I didn’t have a good response to that so I kept my mouth shut on the theory that silence never did any harm. He stared at me, his gaze pinning me in place, and as much as I wanted to, I didn’t see a way out. I wasn’t going to apologize. I’d have to think over the fact that he might be getting hurt here, but it was hard to do right then and there since he was in lecture-mode. I hated lecture mode. It turned him from an awesome, sexy guy into a pompous ass. I focused on the mechanics of my breathing, keeping my mouth shut.
Damn… keeping mum was hard.
“I bet your father would really disapprove.”
I set my jaw. Of course he would. “He already knows I’m no good. What of it?”
“I bet your mother would be really proud of your safe-cracking skills.”
I blanched and swallowed, then I huffed to cover it all up.
“Keep my dead mother out of this.”
He took the glass out of my hand and set it on the counter and eased closer to me, his thighs barely brushing mine, the wall of his chest looming over me. I strained to hear his strangled whisper.
“You’re doing it for all the wrong reasons, and one of them is a nice adrenaline high.” This made me lift my eyes again, a slight quirk tugging at my lips.
Finally.
Finally he understood.
“Yeah,” I said, growing a full-out smile. “I never know if I’ll make it in, and I never know if I’ll make it out. I never know what I’ll find. It’s so… unpredictable. I almost got caught today – the neighbors were walking their dog.” The grin on my face was victorious.
He leaned over me, looming. His breath broke against my skin as he spoke.
“You want unpredictable? You want adrenaline?” His handsome features were suddenly marred by scorn; I could see his fury build up beneath that controlled mask.
“Do you?” he shouted. Hands reached to grab my biceps, stopping short. He willed himself to step away, breathing hard. Four steps took him into his dining room. He reached inside a cupboard full of paperwork and pulled out a stack of documents.
“You want excitement? Here’s some excitement for you. Here, this’ll give you some adrenaline!”
He flung the lightly rolled papers at my face; I felt the wind of their passing against my cheeks. The sharp sound of crisp paper impacting the cabinets by my face broke the silence like a whip-crack.
Pages fluttered to my feet.
“Page four, paragraph two. Fifteen year probation. Page six, Community Service, five hundred hours. Page seven, Conditions of Probation. Paragraph Three – no association with know felons.” He cited all this by heart and I wanted to read it all and check, but this didn’t seem to be the right time to take my eyes off Rafael. I had never known.
“You wanna be a felon? You don’t talk about what you do. Felons who talk about the thrill they get out of what they do are known as inmates.”
His breathing was still heavy, but he stilled for a bit and my peripheral vision saw his fists open and close, open and close.
My breathing was heavy as well – I also felt an adrenaline rush, but this time it wasn’t accompanied by that familiar sense of control over a dangerous situation. There was a dissonance to it and I wanted to hide away from it, make it go away. But, as bad as it felt and despite the discord and upset and anger, I felt almost whole again. I could…
I could feel again.
I felt alive.
I STOOD straight, willing my slump away. My heated gaze sought out Rafael’s enraged one.
“Rafael.” I reached out my hand. There was nothing I wanted to do more at that moment than stroke his cheek, trace his jawline, pull his neck in for the deepest of kisses.
“You want this?” He growled.
“I want you.” The chase after this man, the extent of my actions, flashed through my mind and all of a sudden I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t attempt to keep him from shoving me out his door and out of his life.
“If you want me, you’ll go return this. If not…”
“Don’t say it…” There was a pleading note in my voice. He was annoying, exasperating, arrogant. He also had his soft and entirely sweet, even vulnerable side and I had gotten to see a glimpse of it last week, aside from which he was hot enough to melt cheese just by staring at it. The image made me swallow.
I wanted him in my life.
So much.
“Okay. Okay I’ll do it.”
His eyebrows quirked up. “You will? Why?”
“For you.”
