Dare Me, page 11
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you're the good guy?" "I swear it."
"Just tell me how you have a million dollars to offer as a reward."
"A patron-rich San Francisco historical society put up the money to recover what Mario stole. And trust me, if they're willing to pay that much, imagine how little your life is worth to the guys chasing you."
"Very little."
"Double bingo."
She gulped again, and despite the fact that her skin sheened with perspiration, she shivered. "A really bad day," she whispered.
Looking into her terrified face, he felt his heart soften. Not good. Ruthless was his middle name. Fact was, Jade should have been smarter about her life, and the men in it.
And what about Wendy? Should she have been smarter, too?
With a sigh, his thumb swept a path over Jade's cheek. She had a scratch there from climbing down the tree, and he suddenly wanted to put his lips to the spot. "This whole thing might get worse before it gets better."
She nodded. "I know."
"He doesn't deserve to be out there, Jade."
"I know that, too."
"Then say it."
"I'll help you find Tomas."
"Mario."
"I'll help you find whoever the hell he is. And you'll make him pay for ruining my life." Her voice caught. "Right?"
"I'll make him pay," he vowed. "Count on it."
I'll make him pay. Jade absorbed Will's words, just as she absorbed the heat and strength of him as he pressed her into the wall.
She was hurting, inside and out, and yet none of it could rise above the sensation of his touch. His palm was warm on her cheek, his fingers callused. His thighs and chest brushed hers. He felt like one solid muscle.
Then that solid muscle tensed. He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes, clearly sensing something she couldn't hear or see. "Wait here," he breathed.
"Getting tired of that." But he was already gone.
The sun was bright overhead. At her feet, a lone ant wandered in circles. The bushes pressed into her, aggravating the cuts and scrapes she'd earned climbing down the tree.
Better than a bullet, she reminded herself.
Then, from around the corner, she heard footsteps approaching. Heavy footsteps.
But. . . Will didn't make a sound when he moved. " Oh God. Where is Will? She hesitated, but the footsteps kept coming, and picturing a nameless figure in black, holding a big gun pointed right at her, she decided she'd just lost the option of waiting.
Whirling, she took off. The long line of thick bushes hampered her. She counted how far she had to go before she could turn the back corner of the building. Four bushes. Then three, two. One. There was a wide-open gap between the last bush and the corner. She didn't dare slow down enough to glance back, but she had an itch there between her shoulder blades . . .
She already knew she was going to run into trouble in the back of the building. Each bottom-floor unit had a back deck, contained by low fences. She could have hopped any one of them and entered a sliding glass door, losing herself inside an individual condo—assuming first, that the glass door was unlocked, and second, that the person inside wouldn't freak at the wild woman breaking in with a bad guy on her tail and packing heat.
But she caught a break. She'd forgotten about the common-area patio, with the four barbecues, community hot tub, and picnic tables. She ran toward it, breath sawing in and out of her lungs. She hopped the fence, completely forgetting that anything athletic was beyond her.
Her skirt snagged on the low fencing and twisted around her hips as her foot got caught between two slats of wood, whipping her upside down, where she hung for one brief heartbeat, her face an inch from the concrete.
Then her skirt ripped, and she hit the ground.
Because she imagined her pursuer pointing his gun at her, she was up and running again without so much as brushing the gravel out of the scrapes in the palms of her hands and knees, running past the benches and the hot tub, heading directly for the door that read: MAINTENANCE, NO ENTRANCE.
It must have been some sort of divine luck that the thing wasn't locked, but she didn't stop to consider that when she burst through it, and then shut it behind her.
The room was a small maintenance room, maybe four feet by four, with a metal shelving unit loaded with supplies for the hot tub, and a few tools. A single lightbulb swung overhead. Chest heaving, her hands pressing palms down on the door at her back, Jade blinked into the surprised eyes of Ed Bahn, the man who maintained the property.
"No one's allowed in here." He stood there holding a bottle of chlorine in his big, bony hands, a tall, reed-thin sourpuss of a man in his fifties who made it a sport to snipe at everyone he came in contact with. He was mean as sin, but infinitely more appealing than whoever had been shooting at her and Will.
And where is Will? If she let herself wonder, she'd lose it. "Ed." She gulped for air. "I need to hang in here a minute, okay?"
"Not okay." Ed shook his head. "I'm leaving. I have to lock up." He pointed to the door. "Get out."
"Oh no, you can't leave, not yet." Nasty as a pit bull he might be, but she still didn't want him to run into a bullet.
"Look, missy, I'm leaving now. If you want to stay in here by yourself, fine, but don't keep that bulb working. Electricity costs money, you know. Lock up after yourself, you hear me?"
"Ed—"
Too late, he was opening the door, grumbling to himself as he always did, turning off the light, and she had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep her terrified scream still in her throat.
He'd shut her in.
In the dark.
The age-old fear reached up and grabbed her by the throat. She stared at the door, at the handle, the only sound in the room being her own panicked breathing through her fingers. Relax, Jade. Breathe. At least it wasn't completely black, she told herself. Light came in around the badly hung hinges. She
stared at that light, concentrating on putting air into her lungs.
