She sighed again. Dammit, she hated that he was right. She stopped and looked at him. “You give me any problems and I will be getting those credits with your dead carcass. Understand.”
He nodded and she pulled out the Dagger Laser that he’d had when she’d taken custody of him. Before she could start on her way, shots exploded around them. She ducked around the corner, Dawson hard on her heels. They slammed up against the wall of the building at the same time.
“Fuck. Does trouble follow you?” he said as he leaned around the corner.
“I haven’t had issues until I ran into you.”
He tossed her an angry look and stepped away from the wall. “Hey, you can let me go any time.”
“No, I want my credits.”
His face lost most expression except for coldness. He opened his mouth, apparently to blast her back to hell, but she saw a LEO behind him. The officer raised his weapon and pointed it at Dawson’s back. Without a thought, Lou used all her strength to push Dawson aside. He wasn’t ready for it, so he stumbled back out of the way. She pulled her weapon up and fired, but not before she felt a flash of heat then a sting of pain in her shoulder.
The sting of pain grew into an inferno racing over her flesh. Her world blurred, her body feeling heavy all of the sudden.
“Campbell?” Dawson asked. His voice sounded odd, as if he were far away and down a tunnel. He caught her with his hands as the world around her exploded in an array of explosions.
“Fuck,” Dawson muttered. He pulled her closer and she tried to talk, but couldn’t. Her lips moved but no sound came out. Or maybe there was a sound, but she couldn’t even figure out what it was. He lifted her, and she found herself draped over his shoulder. Nausea rose up as he jostled her.
She tried to talk again, but Dawson said, “Just shut up while I try and save your ass.”
Lou wanted to blast him, wanted to tell him to go to hell. But in that next second, her world faded to black.
Chapter Four
Sam bit back a growl as he ran down the street, his companion draped over his shoulder. For such a little woman, she weighed a ton. He blindly ran down streets, allowing the instincts that had kept him alive these past few years to lead him. The explosions and fired rounds faded as he headed out of the Business and Transportation district and into a more residential area. He spotted a transport vehicle in an alley across the street. He hurried over and pulled out the device he kept on him to decode security.
With one wave, he silently thanked the geniuses at Zenich as he heard the locks release. He opened the passenger door and settled Lou in the seat. For a brief moment, he studied her. She was pale but her breathing wasn’t labored.
It was odd seeing her this way. He had seen her seductive, bitchy and downright dangerous. Now though, she looked younger, as if she couldn’t be more than maybe twenty-five. He brushed a lose tendril of her hair away from her eyes and tried to ignore the little jolt he got by seeing her this way. When she wasn’t wearing that tough-girl façade, he could see a glimpse of the woman beneath.
He shook himself out of his stupor. He had to get them out of the area. As he pulled out on the street, a small beep sounded, followed by instructions. He found her GPS and realized she had plugged their destination coordinates in. He glanced at her one more time and smiled. He loved a woman who was always prepared.
Jared Flores slipped through security without a problem. His credentials were excellent and he figured there was a good chance that even the highest security scanners wouldn’t be able to detect his deception.
He stepped out of the depot and pulled his wide collar up against his jaw. He hated this fucking planet. The moment he had gotten the notice that Dawson was up for retrieval, Jared had known he was going to end up on some godforsaken out-realm planet. It was the only place the bastard ever worked from the file Jared read. Arcadia was one of his least favorite planets and now he was stuck on it. Of course, it was one of the reasons the safe house here worked so well. Everyone knew how much he despised the place.
Panic was still twisting in his gut. He should have never sent Lou. The moment the notice had come in there had been something off. Pictures always accompanied a call. This one had been missing that, along with a few other details. Jared had put a call out for information as soon as Lou had left, and what he’d learned had been enough to freeze his blood. Dawson wasn’t someone anyone in their right mind would want to tangle with. There wasn’t a job he wouldn’t do, as long as the money was right. Mercenary and tough. Of course, Dawson had been like that when they had been in school together. Dawson had gone by a different last name at the time, so that is why Jared hadn’t discovered it was him until after he’d dug up a hologram. From the moment he realized who Dawson was, Jared had been riding on a fine edge of terror. With Dawson’s family, there was no doubt this could turn nasty. He couldn’t believe he’d sent Lou in after Dawson. The family Dawson sprung from liked to eat their young and anyone involved with said young. Jared had become up close and personal with it very early in life and he didn’t want Lou to get hurt. Dawson wasn’t the problem, but his family was. They tended to leave people battered and bloodied.
Jared grabbed a transport without any problems. It reminded him of the days when he and Lou had been running on the streets of Gemalandia. Popping transports and stealing credits had been a way to get by, along with more unsavory methods.
He pushed that thought aside and drove down the roadway that led to the mountains where the safe house was located. The first indication that something was wrong was the amount of surveillance that had gone up on his home base the moment he sent Lou out to retrieve Dawson. Jared had been followed on more than one occasion since then. The attack on the home base…Jared tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. He had lost some good people to these bastards and he would make them pay. First he had to make sure Lou was okay.
