by Anne Martin
He could stick that needle into her before I reached him.
“You have two choices,” I told him. “Run now, or never run again.”
He dropped the needle and sprinted for the door. I searched the room quickly and came up with nothing other than medical equipment that looked medieval. I pressed my thumbs to my brows for a second before I picked up Trix, kicked the monster laying unconscious on the floor in the temple one more time then left the room. She was marked. That meant that she was coming with me. It wasn’t exactly how I’d planned on getting her into my bed, drugged and unconscious, but there was a certain strange circular justice to the thing.
I carried her to the stairs and went up fifteen flights to my floor. She was a dead weight in my arms by the time I pushed into the hall and went to my room. I had a hand scan on my door. The rest of the floor was empty and no elevators stopped without my permission.
I’d learned to be careful, paranoid, suspicious. I nestled her into my king-size black bed in the guestroom then straightened and shook my arms out with a groan. That was a workout. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t struggling not to lose it. I went to my computer and hacked into the hotel’s security feed. I erased myself carrying Trix then checked out the name of the guy who had reserved the room. I did a quick search, but didn’t find much.
I closed my computer and sat back on my couch, staring into space. My experience with the man in the gray suit went back to the girl, Michelle. He hadn’t knocked her unconscious and killed her baby. Why go through the effort when you could buy someone off and have them do it on their own? My dad had lots of money to throw at her.
My stomach churned at the memory: my dad paying for my freedom like it was my birthday present. I’d seen him half a dozen times since that day I confronted him. He’d come to things like my graduation as Valedictorian from Harvard. I’d had such a swollen jaw from my paid street-fight the night before, I hadn’t been able to pronounce all the words in my speech. I didn’t care. After that, I went to Vegas and didn’t look back.
I shook my head. If you asked around about Trixie’s character, you’d find out very quickly that she couldn’t be bought or borrowed. The man in the gray suit was a professional who dealt with matters of delicacy for those rich enough to pay for it. Somebody wealthy wanted Trixie’s baby to go away.
When Trixie stirred, I got her a glass of water. It took awhile for her to sit up with a gasp. She stared at me, her eyes wide, disoriented. “Horse? I love you. I’ve wanted you so long. I’m not going to do your dishes, you cheating carp!” She spit in my face.
I blinked at her, shook my head then handed her the glass. She chugged it down and then swung her legs off and started for me. She ran her hands up my chest slow and exploring. She felt so good. Would she ever touch me when she wasn’t out of her mind?
I swallowed. “You were taken for a forced abortion. Did you talk to the weenie after the last time?”
She froze with her hands on my pectorals. “What do you mean, I was taken for a forced abortion? We’re having a baby?” She screamed and threw her hands up. She spent the next fifteen minutes fighting off hallucinations. I wrestled her into my bed and held her down so she didn’t hurt herself. I definitely didn’t hate her moving against me, but hearing tough Trixie in the grip of some truly terrible demons made me wish that somehow I could take them for her.
Finally, she went limp and started breathing heavily in my arms.
“Are you with me?” I murmured into her hair.
She jerked and I pulled her closer.
“Horse? Let me go!” She started fighting me off in earnest, not the hazy hallucination where she fought off things she couldn’t see, but using moves that intended to take me out. I waited until the timing was right then let her go and rolled away from her and off the bed before she could do too much damage. My balls could only take so much.
She came up with a snarl. “What did you do to me?”
I raised my hands and stepped back. “Other than save your unborn child? Carry you up fifteen flights of stairs. Are you feeling nauseous? The creep knocked you out with something potent. It made you call me a carp. How am I supposed to live with that kind of insult?”
She stared at me. “What creep?”
“Floor twenty-seven, room number thirteen. I may have killed him with the plant pot, but I doubt it.”
“Killed him?” She stared at me, kind of blank. She was going to have hysterics. I’d have to hold her down on my bed again. I wouldn’t hate that.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t careful. Do you want to see pictures?” I held out my phone and she got to see herself unconscious on a generic beige hotel bed along with a picture of the guy lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood and plant pot shards.
“I look so fat. Why did you take pictures from that angle?” She grabbed my phone and swayed.
“Pregnant women never look fat. Sorry, the next time I… Hey, sit down.” I guided her back to the bed and helped her down onto it while her hand slid off the phone and onto my wrist, gripping me tightly.
“This happened? Why?”
I shrugged. “Why is hard to answer. I saw him jab you with something in the lobby. You dropped fast.”
She frowned and nodded. “And those hallucinations…” She shuddered and turned her head for a second into my shoulder. I almost put my hand on her hair, but then she straightened. “Ketamine probably.”
She knew the drugs used to knock people out? Of course she did. She probably drugged people and dragged them into the desert all the time. Maybe it had nothing to do with the weenie and her unborn child. Maybe the guy with the needle had good intentions.
“What’s the name of the weenie?”
“Richard.”
“Last name?”
“Head.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Come on, Trix. Don’t you want to get to the bottom of it?”
