Run from Fear

by Jami Alden

  “Get off me!” The muscles of her arms bulged as she strained against his hold.

  He could feel her hot puffs of breath against his skin. “Do you see how easy it is for me to hold you down?”

  “Because you’re a fucking monster!” She bucked again, her breath coming in harsh pants.

  “Any guy, even one a lot smaller than me, is probably going to have more upper-body strength than you do. Come on, Talia, think. You can’t panic in this situation.”

  “How can I not panic when you’re pinning me to the floor?” she asked, her voice breaking a little.

  He felt a pinch in his chest but he wouldn’t let up. He couldn’t. He leaned in closer. “If you’re this scared with me, what’s going to happen if someone’s really trying to hurt you? Take a deep breath. I know you know what to do because I taught you myself.”

  He could see the moment the fear drained from her eyes, replaced with determination.

  In a split second her head snapped up. Jack barely jerked back in time to avoid her head smashing into the bridge of his nose.

  As it was, her forehead bumped the tip hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. When he jerked back and reflexively released her, she flipped to her stomach and squirmed out from under him, aiming kicks at his groin as she scrambled to her feet.

  Jack let out a grunt as she landed a blow a little too close to the target. He winced, then looked up to see her smiling in triumph.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her hair looked like it had been in a tornado, and her breasts were heaving up and down underneath the tight tank top.

  She looked fucking gorgeous.

  “Okay, let’s try something else.”

  Jack put her through a series of holds she had to think and fight her way out of, and soon she was cackling as Jack took a hit on the inner thigh.

  “Not so tough, now, are you, big boy?”

  They worked through the moves, Talia wanting to go through them over and over. But now that she wasn’t scared, Jack had another problem. Part of the reason she was getting away so easily was because he couldn’t focus with her sleek body pressed so tightly against him. And the scent of her… holy Christ. He wanted to bottle it up and rub it all over himself.

  It was torture, but he couldn’t stop. He’d take any excuse to touch her, even if it meant getting beat up by a girl who clocked in at half his body weight.

  He warned himself to pay attention before he ended up with a broken nose or a smashed testicle. Minutes later he was flat on his back, Talia’s elbow cocked menacingly over his face. She sat straddling his hips like he was a mountain she’d conquered.

  His hands went instinctively to her hips and he got a flash of her wearing nothing but her golden skin and a smile as she climbed on top of him. His cock, which he’d managed to keep at half-mast through sheer will and gritted teeth, surged fully, almost painfully to life.

  His fingers sank into the soft curve of her hip as he struggled to resist the urge to grind himself against her. Told himself to push her off while there was a chance she might not notice.

  “Are you…” Her eyes were wide in disbelief, her lips parted.

  Too late.

  She scrambled off him and backed clear to the other end of the studio.

  “Sorry,” he muttered as he got slowly to his feet. He felt the heat rise in his face and hoped maybe that would mean some of the blood would leave his dick. No dice. He was still tenting out the front of his shorts, and Talia was staring with what he wished was awe but was probably closer to disgust. “I can’t exactly control it.” He picked up a bottle of water. Maybe it would cool him off.

  Yeah, maybe if you pour it on your dick.

  She blinked, her cheeks going red as she pulled her gaze up to his face. “I know, I mean, not exactly a virgin here. I know how those things work. Friction and all,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I know it’s not because you’re, like, attracted to me.”

  He froze, the bottle halfway to his lips. “What exactly do you mean by that?” He could have kicked his own ass as the words were coming out of his mouth. He so did not need to head down this conversational path with her.

  Her already-rosy face turned the color of a beet. She yanked her hoodie over the tank top that fit her like a second skin. “Come on, Jack, I don’t need to spell it out for you. You’ve made it pretty clear I don’t exactly do it for you.”

  He took a slug of water, telling himself it was a good thing she was so oblivious—meant he was doing a good job at keeping his attraction on the down low. He wanted her to feel safe with him, and that wouldn’t happen if he was panting after her with his tongue out.

  But, Jesus, could she really be that ignorant? Against his better judgment, he took a step closer. “You can’t be that clueless.”

  Her thick eyelashes fluttered and she shot him a nervous look. “What do you mean?”

  Another step. He was close enough to see a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her neck. He was going down a dangerous road—for both of them. But it was like something inside him had snapped and he could no longer keep up the front of the distant protector. He was tired of keeping himself away from her.

  “Do you really think I go hard as a spike for every woman I happen to rub up against?”

  “Of… of course not,” Talia sputtered. She took a few steps back, her retreat halted by the wall. She glanced down at the front of his shorts like she couldn’t help herself. Her face was so red now Jack fully expected her head to burst into flames.

  It was hard to reconcile this blushing, sputtering woman with the gorgeous woman who had greeted him over two years ago on his first evening at Club One. He hadn’t been immune to her calculated beauty and seductive manner then, but he found this—the real Talia—so much more appealing it was a wonder he’d managed to keep his distance for so long.

  “It’s just,” Talia continued, her eyes now glued to his face, “you made it clear, that time—”

  Jack closed the distance between them and propped one hand against the wall beside her head. “What time?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper even though he had a bad feeling he knew exactly where she was going.

