by Lea Griffith
Instead of walking, they ran. King moved to an abandoned airport security truck, and they hopped in. He hot-wired the vehicle and had them on the move in under a minute.
“Get down,” he ordered.
She did as he directed. There was hope for her yet.
A gunshot punched out the back glass, and King ducked. He could see no one behind them, but obviously someone was back there shooting. He hung a right and took off around the terminal, passing planes and looking for the airport parking lot.
He’d have to ditch this truck and get them out into the city of Douala quickly.
“Who are you?” she asked and then grunted as she was thrown against the door.
King had just broken through a fence barrier to the airport parking lot and managed to shed the fence that tenaciously clung to the bumper. He picked a row of cars and barreled down it.
“King,” he replied succinctly.
She snorted. “Okay, now really, who…oomph…holy… Could you stop… Son of a…”
He slammed on the brakes. He winced when her head bumped against the glove box. “Sure.”
King hurried out of the truck and picked the first car he came to. He didn’t need flashy; he needed operational. Flashy had alarms. Operational could go undetected.
Fortunately, the first one he came to fit both bills. A Yugo. It just kept getting better and better. The car was unlocked and he slid in.
“A Yugo?” she asked, standing beside him now. “Seriously?”
“In the car and don’t talk,” he demanded.
Her brows lowered and her mouth tightened, but she decided to throw in her lot with him. She rounded the car and got in. King lowered the sun visor, and the keys fell into his lap. The Yugo’s only saving grace was that he wouldn’t have to expend the energy to hot-wire it.
The piece-of-shit car cranked, and King squealed out of the spot, though he slowed down as he approached the exit gate. “Act normal,” he said. “And don’t look anyone in the face.”
Allie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to—the anger pinching her features spoke volumes. He almost, almost laughed. They were both soaking wet, but for some reason she looked even more beautiful.
“You laugh at me, and I’ll get you back,” she said from the corner of her mouth.
Spunk. He hated spunk. Oh, and bravery. He hated that too. “You already have,” he responded and enjoyed the way her eyes widened.
Blue, soul-sucking eyes. Her presence was enough of a payback.
“I didn’t. But first chance I get—”
King held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…whatever. Now be quiet and lower your face.”
The woman actually growled at him. And it was sexy as hell. The smile that tugged his lips caught him by surprise.
He pulled up to the exit gate and grabbed the stub someone had hung on the Yugo’s rearview mirror. He’d done the owner a favor by stealing this tin can. He lowered the window and handed the attendant the stub.
“Fifty francs,” the woman said and held out her hand.
The car wasn’t even worth that amount, but King calmly took out a twenty-dollar American bill, which was about two hundred times the amount due, and paid her, telling her to keep the change. Then he rolled up the window, saw the flashing lights in the mirror, and even more calmly pulled out of the lot.
He turned onto the main thoroughfare and began heading out of the city.
“Can I raise my head now, Your Majesty?”
Oh, she was a viper-tongued bit of sexiness. “No,” he said just to be contrary. Something inside him really liked it when she was riled.
“Soooo going to get back at you when we stop,” she huffed.
He grunted.
They drove an hour, and he was grateful she didn’t ask questions. Eventually, she sat up straight and leaned her head against the headrest. She didn’t look at him once. During that hour, he made plans, checked their six while driving all over Douala, and came to the conclusion the little Peace Corps volunteer from Virginia wasn’t who he’d been told she was.
Information carrier, my ass. But King could not shake the sense that she’d been trained. Her calmness in the middle of the plane fiasco had sent his thoughts on that path. Her ability to take on that terrorist drove his theory completely home.
When the mission in Beirut had gone to hell, he’d not listened to his instincts. It had cost him three operatives. Nine had gone in; six had come home. It had been a miracle they’d all survived the crash, but he could still hear the gunshots that had taken Samson, Madoc, and then Ella to the afterlife. The helo crashing had been the least of their worries. Dresden and Savidge had been waiting for them.
King had regrets, but not listening to his own instincts that day was one of the greatest. And it had all led him here—to this woman.
Beirut had only been the opening sortie. Yes, Horace Dresden had been a target for Endgame, but he’d been much more. In the year since the debacle outside Beirut, Endgame had discovered Dresden was a tool for the entity looking to take down Endgame Ops, using whatever means necessary. King was determined to find and eliminate Dresden, Savidge, and that entity, no matter what the cost.
King pushed the past deep. Douala proper was fading in his rearview. They were close to their destination, but he’d have to take it slow getting there and then check it out before he took her in. This was an alternative safe house that only the current members of Endgame knew about. Still, he would be here an hour tops before they moved again. Nothing was truly safe anymore, and he wasn’t the only one after her. There was no telling who was on their trail now. He pulled onto the side of the road so they could rest and allow a little time to pass. He needed to scout the safe house and determine whether it remained that way before he took her inside anyway.
