The Crime of Love 1

by Linda Price

  “There’s a go bag with some cash and the keys to a silver minivan under the bed in my room,” Red said, finally standing up. “The van is in the alley out back, three doors down. It’s a soccer mom special.”

  Mac grinned at him, and the two men clapped each other into a fierce hug. “Thanks, man,” Mac said, and disappeared into the bedroom.

  “The next time I have you all over for dinner, I swear we won’t get interrupted.” Red put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You might want to use the facilities before you two leave, though—Mac’s going to want to drive for a while.”

  “Good idea,” I said weakly. I couldn’t believe we were going to be on the move again—all I wanted was to sleep for about a week.

  With Mac’s arms around you, a voice in my head whispered, and I tried to shake it off as I headed into the bathroom. I did want that, more than I wanted to admit to myself, but at the same time, I couldn’t imagine living like this all the time, on the run, wanted by the police, carrying a weapon. If I stayed with Mac, was this what our life would be like?

  Mac was waiting when I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, and this time, I was the one who hugged Red. “Thank you for everything,” I said, kissing his cheek.

  “No trouble at all,” he assured me. “Be safe, you two.”

  A moment later, we were running down the alley in the dark—Mac had said we couldn’t be sure the intruder didn’t have a partner lying in wait somewhere. But no one approached us as we got into the minivan, and Mac headed north out of town.

  I was about to ask him what the plan was when he pulled into the parking lot of a Walmart. “What are you doing?” I said instead, confused.

  He shot me a grim smile. “Trust me.”

  He parked around the side of the store and grabbed his ball cap. “Just stay with me and keep your head down so the cameras don’t pick up too much.” Throwing the hoodie over my shoulders, he pulled me into the store, where we grabbed a few cheap blankets, water, and some protein bars. Right before we left, Mac nodded at the women’s clothes and told me to grab a few basics so I could get out of my grimy sundress. I snatched up jeans and two T-shirts, another sweatshirt, and some underpants, feeling like a little kid heading to some bizarre sleep-away camp.

  We stayed quiet as the cashier rung us up, not wanting to attract any undue attention. But I could imagine how, in another time and another place, Mac would have been teasing me about the plain cotton panties, or tempting me with a chocolate bar from the rack, and I ached with the possibility of how it might be between us.

  But there was no way to be sure we’d ever get there, not right now. It was a sobering thought, especially now that we were on the run again.

  I changed into the jeans and one of the T-shirts in the back of the van while Mac headed farther north, and when I joined him in the front, he reached for my hand.

  “Hanging in there?” The concern in his voice was enough to make me a little teary, but I swallowed hard and willed the tears away.

  “Trying to,” I said with as much of a smile as I could manage. He squeezed my fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of this. I had no idea…”

  I nodded, staring out at the dark snake of the road. “I know you didn’t.”

  “The last thing I want is for you to regret meeting me,” he added after a moment of silence. “Because meeting you was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

  I turned to look at him, and the stiff set of his jaw was all I needed to see. He believed he had ruined my life, and I couldn’t let him think that for another minute. “I’ll never regret meeting you,” I said softly, and I curled up more comfortably in the seat. “And I’ll never regret being with you.”

  That slow, pleased smile of his was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep.

  ~

  There was a warm hand in my hair and lips on my cheek, leaving soft, whispery kisses. I opened my eyes to see Mac beside me. “We’re stopping for the night, angel eyes. You look like you need to stretch your legs.”

  He was right—I’d been curled up in the same position for too long, and I groaned as I straightened my legs before getting out of the van. Mac got out, too, walking around to meet me. I had no idea what time it was, but the sky was still dark, even though it was studded with stars. I was facing a chain-link fence, and when I turned around, there was a dumpster on Mac’s side of the van.

  “Where are we?”

  “A little south of Provo,” he said, pulling me close and wrapping his arms around me. “My eyes were starting to close so I thought I should get off the road.”

  I breathed him in, putting my arms around his waist and laying my head against his chest. “Good plan.”

