by Honor James
Clara moved slightly from Elliott with a groan. “Craig?” she whispered and put her head back down onto what felt and smelled like Craig’s coat. “What happened?” she asked with a frown. “Oh god, Elliott.” She moved then, reaching out to touch him. “Elliott, come on, babe, show me your beautiful eyes.” She looked down and noticed that he was still outside of his pants. She quickly moved so that she could pull the condom off of him and tuck him back inside of his pants. “Elliott, come on, love, wake up.” She looked back to Craig. “What do we do? What the hell happened?”
A low groan sounded from Elliott. “Motherfucker,” he slurred out. “Who the fuck tased me?”
Craig gave her a look. “He’ll be fine. And you both were obviously tased if what he’s muttering is correct. The shock passed through him to you. That’s why you’re still mostly coherent, and he’s drooling. Give him a couple more minutes and then we’ll get him up. Do you know who did this, Clara?” he asked her. He was staring intently at her.
She nodded and looked down at Elliott and then back up to Craig. “It was him. He was here. I saw him. I know that I did. I have no idea where he went but I know for a fact that he was here.” She gulped and stroked her fingers over Elliott’s cheek. “I’m so sorry.” She had done this to him. It had been her fault that they were caught where and how they were.
“Then there are cameras who caught him, and we know the when and where so we can find him, and then track him. We’re going to get him,” Craig said to her. Elliott’s eyes were open but not very focused she noted as he lifted a shaky hand to his head.
She put her hand on Elliott’s hand, which was on her cheek, and cried just a bit more. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to him. “No more alley interludes, I promise,” she said and leaned in to kiss him once more. “Goodness I’m so sorry.” She had done this to him. It was her fault that he had been tased.
“Not your fault,” he mumbled softly. His fingers curled against her cheek, and he smiled slightly. “But no more alleys. And I’m going to fucking kill this asshole. No more jail, he’s a fucking dead man.”
“He’s feeling better, if a little bloodthirsty,” Craig said. “Let’s get you both up on your feet. We really shouldn’t stay here any longer. We need to find this asshole, and sooner is better.”
“Agreed.” Clara stood first with Craig’s help and leaned against the wall of a building. “Help Elliott up and then we will all go together?” She didn’t want to put him at risk ever again. “Think that you can have someone else pick up our meal for us? We will stick in the office today.”
“Yeah, I’ll get Donna to run over. She was talking about wanting to grab something anyway so I’ll pay for her meal, too. It’ll sweeten the deal for her.” Craig pulled Elliott up and stumbled a bit under the loose-limbed male who looked wobbly.
“Thank you for that,” Clara said with a sigh and leaned into Elliott. “Goodness, I’m hating this, so much.” She was the reason for one of the men she loved being harmed and it was driving her to distraction. She was the reason for his pain right now.
“Definitely not on my list of things to do,” Elliott told her. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and leaned on her a little more. “You may feel nauseated, or get an odd twitch for no reason suddenly. Don’t worry about it, it’ll fade soon enough. Couple days at most.”
“I hope so. Right now I feel as if I could puke,” she admitted to him. “I’ve never been tased before.” She never had a reason to be tased, so there was that. “Gracious, have you ever been done like that before? Tased that is.”
“More times than I care to remember,” he said under his breath. He heaved a sigh and let his head fall back against the wall. “Doesn’t hurt any less the more it happens. At least I know what will happen now for the next few days. Experience is a serious bitch.”
“Right, well I don’t want to do that ever again. I couldn’t imagine having the full effects of that one.” She closed her eyes again and with her arm wrapped around Elliott’s waist she moved along with him. “I’m sure that it would have been worse if we didn’t have the condom between us, too.” The latex would have given a bit of a buffer as well.
“I doubt that shielded you all that much given there was a few other points of skin to skin contact. You were lucky not to get the full brunt of it, even a secondary contact tase is nasty,” he said. They were only a block from the office, which was good because Elliott was slowing down and struggling more even with her and Craig to help him.
