The Crime of Love 1

by Linda Price

  And then it came to me. The taillight. I congratulated myself silently, twisting back to watch the approaching squad car just as Mac slammed on the brakes and made a right turn so sharp, I felt the SUV tilt precariously to one side. The tires squealed against the pavement.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted. It was one thing to keep on driving instead of pulling over—it was another to get us both killed.

  “Hold on,” Mac snarled, and an unexpected thrill of excitement raced through me. I did as he said and leaned into the seat when he made another sharp turn, pulling the truck into a deep gully beneath an overpass. The scrub growing by the side of the road was just high enough to camouflage the truck a little bit as we bumped much too fast into the dry dirt, and I clung to the seat in front of me until Mac pulled to a stop.

  “Shhh,” he warned before I could say anything, and turned around to scan the road both ways. In the distance, the siren continued to wail, and after a moment, we could see the spiraling red lights as the squad car headed in the opposite direction.

  Mac had the gall to actually wink at me in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t help it; I shook my head, trying not to smile too broadly. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be impressed, especially since the cops could have gotten me out of this mess, but even I had to admit that was pretty slick driving on Mac’s part. A brief image of the seductive black-hatted cowboy in my dream flitted through my mind, and I blinked it away.

  Mac waited another minute or two and then pulled out, heading the opposite way from the cop, and making another right turn. A sign beside the road read, I104, and I frowned.

  “Too bad they didn’t get you this time.”

  “Looks like another day in paradise for you.”

  “If this was paradise, my hand wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Your hand hurts?” Wait, what? He actually cares? This is the second time he’s trying to make me comfortable.

  “This thing is on too tight,” I said, pointing to the handcuff.

  “Hold on,” he said, pulling over. After loosening the handcuff, he climbed back to his seat.

  “Thanks. Are you this cordial to all your victims?”

  “Only to ones as sexy as you.”

  “Oh, so I’m special. How flattering. Are you not going back to the highway, by the way? To 66, I mean?” I asked.

  “Change of plan,” Mac told me, and motioned for me to sit back. “Get comfortable. We’re not going to stop for a while now.”

  I sighed. So much for my promised coffee.

  ~

  We drove for hours, heading almost precisely northwest this time along Route 104, which was mile after mile of absolutely nothing. Mac turned the radio up whenever he could find a decent station, and at one point, we found ourselves singing along together to an old Patsy Cline song. I blushed and closed my mouth, but not before I caught the look he shot me in the rearview mirror. He seemed to smirk at me just for a brief second and I couldn’t help but feel like the boundaries of captor and victim were becoming even more blurred.

  I dozed for a while after that, but when I woke up parched, I sat up straight and tapped Mac on the shoulder. “I need to use the bathroom. I could really use some water, too. And, you know, something to eat, since we blew right past the chance at breakfast this morning.”

  Mac chuckled, glancing over his shoulder to grin at me. “Could definitely use something caffeinated myself.” First he handcuffs me, the next moment he’s chuckling like we’re best friends. Talk about a confusing situation.

  Within a half hour, signs for Farmington had begun to appear on the side of the road, and I was so famished my stomach growled. It was almost four o’clock, I realized, and suddenly felt a little lightheaded.

  Maybe Mac was starved, too, but when he saw a motel situated next to a diner, he pulled in. “How about some takeout after I get a room?”

  I nodded, and watched his expression soften as he took a closer look at me. “You look awful. No offense. I just mean, you look tired and all. I’d still do you in a heartbeat, though,” he laughed.

  “You sure know how to win my affection,” I said, and couldn’t help laughing a little bit. Mac hung his head, but he looked up to smile at me before he got out, closing the driver’s door behind him.

  He opened the backseat door on his side of the car, and slid onto the seat next to me. “Pretty stiff, huh?” He had to lean across me to unlock the cuff, and his nearness was startling after so long alone in the backseat with nothing but the stale chill of the air-conditioner.

  I couldn’t help breathing him in—all that clean, crisp pine and the scent of him was overwhelmingly sexy. He was huge and warm and solid, and for a moment all I could remember was the way we’d flirted at my house. It would have been so good to curl into his body and let him kiss me; let him make me forget everything but the two of us and the pleasure of the moment. When he straightened up, his face was close to mine, and he paused as our eyes met.

  I hadn’t imagined the attraction between us. I knew I hadn’t—I could see it in his eyes now, a simmering heat, like the blue heart of a flame. I shivered—we were close enough to kiss, and judging by the way he was staring at my lips, I knew he was thinking about it, too.

  But I couldn’t. Could I? He had kidnapped me, for God’s sake. I was miles from home with a complete stranger—a criminal—who had told me everything but the truth, even if he was ridiculously good-looking.

  He straightened up the rest of the way, his hand still closed over my sore wrist, rubbing feeling back into it gently.

  “How many times?” he asked with a smirk.

  “How many times what?”

  “How many times have you thought of me inside of you?”

  Why does he keep asking me that? Ugh. This man is infuriating.

  “You’re. On. The. Job.”

