t been here for an hour? She raised her head and looked around the room. Wouldn’t she know the room was now occupied?
Someone found them. She huddled a little closer to Nicolas. He was the only thing standing between her and certain death. Why was he willing to protect her? How did he appear in her life at the exact moment she needed him? More importantly, why would someone want to end her miserable existence? She had lots of questions, but no answers.
The heat from his body along with his mesmerizing smell was relaxing her. Janis let her eyes drift closed for a few minutes. It was the loud knock at the door that brought her to the surface once more. This knock was harder. Whoever was knocking expected to be acknowledged.
“Manager.” The deep voice spat out. “We need to get into your room.”
Her eyes went to look at Nicolas, who was still dead to the world, then back to the door. She continued to keep her breathing even. She was now plastered to his side while her heart was beating in over drive. She could feel her palms sweating. Whoever was on the other side of the door wasn’t a manager. She was sure of that.
“Janis, open the door and maybe you will live through this.”
Lie. They all lied. The fact he knew her name when Nicolas never added her to the registry meant she was a goner, if she acknowledged him. She buried her face in Nicolas’s shoulder. If she was going to die, she was going to take a pleasant memory with her. It also meant she was right, they were after her. Again the question why rolled through her mind.
Nicolas’s navy blue eyes popped open, scaring her with their intensity. She would’ve screamed from the shock, but his mouth covered hers. The heat of his mouth had her melting a
gainst him, even as her mind screamed about the danger beyond the door.
The kiss was frantic and hard. More please, she whispered to herself, even as he was moving away.
He put his fingers to his mouth as she tried to say something. She nodded and watched as he stood and stretched, testing out his body. He walked towards the door, and then dropped, placing his ear against the floor.
He got up and shook his head at her before heading towards the windows. They were on the third floor of the hotel. He stood looking out for several minutes before coming back to the bed.
“We have three options.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed, he held her cold hands between his warming them.
“Three? That’s more options than I thought we had. What are they?”
“First, we could go through the door. I estimate at least five males out there. If we go out, it means almost certain death.”
She nodded her head at him. She’d come to the same conclusion minus the number of men who waited for them.
“Second, we can go out the window and try to make it to the roof. We may elude them for a while, but our chances are still not good.”
She looked at him with wide eyes. She had a slight fear of heights. The Ferris wheel was an instrument of torture in her world, but at this point she’d do whatever he thought was best.
“Last, we could jump.” She looked at him like he was crazy. “This is the idea I’m partial to.”
Something rammed against the door, making her jump where she was seated. He wrapped his arms around her pulling her closer.
“We don’t have much time. I put a mental barrier around the door, but it won’t hold much longer. I can jump in my beast form without injury. As long as you hold tight to me, you will be unharmed. This is the one thing they won’t be expecting, which makes it our best chance for escape.”
He stopped to look at her, waiting for her answer. She raised her eyes to look into his. She nodded her head yes. She’d trust him; it wasn’t like there was another choice.
He stood and took off his shirt. His body began to elongate and bulk out. Damn, he was fine, even as an alien. Janis licked her lips, because she was sure it was a sin to be attracted to someone who wasn’t human. She could see the intelligent calculating gaze in his eyes. This was no animal or unreasoning beast. He was simply a different species and, for whatever reason, he’d decided to keep her alive.
She wasn’t going on the ten o’clock news to tell the world about him, but she wasn’t going to run in the other direction either. She wondered if he wanted to be kept by a short plump woman. More importantly, could she climb him?
He turned his back to her and crouched down. Looked like she was going to be doing some climbing, just not the kind she was thinking about. She stood on the bed and reached over to wrap her hands around his thick neck. Then she leaned against his body, waiting for his groan at her weight. None came.
He took each leg and wrapped it around him. Her face flushed because she knew she was hot and there was no way he couldn’t feel the heat coming from her center. What a time for her feminine core to wake. Damn body.
He stood and walked over to the window as she wondered why he never spoke in this form. She clutched him even tighter as he opened the window and prepared to jump.
The door behind them shook. It wouldn’t be much longer before they gained entry. He stood in the window and checked her hold once more. He jumped as the door gave way to the deep voices demanding they stop.
Janis screamed her head off. She wished it was all from fear, but a part of her that she never knew existed was actually enjoying herself. The jump down was been short, but the air coming up at her combined with the mass amount of adrenaline her body was producing, made her want to clap like a child and insist they do it again.
She might have, but the panicked pedestrians on the street brought her back to reality. Nicolas ran off, finding a spot away from the cell phones that were coming out, so he could change back into his human persona.
“We made it.” She jumped on him and kissed him.
He held her tight for a moment returning the kiss, before he set her down.
“We’re not safe yet. We need to meet my brothers. They are making their way towards us. Do you know who wants you dead, Janis?”