She clung to Elliott but felt herself wavering as well. “God my head is killing me,” she whispered. “Is that normal? The headache that feels like a hangover headache?” And she felt a little sick, too. She didn’t like it at all.
“Yup,” he said. “You’ll need to take a couple of aspirin and lie down for a time. Not flat on your back though, slightly propped up so you don’t get a vertigo sensation going. That only makes you want to throw up even more, which is bad. You also won’t want to eat anything too heavy right away, so no cheesecake. It doesn’t taste as good coming up as it does going down. Trust me on that.”
“I was looking forward to that cheesecake, too. Another reason to kill the bastard. He not only interrupted us before we could both come, but he also is delaying the enjoyment of the cheesecake.”
“Sorry about that,” Elliott muttered. Thankfully they were back at Nightshade.
Craig pulled the door open and maneuvered them both inside. Working toward the elevator he got them inside. “Damn, it’s like walking with two drunk people,” he muttered.
“And without the benefits of the booze,” Elliott said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, at least with the booze there is no pain until the next day.” Once in the elevator Clara closed her eyes and leaned against the back wall of the cube with Elliott. “Oh god I think I’m going to puke.” The elevator stopping suddenly had her stomach dropping. “Blah,” she muttered.
“You can throw up in my office bathroom,” Elliott muttered. “But you may need to share. I’m still not sure if I can keep my cookies down or not. Come on, only a few more feet to go until Yoshi stops yanking us around like rag dolls.”
“I think that he’s enjoying this far too much.” She wavered on her feet along with Elliott and saw the men of his group rising and approaching them. She didn’t feel like talking, she just wanted to curl up with Elliott on his large couch. “Your couch is calling our name.”
“Hell yeah,” he muttered.
Markham moved to her other side, hooked her arm over his shoulders, and helped keep her steady as he led her to the office. Inside Elliott’s office he helped her down onto the couch slowly so her head didn’t spin too badly.
Once she was on the couch she pushed back against the back of the couch and then when Elliott got onto the couch with her she wrapped her arms around his waist and curled up close to him.
Groaning, he rested his cheek to her hair and wrapped his arms around her.
“Do I want to know what happened to them?” Markham asked softly.
“They were kissing when Elliott got tased. She took some of the shock, but Clara’s very sure it’s our guy we’re hunting for,” Craig told him.
“I know it was,” she said from where she was wrapped against Elliott. “He looked straight at me and smiled. I would know that man’s face anywhere, so the good thing is that he hasn’t had plastic surgery.” She was still tucked tightly against Elliott and thankful for it.
“That is very good to know,” Markham said. “Once Elliott can see straight again it will make it very easy to find him. Especially since you know exactly where this fucker was at a given time.”
“Agreed. We will find this fucker and then I’m letting Elliott kill him. Seriously, he deserves to be dead,” she muttered. “If not dead then someone had better make sure that he’s away from me because I will cut his dick off.”
“Holy hell, who pissed her off?” Another familiar voice entered the office. Taking a tentative pee
k out, she saw Jacobs standing near the door.
“Good old Carl Parker tased them when Timmons had his back turned. They happened to be kissing at the time, so she got a bit of the voltage,” Craig said to him. “She got a good look at the fucker. Apparently he gave her a big toothy grin as he zapped Timmons.”
“Yes, the fucking asshat kept smiling as he held what looked like a gun thing in his hand.” Carl Parker was a man that seriously needed to be dead, the sooner the better. Obviously jail wasn’t going to keep him, so he needed to be gone from the world forever. She knew just how idiotic that sounded but she never wanted to feel this way again.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that part, but I was being electrocuted at the time. I only remember Clara’s sweet lips under mine, and then waking up on the ground with Yoshi kneeling next to me. Still feeling rough, though I can say that I’m now sadly regaining sensation to all my limbs once more. Plenty of pins and needles.”
