by Holly Hart
It doesn't mean anything. I worried. If she got hit, then she'll still be bleeding out.
I was wrong. I'd never been so gloriously, deliciously, deliriously happy to be proved incorrect. Maya squeezed back, holding my fingers in a vice-like grip, so tight that I wondered if I'd be able to get her to let go without the use of heavy machinery…
She was terrified.
But she was alive.
Then save her! My brain screamed at me. It was the only thought on my mind.
I remembered that when the firing had started, Maya had had the keys to the armored truck still clutched in her other hand, almost like a memento to our failed plan. I pulled her down, hard. If she got hurt, then I'd have to apologize to her later. For now, all that mattered was that I got her out of here alive.
"Maya," I whispered loudly. "Maya!"
"I'm here," she said. Or rather, shouted. I wondered if her ears were ringing as loudly as mine.
"Keys!" I hissed.
The room was now periodically being lit up by strobing flashes of gunfire, and I knew that if we didn't find some cover, then it was only a matter of time before one of us got hit. I had to do something.
With excruciating slowness, I watched in the intermittent light of flashing weapon fire as Maya's face slowly struggled to comprehend what the hell I was asking for. This wasn't her scene. Hell, it wasn't mine either, but at least I had experience of reacting under the pressure of someone trying to kill me.
A burst of particularly loud gunshots split the air and lit the loading bay as brightly as fireworks on the Fourth of July. But as the bullets bounced around the room, at least one finding its home in someone's throat, judging by the bloodcurdling, choking, gurgling sound as the man bled out, I saw something glinting in Maya's hand.
The keys.
I lunged forward and grabbed them from her hand. I crawled next to her.
"Stay low," I shouted, not caring who heard. "Just do what I do. We're going for the truck. It's the only way we're getting out of here in one piece."
She nodded, and I saw a look of resolute determination in her eyes.
Terrified determination, but determination nonetheless.
And then I heard a sound that briefly stopped me in my tracks. "Mikhail," a malevolent, singsong voice called out. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."
"Who is it?" Mikhail cried out, his usually gruff voice wavering with fear. I suspected he knew exactly who it was. I certainly did. The cold voice was almost impossible to forget. I shivered just remembering meeting the man.
"Mikhail, Mikhail, what kind of way is that to treat your old friend Arkady."
"Arkady, I –." Mikhail stammered.
It feels good to hear him whimper.
"I don't want your excuses," Arkady replied violently. "You crossed me, Mikhail, and now it's time to pay up."
This doesn't change anything, I realized. We still had to get out of here, as fast as possible, and that meant moving. Now.
I started crawling, frog-like, toward the armored truck, moving as quickly as I dared. I saw, felt and tasted the bullets flying all around me; choked on the dust of vaporized concrete, and smelled the burnt gunpowder smoke that filled the room. I kept my hand closed firmly around Maya's and dragged her along behind me, making sure I didn't lose her.
"Get in!" I screamed as we reached the truck. "Close the door behind you. I'll be right behind you."
She looked at me, confusion written all over her face. "Where are you going?"
I've got a job to finish.
"Here," I yelled, tossing her the keys. "Get the gas going. I'll be twenty seconds. And stay low, okay? If I don't make it back, just go get Eamon."
She nodded slowly, still scared, but demonstrating the sheer character of will that had pushed her through all these years, the same strength that had made her stand up to her father, and to defend me when she didn't know I was listening, just a few moments before.
I nodded back, my jaw clenched to hide my own fear, then disappeared into the smoke, slamming the truck door behind me. I knew that Maya would be safe behind the thick steel armor, for the time being, anyway.
I kept my body low against the floor. The gunfire had slowed from its original, frenetic pace. Whoever was left out there was taking their time. I picked a handgun up off the floor, ejected the magazine and checked how many bullets were left.
Three in the clip, one in the chamber.
I only needed one.