  “You might not like the rest of it,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t want to risk being seen, so we’re sleeping here.”

  “Here?” I shivered—this far north, it was a lot colder at night, and we were standing on pavement.

  “In the van—the seats fold down,” he explained. “I parked back here to avoid as many people seeing us as possible. There’s a supermarket over there, and an apartment building on the other side of the fence, but it’s pretty run down. Not exactly a neighborhood watch area, you know?”

  I nodded, and let him lead me around to the van’s back door. He’d already folded the seats down and made a nest of blankets on the floor. “After you,” he said with a tired smile, and I climbed in.

  When he’d pulled the door closed behind him, I moved over, making room, and was surprised to find my bottom lip trembling. I was exhausted and stiff and cold, and when Mac slid his arms around me and pulled me down beside him, a single tear slid down my cheek. He kissed it off my cheek, stroking me gently, his hands strong and warm on my back.

  I raised my face to kiss him, and sighed when he peppered my mouth, jaw, and throat with more kisses. I didn’t object when he pulled up my T-shirt, leaving a fresh trail of kisses down my chest and over my breasts. It felt too good, and when he was touching me like this I could close my eyes and forget everything but the feel of our bodies moving together, the strength in his arms, the heat of his mouth as he worked his way down my body. By the time he was pulling down my jeans and panties, I was panting, boneless with pleasure already, and I shuddered when he spread my legs and lowered his head.

  I wanted him inside me, wanted the sensation of complete connection, and I wriggled away to sit up. “Please, Mac,” I said, surprised at how husky my voice had become.

  He unbuckled his jeans, and I heard the thud as he dropped the gun on the floor behind him. It was an awful reminder of what we’d been through earlier, and even when he’d pulled me on top of him and thrust inside me, I couldn’t give way to the pleasure completely. This was perfect, the way we were together, the way we touched and kissed, the way he looked at me, the incredible rush of emotion in my chest when I looked at him, but I couldn’t forget why we were here, in the back of a borrowed van. We were fugitives, on the run from both the law and an incognito crime boss.

  I don’t know if Mac sensed it, but after a moment he rolled us over, and as I lay back on the blankets, I closed my eyes to welcome every powerful thrust, every nipping bite of his teeth against my collarbone and earlobe. Finally, it was too much, overwhelming pleasure blooming deep at my core like a dark, exotic flower, and I cried out when I shattered, my legs around his waist and my hands in his hair. He followed me over a moment later, groaning as he spilled inside me. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close as his body settled.

  Still naked, we snuggled into the blankets and Mac pulled another one on top of us, stroking my belly idly as he spooned up behind me. I felt light headed, still molten and liquid inside, but after a minute, my brain had circled right back to my worries.

  Finally, turning my head so he could hear me, I said, “Mac, I was thinking, would you…would you ever consider doing something other than this?”

  Behind me, his body tensed a li
ttle bit. “Other than what?”

  “You know, what you do.” I wondered if my voice really sounded as miserable as I thought it did. “Cons and crime.”

  There was a long silence, and I shut my eyes, wishing I could rewind the last few moments and take it all back. Finally, Mac said, “I don’t know how to do anything else, Paige.” Even his tone sounded suddenly distant, cooler than before, and he moved away from me just enough to notice as he tried to get comfortable.

  There was nothing to say to that, nothing I could think of, anyway. We both fell into a restless sleep not long afterward, and when I heard an electronic buzzing, I jolted awake with a gasp.

  It was Mac’s phone. He slid it out of his jeans and hit “speaker” as he held his finger to his lips so I knew to be quiet. Before he could say anything, we heard Mr. Gray’s voice on the other end, cold and almost disinterested, as if this was a standard business call he cared nothing about.

  “We have your friend, Red,” he said, and I clapped a hand over my mouth. “If you want to see him alive again, you’ll come back to Las Vegas immediately.”

