In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1)

by Leslie North

She pleaded with him now. She cursed at him, too far out of her right mind to understand what she said. All she knew was that every provocative and weakly-assembled challenge uttered from her shameless mouth caused him to drive deeper into her undulating hips, caused the pressure from inside her to mount, as if it was possible for him to grow harder and longer, by degrees, than he already was.

  Alexa’s climax came on the most delicious note of ecstasy emerging from her partner’s lips. She went rigid against him, her pleasure peaking and spilling over alternately, filling her with wave after wave of white-hot gratification. She was distantly aware that she cried out. Damian sank himself to the hilt and came almost immediately afterwards with a muffled groan into her neck.

  A rush of heat filled her; she would have collapsed had a strong pair of arms not held her securely in place. They stilled together, their hearts racing as one. She canted her head back, her mouth once more seeking the gentle press of his kiss.

  Damian indulged her. They kissed until exhaustion claimed them, and they sank together into a sated and dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  He awoke with Alexa in his arms.

  Sunlight filtered in through the crack in the curtains above. Awareness came, but he didn't stir, so reluctant was he to wake her from her restful position against him. The shapely contours of her body fit against his perfectly. His arm draped across the swell of her naked breasts, an eclipse against the statue of a goddess.

  Damian had no doubt that what they had done the night before was wrong. He wanted to feel guilt for what he had initiated between them, but the guilt never came. In the aftermath of their lovemaking, all he felt was the complete physical and mental satisfaction of having resolved the tension that had impaired him all along. Alexa was more than a client, more than a woman, and more than Nico Volkov's daughter: she was an elemental force unto herself, and their strengths complimented each other perfectly.

  A harrowing discovery.

  The truth shook Damian more than the realization that he had just betrayed the fundamental values inherent to his job by sleeping with the woman he was sworn to protect. He might have retreated from her then—shed the sheet, slipped out of bed, and pulled on his clothes in attempt to refute his transgression by the light of day—but Alexa sighed in sleep and pressed back against him, and he felt powerless to be anywhere but by her side.

  Alexa’s eyes fluttered open. She gazed up at him with faint interest. Questions swam in the depths of her gaze, unvoiced. He squeezed her in a closer embrace to reassure her.

  "Morning." His voice was husky.

  A blush crept into her cheeks, and she looked toward where their bodies joined. The arm that banded her against him was several shades darker than hers, tan against the creamy paleness of her skin.

  "I didn't think you'd ever…" Alexa paused, started over again. "I didn't think we'd actually…"

  "Didn't you?" Damian gave a low, throaty chuckle. "It seems to me like you knew where things were headed before I did."

  "I knew what I wanted." Alexa's blue eyes locked onto his, before lowering gradually to the curve of his mouth. "I always know what I want. That's the easy part. I just wasn't sure if…"

  Damian held himself back from interrupting until he saw the conflict waged behind her eyes. When she couldn't continue her train of thought aloud, he lowered his lips to hers and pressed a gentle kiss to her speechless mouth. Alexa received him gladly, turning halfway over in his arms.

  The phone on the bedside table buzzed.

  The two separated and stared at each other for a drawn-out second. Damian all but threw himself out of bed in an effort to reach his cell. Alexa clung to him, possibly to prevent a collision with the floor as he scrambled to answer.

  It was a text sent from an unknown number.

  FLYNN A TRAP. GET OUT NOW.

  His skin went from Alexa’s naked body temperature to an ice bath in less time than it took him to draw his next breath.

  Damian stared hard at the screen as Alexa draped herself over his shoulder. He felt her body stiffen against his when she read the text, but she didn't move away. If anything, she pressed closer.

  "Rockwell?" she asked in a hush.

  Damian didn't answer her immediately. He read the text again, silently turning the threat in his mind. He replayed every word Flynn had said to him the previous day, recommitting to memory every tic that had seemed slightly out of place for a man who had historically been a nervous specimen to begin with.

