“We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way,” he said softly. There was a dangerous note to his voice. “You can come willingly or I can drag you out of this apartment by that blond hair of yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” I seethed.
“Try me.” He glared back.
We stood there glaring daggers at one another until I sighed. “Fine. But you’re buying me a coffee with caramel. And whipped cream.”
He smiled; it wasn’t a pleasant sight.
“Ugh! Put those white teeth away. It’s too early for me to have to see that.”
I swore I heard him laughing when I walked away. I didn’t bother to look back on my way to my closet, but I did yell over my shoulder, “Oh, and I’m going to need a donut! A big one.”
* * *
He took me to the Dunkin Donuts not far from the DMV. He wouldn’t let me drive, saying he knew the minute I got into my Jeep I would speed off into the morning and he didn’t feel like having to hunt me down.
Of course I was angry and hurled insults at him the entire time he was shoving me into his car. But once he shut the door behind me and I sank back against the buttery soft leather of the seat, I decided that maybe riding with him wouldn’t be that bad.
He was driving a Porsche Cayenne, a crossover SUV that I knew probably set him back at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was white with a butter-colored leather interior and boasted upgrades such as heated seats (in the front and the back), navigation, surround sound, satellite radio, interior ambient light (which was actually rather soothing to my headache), and a freaking heated windshield. I didn’t even know you could heat a windshield.
I stopped checking out everything the minute he opened his door and slid in. The last thing I wanted him to see was that I actually liked his car. Then he might start thinking I liked him. Which was never gonna happen.
“Do me a favor and say nothing,” I said as he turned the car on and the seat warmer began to spread heat throughout my back. I wanted to sigh in pleasure.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Jeep and it was great in the snow, but it wasn’t luxurious at all. I mean my windows zipped open and closed. This car was just pure luxury.
To my surprise he actually did as requested. The ride to the Dunkin Donuts was just too short. I actually found myself wishing it were further away so I could sit here longer, in the heat and leather with the soft hum of classical music playing in the background. Even after he parked and climbed out, I sat there, not ready to deal with whatever reason he dragged me out to breakfast.
In truth, I was exhausted. I didn’t get to bed until late because I’d been at that stupid charity ball and it took me an hour to get home. Then I tossed and turned half the night. I kept dreaming he was putting his hands all over me, and his lips… His lips were in places I actually never wanted them to be. So I would wake up frustrated and annoyed only to fall back asleep and have it happen all over again.
I was still committed to ruining his plans and hopefully run him out of Alaska to never be seen again, but I was also hoping for a little space, a little time to get over my embarrassment over how my body responded to him last night.
He opened the car door and leaned in, his face just inches from mine. “Did you plan on getting out?”
“Ugh!” I said, pushing his face away with my hand. “I was trying to avoid you for as long as humanly possible.”
I followed him inside where amazingly the line wasn’t that long. I usually avoided coming inside on the way to work (I opted for the drive-thru) because it was usually insanely busy. I went ahead of him in the line and ordered the biggest caramel coffee they had and one of the giant coffee rolls that looked fresh out of the oven. I didn’t bother to stand with him while he ordered but left him to pay and wandered down the line where an incredibly fast barista handed me my coffee. “Bless you,” I told her.
I took my coffee and went to sit by the window, hoping I could people watch instead of listen to whatever it is he dragged me here for. A few minutes later he came over and dropped a paper sack in front of me, along with several napkins. He sat down and popped the lid off his black coffee (gross) and then unwrapped a sandwich that appeared to be made on wheat toast and consisted of egg whites and ham.
“Are you one of those freaks that counts every calorie they put in their mouth?” I asked as I dug out the giant coffee roll and took a huge bite.
“Clearly, you are not.”
“My breakfast tastes better than yours,” I sang and took another bite.
“Food is fuel. Not… enjoyment.”
I ignored him and savored my sugar.
“When were you going to tell me we were invited to lunch?” he said after a few minutes.
I choked on my coffee. “How did you know about that?”
He gave me one of those looks that would cause lesser, healthy-eating girls, to run away screaming. I just sat there and waited for him to get to the point.
“Call her. Make the date for this week sometime,” he demanded.
“If you think I’m going to help you—” I began, sitting up a little straighter.
“I wouldn’t need your help if you hadn’t involved yourself in my business, befriended my Target, and told her I was gay!” he growled over the rim of his coffee.
“You know what they say,” I told him. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Maybe you should take that as your cue and leave.”