She shook her head, looking confused. “No. I don’t understand why someone would want to kill me. I stay to myself. I work from home on the internet, ghost writing stories. Occasionally, I do some marketing online. I make just enough to stay alive.”
“I don’t know. But it appears right now, we are both marked for death.”
“You have to leave me. There’s no reason for both of us to die.” She meant it, even as the fear she felt began to overwhelm her body. How could they both have someone trying to kill them? The more she found out, the more confused she was. Nothing seemed to make sense although she knew her best chance at surviving was with Nicolas, but how could she add more danger to his life?
“You’re a funny mate. I won’t be leaving you. Besides, I’m marked for death by another Created, so we make a good pair. We will solve both mysteries and kill our tormentors.”
She nodded her head. When had killing one’s tormentors become acceptable? Maybe it had been when she realized she’d always be tormented because she was different. All that mattered was living the life she’d been given, no matter how many issues she had. It was her life and no one had the right to try and take it away.
“What now?”
“Clothes.”
“Huh?”
“We can’t blend in unless we get a change of clothes.”
“How do you propose we get new clothes?”
“That small stop standing several store fronts down.”
Janis looked down to see a trendy downtown boutique close to them. She made it a goal never to shop in a place like that. The small space combined with the even closer aisles caused her heart to pick up a death beat. Taking a deep breath, she remembered this was the new Janis. The one who loved adventure.
“Sounds like a plan. I hope you have money, because I haven’t seen my purse since I set it down at the house.”
He nodded and led her to the store. “Hi, how can I help you?”
A young feminine voice greeted them at the door. Her head was buried behind the counter, so she hadn’t seen them yet. She stood and gasped as she took in their appearance.
Nicolas was shirtless and his pants were dirty and ripped in places. Janis’ appearance wasn’t much better. She looked like she’d come from a war zone.
Her hand came up to her chest. The clerk was young, probably no more than twenty two or three. Pretty brown hair hung down her back in a ponytail. Janis wondered if she was going to call the cops on them.
“Are you running from the cops?” She backed up from the counter.
“No. Well, sort off.” Janis smiled at her. “We decided to sit outside and have lunch. It’s such a nice day.”
Janis walked over to Nicolas and ran her hands over his chest then turned and gave the young woman a saucy wink. She was letting out her inner Janis. This was who she always believed herself to be.
“Who could keep their hands off of a chest like this? I just meant it to be a promise for later and a chaste kiss, but before I knew it, we were ripping each other’s clothes off in public. The cops didn’t take kindly to that. Now we’re trying to get new outfits so we can make it home.”
She looked around the store like she was looking for intruders who might be listening. “We haven’t been together long. Every day I’m amazed he wants me.” She gave a sigh and looked at the saleswoman. “Can you help us?”
The young woman looked at them and nodded. “This is so great. I can’t wait to tell my boyfriend about it tonight. I can lock the door for a few minutes, but you have to hurry. If my boss comes and finds the door is locked, she will have a shit fit.”
“Thanks so much.” Janis gave her a quick hug, suffering the burns in silence.
“I have something that will look great on you.” She held up an amazing dress.
Janis licked her lips. She couldn’t wear that, but it was beautiful. She went in the back room and tried it on.
“What’s your name?’ Janis hollered out.
“It’s Ann.”
“Ann, you know your stuff. This dress is amazing and the shoes compliment it well.”
The dress was high-waisted. It emphasized her breasts while drawing attention away from her problem spots. She’d never looked so beautiful.
Nicolas walked out, looking impeccable in the dress pants he’d found. The pin striped shirt he paired with them matched his eyes. She walked over to him and began running her hands over his chest, to keep up the illusion she assured herself.
“Hey, you two. Wait till you get home.” Ann’s light laughter had her flushing in embarrassment.
“Pay Ann so I can get you alone,” Janis said with a smile until she saw shadows crowding around the front entrance.
Chapter Seven
Nicolas pulled out cash to pay Ann noticing the shadows around the entrance.
“Ann, is there a back door?” He asked.
“Sure, I can let you guys out.”
“What happens if you go out of it, Ann? Can you come back later through the front door?” Janis asked as she directed her away from the counter.
“Sure, no problem.”
“Great we’re going to treat you to a nice lunch for all you’ve done for us.
They went to the back of the store and waited until Nicolas gave them the all clear.
“Ann, it’s important that you go to lunch now. Understand?” Janis stressed.
“You don’t want the cops to know I helped you,” Ann said with a big grin.
“You do understand. If they catch you at the store, they’ll take you in. So you need to go get that indulgent lunch. If your boss asks any questions, have her
Janis turned to look at Nicolas with questioning eyes.
“Have her call Dare Securities.” He rattled off the number. “She’s to ask for Aran or Sergey Dare. They will explain everything to her.”
Nicolas: Love me Harder - Alien Paranormal Romance Page 4