  Chapter Eight

  The address Gray gave us was outside the city, a ghost town of warehouses and abandoned industrial buildings in the middle of the desert. Mac slowed down as we approached the street where we were supposed to turn, and I realized my hands were clenched into fists on my lap.

  “This doesn’t look good,” I said. “There’s nothing—and no one—out here.”

  “That’s the point, babe,” Mac told me with a weary smile, pulling off to the side of the road. “No witnesses.”

  We were both exhausted—Mac had driven straight back to Vegas once Gray had called—but fear produces plenty of adrenaline, too. It was an awful combination.

  And it was a terrifying situation to find ourselves in. Neither of us could figure out how they’d captured Red—it made no sense, anyway. If they’d had men close enough to witness what happened at his house, why hadn’t they taken us instead?

  Not that it mattered. There was no way Mac was going to let Red pay for the mistakes he’d made, not when all Red had done was offer his help.

  “What’s our plan?” I asked him, leaning over to slip my hand into his.

  He turned to face me, his eyes stormy and dark. He fitted our hands together carefully, and finally said, “I think I should take you somewhere else. Drop you somewhere while this goes down. This could get ugly in a hurry. Not to scare you or anything.”

  “Too late.” My tone was sharper than I meant it to be, but if he actually thought I would sit it out while he handled this, he didn’t know me at all. “And leave me where? In a casino? Another motel? So I can drive myself crazy with worry until I see you again? Besides, they’ll probably just kill you both if I don’t come. No, for better or worse, I’m coming with you.”

  “I think you’d be better off if you’d never met me in the first place,” Mac said darkly, and I wrenched my hand out of his so I could point my finger at him.

  “I’m not going to argue that with you right now. I’m coming with you, and we have,” I checked the dashboard clock, “just ten minutes till we’re supposed to be there.”

  “Fuck!” He slammed the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. The morning light had picked up every fleck of red in his stubble, and shot gold through his dark hair. “This whole thing has gone to hell. Just gonna have to wing it.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t matter. “Come on, Mac. We need to make some kind of a plan.”

  He took the van out of “park” and pulled onto the road again. “Until we get inside, it’s going to be hard to know. Whatever happens, stay close to me, unless I tell you to hide or get down or run. They’ll probably want to do some kind of an exchange, that’s our chance to thwart the whole thing. You got that?”

  I nodded, even though I knew it would be impossible to run and leave him behind. He’d been doing the right thing, and now his best friend’s life was at stake. It didn’t make much sense, but at that point I felt responsible for both of them.

  My heart was pounding as he turned onto the street in the address. He drove three blocks, both of us checking the numbers on signs as we progressed, and I saw the appointed building first.

  “There,” I said, pointing. “507.”

  Even from the street, we could see a group of dark SUVs parked near the entrance to the building, and one just inside the gate that separated the property from the street. Was that gate going to close when we drove in?

  Then I saw something even more ominous—behind the trio of SUVs was a long, black limousine, its motor idling. Was Kirk himself in there?

  “Oh God, Mac,” I whispered, trying to swallow the fear choking my throat.

  He didn’t answer as he pulled into the parking lot, but every inch of him was tight with tension, alert to everything, and I was already shaking when he shut the engine off.

  “Remember what I said,” Mac told me in a low voice as we opened the doors to get out. I nodded, not sure if I could trust my voice.

  The angle of the sun had created a shadow over the side of the building, and it was there that a door opened. Mac took my hand as we walked toward the man who had emerged, a tall guy of some undefined age in a dark suit, with dark sunglasses shielding his eyes. I had the insane urge to laugh—he looked like a banker, like any of a hundred businessmen off to work each morning, not some super villain.

  “Gray,” Mac said, tipping his head forward brusquely.

  “You’re right on time,” Gray replied with a sneer, just as I heard car doors open and close. I had enough time to glance over my shoulder and see them coming before two men had grabbed me away from Mac, one on either side of me.

  “No sense in hoping for help,” Gray told us with another nasty smile. “There’s no one around for miles.”

