by Tara Janzen
“Jaaaane,” Blue whined. “Make him stop.”
It was dark and hot and incredibly cramped in the closet, bodies pushing on him from every direction, kids hanging on his clothes, someone actually standing on his right foot. All of which he could have borne, except for Jane being laminated to the front of his body, pushed up next to him so tightly he could feel every curve she had, every breath she took, and the snap on her jeans.
It required pressure to get that close, and he was feeling that, too, intense pressure in all the wrong places.
He was dying.
And she’d called him Mr. James, which was even worse than what the Jack kid had called him, lame-ass loser. Mr. James made him sound like an alien, like he came from another planet, like the only way in hell they could ever get together would be if their worlds accidentally careened out of orbit and crashed into each other . . . which, when he thought about it, was kind of what had happened tonight, where they’d started off with this huge gap between them, but had ended up in the exact same spot—and he meant exact. If they got any closer, one of them was going to have to change their name.
It was killing him.
Her hair was silky against his neck, and despite what was going on down around his knees, she smelled divine, like heaven. The closet had been a great hiding place for all of two seconds for two people, but it had turned into a torture chamber. He didn’t know how many Rats had jammed themselves in on top of him and Jane before somebody had finally gotten the door shut.
“Shhh. All of you,” she whispered, then lifted her mouth to his ear. “Boost me up.”
Sure. No problem. He’d just bend his knees a little, just slide his face down the side of her neck and over her breasts, and cup his hands for her boot.
No problem—despite the complaints he got for shoving Blue and rearranging everybody else. He couldn’t help it. They were packed in like sardines.
No problem at all when Jane’s knee ended up in his armpit and her crotch ended up in his face—no problem, but he slipped straight into the twilight zone, his senses flipping on one by one, gearing up for the leap into hyperdrive. It didn’t help when he lifted her, and the whole silky length of her midriff slid along his cheek.
Only his years of training saved him, all the time he’d spent studying and working as a certified massage therapist while he’d developed his theories on sexual imprinting. He was used to skin, soft, estrogen-infused skin. Professionally speaking, it was a familiar work surface—for his hands. Of course, that kind of skin against his face conjured up a whole different scenario.
He held his breath, trying not to go nuts, but quickly gave it up. Not breathing was always a strategy doomed to failure.
So he breathed and held her steady against him. He breathed and let the scent of her skin go to his head. He breathed and felt like he was falling in love, because it had been a long time since he’d been this close to a girl he liked this much.
Above him, she was busy doing something with the wall close to the ceiling. When he heard the scrape of wood against metal and felt a breath of cold air, he realized she’d opened a trapdoor or a ventilation shaft.
“Come on, Rats. Up.”
And that was when Travis discovered a new personal talent: He was the perfect shape and size to be a human stepladder.
Who had known?
The Rats swarmed up his body, helped by Jane, who pulled them up one by one, then pushed them through the opening. They used his shoulder as a resting spot and his head as a pushing-off point. He gritted his teeth and bore it, his arms straining, his patience thinning.
Out in the theater, he could hear the police coming up on the stage, the low sound of their voices and the heaviness of their steps hitting the boards. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He’d never run from the cops in his life. As an EMT, he worked with the police, side by side, saving lives, picking up the pieces. He was one of the good guys, heart and soul. He knew he looked like just another slacker dude, but man, if your heart stopped, he was the guy you wanted showing up fast. If your kid overdosed, he was the guy to call. His best friend from high school, Connor Ford, was a cop, and Connor was going to have a heyday with this story, if Travis could swallow his pride long enough to tell it.
Two beers ought to do the job.
With the last Rat through, five by his count—and he didn’t know how five kids had jammed themselves into the tiny closet—Jane boosted herself through the trapdoor and reached down for him.
“Hurry,” she whispered, pulling on his shirt. The voices were growing closer.
It was ridiculous, hiding from the cops, but her sense of urgency was contagious, and he found himself reaching for the opening. It wasn’t very big, not as big as he’d hoped. He went ahead and shoved his coat through, then grabbed onto the edge of the ventilation shaft and levered himself up. It was a tight squeeze, and between him pushing and her pulling, they ended up tangled together in a pile inside a place infinitely smaller than the closet.
“Weisman, get over here and put your shoulder to this,” one of the cops said, rattling the closet door. “I think I heard something.”
Jane went motionless beneath him, her hands still clutching his shirt, her breath in his ear.
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” Weisman wanted to know.
“Just get over here.”
Travis took a breath and told himself to move off of her. It was the right thing to do, as opposed to trying to absorb her through his pores, which was not the right thing to do. But when he rolled to his side, he ran into somebody else, somebody much smaller.
“Hey, get your own spot,” the much smaller somebody whispered, elbowing him in the ribs.
Geezus. He winced and rolled back on top of Jane. Bunch of freaking little heathens—he didn’t know whether to throttle them, put them all in time-out, or pay them.
He heard one of the Rats take off crawling up ahead, scrambling through the shaft, the sound of their shoes scraping on metal.
“Wait your turn,” came a whispered order a few seconds later, also from just up ahead.
“What’s taking so long,” somebody complained.