Strain as she might, she didn't hear any gunfire, didn't hear anything.
It was so dark. Too dark. Her hand slid into her pocket and curled around the baby rattle, as if it could offer comfort in a world gone mad. But she knew she couldn't just stay in here forever. What she really needed was a weapon, something to protect herself with if it came to that. She spared a moment to wish she'd taken those self-protection classes Jody had urged her to take with her at the community center last fall.
At the thought of Jody, something panged deep inside her. She didn't understand half of what happened today, but knew that Jody had to be in even more danger than herself if she was still with Tomas somewhere, running from God knew whom.
She told herself it didn't matter, that Jody would get whatever she had coming to her for betraying Jade, not to mention aiding and abetting, but Jade just couldn't quite maintain her anger.
The handle turned.
Her life flashed before her eyes as she pressed back against the metal shelving unit, shoving a fist against her mouth to keep in her scream. Silence was key, she knew this, and tried her damnedest to disappear into her own skin.
The door creaked as it opened. Her heart all but stopped as a solidly built shoulder and a long, rangy arm slid in through the crack, blocking the sunlight, a mere shadow as the intruder wrapped his long fingers around her wrist.
She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, he slipped all the way inside, and a now-familiar hand covered her mouth. "Shh," Will said. "They're still looking for us, searching the place."
Before she could react, he yanked her to him, bumping her body into his hard, immovable one. Though she didn't know him from Adam, she bit back the urge to put her head on his shoulder and cry.
"You blocked yourself in with no escape route," he breathed in her ear, his lips tickling the sensitive skin there. "Not the smartest plan."
"You ditched me."
"I've kept you safe this far. You could show a little trust."
"Trust? Trust?" She nearly laughed, but she was afraid she wouldn't be able to stop. She settled for poking him in the pec with her finger. "I want to know what's going on. Do you hear me?"
"Shh."
"No, I won't shh, I—"
Hauling her up against him, he slammed his mouth over hers.
Shock held her immobile, but he didn't ravish, didn't plunder. Instead, he kept the connection soft, warm. His body shuddered once, as if the control cost him greatly, and when he opened his mouth in an intimate and erotic invitation, stroking his tongue along hers, she dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders and met him halfway.
She'd already known his mouth to be wide and firm, rarely smiling, but she didn't know he'd taste like forgotten dreams and have lips as giving as a spring rain. She didn't know his kiss would eradicate the horrific fear that had been driving her, replacing it with a heat and a need such as she'd never known. God, he felt good, so good, and she lost her mad, lost her fear, lost everything but the desire for more, while in the back of her heart a very small voice wondered . . . how could a guy who carried a gun for a living be so . . . extraordinarily sensual?
He rocked against her, a subtle, quiet movement that threatened to melt all her bones away, threatened to leave her a quivering heap on the floor of the maintenance closet. But then he pressed her back, taking her weight between his gloriously hard body and the harder wall at her back, one arm banded around her hip, the other holding her head in the palm of his big hand as he kissed her again. And again.
Finally he dragged his mouth from hers, staring down at her, blinking slowly, as if coming off a drug. Or a potent kiss. ,
She opened her mouth, and he set two fingers against her still-wet lips with one shake of his head. Then he took his fingers away and came at her again. This time he both plundered and ravished, and she practically crawled up his body to get even closer, loving the feel of his hard chest—squashing into her breasts, teasing the sensitized tips of her nipples— needing, needing so much it shocked her to the core, but it didn't matter, he gave it.
None of it made any sense, but then nothing about the day had made any sense, and when he pulled back this time, her legs would have given out on her if he hadn't been holding her up. Her hands, still fisted on him, loosened. Beneath her palms she could feel his heart, steady and sure, pumping fast but still rock solid.
She had a feeling the world could be coming apart and he'd still be rock solid.
"We need to get out of here." He glided his thumb over her lower lip until it trembled open. He had calluses on his fingers, she thought inanely, assuring her this man was no desk jockey. He probably used his gun on a daily basis without blinking, terrifying women for a hobby, and she'd been a fool to trust him, but she'd had no choice.
Still didn't.
Before she could dwell on that, he tugged her out of the maintenance closet and back into the open, which nearly gave her a coronary. Her entire body twitched, and she felt more vulnerable than she'd ever been.
"There." Pointing to the first condo, he stayed at her back, practically hunching over her, protecting her body with his.
She'd been imagining the damage a bullet could do, the way it would tear into her, but she didn't like imagining it tearing into him either. Clearly he wanted to go through a condo to the front of the street rather than all the way around the long line of the building.
But where then? To her car, whose tires had been slashed? To where some unknown guy waited with a gun?
"Go," he said in a rough whisper as he rushed her over the low fence—she didn't fall this time; she couldn't have, not with his hands guiding her, slipping around her waist to help her—and into the tiny backyard of the first condo, which she happened to know belonged to Mrs. Tokimoto, a seventy-year-old woman with a tendency to mind everyone's business but her own.
But that worked in their favor, because the older woman had left her sliding glass door slightly ajar. By the time they slipped inside, Jade was practically hyperventilating with fear and panic. Please don't be home, she prayed silently, not wanting another innocent person to enter the nightmare that was her life. Please.