“What part of this is my job do you not understand?” he ground out. “Do you think I want to be here in this reject of a place? Do you think I want to be sitting here with you? I don’t have a choice. I do this job or…” His words fell away and I leaned forward.
“Or what?”
“Are you finished?” he asked, looking around at a few of the other tables. Apparently we were drawing an audience.
“Yeah,” I said, dropping my half-eaten donut in the sack and rolling down the top. I stood up and grabbed my coffee and the bag while he threw everything away except for his coffee, which now had its lid.
I followed him out of the shop and sank back into the leather of his Porsche. The seats were still warm.
He turned on the engine but didn’t put the care into drive. He just sat there staring out over the dashboard. “Make the date or I’ll kill you.”
“You will not.” I rolled my eyes.
He turned hard, cold green eyes on me and stared me down. I stared back, refusing to buckle under the pressure of his threat.
“All it would take,” he said softly, “is one little call to the Grim Reaper himself. All I would have to do is tell him that you were getting in my way and I wouldn’t have to kill you. I think you know once the Reaper makes a claim, there’s no going back.”
I thought about Piper. I thought about the price she would pay if he actually made good on his threat and sent the Reaper after me.
“I can’t do it until Saturday. I only get an hour for lunch during the week.”
“Good. Make it a weekday. Then you won’t have to stay the entire time.”
“Fine. Now take me to work. I can’t stand to be in your presence any longer.” I felt defeated, in over my head, and it was barely eight a.m. I didn’t even feel like hurling insults at him anymore; it was all just too much for the moment.
He didn’t say anything the rest of the drive and when he pulled up to my building, I climbed out of the car, not even caring I was early (usually, I liked to be there right at eight so I didn’t have to spend any extra time here).
He grabbed my arm, stopping me from getting out completely. “Make the call today, Frankie. I’ll be checking in to see that you did.”
I jerked my arm free and got out of the car, slamming the door behind me. I didn’t look back but went straight inside and to my spot behind the counters. It was only then I realized I left my coffee and the rest of my breakfast in his car.
I sighed.
Headache + Charming - Sugar = one very bad da
y.
Chapter Eleven
“Haunted - to come to the mind of continually; obsess.”
Charming
I dreamt about her last night. I heard her voice calling my name. I heard her laughter and then I heard her cry. I pushed the covers off before daybreak and the air was still frigid due to lack of the sun. I went to make coffee, thinking the brew would help chase away my thoughts (and yeah, maybe the brandy I was going to pour in), but I found myself staring at the coffee maker and wondering what she would have thought about all these modern day appliances.
I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t be alone. The minute I left Storm last night and climbed into my Porsche, I’d thought of little else other than her. I needed a distraction. A face to look at other than the one that haunted me.
I pulled up the address on my phone, got dressed, and drove to her apartment. I knew she would be pissed; I was actually looking forward to her hideous attitude and screechy voice. Anything to drown out my own memories.
Her apartment had been a little bit of a surprise. It wasn’t gaudy and over the top like I thought it would be. It was almost classy. And the posters of Marilyn Monroe reminded me of old Hollywood. She, however, had been over the top.
She pushed me so far with her attitude that I threatened her with G.R.’s wrath. That was the first time I ever threatened to sic him on someone. Usually I fought my own fights. She just knew how to push all my buttons and piss me off like no one else could.
Still, the way she climbed out of my car, without looking back, leaving her precious sugar behind, had made me feel… bad.
I told myself it was because of who I thought I’d seen last night. The reason I was feeling things. The reason I was so on edge.
So now instead of being haunted by one woman, I was being haunted by two.
I wasn’t good with idle time to fill. I was used to working… on pursuing a Target, a job, until it was complete. But this one was different. I couldn’t pursue the senator’s daughter like I would any other woman. I had to wait. I had to be patient. Building up trust wasn’t something I could do overnight.
I went to a gym in the bad part of town. Pulled my Porsche into the alley next to the entrance. There was a bum sitting near the dumpster, reading a tattered paper. He eyed my car and my clothes when I got out.
I fished a couple twenties from my pocket and extended them to him. “Watch my car. Don’t let anyone touch it. If you have problems, come get me. If it’s still here and undamaged when I come out, I’ll give you two hundred bucks.”
He eyed the cash in my hand.
“This now. Two hundred after. Got me?”
He nodded and took the cash.
I went toward the back door.
“You know there are better gyms on the other side of town. Gyms for your kind of folk,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied and went through the door.