He turned to her. “Who are you?” he asked.
She looked up at him, and there was it was again—that feeling she’d stolen something from him. His hands clenched as he fought the urge to rub the area of his chest where his heart was.
“Allison Redding,” she replied. “My friends call me Allie.”
He winced and shook his head. “Who. Are. You?”
“Who are you?” she queried, with a tilt of her head and a stubborn look in her eye.
“I told you…King.”
“That’s your name? King? Who has a name like King?”
He glanced at her, then back out the windshield, all while remaining dead silent.
“That’s all you’re going to give me?” she asked. “Huh, imagine that. Look, if you don’t give me information, then I’m left to assume. And you know what they say about assuming…”
He remained silent. She sounded a bit desperate, and if he were to assume she was an innocent and not Savidge’s courier, that was normal for what she’d just been through.
“Okay, you must want to know what I’m assuming. Here it is. I’m guessing your real name was horrible—oh, I don’t know, something like Herman or Leslie or Gaylord—and little boys beat you up on the playground. You thought, I’ll go for a different name, please. Something strong and manly, so you started calling yourself King.”
“What’s wrong with Gaylord?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like…” she began.
He grinned, and then his smile disappeared. It didn’t matter what she didn’t like. He had a feeling that once she started, everything would all go downhill. He needed her to take a breath and be quiet.
“Come here,” he urged, breaking into her brewing diatribe.
She leaned closer automatically. He smiled again, and damn if it wasn’t the weirdest friggin’ thing. He’d smiled more in the two hours since he’d laid eyes on her than he had in thirty-five years.
“I’m here,” she said as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d obeyed him.
And then he did what was needed. What the drumbeat of his heart was demanding. What any sane, though no less desperate man in his situation would have done.
He kissed her.
Chapter 3
As fine as he looked, the feel of his lips on her and the demand of his tongue sweeping into her mouth eclipsed that. It rendered her mute, maybe blind, possibly deaf.
Damn, he might be better than McDonald’s french fries.
Allie sighed into his mouth. Oh yeah, she was pretty much feeling all the tingles right now. She recognized the wet silk of his hair under her palms. How’d my hands get there? He licked along the inside of her bottom lip, and she hissed. Please let his tongue do that again. He kissed like it was his mission to consume her, to devour every lustful dream she’d ever had and give them back to her, making them reality.
He took her over. Her mind blanked but for the smell of minty evergreen and the heat of his mouth. Over and over he plunged into her, his tongue gentle and then intent, stroking and then licking. He sipped at her lips, and she felt the sting of his hand tangling in her damp hair. Even that small bite of pain was welcome.
He was all around her, and the car wasn’t big enough to hold the case she’d managed to develop for this man who called himself King. She should be put out at his daring. She should be confused at her own response. She was neither.
Yeah, she was screwed. Or maybe she’d just begun wishing she was.
King was there at her lips one second, and the next he was gone. Literally, out of the car like a shot, and all she could do was gape as he disappeared into the deluge that fell from the sky.
She leaned her head against the headrest and cursed herself. The rain seemed pretty determined to wash away everything in its path, and as she peered through the windshield, she wondered who the hell he was.
Because he damn sure knew how to shoot and evade. He had soldier written all over him, from the bottom of his Wellco combat boots to the hard glint in those amazing green eyes. His hands were big, strong, and callused. His breathing never changed, and his gaze never stopped roaming over his surroundings. He may not be dressed in camo, but Allie wasn’t a fool. That preternatural stillness and the cloak of wariness that rode the lines of his body were dead giveaways.
She’d been raised around his kind her entire life. Had been taught a thing or two by some of them. King had military, more specifically black ops, oozing from his pores.
A big, dark shape appeared through the rain and he was there, opening the door and getting back in. The interior of the car was freezing. Maybe she was in shock.
“It’s clear,” he said and tossed her a veiled look.
She looked back at him solemnly. “I have no idea who you are or what is ‘clear.’”
As she voiced her concern, a realization hit her in the solar plexus: She could be in even more danger with him than she’d been with the hijackers. Her dad would be disappointed. She should’ve throat-punched him the moment he kissed her.
Or, at the very least, immediately after. Because it’d been a hell of a kiss for sure.
King took a deep breath and put the car in gear. Ten minutes later, they were pulling onto a dirt road that led to a small clapboard dwelling. He stepped out of the car. She looked around, considered her options, and followed.
Between the car and the door, her clothes were soaked again.
He walked in first, pulled her in behind him, and left her there, heading to the back of the tiny house. She stood there, trembling, until he returned, bare-chested and offering her a towel. She took it and watched as he placed a bag on a small end table, then tugged on a black T-shirt. He pulled three different wicked-looking handguns out of the bag, chambering a round in each before he placed them carefully on the table. Her skin prickled as she watched him strap on a holster for each firearm, one at his back, one at his left side, and one at his ankle, before placing the firearms securely within them. He became a walking commando between one blink and the next.