I crept over toward where I'd last seen Mikhail and his men: behind a heavy concrete pillar in the corner of the room. I could still hear gunshots ringing out in that direction, but like the ones coming from the corridor, they were slower now, and more measured, as if whoever had their fingers on the trigger was worried about running out of ammunition. Or had their target pinned down…
I crept forward. Ten yards away, then five, then three, and finally Mikhail's huge bulk appeared out of the smoke. He only had one man left by his side, and the guy was clearly a rookie – half panicked and firing jumpily anything that moved, even swirls of smoke.
I tucked myself in behind a short stack of plastic crates. Burning dollar bills lit the room and swirled in currents of super-heated air all around me, and the sight left me feeling ecstatic. Mikhail's fortune was burning around him.
I shot his henchman in the shoulder, careful to just graze him. I had nothing against the man, that I knew of, anyway. The man slumped forward, clutching his arm and screaming in pain.
He won't be a problem.
"Mikhail," I yelled. The mobster spun around, pointing his gun wildly into the smoke. I kept low, pressing myself into the floor.
"Where are you?" My nemesis shouted fearfully into the smoke. "Show yourself, you coward."
Yeah, right. You think I'm that stupid?
I took a deep breath in through my nostrils, and the scent of gun powder and a fortune burning to cinders smelled like victory.
I took aim.
And five.
The bullet tore into Mikhail's calf muscle, and his left leg dropped away from underneath him. He screamed out in pain and let his handgun fall accidentally from his palm.
"It's been a long time since you did any actual fighting, isn't it, Mikhail," I hissed angrily, stepping toward him. I kept the barrel of my handgun pointed directly at his skull as I moved.
He lurched forward feebly, trying to grab his abandoned weapon, but I kicked it away, letting it come to hold close enough to tempt him, but far enough to taunt.
"Fuck you," he spat as the sounds of the metal handgun skittering across the concrete floor died away.
I trained the gun on him, ready to fire – ready to end it all.
But my hand wavered.
I can't do it. I can't be the one who kills Maya's father. Whatever else he is, whoever he became, and whatever he's done – he's still her father.
I let the gun fall to my side.
"You coward," Mikhail jeered. "I knew you didn't have the balls to do it."
I thought about leaving without saying anything, but my anger boiled over. "Don't worry, Mikhail. You're still going to die. I'll just let your friend Arkady do it for me. I'm sure he's got a few things to say to the man who lost him a million bucks."
His face went white. Then again, maybe I just wanted to see it. It was too dark to see much of anything at all. "Please, you can’t just leave me here to die…" He whispered, the horror of his predicament becoming totally, absolutely clear.
I shrugged. "That's where you're wrong, Mikhail. After what you've done to my fiancé, and to my son, you deserve everything you're going to get."
"Your fiancé?" He mouthed in stunned disbelief.
"Not yet," I called over my shoulder. "But soon…"
Maya was still trembling with shock as I kicked the truck into gear and smashed through the metal shutters. The screeching cacophony of grand-scale metallic destruction seemed to snap her out of her reverie, and the second she realized I was in the truck, she r
eached over and grabbed my arm.
"You're back!" She said. She squeezed my forearm, as if she was checking I was real, and not an apparition. "And you're alive." Her mouth hunger open as if she could barely believe what she was saying
I gunned the engine, screaming down the narrow side streets near the arena at sixty and seventy miles an hour, fast enough that the trash cans, brick walls and occasional scrubby bush to either side flashed past too quick to see.
"Of course I'm okay," I grinned. "I told you I would be, didn't I?"
Maya still had the strange, slightly vacant expression of a woman recovering from an intense shock. I knew that I had one trump card, one winning hand, one way to break her out of her reverie whether she wanted to or not.
"Hey," I smiled, looking over my shoulder to check whether we were being followed.
Doesn't seem likely. That gun battle was nowhere near over.
Maya smiled back shyly. I felt like I was discovering her all over again, and in a way, I guess I kind of was. This was the first moment in all of our lives together that Mikhail Antonov hadn't controlled, whether we knew it or not. "Hey," she replied, squeezing my arm again.