  "Seems likely." Damian spoke as casually as if they were privy to another audience in the room. For all he knew, they already were.

  "How will we get out?" Alexa's body tensed behind him, and he turned to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her in.

  "Get dressed," he whispered into her hair, his eyes roaming the room for any indication that the room had been bugged. Christ, he’d been careless. He couldn’t remember the last time he failed to sweep for devices in a spot he landed for any length of time.

  "Something you can travel in. Don't bother with your bag. We're going out the back way."

  Alexa complied silently with his directives, slipping out of bed to recover her jeans and sweatshirt. Damian fastened his pants and pulled a sweatshirt on over his head. He stowed the burner phone in the reserve bag and eased it over his shoulder. The clock on the bedside table read seven a.m.

  He motioned to the window. She eased it fully open, straining to keep the slider quiet. He boosted her out onto the roof, passing her his reserve bag before lifting himself out after her soundlessly. The attic dormer window was not built to accommodate the width of his shoulders, but Damian was no stranger to exiting buildings through means other than the back door.

  They edged along the steeply-gabled roof. Before he could peek his head around to the driveway, Alexa's hand pressed against his chest and pushed him back against the side of the house.

  "How many?" he asked.

  "One unmarked van."

  He appreciated her effort to keep her voice level, although he could tell by her eyes that she was afraid. Damian's mind flashed back to his morning run three days previous when they had been securely lodged at the safe house. What was pulling at him now? In the next moment, he had it.

  "No Jeep of any sort?" he asked her. He couldn't get the memory of the abandoned car out of his head, and his instincts usually carried good reason.

  Alexa leaned around the side again, before shaking her head. "Just the one."

  Damian's face hardened. "No," he replied. "Not one."

  There was still Flynn's car, after all.

  ***

  Morning stretched to noon. Alexa was silent as they sped down the highway. Damian would have taken any spoken word over her somberness—an insult, a quip, an acerbic remark that called his judgment into question. It would have been a welcome return to form for them, and he needed something to occupy his mind.

  "Where did you learn to hotwire a car?" she asked eventually.

  The question seemed inevitable. Damian's mouth twisted in the semblance of a relieved smile—of course that was what Alexa Volkov would want to know.

  "When you work for the force as long as I did, you tend to pick up a few things from both sides." His expression darkened. "Flynn had it coming."

  "Why would he betray us?" she asked. "I thought he was your friend."

  "I should have known better." Damian's hands clenched the steering wheel. "I never trusted Locke before, not even when he was holed up at the safe house and his life depended on me. He was always shady as hell, and I told Rockwell as much. I've gotten too trusting."

  Her gaze drifted out the passenger window.

  He wanted to bite back the words the moment he uttered them. The words were not meant for Alexa, but they might as well have been. Had he maintained his focus on his job instead of her, they wouldn’t be flying down an Ohio interstate like their tailpipe was on fire.

  "It's not your fault," she said finally. "There was no one else for u
s to trust."

  "I trust myself. And I trust you." His hand found her knee and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “You more than handled yourself back there. And yesterday, with Sasha. You are an impressive woman.”

  For as weak as the compliment sounded on his own ears, he regained Alexa's attention. She turned, smiling faintly.

  “How impressive?” Her innocent expression completely contradicted her suggestive tone.

  “Impressive enough that, when this is all over, I want a copy of that wiretap.”

  Alexa's expression was worth the joke. The blood drained from her face, and she turned to direct her gaze forward out the window. "Were we tapped?" she inquired hesitantly. And then, much less hesitantly, "Fuck you."

  Damian wasn't usually turned on by swearing, but the sound of that word on her barely-there accent made him want to sink inside of her until she catalogued every last curse against his ear. "I intend to hold you to that promise."

  They wove through the far western reaches of Pennsylvania. Several counties into New York state, he grabbed his reserve bag from the back seat and handed it to her.

  "There should be three flares toward the bottom. I want you to take one."