“It was such a great kiss, too.” And more. Oh it had been so good to have him inside of her like he had been and now instead they were both suffering from the aftereffects of the Taser. She hated that, a lot. “Can we go home later, please? I want to be able to have some alone time with you boys while I get over this pain.”
“In a couple of hours I’ll get you two back to Elliott’s,” Craig promised. “For now though I need to send Donna over to pick up our lunches. Watch them for me in case one of them needs to go throw up.”
“We got them,” Jacobs assured him.
“No longer feeling like I want to puke, not with Elliott holding me.” She saw with a yawn. “Elliott, how are you doing?” She rubbed her cheek to his chest and squeezed him just a little bit more. “I’m feeling so much better now having you holding me.”
“I need to sleep for a week, minimum,” he muttered. “I also really want to lie down but know that is a horrible idea. Sitting up is so fucking exhausting, though.” He let out a groan and hugged her a little tighter before his arms loosened.
“Then maybe we should all have a nap here?” She didn’t want to have him move if he didn’t feel like doing so. “I wouldn’t be too grumbly if you wanted to just sleep here for a couple of hours.”
“I need to start finding Parker,” he said. “’Cause I don’t trust any of these guys with my babies to do the task. They are not quite tech savvy enough to do it, and their uh-ohs tend to give me heart palpitations.”
“I understand that.” She was very picky with her computers as well, so she knew what he meant by that. “Okay, nap for a half hour for me at least? I worried so much for you, babe, so please just a half hour?”
He was silent for a time before she felt him nodding against her hair. “All right, thirty minutes but not a second more. I don’t want to leave it too long, otherwise it’ll be an even bigger nightmare than it already will be. But now I really do want to lie down. Fuck me,” he muttered. “Jacobs, can you grab the pillows from the cupboard, please?”
“Sure,” the other man said.
Since they were already on the couch she let him take the pillows and put them under their heads. “Ulysses, will you turn off the light as you walk out, please?” Being alone with the lights off should help them feel a little better sooner she hoped.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll come poke you when your half hour is up so that he doesn’t get any snarlier than he is.” The lights went off, and then the door eased closed a moment later.
Clara rubbed her cheek against Elliott’s chest and sighed. “Sleep so that when we wake we can start to find these people and get them out of our lives so that we can have the rest of our forever together, right?”
“Shh, sleeping here,” he said. His amusement was clear in his voice. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he shifted slightly, and let out a sigh. “I love you, Clara. Get some rest, because as soon as we’re both back in full working order I intend to finish what we started. Just not in some alleyway where anyone could zap us again. Cause that was bad, so very bad.”
“I agree,” she said and yawned. “I can’t wait for you to finish that as well,” she teased. Sleep was good and with that thought in mind she drifted off and went to sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Tugging the blankets up over the two groaning individuals, Yoshi shook his head. “You two are really a pair,” he said. He adjusted the pillows under Clara’s head to raise it a little more. “Rest for now. I’m going to go find some soup to feed you two. I don’t think you need anything heavy right now. And we definitely need to get some water into both of you, keep you hydrated. Do you think you’ll be okay for a couple minutes?”
“Yeah, if you need I should be able to help you.” She was looking up at him with wide eyes, a smile on her lush lips. “Want me to come in the kitchen and help you out? We can do more than make soup. Maybe sandwiches as well?”
“No, you stay put. Until you can look at me without getting a glazed looked on your face every few minutes you’re to rest. You might have only got a portion of the charge, but you’re still more than a little wobbly. Chill out with Timmons for now. I’ll be back in a few minutes with the water. You’ll need to get him to drink. I’ll bring a cold compress for him, too. You can decide to put it on his head, or stuff it in his pie hole to stop the moaning.” He felt for the guy though. Getting tased was bad. Getting tased while in a compromising position while looking after the target was even worse.