MY HEART beat fast as I jumped off the wall again, landing in the grass with a soft thud. The cash envelope was heavy in my jacket pocket as I walked to my donor’s house and looked around.
Nobody was out. Lights were on behind people’s curtained windows. The game wasn’t over yet, either, and the home team was winning by a landslide – I had at least half an hour. I bent over and retrieved the keys from under the fake rock. It occurred to me that, perhaps, I could just leave the money with the keys under there, but I have my pride and I like to see a job well done. In this case, that would mean going up to the guy’s bedroom and replacing the envelope exactly where it belonged.
I unlocked the door and, keys in my hand, I walked up the soft, carpeted stairs. There, second door to the right, was his bedroom. I opened the door slowly, peeking in.
Nobody there.
I retrieved the cash envelope from my jacket pocket and opened the carved, wooden box when the closet door burst open and out spilled a bald guy. He wore Bermuda shorts and a baseball shirt with the losing team’s logo on it. He was in his fifties, and there was a gun in his hand.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, punk?”
I froze, stunned that he didn’t recognize me as a young, adorable, and harmless female. Then I remembered the purpose of my mission.
“I have something that belongs to you.” I placed the envelope on the bureau and edged toward the door.
“You asshole! The Markov’s told me somebody was prowling around here!” He aimed at me and pulled the trigger, destroying the light-switch on the wall.
Needing no further encouragement, I decided to engage in what some would call a ‘strategic retreat’. I wouldn’t call it that; I called it an undignified rout. I was out that door and down the short hallway like a greased lightning. Another shot sounded, then another. Trying to run down the stairs, my foot slipped on the carpet and I fell on my side and slid down like a kid. That probably saved my life since just as I did that, I felt a slug whiz through the top of my cap. He’d fired four shots.
Two more and I’m safe.
If only. In my panic and confusion I headed for the kitchen instead of the front door. The irate Ernie, despondent over his team’s loss and enraged by my brazen intrusion, charged after me like a raging bull, spewing obscenities and pulling the trigger. I ran through the galley kitchen; another shot took out his microwave. Just like a raging bull, the raging Ernie was capable of achieving surprising speed. I ducked around the corner and heard a shot take out a glass case full of tchotchkes I’d noticed earlier.
Six! He fired his six shots!
It felt like forever before I ripped the front door open.
“Your keys!” I yelled at him, throwing the ring of keys in his direction.
I shouldn’t have hesitated.
He wasn’t shooting a revolver.
He squeezed another round from what was, apparently, a semiautomatic pistol whose magazine could have held up to eighteen rounds.
I felt something sting my butt, but I didn’t stop to investigate as I poured out the door and hustled through the neighboring cul-de-sac to reach the wall. And the wall was there alright, nice and tall.
I jumped – and fell. Straight on my butt. It hurt more than usual but I didn’t care, I had all that adrenaline pumping through my system so I tried again. No luck. My jumping muscles took an unexpected vacation.
I ran to the front gate where the guard sat, reading magazines and listening to
the radio. He lifted his head, surprised to see me run past his little booth.
That’s when I realized Ernie was no longer pursuing me. A police siren sounded from afar.
Fuck.
Nobody was out on the street, and the wall sheltered me from the prying eyes of the privileged denizens of that particular gated community. I ripped off my hat with its attached hair along with my microfiber cap and ran my fingers over my mussed, tangled plait in an effort to smooth it down. I took off my green windbreaker, revealing the purple, graphic tee underneath. Removing my lock picks from my bra, I ripped off my latex gloves. Then I rolled the whole mess together, and pressed the small bundle to my body while walking, as leisurely as I could fake it, toward my car. I had to go slow anyway; the adrenaline I was so fond of was starting to wear off and I had to focus so my limp didn’t show.
Finally, my car. A nondescript and modest green Honda, it would blend into most neighborhoods. I beeped it open and slid behind the wheel just as the police cruiser sped past me with sirens blaring and lights flashing.
Only when I settled into the driver’s seat I realized why my butt hurt so much.