  Talia squeezed her eyes shut like she was trying to hold back tears. Her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. “That time, in the first safe house. I told you I would… we could—” She let out a shaky breath. Her eyes opened, dark, accusing. Shiny with tears. “You looked at me like I was something you’d scraped off your shoe.”

  The hurt in her voice hit him like a kick in the gut. At the time, he’d been so angry, so offended, that she would lump him in with the other assholes who had hurt her. And she’d looked so fucking relieved when he’d denied her advances with a curt “no” that it hadn’t occurred to him that his rejection had stung, much less festered inside her for the past two years.

  The anger rose again, at himself, for inadvertently hurting her. At her, for actually believing for one second she disgusted him, for thinking so little of herself she’d put her life in his hands anyway.

  And with the anger came the lust, the need, swelling like a wave inside that had finally broken through the containment wall that could no longer hold it at bay. In the space of a breath, he was pressed against her. His erection throbbed between them, squeezed against her stomach as her breath caught in her chest.

  “Don’t kid yourself for a fucking second that I don’t feel anything for you.”

  Her lips parted in shock, but before she could get a word out, he covered them with his own. She made a high, startled sound in the back of her throat.

  Pleasure, red, blinding, exploded through him at the first taste. Sweet, spicy, better than all his fevered imaginings. Her lips soft and giving against him, her tongue delicious and moist as he sucked it into his mouth.

  One hand cradled her cheek while the other slid up her rib cage, around her back, fitting her to him until he could feel her soft breasts with their hard nipples burrowed into his chest. He rocked
his hips, felt himself grow even harder at the delicious friction as he rubbed his cock against her stomach.

  Some small voice of reason made him grasp for control, reminded him that if he was ever so lucky to finally get inside Talia Vega’s gorgeous body, he did not—no matter how bad his body was raging—want the first time to be on the floor of a boxing gym with him sweaty and dirty and smelling like a goat.

  Not to mention, as he pulled his mouth from hers, Talia herself was looking not so much swept away by lust as absolutely shell-shocked.

  Shit.

  Still, he wasn’t going to let her go until they had some things straight. “That’s what’s been going on for me for a long time now, and in case it isn’t obvious now, what I feel sure as shit isn’t disgust. The reason I turned you down that time was because I didn’t want you to fuck me because you thought you owed me.”

  Her gaze flicked up nervously at his harsh tone.

  “If I’m ever with you, Talia,” he said, his voice low, his mouth hovering so close to hers he could feel the heat of her nervous breath, “it will be because you want me so bad you feel like you’re going to die if you don’t have me.”

  Her dark eyes flashed with anger. “You want me to beg? You want to humiliate me?”

  Jack’s resignation sank in his gut like a cannonball. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt you, Talia. All I want,” he said, struggling to keep the frustration from his voice, “is for you to want me the way I want you.”

  Talia could barely hear through the roaring in her head. She stared at Jack, dumbstruck. She held her hand up to lips that throbbed and tingled from the pressure of his kiss.

  His own lips were swollen and moist, his cheekbones slashed with color, a hot glint in his icy-blue eyes as he stared down at her. So close she could feel him, the steely hard muscles of his chest against her, and lower, the heat and length of his erection. Hard as a club and throbbing against her stomach.

  All I want is for you to want me the way I want you.

  “I can’t. I can’t. I have to go.” She ducked from his arms. He didn’t try to stop her as she rushed from the studio on shaky legs. She felt poleaxed, panicked, like the world had suddenly flipped its axis and she didn’t know which way was up.

  She left in such a daze she was halfway into her drive home before she could start to parse through what had happened. And to mentally kick her own ass for reacting the way she had.

  Jack wanted her.

  He wanted her.

  The question was, what did she want to do about it?

  Her knee-jerk reaction was to reject it. She wasn’t ready to be with a man. Her few failed attempts at dating proved it. No matter how nice the guy was, every time things got to a certain point physically, she closed up.

  After a few tries, she resigned herself to the reality that even if she could get over what Nate had done to her, get over the idea of letting someone see the scars he’d left when he’d cut her up, she didn’t think she could handle the feel of another man pawing her skin, shoving himself inside her, grunting and sweating on top of her while she moaned and writhed and faked it.

  I want you to want me like I want you.

  Jack wouldn’t want her to fake it, she thought with an undeniable thrill deep in her belly. A thrill that was immediately chased away by cold, hard reality. If she didn’t fake it, what could she do? It wasn’t like she knew any other way.

  It wasn’t like she was capable of anything else.

  But as she took the freeway exit close to her house, she found herself licking her lips, trying to capture the taste of him on her lips. Savoring the memory of the hungry way he kissed her, the way his tongue slid against hers. The heat of his hands, sliding down her body, clutching her so close, like he was dying for the feel of her.

  The memory of his touch sure as hell didn’t elicit revulsion, that was for sure.

  In fact, the warm glow burgeoning between her legs might even bear a passing resemblance to desire.

  Maybe, she thought as she focused on that warm glow, maybe she wouldn’t have to fake it.