“Jeeter’s stuck.”
Travis knew which kid had to be Jeeter, Rat number two on the human chain that had crawled up him, the big Rat. Jeeter weighed about a ton and a half, and if he was stuck, they were all stuck. Logjam, pure and simple. Nobody was going anywhere.
He swore silently, praying he wouldn’t embarrass himself, which was really going to ruin his night, when suddenly, it dawned on him that the universe might be trying to tell him something. Being plastered up close and personal to Jane twice in less than five minutes couldn’t possibly be just a cosmic roll of the dice. It was karma. It was fate.
It was going to make him do something stupid, if he wasn’t careful.
“Kiss, kiss, kiss,” came a small voice, very softly, from somewhere on the other side of Jane.
Yeah. That was it. The stupid thing he was in danger of doing. She already had to think he was a total idiot. Making a move on her just because his face was buried in the curve of her neck and her mouth was just inches away would be totally juvenile.
“Sounds like rats to me,” the cop named Weisman said. “These old places are full of them.” He put his shoulder to the door with a solid thump. “You want to tell me what we’re doing here again?”
Totally juvenile, Travis decided—but he couldn’t help himself. Every time she exhaled in his ear, his temperature rose ten degrees, and he was damn close to critical meltdown, because this was Jane beneath him, molded to his body—wild Jane with the wary green eyes who watched everybody within a thirty-foot radius and held them all at bay, Jane who never spoke to anyone except Katya or Suzi, Jane who could disappear in plain sight, blending in, being still, being oblique, so subtle, so smooth.
Jane who simply fascinated him with her feral gaze and sidelong glances, with the way she moved.
Jane whose hand had dri
fted over his painted angel’s body and made him wonder if she was actually seeing him, thinking about him.
“We’re making Lieutenant Bradley happy,” cop number one said. “And if we find something, it’ll make her even happier. We’ve fielded over half a dozen complaints on the Empire over the last couple of months, but we never find anything.”
“What kind of complaints?” Weisman hit the door again with a solid, board-cracking thump.
Damn. He needed to stop thinking about Jane and start worrying about the cops. If Jeeter didn’t get his butt through whatever opening he was stuck in, Travis was going to get his ass busted. He was last in the Rat line. It was his cheese hanging out in the wind.
Which brought him to another, sudden, blinding realization: He didn’t have anything left to lose. This was it. The whole screwed-up night was heading toward a dead end faster than a Mack truck with no brakes.
Hell, inside of five minutes, he’d probably be in police custody, while all the Rats would be home free. He’d be starting his rap sheet and heading downtown, and they’d be back watching Fantasia and tying up some other unsuspecting fool.
“Kiss, kiss,” came the little voice again, and Travis stopped fighting it. This was going to happen. Jane had to be thinking about it, too. The Rats had been chanting “kiss” since they’d dragged him up on the stage.
Kiss . . . he’d know soon enough if she wasn’t interested. He’d know instantly.
Turning his face deeper into her neck, he let his nose slide through the silky strands of her hair and brush against her skin. Her breath caught softly in her throat, which was a good sign, and she didn’t pull out her silver switchblade and gut him, which gave him a ridiculous amount of confidence.
“Trucks pulling up in the middle of the night, unloading stuff. Kids running around at all hours. I don’t know,” the cop was saying. “I’ve been here three times, and we’ve come away empty-handed every time.”
“You talk to the owner?” Weisman gave the door another hit, but Travis hardly cared. He was sinking into Jane, into the scent and softness of her, opening his mouth on her cheek, sliding his hand up into her hair, holding her—filling himself up with her. He grazed her jawline with his teeth, and a shiver went through her. He slid his nose down the side of hers, and her hands tightened on his shoulders, which was such a perfect turn-on, to have her holding onto him.
“Louise Nash, yeah,” the cop said. “She’s been renting it out to a guy in Phoenix for the last four years, a Nick Daley, who we haven’t been able to find. Apparently, he’s trying to turn the place into a venue for concerts, but hasn’t been able to pull together any backers. That’s her story, anyway.”
“The place is a dump,” Weisman said, hitting the door again. “I wouldn’t put my money in it.”
That caused the first cop to laugh. “You don’t have any money.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Weisman gave the door one more hit and burst through with a muttered curse.
Travis’s time was up.
“Jane,” he whispered her name, then covered her mouth with his own.
Her lips were incredibly soft, her breath catching in her throat again, but her body didn’t melt into his. Just the opposite, in fact. She stiffened up. It was pure fight, flight, or freeze like a bunny in the headlights, and she’d gone the bunny route—definitely. He could feel it in her heartbeat, in the silent thrum of energy suddenly holding her so still beneath him. He didn’t blame her, not really. She was compromised. He was on top, and there was no mistaking what he wanted. Out-and-out telling him no would have been one thing, but her breathing was shallow, as if she was feeling the same thrill coursing through him, and she was still holding on to him like her life depended on it, so he went ahead and kissed her. He breathed her in and teased her, rubbing his lips over the corner of her mouth so very, very gently, and he whispered her name again.
“Jane.” Beautiful, wild Jane . . . open for me.