“Okay, as long as you are certain.” She nestled back against Timmons once more but shot Yoshi another look. “He won’t moan and groan too much because I’m here. He might bitch while I’m in the bathroom, though, so be wary.” She closed her bloodshot eyes then and he watched her yawn, the movement making her whole body shudder.
“I might bitch while you’re in the bathroom,” he muttered. Adjusting the blankets once more, he put a hand on her forehead then left the bedroom. Going to Timmons’s kitchen he began to poke around for what he needed. Finding a couple of bottles of water he made himself a note to pick up some more. He then pulled out a thing of soup from the fridge, checked the date Timmons had written on the top, and poured it into a pot to start warming.
After he collected one of the gel packs from the freezer, he took it and the water bottles back into the bedroom. He passed the gel pack to Clara with a towel he’d snagged along the way. “Wrap the pack in the towel, and then get it under his neck. Then you both need to drink some water. Bad news is, I’ll have to run out for more bottled water later since these were the last two in the fridge.”
“Will you pick up some celery and peanut butter since I’m sure that Elliott doesn’t have any here as well?” she asked as she put the cold pack under Timmons’s neck and sat up in the bed. Yoshi smiled when the sheet dropped and her breasts were revealed to him. She pulled the sheet up to cover herself—dammit—and leaned against the headboard to watch him. “What kind of soup did you find in the fridge?”
“He had some homemade chicken noodle. You know the one, with the fancy noodles. Don’t have a clue what they are called, but it’s warming up now. I’ll run out after we eat to get some supplies.”
“Peanut butter’s in the pantry cupboard by the fridge,” Timmons muttered. “No celery, though, used the last in the soup.”
“Okay.” She looked at Yoshi and then down at Timmons. “Later I will have it as a snack. For now I’m happy to just lean back and relax.” She shifted and touched her man’s cheek. Yoshi could see Timmons fighting to wake. “Come on, love, time to take a drink. Once you’ve had that you can sleep again.”
Yoshi held out a straw to her. “So he doesn’t have to lift his head. It’s even one of the bendy ones. No clue why he had a partial box of them in the drawer, but be grateful since he’s not going to be in a particularly cooperative mood for a time. Get him to get at least half down before you let him fall back asleep. I’ll bring in soup for you, and a few munchies. Fruit mainly since we don’t want anything too heavy in your stomach. Back soon,
” he said, getting off the bed.
“Craig,” Clara called out softly to him. “Hurry back?” Yoshi heard the slightest tremble of fear in her voice and didn’t like it, at all. “I will eat whatever you put in front of me, whatever you think would be good for me. I trust you.”
Turning in the doorway, he looked at her and smiled. “I won’t be long. Just need to give the soup a stir, and then I’ll get your snack plate ready. Get him to drink, and I’ll be back before you know it. I’m only a shout away, sweetheart, if you need me.” He gave her a wink and then returned to the kitchen.
He stirred the pot and then turned the heat up under it. Yoshi didn’t want to leave her alone any longer than necessary. He knew the attack had shaken her. Hell it had shaken him. Parker shouldn’t have gotten that close to her, ever. The fact the man hadn’t done anything else to her, though, had Yoshi worried. The guy was obviously out to play mind games with Clara. Unfortunately he was pretty sure they were working.
Keeping one ear open for her voice should she call for him, he chopped up some fruit, a few pieces of cheese, and some of the meat from the fridge. He found a box of crackers without too many preservatives in them and set it next to the snack plate.
Once the soup was heated enough he poured some into a couple of mugs, stuck in spoons, and then took everything to the bedroom. “Here we are,” he said as he entered. Moving to her side of the bed he set the cups on the side table and handed her the plate, setting the box of crackers next to her thigh where she could grab them if she wanted some.
Clara’s hand reached out and grabbed Yoshi’s arm. Her hand slipped down to his and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you. For staying close and everything.” He hated the fear that was in her voice, and the fact that it was still there.