  Not faking it wasn’t the same as matching Jack’s desire. And he wouldn’t tolerate anything less.

  The thought sent a shiver of mingled fear and—yes, she was pretty sure—desire rippling through her.

  But could she really do this? Offer herself up to him and let go of all the baggage, get over everything and give Jack what he wanted?

  What she was starting to think she wanted herself.

  Was she crazy to entertain the possibility? Jack knew all of her secrets. With him, there would be nowhere to hide. Yet, knowing everything he knew about her, he still wanted her.

  The thought sent an undeniable thrill bubbling through her.

  She churned over it as she clicked open her car door and pulled into her garage. Maybe, she thought as she retrieved her gym bag and purse from her trunk, the problem was herself. Rosario was always trying to tell her that—that she dwelled too much on the past and what she considered her own part in what happened to her to let herself get over it.

  Wasn’t she just thinking the other day how good it had felt when Jack had held her, even before she realized what was under the surface? How much she wanted to be normal enough to be attracted to a guy and brave enough to go after what she wanted?

  Still, part of her quailed at the idea of going up against Jack and all his fierceness straight out of the gate.

  His words echoed through her brain, building in strength and volume. I want you to want me like I want you.

  There would be no practice round, no dipping her toes in to see if she was really up for it. To quote one of her favorite movies, with Jack it was do or do not. There would be no try.

  But, she acknowledged as she disarmed the alarm, unlocked the door, and walked into her kitchen, if she was going to ever try, it could never be with anyone but Jack.

  The first man in nearly a decade to make her want for something more. The only man she could ever trust with her body.

  She stripped off her clothes and got in the shower, and as she soaped and rinsed, her resolve grew. Whoever was out to scare her could send all the creepy gifts they wanted. She was not going to let herself be burdened by the past. She was not going to continue to let the memories of David Maxwell drag her back to that place where she could do nothing but exist, her life stagnant, colorless.

  Jack’s kiss, the realization of what had been simmering underneath, scared the hell out of her; there was no denying that. But it made her realize how much of herself she’d been holding in check, even as she worked to open herself up and connect with the people who were part of her new life.

  “You be back by midnight, you hear me?” Gene’s mother’s demand, issued in Estonian, echoed through the house’s dim interior. Though they’d immigrated when he was four, she insisted on speaking it in the house.

  His shoulders knotted as he realized he hadn’t made it past her unnoticed. He didn’t answer and kept heading for the door, regretting it when he heard the chair scrape across linoleum followed by her muffled footsteps on the carpeted floor.

  “Gene!” she snapped, rounding the corner to the entryway. Though barely fifty, his mother looked seventy, her small body wiry and shrunken as though the years of bitterness had consumed her from the inside out. She stopped short when she saw him, curling her lip like she smelled something. “What the hell do you think you are wearing?” she asked as she took in his heavy, military-style boots, black pants, and black T-shirt, topped with a black canvas jacket.

  “I have to go, Mama,” he said, and tried to slip out the door, but she jumped in front of him. He tried to draw back but she grabbed his cheek between her thumb and her forefinger and squeezed.

  “You think some girl is going to want a loser like you, dressed up like some kakker?” She looked him up and down again. “But no clothes can change you.” She stood up on her tiptoes and pulled at his cheek.

  Though every cell in his body rebelled,
he had no choice but to bend his head closer. “You are loser, like your father. You and him, both losers who ruined my life.”

  He forced himself not to pull away, to beat back the urge to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze until her eyes popped out. He wanted to slam her head through the window and scream that he was no loser, that he was capable of things she couldn’t even imagine.

  But he took a deep breath and swallowed back the nausea. “You’re right, Mama. You’re always right.”

  Her harsh frown melted into a smile. “Good boy,” she said, patting his cheek. “Even though you’re a loser, I love you. Nobody will ever love you like Mama.”

  “I know,” he said tightly.

  “Now tell me you love me and give me a kiss.”

  He closed his eyes and bent his head, forced himself to rest his shaking hands gently on her shoulders as he pressed his mouth to her cheek. Somehow he managed not to vomit as the stench of cigarettes, boiled cabbage, and sour wine invaded his nostrils.

  Control. That was the key to his success. He had to control himself now and learn to control himself with the women. Only then would he be ready for her.

  For Talia.

  As he escaped his mother’s clutching hands and headed out the front door, a wave of anticipation shot through him like an electrical current. It curled in his stomach and pulsed through his veins, chasing away the revulsion his mother’s touch had caused.

  He slid into the car and slipped on a pair of leather gloves. He pulled the plastic case from his pocket, unable to keep from grinning at the thought of Talia’s reaction to his gift.

  Chapter 6

  Talia spent the rest of the afternoon anxiously checking her phone, but after a curt text that said only, Call if something else happens, Jack maintained complete radio silence. At first she was confused. She’d been out of the game for a while, but after a guy made a move like that, much less a declaration of that magnitude, wasn’t some kind of phone call in order?

  By the time she left for work, confusion had morphed firmly into annoyance. What the hell? Two years and he’d barely kept in touch, given no indication there was anything there.