She raised a hand. “Hold on, you had me unconscious on your bed and you expect me to believe that you didn’t do anything to me?”
I blinked at her. “Why do you sound insulted? I’m not about to take a girl unwillingly, not when there are so many agreeable options that wouldn’t land me in jail, or dead by car bomb. Focus. What’s his name?”
She shook her head and exhaled. “He’s just a businessman from upstate New York. He called a few times, but I didn’t answer. I’ll give him a week to get over it before I change my number.”
“How good was it?”
She stared at me. “What?”
“Let me rephrase that. How good did he think it was? Did you blow his mind?”
She scowled at me. “How should I know?”
“You know when you blow a man’s mind, Trix.”
She shrugged uncomfortably. “He called me a cheap stripper and said it wasn’t that good.”
“Right, but he’s calling you? Did he leave messages? Did you listen to them? Play them.”
She took out her phone and played the messages on speaker. Weenie sounded seriously upset. He rambled drunkenly until the message cut off. The gist was that he couldn’t be held accountable for words he said while in shock. It wasn’t his fault that he’d called her a cheap whore.
“He didn’t say that,” she muttered.
“He did now.”
She glared at me. “Why are you doing this?”
“You think I get this kind of action every day? Sh.”
We listened to the last message where he spoke in very clear, very stilted language that he would love to see Trixie again and talk about how she wanted to deal with the pregnancy.
“He wants me to have an abortion,” she said, frowning.
“Or he wants to marry you. You blew his mind.”
She shot me a glare. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I do. A little suburbanite like him carried off by a dragon like yourself? Did you disappear without a word the morning after? That’s particularly harsh
for a guppy like him. I can see it now, him having the best night he’s never been able to imagine, then a month searching for you, never hearing from you, then you show up, drop a bomb, and then a few more because he wasn’t devastated enough.”
“Are you saying you think it’s okay for him to drug me and kidnap me?”
“Oh, no. I’m saying that he didn’t do it.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “You are? Then who did? Just a random sicko? That’s possible. This is Sin City.”
“Not a random anything. Someone doesn’t want him to be involved with you.”
“He’s not married. I checked.”
“Before or after?”
She snarled at me and started for the door.
“You’re smart enough to know that you need to stay away from your usual haunts until we’ve figured this out.”
She whirled around, eyes bright with anger and fear. “You think I’m going to stay with you? Tell me what you get out of it?”
I crossed my arms and stared at her. “Why do you hate me?”
She blinked rapidly. “You’re despicable.”
“I’m no worse than Nix was, but you adore him.”
“You’re nothing like Nix.”
I took a step closer to her. “Is my hair too dark for you? You prefer blondes? That doesn’t explain the hate.”
She took a step away from me, her eyes wary. This wasn’t the right time, but we had to get through this if she was going to trust me enough to help her.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yes, you do.”
She glared at me and took two steps until she was right there, her chest brushing mine while she opened her mouth to launch into her spiel. “You’re a snob.”
“Excuse me?” I’d expected disrespectful to women.
“The way you talk about art and literature is always condescending, like no one in Vegas could appreciate anything that wasn’t a Thomas Kincaid. You have the best equipment but throw it away as soon as a new shiny object comes along.”
“You’re talking about women?”
“I’ll get there. No, that beautiful Hunter assault vehicle that you practically threw away because it wasn’t as appealing for the camera. You want to talk about women? Fine. You never hire real women for your team. You’re fine ogling women, but you can’t work with them. Don’t say Vicky and Tess. You know that they’re a sub-species to the rest of your crew.”
I stared at her. “You don’t care that I sleep around?”
“As far as I can tell, that’s the only charitable thing you do. You have no shortage of extremely willing victims.”
“Victims?”
“To your charms. Not that I hate you. I don’t care enough to hate you.”
I studied her for a long time before I nodded. “Fine. You’re right. I have a hard time working with women.”
She smirked.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not talking about lust, I’m talking about…”
She crossed her arms. “I didn’t think that there was anything else for you.”
I stepped into her and captured her face in my hands. “When I’m responsible for women, I don’t like to put them in danger. Do you remember Nitrogen?”
She blinked at me, surprised enough that she didn’t pull away. “That was a terrible accident.”
“And Dirk was responsible. I’d tried to hire her, but he got her. That’s why he quit leading crew and joined Nix. That’s why I would hire you because you’re the best, but I would hate every second of it and probably develop ulcers.”
I pulled back before she could knock my hands away. She stared at me, her eyes searching for lies. “You’re still a snob.”
I laughed and ran a hand through my hair. “Fine. I’m a snob, and I don’t have enough sentimental feelings for machines. Are those good enough reasons for you to put your life in danger before we’ve figured this out?”
She scowled at me before she went and sat down on my bed.
Finally, Trixie Dragon O’Hara on my bed of her own free will. How difficult would it be to keep her there?