And finally, she did, her lips parting on a ragged sigh he felt all the way down to his groin, a sigh of surrender. He didn’t hesitate. He slid his tongue inside, into soft, wet heat, into the sensual seduction of her mouth—into serious trouble.
He’d wanted to kiss her. God, how he’d wanted to kiss her, and he’d known it would be good, but he hadn’t known it would make wanting the rest of her instantly so much worse.
He should have expected it. He’d been kind of crazed of late, and all because of her. He’d let his imagination get way out of hand, but maybe so had she. When he buried his hand deeper into her hair, she pressed her body closer to his. When he slanted his mouth across hers, she moved with him, making the kiss hotter, deeper, giving herself up and all but turning him inside out.
Geezus. She was the angel.
He should have done this days ago. He’d needed this days ago, to be with her, physically, to make contact. The dreams he’d had about her had been so surreal, jungle dreams, hot dreams, with smooth skin and wet mouths, dark caves and secret places, and her hair flowing over him like a river of silk. The kind of dreams where he woke up in a sweat, his body aching. He’d lost sleep. He’d lost his appetite—and now, if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his head and forget that the Empire was crawling with cops and Rats, that they weren’t alone, and that no matter how good the kiss was, it wasn’t going to go nearly far enough to satisfy him—not in this ventilation shaft.
But after waiting so long to get this close to her, he needed something. Something more than a kiss. He gathered her more tightly to him, loving the feel of her in his arms, the melting heat of her body lying along the length of his, the shape of her. She made another soft, surrendering sound in her throat, her arms sliding up around his neck, her hands tunneling up into his hair, and every functioning brain cell he had left dissolved into pure instinct and sensation. His knee went between hers. His hand went under her sweater, sliding up over silky skin. It all felt so good, and there was absolutely nowhere to go with it, not when they were crammed inside a tin can with five kids. He shouldn’t even be kissing her the way he was. He knew it. She knew it, and between the two of them knowing so damn much the kiss slowed to a stop, until the only thing moving between them was their breath—their lips touching, their hearts racing.
And then it was all over.
“Hey, I got one.” A large hand clamped down around his ankle. “Weisman, help me out here.”
Another set of hands grabbed on to his other leg and started pulling.
Travis quickly jammed his feet against the two-by-fours framing the shaft opening. He wasn’t ready to go, not yet, not like this, and the cops wouldn’t have the leverage to get him out, not until he let them.
“Come on, buddy. Come on out of there.”
The Rats were moving around him and up ahead, moving away. Jeeter must have finally gotten through.
But Jane wasn’t moving. She was still with him.
A beam of light bounced around the inside of the ventilation shaft, throwing enough illumination to reveal her face. One look, and he was just about done in all over again.
The Rats needed a few more seconds to get away, but she looked like she was going to need days. Her mouth was soft, her cheeks flushed, and he could tell from her eyes that she was still just a little bit lost in that wonderland where they’d been.
He didn’t blame her. He would have stayed there, too, for days, right along with her, except he had two bruising hulks trying to drag him back into the closet.
Sonuvabitch. This was all so stupid, he couldn’t believe it.
She had to go, and she had to go now.
He slid his hand down to her waist and gave her a push.
“Go,” he whispered, trying as best he could to get her out from under him. The Rats were abandoning ship, and she needed to be with them.
When she was finally free, she hesitated, then cupped his cheek with her hand and kissed him, her lips brushing across his not just once, but twice. In the next instant, she was gone, silently
. Unlike the little Rats, she didn’t scramble, or scurry, or even make a sound. She simply moved and disappeared.
He was tempted to follow her. Damn tempted. Chances were he could shake off Weisman and Company and catch her on the other side of wherever it was the shaft led. But chances were Weisman and Co. would follow, too, and the gig would be up.
Better to finish it now, he decided. Let Jane and the Rats go and throw the cops off their trail. Besides, how bad could it be getting busted?
BAD enough, he thought two hours later. Especially with Skeeter scowling at him.
“Arrested,” she said for about the fourth time, like she just couldn’t believe it was true. “Arrested running wild with . . . with—”
“Uh, let’s not go there, Skeeter.” He’d told the cops exactly nothing, and he’d like to keep it that way.
“You said you were going home.” She was looming over him where he was sitting at Weisman’s desk, her foot tapping. “You said you were done for the night.”
“I don’t need a lecture, babe. That’s why I called Connor.” With only one phone call, he’d thought he’d better get another policeman on his side, and he’d known Skeeter would chew him up.
“Your cop friend?”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded and looked up at her. “So who called you?”
“Who do you think?”
Jane. Despite the current crappiness of his situation, he couldn’t help but give in to a grin.
“What did she say?”
“That she was real sorry, but the night had gotten a little complicated, and maybe I should haul my ass down to the police station and bail your ass out.”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
Skeeter let out a disbelieving snort. “At least you’ve still got your hair. She said the Rats tied you up.”
Great. That was just the sort of information he wanted everybody to have—that he’d been bushwhacked by a bunch of juvenile delinquents.
“There were a lot of them.”
“They spray paint you anywhere?” One of her pale blond eyebrows arched above her sunglasses.