He turned the corner and saw flashing lights. Shit, that had to have something to do with Dawson and Lou. He worked his way through the traffic of onlookers. A burned-out club, a dozen agents dressed like LEOs. Neither was a good sign. He held on to the fact that he would know if Lou had been killed. Something around the retrieval smelled like the seventh sphincter of hell, but he knew they would notify him of her death.
Just thinking the words had his gut tightening. Fuck, he shouldn’t have sent her. But she wouldn’t shut the hell up about the credits it offered. All she cared about was getting back to Earth. Like that would make things okay, that her life would be changed forever. Ten years and he had yet to convince her that the life both of them had before running away no longer existed. Still, he hadn’t been able to tell her no. He could never tell her no. Lou didn’t realize there wasn’t a day that went by that he would give her anything she wanted. She was completely oblivious to the feelings he had for her.
He pumped the accelerator and headed toward the safe house as fast as he could, hoping he would find Dawson and Lou there safe.
Sam carried Lou up the stairs to the safe house. It hadn’t been that easy getting out of the city without being detected. He was just lucky that Lou had punched in the coordinates of the house or he wouldn’t have known what to do. He wasn’t sure his captor was going to be awake any time soon.
He used the same device that let him steal the transport to open the doors without a problem. After pushing a few more buttons, it gave the all clear for alarms. He opened the door and stepped into the house, shutting the door behind him. With a sigh, he leaned down and set her on her feet. She had been out cold for so long, he was starting to worry.
“Hey, Lou, you need to wake up.”
She mumbled something under her breath he was sure was anatomically impossible for a human.
He leaned her against the wall next to the door and gave her cheek a little slap. She frowned, but still didn’t open her eyes. He had to bite back a laugh. She didn’t look like the kick-ass retrieval agent. He needed to wake her up so he could take a look arou
nd. The house was out in the middle of nowhere, and from what he could tell no one was around. But another check of the house was in order.
“Campbell, wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered, then she opened them. Damn, he could drown in them. They didn’t fit the image that she projected to the world. Soft, with full lashes, they reminded him of aged whiskey. It took a moment for them to focus on him.
“What happened?” She glanced around. “Are we at the house?”
He nodded, looking at her pupils. They weren’t dilated, so whatever drug had been in the shot she took had worn off.
“How did you know to come up here?”
“I followed your GPS.”
She looked down at his hands. “You can let me go now.”
“You’ll fall on your ass.”
“I won’t. Let me go.”
He did as she ordered, and she started to slide down the wall. He caught her before she could fall down. “Easy, darlin’. That shot you took had a bit of a punch.”
She closed her eyes and she lost some more color out of her face. “I heard that some of the contractors were experimenting with drugs.”
He didn’t like the way she looked, or the way her voice wavered. Sam needed her spitting fire and kicking ass.
“Are you telling me you can’t handle it, Campbell?”
She opened her eyes and shot him a look that would shrivel most men. Sick fuck that he was, it gave him a little twist of lust straight to the gut. “Think again. And don’t think this means you’re getting off.”
He couldn’t stop his mouth from curving or the next words out of his mouth.
“Yeah, well, if I need any help getting off, I’m pretty sure you could help, darlin’.”
He expected her to shoot back at him, but instead, a rush of color filled her face. Interesting.
“I think I need to take a shower,” she said, giving him a look that told him she still didn’t trust him.
“Hey, if I wanted to lose you, I would have left you in the alley for those agents to find. Or whoever the hell they were.”
She nodded then winced. “We’re going to have a long chat about this company you work for. I have a feeling that the retrieval put out on you was false. Or that it was used because you were getting too close to something.”
The fact that her thoughts mirrored his own made him just a tad uncomfortable. He knew the inner workings of Zenich enough to know there were dirty people inside, and some of them probably pretty close to the top. Lou was an outsider. He would bet his left nut that Lou didn’t know much about the defense contractor. Without intimate knowledge of the system, it would be impossible for her to set something like this up.
“Yeah, I have to agree with you. Do you know if there is any kind of computer here? One that can’t be traced?”
She nodded and licked her lips. He had a feeling that every time she moved it hurt. The urge to comfort her was insane, one that shouldn’t be rising up at the occasion, but it was, along with other body parts. The woman had seduced him to the brink, then handcuffed him and arrested him. And he was still kind of insane over her. What the hell was he thinking?
“Just go up the stairs there to the left. That’s where the office is. Not sure of the password though. Not my computer.”
So it was the boss’s computer. Or maybe there was more to their relationship. She seemed to know a little too much about the safe house. But he pushed that thought aside as he helped her to the lavatory.
“Yell if you need anything.”
She snorted, but it was weaker than her usual bravado. He knew the effort she was putting forth and knew it was a little too much for her.
“Don’t hold your breath, Dawson.”