Chapter 5
Trixie ‘Dragon’ O’Hara
The first thing Horse did, was tuck me into bed, give me copious amounts of fluids, and call a doctor. I would have protested or something, but I was busy trying not to throw up, and that drug, whatever it had been, put me to sleep. The next morning I woke up with the clear-headed realization that I’d slept in Horse’s bed.
He didn’t sleep in it. He was sprawled on a tufted leather chair. He looked so good in spite of the teeny bit of drool in the corner of his mouth. He looked relaxed, almost normal, not the usual brooding egocentric jerk we all loved to hate. He was put together very well. Yes, I liked to watch him fight Nix, and not just because I liked it when Nix made him bleed. And kissing him? I’d been out of my mind, horribly hung-over, but he still knew how to kiss a girl’s socks off. Not that I’d been wearing socks. I wasn’t wearing socks now, either. One of the best things about having seasons other than endless summer was wearing socks.
“Are you finished ogling me, Dragon, or do you need to undress me with your eyes a little longer? You can undress me with anything you like.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, but those slivers of deepest ocean blue were waiting for me to. I shrugged. “Everyone looks better when they’re sleeping. You do look good. It’s too bad it’s all surface.”
He got a hurt look on his face. “I’m good at every level. If you want proof, I’ll demonstrate it right now.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You never let up. What did you find out while I was out? Also, and I hate to say this, so listen closely, thank you for letting me find refuge in your nest of iniquity. Not sleeping on the bed with me is phenomenally big of you.” I raised my hand. “Don’t say anything about your bigness. Just say, ‘you’re welcome, Trixie, my pleasure,’ no, scratch pleasure.”
He laughed, low and warm like a crackling fire on a cold day. Good thing we were in Vegas and there were no such things as cold days. He looked so good.
I scowled at him as he took his time before he arranged his face in a serious expression that belied the laughter in his eyes.
“You’re welcome, Trixie.”
I raised my eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate, but other than his mouth twitching, he didn’t say anything else.
I studied him. “Now I’m nervous. Your bad behavior is going to come out in another way. What did you find out about the drug and the guy who did that? Did the cops find anything?”
He shook his head. “It was cleaned out by the time security got there. What do you want to order for breakfast?”
“That’s it? You said it wasn’t Ritchie, so who was it? Are the cops on the case?”
He raised his eyebrows. “They aren’t. To be honest, there wasn’t any evidence other than a girl in my bed, and I didn’t want to bring it to anyone’s attention in case it’s some kind of mafia thing.”
I blinked at him. “Mafia thing?”
“You’re family is mafia, right?”
I almost got angry at him, but I had some cousins. And uncles. And aunties. My mother’s side… I shrugged. “Not in Vegas.”
His eyes widened and he looked impressed. It was strange to see an almost authentic look on his handsome face. It was my father’s family that was truly scary.
“Tell me the weenie’s name.”
“Why do you call him that? It’s so juvenile.” Dickwhistle was way better. I didn’t hang around to answer him, because nausea had me running for the toilet. The bathroom was clean, at least. It was very large and probably good for all sorts of cavorting, particularly the circular glass shower and sunken tub.
Horse followed me in and held back my hair. He rubbed my shoulders absently while he stared off into space, apparently used to this sort of thing. He did run a crew. It was hard to think of Horse as someone who could handle being responsible for other people, but he kept a good crew. Except for Pixel
. He needed to do something about that. When I was finished, I found some cleaner in the cabinet and started spraying down everything my germs might have come in contact with.
“What are you doing?” Horse took the spray bottle out of my hands. “These are toxic chemicals.”
I scowled at him. “I’m not just going to spread my germs around your room without cleaning up. It’s not a very big room for a hotshot like you.”
He shrugged. “I have an adjoining suite when I don’t have company.”
I stared at him. There was something really weird about that. Also offensive. It was fine for me to throw up in his guest toilet so long as I didn’t taint his real living space.
“Are you done? I ordered breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.” Except, I was. So hungry. I put my head in my hands and felt so awful and so confused and so unbalanced. I always knew who I was and what I was doing. People didn’t get in my way. But this whole thing, pregnancy and an attack from some unknown entity that left me in Horse’s very capable hands? He wouldn’t let me forget how capable they were. I didn’t sit on bathroom floors with arrogant jerks who enjoyed watching me puke. Not that he seemed particularly interested.
“You’re starving, and not just for me. Have you had any lovers since the amoeba?”
I got to my feet. “As fun as this has been, and I have to admit that being drugged, kidnapped, and experiencing horrific hallucinations wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be in your bed, I need to get on with my life.”
He followed me out of the bathroom. “I have another bedroom. There’s a lot of living area. What I’m saying is that if you get killed or your baby gets killed, I’ll feel responsible. You can be my roommate, not roommate, housemate. If it bothers you, I can keep the innuendo to a minimum, although I know you love it.”
I whirled around to glare at him. That’s when someone knocked on the door. My reaction was immediate cold sweat and stupid though it was, I actually moved to Horse and put his body between me and the door.