"How about we go get our boy?" I asked, playing my trump card.
"Yes!" She yelped, and I could sense her desperation to be reunited with Eamon. I had it to, but I couldn't imagine how bad it was for her, because at least I knew where he was.
I wasn't exactly relishing that particular question, though. So of course, she asked it.
"Um, about Eamon?" She hemmed.
"Yeah?"
This is going to be embarrassing.
"Where exactly is he?"
"Oh, you know, he’s safe…" I said, stalling for time.
She fixed me with a deliberate stare, sensing that I was hiding something. "Spill."
"He's, er, he's with a stripper…"
Epilogue
I blinked. It was hard not to – Conor looked like a completely different person to the man who'd disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door suspiciously a few minutes before.
"You've shaved!"
Conor emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, and a hand towel draped across his shoulders. His cheeks were speckled with shaving foam, and he was rubbing his chin awkwardly.
"I'm not sure if I like it," he grumbled.
I bounded toward him, with more life in my legs than any time I could remember. I felt like I could run a marathon, or climb a mountain. I didn’t plan on doing either, though – mounting Conor was the only challenge I needed. Hell, I felt like superwoman.
I kissed him on the cheek, marveling at how soft he felt. "Well why'd you do it then, silly?"
"Do I need a reason?"
"Conor, I've never seen you without at least some stubble on your face. Come on," I said tugging at his towel. "What gives?"
If I didn't know him better, I would have thought that Conor Regan was embarrassed. He had that telltale faint red flush on his cheeks, and his shoulders were hunched forward. The only way I could imagine him looking even more cartoonishly uncomfortable would be if he started scratching his elbow, or trying to cover his face.
He looked like he was considering it…
I grabbed the hand towel covering his shoulders and wiped his face clean of a few last suds of shaving foam. "There you go. Now you're ready to go."
"You really want to know, don't you?" He muttered.
Inside, I was beaming. I sure as hell did. "Well, duh!"
"It's just," he hesitated, clearly still desperate to avoid telling me the real reason. "You know, it's Eamon's first day back at school, and I don't want him to be…" He trailed off.
I couldn't help myself – I laughed. "Embarrassed of you?"
Conor shot me a hurt look. "What are you laughing about?" He asked. I immediately felt guilty. This was the guy who'd saved my life, saved my son's life – and not only that, he'd lifted us out of a life of misery and fear, and given us hope!
I wiped the smile off my face. It was the least I could do. Conor was in his element when he was in the octagon, or fighting someone doing him or his family wrong – but the school run? Yeah, I could see how he might be a bit nervous about that. Hell, I still was and I’d been a single mom for four years!
Single mom no more!
"I'm sorry," I said genuinely. "But believe me – you’ve got nothing to be worried about. He's four years old, Conor – soon he'll barely even remember a time when you weren't around, and –."
Conor cut me off, his face shining a brilliant, embarrassed red. "I don't want him to get teased at school, is all – and if there's anything I can do to stop that from happening," he said, firmly. "Then I'm going to do it."
I grabbed him around his waist and hugged him. I couldn't believe that after all these years, Conor was back in my life – and not just that, he was still as gentle, kind, and caring as he'd ever been. No, that wasn't right. He was so much more than that. He was the best father I could ever have dreamed of for Eamon. Even after we'd been separated, when I'd dreamed night after night about him coming to rescue me and us living happily ever after, I'd never expected he'd take to the role of fatherhood so quickly and so naturally.
If I don't stop thinking like this, I thought, I'm going to start crying…
I reached up and kissed him on the cheek, not just to hide the tear that was forming in the corner of my right eye, but because I wanted to express just how much he meant to me. "Trust me, Conor – if he didn't get teased when he was being dropped off by his mom and a bunch of mobsters, he's not gonna teased when you turn up. You haven't seen some of the other parents…"
"We'll see," he grumbled.
I untangled my arms from around Conor's waist, knowing that I needed to let go and get ready myself, but unwilling to. Sometimes I felt like I could wake up at any moment, and all of this, this whole new life that seemed to be welling up around me like a flowering plant would disappear.