There were better gyms. But he was wrong about my kind of folk. I might look the part of a high-society man. I might have the money and the connections. But deep down beneath it all… I was a fighter.
The gym was one large square and smelled like no one had cleaned it since it was built. I walked past the free weights, the heavy bags hanging from the ceiling, and the many jump ropes hanging on the wall and into the tiny locker room where I kept a locker. I undid the lock and pulled out my gym clothes, stripping away the high-society man and putting on the one I was born as. When my wifebeater, shorts, and shoes were on, I went out to the ring.
There was a guy there, a little bigger than me, and I made eye contact with him. We both laced up some gloves and got in the ring.
I didn’t hold back. The mood I was in wouldn’t have allowed me to anyway. Even after all these years, after all the bodies I’d been through, I still remembered how to box. There wasn’t anything like it. Just two guys and their fists. Back in my days of boxing, I used to think that sheer will was what won fights. I still believed that. But I also learned that those who didn’t have enough will to win cheated.
I took a glove to the eye, felt the skin around it split and the warm trickle of blood down my face. The cut stung instantly because my salty sweat mixed in with the blood. The guy that hit me backed off, figuring I would get out of the ring.
I wasn’t getting out of the ring.
I sprang forward and delivered a series of rapid hits that had him shaking his head to clear his vision. I pounced again, dropping him to the mat but still punching, still delivering blows. It took two guys to pull me off. It wasn’t until they literally tossed me out of the ring that I snapped back to reality. I stood up, wiping at the blood on my face and peering into the ring.
The guy was unconscious. He had a split lip and it looked like a broken nose. The way he lay so still, I wondered if he was dead. Is that what I looked like the night I died? Was I that still and pale with blood on my face?
I realized the room was entirely too quiet. I glanced around. People were staring. Everyone was staring. Except for the men who were bent over the man I pummeled.
I hadn’t been trying to kill him. I was just trying to forget.
And then I realized if he were dead, I would have broken yet another one of G.R.’s rules: kill no one but a Target.
I’d gotten away with it once… many years ago. Something else I really didn’t want to remember. Afterward I’d walked around in a state of panic thinking G.R. would find out and Recall me. But he never did.
I didn’t think I would get that lucky twice.
The man in the ring moaned and relief poured through me. He wasn’t dead. It wasn’t really that I valued his life so much—I had no value for life at all.
I just didn’t want to make this job any harder than it already was.
Chapter Twelve
“Bandage - a strip of material such as gauze used to protect, immobilize, compress, or support a wound or injured body part.”
Frankie
The best part about today? It was almost over. The lines at the DMV today had been longer and more hellacious than usual. Or maybe my mood was just more hellacious that usual. Starting my day with a demanding, self-important moron banging on my door at the crack of dawn just set me off on the wrong path.
On my way out the door, I rummaged through my endless bag of things I might need but never actually used, searching for my keys. When I couldn’t find them, a little tingle of panic shot through me, the kind of panic I always felt when I thought I lost something important.
Except I didn’t lose my keys.
I didn’t have them because I didn’t drive to work today.
“Ugh!” I burst out, stomping my foot on the pavement, and turned to go back into the building. A flash of red caught my eye. I did a double take over my shoulder and sure enough, my Jeep was sitting in the parking lot.
I had no idea how it got there, but I wasn’t about to complain. Now I didn’t have to call a cab. I hurried over to the driver’s side and opened the door; my keys were in the ignition.
Charming had to have done this. He’s the only one that knew I hadn’t driven to work. He’s also the only idiot I knew that would park my Jeep in the parking lot and leave the keys in the ignition.
“Well, I guess that’s better than him actually walking inside. Then I would’ve had to see him again,” I said out loud, disgust lacing my tone.
“Are you referring to me?” someone said from the back seat.
“Agh!” I practically fell out of the Jeep as I was climbing in.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, swinging my purse behind me to whack him on the leg.
He dodged the blow and sat up. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not doing and that’s being comfortable. The back seat in this thing is worse than a Porta Potty on a hot day.”
I snorted. “Like you ever use a Porta Potty.”
“I brought your Jeep here because I knew you didn’t have a way home. I was trying to be nice.”
“Please. You aren’t nice. What do you w
ant?”
“Can we go now?” he asked, sitting up from his reclined position. “I left my car at your apartment.”
I turned around to glare at him, but my glare fell away. “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. He had an angry red gash on his eye that was starting to blacken. “You need to put some ice on that.”
Charmed (Death Escorts) Page 8