He glanced at her and cocked an eyebrow. Allie swallowed her retort and used the towel to dry her hair before wrapping it around her head. Then she stood there shivering again. “Is there any heat?”
His gaze was a tactile stroke over her skin. Her nipples tightened and her core clenched. Her body was out of control.
“Seriously, I’m cold,” she said plaintively.
He walked to her then, and oh good God in heaven…his chest. She held up a hand to ward him off, going so far as to take a step backward. She met the door and knew she’d lose the fight if he came closer to her with…with that…with that chest… Even covered in cotton, it was dangerous to her sanity.
He continued to advance, his face a tight mask giving her no indication of his thoughts.
“Thank you for putting another shirt on.” She practically wheezed as she tried to pull oxygen into her lungs.
He smiled and her knees buckled. She would have hit the floor but there he was, pressing that broad expanse of tanned, smooth, now cotton-covered chest against her body. She was pinned to the door by his frame, and then he was pulling at her shirt, yanking it over her head, leaving her in nothing more than a soaking-wet bra.
King wrapped her arms around his torso, pushed her head to his chest, and stood there. It took seconds for his heat to begin soaking through her skin, warming places she’d never realized could be warmed and making her ache for all the things she’d never had. He smelled like everything a man was supposed to smell like.
“Shouldn’t kiss again,” she mumbled inanely into his breastbone.
His chest rose and fell repeatedly, but his hands tightened on her back. If she didn’t know better, she’d say they were caressing the bare skin there. When she realized hers were doing the same thing to his back, she dropped them.
“We don’t have much time, and this is the best way to warm you,” he replied finally. “There’re clean T-shirts in the other room, but I don’t want you going into shock right now, and the rain doesn’t help.”
“We shouldn’t kiss again,” she repeated. It was her mission in life to make sure he absolutely did not steal her mind with kisses anymore.
“You want me to agree to that?” he asked, but there was a hint of humor in his voice.
She nodded.
He lifted her chin with his forefinger. His gaze was intense, almost as if he were trying to ferret out all her secrets and leave no part of her untouched. “Well, I’m all about honesty, and I can honestly say that I cannot agree not to kiss you again, Allison ‘My Friends All Call Me Allie’ Redding.”
She bit her lip but couldn’t contain her smile. “Well, why not?”
The inside of the house was dark, and the rain outside afforded little light. His face was thrown in relief by shadows, but his eyes glittered dangerously.
“Because of this,” he said a second before he dove back into her.
His tongue twined with hers, and eventually his kiss moved to her neck, her collarbone, and back up again. Good God, he actually licked the tiny mole at the side of her mouth. And boy did she like that. This was beyond madness. Beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Then he lifted his head and stepped away.
Her harsh breathing was the only thing she could hear. King stepped out of the room. It should have been a blow to her ego—that he could walk away from that so easily, and she was left a hot mess. But something about the tense line of his shoulders told her he was as affected as she was.
He returned again and handed her a T-shirt similar to his. She pulled it over her head and wished fleetingly for a pair of dry pants.
“There’re no pants that will fit you, sorry,” he said, clearly reading her face even in the low light.
She’d never had much of a poker face. She shrugged and headed to the room’s only chair, falling into it and holding her head in her hands.
“I need to know who you are
,” he said from across the room.
She pulled the towel off her head and began finger-combing her hair. She sighed. Loudly. “We’re back at this again?”
“Yes.”
She’d known him two hours, and already she recognized that as his implacable, we-ain’t-moving-’til-you-answer-me tone.
She rubbed her forehead and glanced at him. “I know we met under crazy circumstances, and I appreciate you getting me off that plane and everything—because come on, terrorists—but I’m not going to give you my entire life story. I mean, how can I trust you? Your name is King, for cripe’s sake.”
“What does my name have to do with anything?”
“See, it’s not really your name, though I know I gave you a hard time about it.” She smiled, attempting to placate him. “Sorry about that, by the way. But it’s not really your name. It’s what’s behind it.” She gestured to him. “It’s you.”
He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Me?”
“Yeah,” she said around a sigh. “You.” When he crossed his arms like that, it made her happy places stand up and want inappropriate things. Dirty things. Delightful things. With him.
“I’m not sure what you mean, and I feel like I’m pulling teeth.”
“Welcome to my world. Until you tell me who you are and how you just happened to be on my flight—you know, the one that was hijacked by Boko Haram terrorists—I’m not going to give you another tidbit of information. Not a single word.” She dropped the towel in her lap and crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking his action.
“They were looking for you. You’re lucky I was there.”
She shook her head. They had obviously been looking for her, which wasn’t good in any way. Didn’t mean she was going softly into that good night. “Not giving up anything until you do,” she reminded him.