  I swallowed hard, struggling against the iron grip of the men holding me. My heart was racing. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of screaming. All I had to do was run at the first chance I got. And I would get one, somehow.

  “If you fucking hurt her…” Mac said, trailing off, the threat left unspoken. He looked like a cocked gun, deadly, and ready to fire.

  “No need to hurt her if you cooperate, Ryan.” Gray folded his arms across his chest while the men holding me steered me closer to the door of the warehouse—and farther from Mac. “Mr. Kirk will accept Paige in exchange for your friend, Red. Simple as that.”

  “Is he even alive?” Mac barked. “Let me see him first.” He couldn’t take his eyes off me, even as he spoke, watching every move the men holding me made. Making sure I was safe.

  “No.” Gray sounded bored now. “Don’t worry about Paige, she’ll be well taken care of, I will personally escort her out of here. As for you, you piece of shit, you broke our agreement so it would be easier if I had one of my associates put a hole through your skull right now.”

  “No!” The word was torn from my throat before I could think twice. “I’ll go with them, Mac, just cooperate, please.”

  He was furious, I could tell—with me, this time—but I didn’t care. Only one man was holding Mac, who was straining like a dog on a leash, desperate to get to me. It was suddenly so clear, it made me gasp—no matter what else happened, I loved him. I loved Mac Ryan, and I was not going to watch him die.

  Besides, if Mr. Kirk wanted me so badly, he wouldn’t shoot me. A ransom, anything, I was willing to go for it and maybe I’d stay alive. I hoped so anyway, struggling just to make it more difficult for them as my guards hustled me through the door of the warehouse. I managed a glance over my shoulder and saw Mac’s face, furious and determined, his jaw set in an angry line.

  One of the men shoved me to the side as another led Red through the door, a bandanna fastened around his head as a makeshift gag. Dried blood stained his forehead, and a swollen bruise was already purple under one eye. He caught my gaze as we passed each other, and I could read his apology in his gaze. As if this was his fault.


  It was like a cork popping—all of my frustration and fear solidified into pure rage. The men were holding my upper arms, so I leaned forward a little, clenched my fists, and drove them both backwards, aiming directly for their groins. They let go, grunting in pain, and beside us, I heard the muffled sound of another fist connecting with flesh, and a crash as something fell over.

  I didn’t wait to see what had fallen in my scramble for the door. I was panting, and my fists were aching, but I had to get outside. When I did, Red was nowhere in sight, and the limo driver was wrestling Mac to the ground.

  “Let go of him,” I screamed, but it was too late—two meaty fists circled my arms, dragging me to a stop. The two men holding me turned me to face Gray.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Gray said, shaking his head. He removed his sunglasses to squint down at Mac, who was thrashing beneath the limo driver. “I thought you wanted to see your mother again, Mac? That’s not going to happen now. You know why? Because Mr. Kirk is going to take you out to the desert and shoot you like a dog. There’s a limo parked outside where Mr. Kirk will thank you personally for a job well done. And then take you out to the desert.”

  I kicked and struggled, aiming my elbows as best I could, but the men holding me weren’t taking chances this time. “Mac!” I screamed. “Mac!”

  The limo driver had an arm around Mac’s neck, cutting off Mac’s air as another man in a black suit forced Mac to his feet. Gray motioned toward the limo, but before anyone moved, a shot split the dry desert air with a smoky bang.

  The limo driver staggered to his knees, and I watched as a bright red patch of blood spread like a blooming flower on his jacket. Mac leaped away from him.

  “Mac!” I shouted, and jumped back as another bullet tore through the silence. The man to my left went down with a startled groan, and I wrenched my arm free of the man on my right just as Mac swung at Gray, taking him down with one solid fist to the jaw.

  “Paige!” Mac yelled. “Get down!” He was reaching for Gray’s gun when I realized where the other shots had come from—a second-floor window. Red was balanced on the frame, blood dripping onto his shirt where his wound had torn open, and I watched as he aimed at my second guard, hitting him square in the shoulder, too.