I bit my lip and pulled away the bandage.
"Red or yellow?" I inquired, holding up two almost identical sundresses – dresses that were the same in almost every regard except their color. When we'd run from Alexandria, not knowing whether my father's – my late father's – men were chasing us to exact revenge, or whether old business associates of his might try and look in our direction, we hadn't been able to bring much more than the clothes on our backs.
The clothes on our backs, that is, and just shy of seven million dollars in untraceable, nonsequential US dollar bills… Enough money to keep us happy, fed and housed for the rest of our lives – even if we never worked again. Not that Conor liked that idea…
He was happy for me to never have to work again, but the idea of not climbing back through the ropes into the octagon? It just wasn't him.
Anyway, we'd had to pick up a bunch of new clothes to fill out the hotel's closets, and now I had the same sundress in five colors, five identical white blouses and no underwear that didn't resemble a Victoria's Secret catalog. I guess I'd learned my lesson, though – never trust a man to go shopping for you…
To be fair to Conor, Eamon loved his new outfits. But then, Eamon worshiped the ground that his father walked on – and buying him a full Superman costume probably hadn't hurt in that regard…
"Huh?" He grunted, turning to face me at the precise moment that I started shimmying out of my pajama bottoms. I knew I shouldn't have done it – not if I wanted us to get to the school gates on time. Getting my legs out on show like this was almost impossible for a man like Conor to resist…
He padded toward me like a hunting tiger, letting the towel drop around his ankles and revealing that his not inconsiderable cock was, as usual, stiffening. I was amazed that after the last two weeks, which we'd barely spent out of bed with one another, that he found it as easy to get, ahem, excited by me as he did when we were still teenagers.
"Conor," I laughed, batting away his hands. "No! We don't have time…"
"Time, w
ho needs time," he groaned, pulling me toward him. He pressed me up against his pelvis, and I could feel the heat radiating from the python that hung between his legs. "I can be quick."
Yeah right, I thought.
"Be serious, Conor. When have we ever been done in less than half an hour?"
But maybe, I wondered, we could do it just this one time.
I let the dresses fall out of my hands and pushed my body against Conor's powerful, muscular frame. He felt so big next to me, and so strong, and every time I closed my eyes and imagined how he'd feel inside me I felt my resolve weakening.
"He can be late for school, can't he?" Conor said, leaning forward, smelling my hair and stroking my naked thighs.
I grabbed his cock, massaging it gently between my thumb and forefinger. It barely fit my hand. He gasped a little and closed his eyes, a smug look on his face. I knew he thought he'd won me over.
On any other day… But not Eamon's first day in a new class.
I decided to toy with him. I leaned up for a kiss, slowly dragging my hand across his smooth, newly clean-shaven cheek. He returned the kiss with gusto, reaching downward with one of his hands and kneading my ass like he was baking dough. I felt the slit between my legs begin to glisten with wetness, and a tiny moan escaped my lips.
I couldn't help myself – the man was goddamn irresistible.
Jesus, Maya – you're just supposed to be playing with him, don't get carried away!
I sank slowly, ever so slowly, to my knees, dragging my hands down the back of Conor's legs, digging in my fingernails as I fell. He let his head fall back, and widened his stance, because he thought he knew exactly what was about to happen. I could tell that he was playing it out in his head, imagining what I was about to do, imagining how he was going to feel when he finally climaxed in my mouth.
I gently reached up and grabbed his balls, taking them between my fingers and my palm and began stroking them ever so tenderly. I felt the soft, pliable skin around his testicles start tensing up, and this time it was his turn to let out a moan of excitement.
If I'd thought his cock couldn't get any hotter, I was wrong. Every time I thought I'd exhausted Conor's reserves of sexual energy he surprised me, finding new ways to blow my mind, test my boundaries and push me to the absolute limit – and beyond. But hell, I couldn't deny it – I loved every moment.