  "What am I supposed to do with this?" Alexa manipulated the red cylinder in her hand, turning it toward her face until Damian reached across the car to direct it away from her.

  "We're about five minutes out from Rockwell’s," he said.

  "So? Isn't he going to help us?" Alexa asked.

  "I'd say we're expected," Damian responded. He didn't elaborate more for fear of worrying her—they would know their situation soon enough. "I'll park away from his house. If anything goes wrong—if you see anything or you’re in danger in any way—remove the cap, hold it away from your body, and strike. If you signal me, I'll come running."

  "Why don't you just take me with you, and then we don't have to worry with flares and signals?" Alexa asked as they turned into Rockwell's neighborhood. She was trying her best to sound annoyed, but Damian detected a tremor in her voice. "If I'm such an impressive woman, then I don't see why…"

  Her voice trailed off as they pulled alongside the curb. They were within view of Rockwell's home. Black, unmarked vehicles surrounded the property. Their position was hidden from view behind a huge oak on the adjoining lawn.

  Damian unclipped his seatbelt, grasped her by the back of her neck, and pulled her into a kiss that rivaled previous night’s heat. Alexa leaned into him, one final, charged agreement that they would see this to the end, together. Then they were out of time, and Damian pushed out the driver's side door.

  “Keep the engine running. We don’t have a key,” he reminded her.

  Alexa nodded.

  He approached Rockwell's house unarmed. With the Feds closing in around them, he had one chance to explain their situation, and he intended to get it right. When Rockwell vouched for him, he had no doubt his side would be heard. Damian knew he could explain their case in a way that would at least see Alexa in protective custody for the next few days. After that…

  He couldn't bring himself to think about what would come after. All he needed to do now was to focus: one foot in front of the other, up onto the porch, knock on the door. All he needed to do was—

  Damian noticed the familiar Jeep parked further along the street the same instant he felt the cold press of a gun’s muzzle to his temple.

  ***

  “Not a sound, Stone.”

  The man holding the gun was instantly, impossibly recognizable to Damian.

  For a moment, Damian thought he was either dreaming or mistaken. Michael Paulson, known as Paulson to the men he served with, often stood by Damain’s side when his subconscious mind insisted on replaying the warehouse scene.

  This Paulson had aged. Two years had passed, but the man holding him at gunpoint now looked on the hard end of his thirties, even though Damian knew his former partner to be otherwise. Paulson’s hair had grown out from the regulation high-and-tight and fell across his ears in a dark shag, the jet-black color streaked gray beneath the baseball cap and drawn hood. A pair of matte black shades concealed his eyes, though the wrinkles around the frown lines of his mouth indicated that his face hadn't escaped the hardship that had streaked his hair.

  "Hello, Stone," Paulson said amicably, as if he hadn't just returned from the dead to blow the lid off Damian's entire world. "Going to see Rockwell? I wouldn't recommend it. He's given you up. You and the Volkov’s daughter."

  "Paulson?" he croaked. "You were dead." His throat collapsed against the sudden swell of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. "You died in my arms."

  "Tetradotoxin. Modified by government researchers to get agents out of sticky situations," Paulson said with the tonal equivalent of a shrug. “Slows the heart rate. Diaphragm turns into a concrete block. But in a cruel irony, your senses stay alert. I heard everything. Saw everything. Wasn’t easy, Stone. Especially not when I had to do it to you."

  "How did you escape?" That wasn't the question he meant to ask. Damian took it back in the next instant with a simple utterance: "Why?"

  "Why fake my own death?" Paulson tapped the barrel of his Beretta against Damian's head.

  Damian cringed.

  "Easy, Stone. I'm not going to shoot you. There’s nothing but bullshit beyond that door. I just need to keep you from doing something stupid."

  He retracted his weapon to prove it. Damian spun around. Paulson's mouth turned up in a bitter smile.

  "You know what my life was like better than anyone. Can you blame me for lying to get away from it? Hell, when I joined the NYPD, I think I was praying for the opportunity to disappear forever. Weren't we all?"