That jerk Ernie shot me in the ass.
I’D NEVER been shot before so I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I knew I couldn’t afford to stick around that particular neighborhood. The damage was done to my left butt cheek, which was fortunate because this way, I was able to shift my weight onto my right hip and operate the controls of my trusty, automatic transmission vehicle with the tiptoe of my right foot.
My butt throbbed. It hurt like the devil. As the happy chemicals started to leave my system, I felt the pain like a red fog, covering my eyes and impairing my function. What had been a mere sting in the beginning had bloomed into a raging, burning hotspot on an otherwise delicate area, and to make it even worse, my hands began to tremble.
Sometimes, when the adrenaline wears off, I get the shakes. I used to get them all the time at first, but as I got used to breaking and entering I just got the fun adrenaline high. Being chased and shot at took my experience to an entirely new level. Ernie had brought me to new levels of ecstasy; he plain tapped me out. I sort of knew where I was going. I navigated the main street toward the highway and headed for the city, crossing the bridge and paying the exorbitant toll again.
Waste of money.
Fussing over the toll kept my attention on driving and away from my injury, and from the way I felt light-headed, and also from my stomach, which kept doing nasty flip-flops on me. The traffic around me seemed to have sped up past reason. Pretending I had mechanical trouble, I clicked on my hazard lights. City drivers were fast and focused; I didn’t want to become their speed bump.
Somehow, and I don’t quite know how I managed, I made it to my street. There was no parking available, so I pulled up to the fire hydrant. I’d get a ticket…but now I had bigger fish to fry.
Once I turned the engine off, my system started to shut down. My hands stopped shaking, and that was good, but my body wouldn’t do as I requested, and that was definitely a big minus in my book. I just couldn’t get my bloody ass out of that car.
Bloody ass.
With great trouble I pushed the dome light on and I looked down and behind myself. I was sitting in a pool of blood, and it soaked into the grey fabric upholstery of my car and dripped onto the carpet. I unlocked the car door and reached for my cell phone. Last thing I remember doing was hitting the reply button. The phone rang, and rang
“Yo, Evelyn. It’s almost midnight.” Rafael’s voice was fuzzy with sleep.
“Raf…” Panic seized me. I forgot where I was and why. “Rafael!”
“What? Hey… Evelyn?”
“I’ve been shot.”
I heard him draw a breath and his voice dropped down to his no-nonsense register. I would have gotten flushed just from hearing it if I had had enough blood to spare.
“Where are you, Eve?”
“In front of my building. The car… the car.”
“Stay there!”
“Rafael…” I heard him click the phone shut as I drifted off and darkness claimed me.
CHAPTER 10
The light woke me up. It was right in my eyes, its white luminosity burning straight through my closed eyelids. The air had an odd smell to it. My hands felt cold and my forehead burned and I tried to turn over and escape that awful brightness, but I couldn’t. I was stuck, lying on my back, my parched tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.
“I’m almost done here, Ms. Pearson,” a calm voice said, all business. It was a man’s voice.
“Dr. Hinge, what was the duration of the patient’s anesthesia?”
I heard a familiar voice give a reply, suddenly confused.
Why was Nick here?
Where was Rafael?
Had Raf been just a dream?
I tried to call Rafael’s name, but no sound left my parched lips. They discussed my dosage and how much I weighed and how the same dosage would have affected a male of equivalent mass; I felt cool hands touch me, taking my blood pressure and reporting the numbers.
“Stay with the patient until she is fully conscious, Dr. Hinge.”
“Yes, Dr. Brungo.” Then there was the sound of receding footsteps, and that awful, bright light was clicked off.
“Open your eyes, Pearson. I know you can.”
I did.
“…”
An electrical motor whirred as my bed moved to a slightly inclined position. Cool, gentle hands lifted a cup of water to my parched lips and I drank, grateful for its soothing comfort.