  “I know, but you see the beauty of being me is I make my own rules and live for the moment. It may have started as a little ruse to get you out of the house, but…it’s more than that now, we both know that, Paige. When I look at you, I know you feel it. I know you want it, I smell it on your skin, on every pore, every breath. You want me to fuck you. And yet, there’s something holding you back.”

  “Very perceptive.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I shared personal things with you,” I said softly, watching as his eyes traced the curve of my mouth. “And all you’ve done is lie to me. Everything you’ve told me was a lie, including that little sob story about your girlfriend. In fact, I can’t even believe I’m still discussing this with you.”

  “I lied.” He grunted and looked away, as if in pain for a fleeting moment. “But,” he continued, “I had no fucking choice. I barely knew you. I might end up rotting away in some jail cell somewhere but despite that fact, I’m still a decent human being, believe it or not. If I told you…if I told you the truth, would that change things?”

  “Maybe,” I said seductively. “If I believe you.”

  He swallowed, his eyes shadowed, a faint scowl going through his face for a brief moment. “Let’s go inside.” He slid out of the seat, and left the door open for me.

  ~

  Something had changed. It wasn’t just that I had nowhere to go, and no money to get there. Something had happened in that electric moment between us in the car. After Mac got us a room, I waited inside while he went to the diner to pick up some food. He didn’t handcuff me to anything, and I think he knew he didn’t have to.

  If nothing else, I wanted answers.

  I was curled in the chair by the window thinking when Mac came back, piling takeout containers with burgers and fries on the end of the bed. Silently, we sat on either side of them, but neither of us was particularly hungry anymore. I opened the bottle of water Mac had handed me and drank from it, waiting for him to say something.

  “So?” I finally said.

  He’d been poking at his fries, but instead of popping one into his mouth he stood up and paced back and forth. “Kidnapp
ing you was a job,” he said. His voice was pitched low, and I leaned forward to hear him. “But I wasn’t sent by your dad.”

  “Who are you?” I asked him. “Just don’t lie to me again.”

  He was facing away from me, and the long, sculpted line of his back stiffened as I said the words. But he relaxed a moment later, turning around and raking his fingers through his hair. “A con man, Paige. A con man and a thief. I do what I’m hired to do. A client I’ve worked for in the past offered me a small fortune plus something…something even more valuable, to kidnap you for a few days.”

  “Hired by who?”

  “He’s known as Mr. Kirk.”

  “Who is he?”

  “No one I know has ever met him personally, he goes through a buffer every time.”

  “Why did he want me kidnapped?”

  “Don’t know. All I know is I was supposed to deliver you to him in L.A. I’m sure he had you followed and went through all your information to find out everything about you.”

  He could have been lying again—but for some reason I felt he was telling the truth.

  “What’s the other thing?”

  He tried to smile, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So were you or were you not bullshitting me about your girlfriend?”

  “The story was true,” he said.

  “Not very smart, telling your kidnapping victim true stories about yourself. Is this how you normally operate?”

  “Far from it. You’ve made me crazy, angel eyes.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  “I like your eyes. I’ll stop if you don’t like.”

  “I do like it…I think.’

  And I did like it. For some unknown reason, it made me feel special. Noticed. Unique in some way. There must be something wrong with me. I want my kidnapper to make me feel special.

  We paused for a few seconds, “So this guy, Mr. Kirk,” I continued, “he’s offering you something else other than money, right?”

  He roughly rubbed his hand over the back of his neck in an uneasy fashion. “Very persistent. Information about my mother’s whereabouts. Not everyone had it perfect growing up like you did.”

  I shook my head, looking away. “It wasn’t as happy as you think, Mac. My dad and mom always had issues. They’re in the middle of a divorce now, too, and they’re fighting for custody of my little brother. I guess your boss didn’t tell you that part about me.”

  I felt his hand cover mine, and I looked up at him. My eyes were wet with sudden tears, but I choked them back.

  “I’m sorry, Paige. I didn’t know.” He wound an arm around my shoulders, and I sagged against him, exhausted from both emotion and confusion.

  “It doesn’t sound like you had it much easier.” I touched his jean-clad thigh—it was firm and solid under my fingers. “Tell me, what happened to your mom?”

  His hand tightened briefly around my upper arm, but it was a sympathetic squeeze, not a warning. “Wish I knew. I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never really known the whole truth. I was put in foster care when I was not quite five, so I barely remember her. Never knew my dad at all.”

  Foster care. I couldn’t imagine that. I’d heard stories, too, about the kids who fell through the cracks in the system, the kids who were taken in strictly for the stipend the system paid the foster parents. Kids who were sometimes abused just as horribly in care, as they’d been neglected or abused at home. And here he was, soothing me because my wealthy parents were squabbling over who would win the right to spoil my little brother more.

  A thousand things more sensitive and thoughtful flitted through my head, but when I sat back to look him in the eye, what came out of my mouth was, “Was it awful?”