  "I never had a death wish," Damian said through gritted teeth.

  "Never thought you’d take my death so hard." Paulson moved back a step. He scratched an itch in his moppy hair with his trigger finger. "I heard you left law enforcement, but I never thought what happened back at the warehouse would force that decision. I'm touched, Stone, really, but listen to me when I say we have more pressing matters."

  "What are you talking about?" It would be so easy to fall back into step with the other half of his partnership. This was the man who had protected his life for years, the man who Damian had ultimately failed. "If you're alive, why are you here?"

  "Don’t go in there," Paulson said in earnest. "They'll lock you up without hearing you out—or worse, they'll shoot you dead on the doorstep and take the girl. Where’s the girl, Stone?”

  "They won't shoot me. Not without provocation and not if Rockwell's in there."

  "They have plenty of provocation." A fraction of a second after his temper slipped loose, Paulson reined in his voice, ripcord tight. "Someone has been feeding them lies, man. Someone not me. You know me, Stone. We were brothers, in every sense. In fact, it's in my best interest to not be here explaining shit to you right now, but here I am, sticking my neck out for you, like always. Volkov paid Rockwell off to get rid of his own daughter before she could testify. You're being set up as the fall guy."

  "What about you?" Damian demanded. His fingers itched to grab the gun out of Paulson's hand. The rest of him wanted to run back to the car, to ensure that Alexa was still safe and out of harm's way, that the father she had sworn herself to protect would never get ahold of her again. "Why are you here?"

  "I got a tip you might be in trouble.” Paulson holstered his gun. “Rockwell found out I was sniffing around you and deposited a huge chunk of change into my bank account. Alerted the FEDs. I been on the run since. Same as you."

  The house in front of them appeared inactive, silent. They needed to take their discussion some place secure. Some place where he could sort out his thoughts out. Some place where Alexa would be safe…

  Movement reflected against Paulson's sunglass lenses. Damon turned, his eyes tracking something in the street—a bright red flash and the skittering cylinder of an ignited flare.

  Alexa.

  Something
was wrong.

  "You left her in the car?" Paulson asked in his vintage what-the-fuck? tone.

  "Another location. Twenty minutes." Damian was already doubling back the way he had come.

  "Warehouse!" Paulson shouted. "Volkov's warehouse!"

  Damian had scarcely made it back to the car before men in dark suits swarmed the house’s front lawn, evidently alerted by the fireworks. He thought he saw Rockwell's burly figure among them, but he had no time to stop and consider how deep the man's treachery extended.

  Damian slid into the driver's seat. Alexa looked pinned to the back of her seat with fright, but there was no time to ask what had triggered her signal. Once he had assured himself that she was safe with a glance, he reversed them both out of the neighborhood with a peel of rubber, hands stroking the wheel into a practiced three-sixty. Paulson followed suit, his Jeep shooting off down the opposite end of the street.

  Shots cracked the air. Wheels collapsed on several of the vans as his former partner picked pursuers off out his open window.

  Paulson was giving them a head start. Damian hoped it would be enough.

  CHAPTER 11

  "What happened?"

  Alexa pulled her wild-eyed face away from the reflection off the passenger window to witness Damian's equally disarming expression trained on the road. Her heart was lodged somewhere between her breastbone and her throat.

  "What happened?" she asked. "Where are we going?"

  "To meet an old friend," Damian said. “My partner. The one I thought—”

  A cold, incredulous laugh escaped Alexa’s mouth, so unlike anything she had vented before in his presence. She couldn’t help it. Irony was a rat fucking bastard.

  Damian tensed behind the wheel. "Alexa?"

  She clutched her thighs, feeling her nails dig into the material of her jeans, until Damian reached between them and forced her to relent with a calming pressure of his hand.

  "What is it?” he asked again. “Why did you signal me?"

  Her throat closed over the words she knew would destroy Damian.