One quick look into the living room, neat as a pin with furniture that looked as if maybe it'd been around since the early seventies, and she took a breath of relief. No sign of the innately curious Mrs. Tokimoto.
Grabbing her hand, Will pulled her silently through the living room, past the pristine plastic-covered green and orange velour couches and glass coffee table, past the pear and peach wallpaper. They were heading past the open staircase with the light green walls, making their way toward the front door, when a noise came from above.
"Hello?"
Mrs. Tokimoto. Before Jade could register that fact and up her stress—already at a Prozac level—Will grabbed her, propelled her beneath the staircase and against the wall, and held her out of view with his body.
She didn't need the caution in his gaze to know she should swallow her scream. She didn't need anything but the knowledge that if she brought attention to herself, or Mrs. Tokimoto, she might get them all killed.
"Is someone there?" Mrs. Tokimoto's voice trembled with age as she leaned down over the stairs. "Hello?"
Jade's nerves were shot. She trembled, and her teeth rattled in her head. Delayed shock, she was certain, but she couldn't catch her breath to save her life.
Will's hands squeezed her waist in warning, his broad shoulders blocking the view of anything but him, and his intense, see-all eyes. Locked onto those, she held herself absolutely rigid, her mouth clamped down hard on the scream building deep inside of her from the tension, from the fear that any second the men chasing them would come crashing through that slider, guns blazing.
Will's eyes told her not to move, not to breathe.
Not a problem. But she craned her neck, trying
to see the glass door, needing to know when the end came.
"I locked the slider," Will breathed in her ear. "It's going to be okay."
Okay? How in the world was anything going to be okay ever again? She just shook her head. It didn't matter if he locked the door; this hell wasn't over.
"Hello?" Mrs. Tokimoto said again. "Anyone there?"
Oh God. Don't come down here, Mrs. Tokimoto, please don't. Panic twisted inside her like an insidious beast. She realized she'd set her forehead to Will's chest, fisting her hands in his shirt to hold him close so that she couldn't see. She only wished she couldn't hear, couldn't feel. Hell, she wished she wasn't here at all.
Then Will's finger lifted her chin, making her look at him, into his deep, unwavering eyes. His jaw was tight, with sympathy or regret, she wasn't sure. Probably annoyance. But he kept his hand on her, held her gaze prisoner with his, and mouthed her name in a way that told her she wasn't alone. She wasn't alone and he wasn't going to let anything happen to her.
Again she shook her head. She couldn't do this. She wasn't an adventurous woman. Scary movies and books were too much for her—she read only romance. And the not-breathing thing? Bad idea.
Spots began to dance in front of her eyes, but she only tightened her mouth, afraid to open it.
Will's gaze dropped to her lips. "Breathe," he mouthed, and ran his thumb over her lower lip in a slow caress, and when it became apparent she couldn't, he dipped his head. His mouth was only a fraction of an inch from hers. He looked into her eyes, and in his she didn't see temper, or even annoyance, but a shocking patience and understanding.
It was almost too much, and she opened her mouth to suck in some desperately needed air, letting out a squeak in the process.
With a grimace for the sound, Will slid his hands down the length of her arms, entangling her fingers in his, moving both of their hands to the base of her spine. Pressing her forward, nudging her into his body, he covered her mouth with his, swallowing her next squeak.
Will told himself he had no choice but to kiss her, no choice at all. Her breasts were still pressing into his chest, as well as her quivering belly and thighs, and his physical response to her heat and angst and body didn't so much surprise him as nearly annihilate him.
The kiss itself felt more like leaping into a circle of flames, instantly hot, licking at him in spots he hadn't expected her to reach. Deep, wet, messy ...
Finally, she tore free, staring up at him with those wide, huge eyes, her breath coming in short little shocky pants, her mouth still wet from his. Her face was the palest porcelain, her chest rising and falling too fast.
Twisting her hands free of his hold, she once again grabbed on to his shirt. His hands went to her hips, holding her still so she wouldn't do something stupid like run. Her hot little bod still quivered against his, and her heart, Christ, it was pounding so hard and fast he knew she was only seconds from meltdown.
A meltdown he had to avoid at all costs. He stroked his hands down her back, meaning only to soothe, needing to soothe in a way that was alien to him really, but she just shook her head again. He knew she wanted to be brave, wanted to do so on her own.
"Hello?" the old woman above them called out. Jade jerked.
Ah, damn, she was going to lose it. Will could see it coming, so he gave up on the soothing and went back to the kissing, kissing her hard and long, kissing her like he was a starving man and she was some kind of twelve-course meal.
More like his last supper.
And still it wasn't enough—he couldn't get enough. The next thing he knew, he'd pressed her up against the wall and dug in with a shocking gusto. Her mouth opened to his in a soft, tentative movement, tasting sweet and hot and so damned good he didn't think he'd be done for a good long time.
Given how she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, she felt the same way. His fingers slid up and down the warm back that her halter top bared for him, stroking heated skin. She was the softest thing, so damn soft, and as he slid his hand down to cup and squeeze her extremely squeezable ass, he added perfect to the list.