  He gave me a rueful smile. “Some places worse than others. When you’re in the system, though, you learn pretty quickly that you have to look out for yourself, because no one else is really going to do it, no matter what they say. As long as the social worker can check off items on a list—such as you’re placed in a home, you have a winter coat, that kind of thing—they’re too busy to really pay attention to what goes on.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and turned away as a single tear slid down one cheek. It was all so overwhelming—this was the man who had tricked me into leaving my house with him and then taken me over state lines, and all I wanted to do was comfort him for his terrible childhood. He didn’t need my pity, and he probably didn’t want it, either.

  But a moment later he ran a finger along my jaw, brushing away the tear, and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. The action was so tender, so sweet, I wondered how much of the wicked bad boy Mac had learned to act out when he just a kid.

  And how much of his criminal life was a necessity, just to keep a roof over his head and food in his mouth. No one had made sure he was going to a good college, after all. I didn’t know if anyone had even bothered to make sure he graduated high school.

  “It’s over,” he said, his voice low and kind. “What matters is how we get out of this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well…the more I think about it, the more I realize that…I can’t do this to you.” His arm tightened around me protectively. “I’ve worked for Kirk before. I don’t know anything about him, except what he’s asked me to do in the past. All I know is he is a dangerous man and if I deliver you to him there’s no telling what could happen.”

  “Well, this is confusing. On one hand you want to send me home, on the other you constantly talk about…” I managed.

  “Fucking?” he asked with a smirk. I nodded, an uncomfortable yet lusty gasp escaping my lips.

  “Fucking, of course,” he grinned. “If you were any other girl I wouldn’t have touched you. This is a job and I’m a professional. If you were just a girl at the bar, I’d fuck you and forget you existed the next day. But the problem is…” He stopped and stared at the floor, as if searching for meaning somewhere deep inside. “The problem is if I fuck you I don’t think I could let you go.”

  With that he started pacing, his brow furrowed as he thought about what he wanted to say to me. When he turned around, he looked determined in a new way. “I never wanted my life to be like this. I met you, liked what I saw, and suddenly things changed, you became more than a job that I had to deliver and hand over. End of story. I am fucking attracted to you, Paige. Fuck, I want to protect you from monsters like me.

  “However,” he went on, almost as if he was thinking aloud, “the Kirk thing. It’s a risky proposition. Many people I know have done heists for Kirk before. He is not a man you should ever cross.” He looked at me suddenly, color draining out of his face. “But I don’t have a choice.”

  I buried my face in my hands, angry all over again. No matter what I felt for Mac, this was a mess. And I had no idea what to do. Sociology classes and sorority rushes really hadn’t prepared me for anything like this.

  I raised my head when I realized Mac was still talking. “I knew from the moment I met you it was going to be trouble. Before that, I thought, no big deal, just a job, it’ll be easy, like before. What’s happening isn’t something that I ever even thought could happen.” He looked at me and I could see everything about him laid bare in his eyes. “I love your feistiness, your guts, your attitude.”

  I blushed, the color hot on my cheeks. He sat back down and put his arm around me, pulling me close to him. We were touching all along one side, and a delicious rush of need swept through me like a flash fire. I wanted him, and I knew he wanted me, and in that moment, I couldn’t think of a good reason why we shouldn’t give in.

  Our lips met a second later, and I melted into the feel of him as I turned, pressing my chest to his. He was holding me so tightly, that huge hand sweeping up and down my back, fingers curling in my hair, urging me into another kiss, and then another.

  “Well, now,” he murmured softly against my lips.

  I couldn’t get enough of t
he taste of him, exploring the dark, wet heat of his mouth luxuriously as he lifted me up and set me on his lap. I reached down to hike my skirt up so I could straddle him more comfortably, and groaned when I settled against the hard length of him in his jeans.

  When he broke the kiss, I tried to protest, but he was determined, his mouth biting kisses down the column of my throat, licking the soft skin behind my ear, lingering at my pulse, which was kicking wildly now.

  “So fucking good,” he groaned, the words a warm vibration against my throat.

  A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sigh escaped my lips as his hands slid up my back, eager and hot. He felt just as good to me, this enormous mountain of man that I wanted to climb, wanted to ride. I tossed my hair out of the way as his fingers found the knot to the halter top of my dress and began to loosen it.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, letting my fingers wander into his thick, dark hair, and tugged his head to mine for another kiss. I was aching for more, and a pulse was beating between my legs, urging me closer to him. When my halter top slid free, baring my breasts, I bent backward shamelessly, letting him feast on the sight of them.

  “Look at you,” he whispered. “Beautiful.” He lowered his head to kiss them, his hands on my waist holding me firmly in place as his lips captured one rigid nipple and began to suck. Pleasure shot through me like an arrow, bright and hot, and before I knew what was happening, he had rolled us over so we were both lying on our side, face to face.

  “I know you want this,” he murmured, his mouth leaving a trail of kisses up my neck.

  “I have a thing for security network specialists,” I said, reaching for him as I rolled onto my back. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

  He groaned this time, and ground into the cradle of my hips, making me cry out. I was so turned on, I could barely think anymore, except for the frantic wish to have him inside me.

  “You want to be mine, Paige?” he whispered, sliding one hand up my thigh to hook his fingers into the waistband of my panties. But just as he was about to tug them down, his phone rang, a shrill blare against the soft sounds of our breaths panting.