With that, she slipped into the room and then closed the door. As it slid shut, he stared at it. She seemed okay, but he had no idea what kind of drugs they’d put in the bullets. When he heard water running, he turned and went in search of the computer. He had some digging to do.
Lou let the hot water slide over her skin and sighed. Her head was still fuzzy and she could barely think straight. But at least now she didn’t feel like she was losing control of her senses. Well, maybe not. As she leaned her head back to wet her hair, she thought of the way she had blushed when Sam had made the joke. Dammit, this was a job, or it sort of was a job. Shit, she had no idea.
She poured the shampoo into her hand and scrubbed at her hair. She didn’t even know if she would get her credits now. This smelled of a setup and a bad one at that.
She knew she should think about it, but Dawson didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do the things he was accused of. He wasn’t truly pissed about her arresting him, although he was pretty pissed about her doing it the way she had. No, he seemed genuinely irritated that his honor had been questioned.
She rinsed the cleaning agent from her head and started to think over what they knew. Those officers were not LEOs, there was no doubt in her mind. They were sent there to get Dawson, possibly kill him—not to mention her. When she got a hold of Flores she was going to kill him. Of course, there was a good chance he was on his way to the planet. He would sense something was wrong when she didn’t check in.
And she was in trouble. Oh, she could get herself out of the trouble that was following Dawson, but she wasn’t sure she could untangle her feelings for Dawson himself.
Running away from Earth at such a young age she hadn’t had much choice other than to sell her body. And it hadn’t been that bad. Not until that last one.
Even now the pain of the knife slicing through her skin and the way her warm blood felt against her flesh caused her to close her eyes. She held her hand over the scar between her breasts and closed her eyes.
“You didn’t get lost in there, did you?”
She started at the sound of Dawson’s voice. What the holy Hades was wrong with her? She didn’t even hear him sneak into the room.
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t leave. She could see him through the beveled glass.
“I couldn’t figure out how to get in your boss’s computer system. Lots of security even I couldn’t beat.”
“He should be here soon.”
“Well, that makes me feel so much better.” It was easy to hear the sarcasm in his voice and she couldn’t fight the smile.
“Was there something else you needed?”
There was a long beat of silence.
“I did have one question.”
He didn’t continue. The silence stretched and the only sound in the room was the water.
She cleared her throat. “What?”
“Was all that in the hotel room role playing?”
She couldn’t think, couldn’t form the words. His question catapulted her back to the room, the way her body felt to be near his, the crazy burning need she’d had for him exploded again.
“Lou?” he asked, his voice deepening.
“It isn’t smart going down that road, Dawson.”
“I didn’t ask if it was smart.”
She sighed, her body yearning, her mind telling her it was stupid. She squeezed her thighs together trying to ease the pressure.
“But—”
“No. Tell me.” The demand was said in such a guttural voice that she was surprised. He sounded as if her answer was more important to him than his next breath.
“No. I wasn’t role playing.”
The door slid open and she held the cleaning cloth up between her breasts to hide the worst of her scars.
He was dressed, which made sense, but as her gaze slid down his body, she saw that there was no hiding his arousal.
“It’s really fucking stupid, I know that, but for the first time in a long time, I’ve got this need for a woman.”
She rolled her eyes, trying to keep her breath from backing up in her lungs. The heat in his eyes was so intense she swore she could feel it.
“Dawson, don’t use that crap on me. I’m not like one of those bimbos at the bar.
”
She needed to get out of here, away from him, free of the crazy need he created in her. She shut off the water and moved to step past him, but he blocked her by placing his hand on the wall. She could have pushed through, but she didn’t really want to get in a scuffle. Hell, she was afraid to touch him. She might not be able to stop.
She raised her gaze to his. The heat was still there in his eyes. “Move.”
“No.”
“What was that?”
“No. Not unless you answer one more question.”
The inferno that was raging in her blood flared hotter. The need to escape before she embarrassed herself was clawing at her throat. She was wet and naked, not to mention her body was yearning to be caressed by those big, capable hands.
“Okay.”
“What do I need for a second chance?”
“A second chance?”
“Listen, it’s as stupid as it gets, but I have a burning need to have you, to touch you, to taste you. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen, but there is one thing I do know. I want you more than I care about what happens to my life at the moment.”
She knew it was a line, one that he probably used on other women all the time. But in this moment, for the first time in a decade, she wanted a man to touch her, and not just any man. She wanted this man.
Lou knew she should say no, but instead she said, “Yes. Take me to bed.”
Chapter Five
For a moment, Sam couldn’t seem to think. All he could do was stare at the woman before him, trying to figure out if she had actually agreed to let him touch her. In the next instant, he groaned and pulled her against him and gave in to the need that had been simmering since the moment he had seen her walk into the hell hole.
He took her mouth in an insane kiss. He wanted her to know how much he wanted her, needed her. He delved into her mouth, tasting her and groaned when her tongue slid against his. Damn, the woman was hotter than any other woman he had ever had, ever even met. The connection he felt for her scared him a little, but not enough to ignore it. He always listened to his gut, and something was urging him on.
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