“You’ll feel like your mouth is cotton-dry and you’ll be thirsty until tomorrow. It’s a common side effect of general anesthesia.” Nick looked like he almost always had, composed and calm. He wore a white coat and a nametag; a stethoscope was draped around his neck.
“Nick…”
I felt my hand on his and I squeezed it lightly; the man that had once been the love of my life was, inexplicably, by my side.
“Thank you,” I said. “What happened?”
“A guy brought you in with a gunshot wound in your butt and significant blood loss. The slug had lodged in your pelvis but it didn’t crack the bone. I had the pleasure of removing it personally.”
“You’re a doctor already?” My voice felt faint to me, my head still fuzzy, my mind not quite absorbing what was going on around me.
“No, they just call us that. I’m just a med school intern, but I get to learn on people like you. You’ll be as good as new. You got a transfusion and we did some diagnostics to check your organs for internal bleeding. We’ll send you home pretty soon with some painkillers. You’ll want to take it easy, okay?”
I nodded, the medical details slipping past me as I was trying to level with the fact that Nick was here. With me, touching my hand. My mind wandered even further; did I still love him, or not? My chest was cosseted in a warm, slightly fuzzy feeling when I looked at him.
One hundred percent.
“The guy who brought me in – what did he look like?” The sound of my own voice startled me.
“He’s downstairs, waiting. They wouldn’t let him in because he’s not related. Tall, brown hair, irate, doesn’t look like a punk.” Nick looked at me, questions in his bespectacled, intelligent eyes.
“Yeah. I’d like to see him.”
“Okay then.” He took a deep breath and picked up the phone. Not five minutes later, the door burst open, its frame filled by one Rafael Rinaldi. He looked awful. His hair was wild, his eyes were feral and his jeans and button-down shirt were covered in dried blood.
“Where’s she?” His voice was a rasp of pain, and I shuddered within. I knew he’d been angry with me before, but now – I’d done as he had asked. Why be angry with me now?
“Mr. Rinaldi…Ms. Pearson just regained consciousness. She may not be entirely lucid yet.”
“I can talk - I’m here.” My voice still felt weak, as though it was coming from a metal watering can.
“Nick. More water, please.”
I heard him pour some from the pitcher. His slender hand propped my head up so he could help me drink. The thirst just would not abate. It was driving me crazy. I drained the cup and thanked him. Then I met Rafael’s eyes.
“Rafael. Allow me to introduce Dr. Nick Hinge, my former lover and a very good friend.” Raf blanched, rooted to the ground.
“Nick. Allow me to introduce Mr. Raf Rinaldi…my current boyfriend.” I forced a faint smile, lifting my gaze to Rafael’s distressed face.
“Rafael…”
My right arm reached out to him, much like it had the night before, searching for his hand, his face, for signs of anything he was willing to give.
Or forgive.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rinaldi,” Hinge said, nodding curtly. “I’m glad Evelyn has someone by her side.” I saw Nick look at Raf and through him, taking his measure while his finger pushed his glasses up his nose. “If you need anything, press the call button and the nurse will come. Oh. And now that you’re up, the police will want to talk to you. We’re obliged to report gunshot injuries.” He gave me a faint smile; it was but a little curve of his narrow lips, but it went all the way up to his dark, penetrating eyes. “Later, Pearson.”
Pearson.
“Pearson?” Raf had echoed my thoughts, coming closer. Gingerly, he sat on the side of my bed and his hands touched mine. They felt different from Rafael’s. Warmer. The life signs monitor behind me started to beep a little faster.
“I returned that thing, Rafael. Like you asked me to.”
His ashen face showed some pain at that, and the pain was soon followed by a wave of guilt.
“Evelyn. I’m so sorry, Evelyn. I should have never… I should have just made another drink for you.” He leaned in, our foreheads touching as his hands slid to my shoulders. He leaned in, his face buried in the tangled mess of blonde hair that covered my neck.
I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances Page 22
