Dare Me, page 12
"I'm losing my mind," the woman above them said to herself.
Join the club, Will thought, sinking into the kiss. Join the club.
Jade thought the same thing, because surely this buzzing in her ears, the heat flooding her skin, the way her every pulse point pounded, meant she was losing her mind as well.
From above them now came nothing but silence, then the sound of a door shutting softly.
"She went into a bedroom or bathroom," Will whispered against her ear in that way he had, drawing chills down to her toes.
Not trusting her voice, she nodded.
"We need a place to hide until dark."
She put her mouth to his ear this time. "Downstairs."
He went utterly still, and his eyes flared with heat.
From her mouth, she realized, and the knowledge made her want to talk in his ear again.
Clearly she had lost her mind to be thinking in such a manner with her life on the line.
"There's a basement in these units?"
She nodded. "Mrs. Tokimoto doesn't do stairs well. I don't think she'll go down there without good reason."
"Well, let's not give her one."
The stairs were dark and just a little musty, and as they tiptoed their way down, she could feel his hand low on her spine, guiding her, keeping track of her in the growing dark as they hit the bottom.
If she licked her lips, she could still taste him. In fact, she was having a hard time, vacillating between terror and arousal, and her poor body was confused as hell. Her nipples were hard, but her heart still raced. Her legs felt like jelly, but between them she was damp.
Worse, she had no idea which emotion she expected him to appease, the fear or the desire.
She didn't understand how she could trust him like this. There hadn't been many men in her life, but they'd all been calm, quiet types. Beta. Until Tomas, that is, and given how that had turned out, she should be running from this hard, edgy alpha man.
Instead, she'd put her life into his hands. She'd kissed him.
Adrenaline, she assured herself. That's all it was.
At the bottom of the stairs, the room was dark and smelled . . . old. Normally she liked the smell of old, but not this kind of dusty, icky, creepy old.
And the dark brought back her terror. A sudden beam of light startled her. It was Will, holding a pen flashlight that he'd pulled out of somewhere. Thank God.
There was one long strip of a window only inches from the ceiling, facing the street nearly at ground level, but protected with a shade that didn't let in any sunlight. Will studied all of it, silently taking it in. There were two large sofas and a chair, all of which were draped with plastic, and then piles and piles of boxes of files and papers, overflowing onto the floor and covering every square inch of the place.
And then he looked at her. She had a feeling nothing escaped his notice—not the cut on her cheek, not her ripped skirt—and though his jaw tightened, he didn't say a word. He flicked off the light. The darkness was all-consuming, and closed in on her in a familiar, terrifying tightness. "Will."
"Hang on."
She heard just the faintest of noise for a moment, but with the light gone, she couldn't see a thing, not even a hand in front of her face, and it messed with her head—which had been messed up enough today, in her opinion.
Another slight sound.
But after a moment she couldn't decide if she'd really heard anything or if her brain was playing tricks on her. Her nerves were strung so tautly she could hardly stand it. She just wanted to sit and think, wanted to process all that had happened since she'd made the unfortunate decision to get out of bed that morning.
And she really, really, really wanted the light on. Yet another soft sound, just a whisper really, this time so close it raised goose bumps on her skin. "Will—"
Fingers reached out and entwined with hers, causing her to nearly leap out of her skin.
"Jumpy," he said, and though a moment ago she'd been pliant in his arms, nearly mewling with pleasure, now she wanted to smack him.
"I can't see!"
"Yeah. That works both ways." He was nothing but a disembodied, low husky voice in the dark. "I barricaded the door with a stack of boxes. Not that they'll find us here," he added at her sharp intake of breath.
Much as she'd thought she'd grown up, her childhood fear of the dark was not only still with her, but fully intact. God, she hated this, hated it with a fearful passion, but she happened to be on fearful overload at the moment, so she said nothing, but resisted when Will reached for her. "No."
"You're cold. Come on, come here." Again he tried to draw her close but she dug in her heels.
"I can't." She swallowed hard and shook her head, then realized he couldn't see any better than she could. "I can't," she said again.
"Jade?"
Every time she blinked, she was back, a child, in the dark, alone with her dead father. "Put the flashlight back on."
"There's nothing down here. I checked. We're okay."
Her throat felt like she'd swallowed glass. "The light. Please." Her voice wobbled on the "please," and she hated herself. But she said it again. "Please, Will."
"Jade. We're okay." Gently but inexorably he tugged, sliding an arm around her, half pulling her, half carrying her, until suddenly her feet left the ground entirely, and then she sank onto what had to be one of the couches.
He'd moved everything off of it, including the plastic. She felt him sink next to her, at her hip. "Thought I'd keep us comfortable, seeing as we're going to be here for a while."
"We can't just stay here."
"No choice at the moment. We've been made." "Made?"
"Three of them, all armed, searching the perimeters as we speak. I don't think they've got me though, or my truck. But you . . . you they clearly want."
Oh God. She couldn't do this. She couldn't. "How will you get out of here?"
"We. How will we get out of here. You don't really think I'd leave you alone in this?"
"No."
"Good, because I'm not going anywhere—" He broke off when something from in her pocket beeped.
"My cell," she whispered in horror.
"See who it is. Quickly, Jade."
She stared at the lit display. "Jody."
"Answer. Find out where Mario is."
She clicked on the phone but didn't say hello. She couldn't—it was stuck in her throat.
"Jade." Jody's voice dissolved into tears. "Oh God, is that you?"
"Yes."
"Jade, listen. I know you don't want to, but I have to tell you how sorry I am. How stupid I am. It's my mom, you know that, right? She's got cancer, and no insurance. Tomas promised me he'd give me everything I could ever want, and I was stupid enough to fall for it." She began to sob. "He just dumped me off on the side of the road. Like yesterday's trash." Her voice faded a bit, as if she was looking around her. "I think I'm somewhere off the 5 South, somewhere just past San Diego. I was thinking . . . maybe you'd come get me. Jade?"
So she was safe enough, certainly safer than Jade. Knowing that, Jade simply turned off the phone. "Mario didn't kill her." There was real relief in that. It left her free to feel as angry as she wanted. "I need some light."
"Soon."
"No, you don't understand. I need the light." She closed her eyes, pretending to herself that all she had to do to see was open them.
It didn't work.
"You know I'm right here." He put his hands on her arms, drew her close. "You're safe."
For now. But how long could that last?
Helluva day. She'd fallen for the wrong guy, had been betrayed by a friend, and now found herself in the middle of two different sides she didn't understand anything about except that her safety hadn't been predetermined.
"Jade. Talk to me."
She licked her dry lips but kept her eyes closed. "I'd rather see."
"I know." As if he knew she was a breath from freaking out again, he stroked his hands up and down her arms. "Soon, I promise. Talk to me instead."
"Why?"
"It'll pass the time."
It might. She could ask him questions, too. Find out about him, his life. Get a better picture of the man who'd kissed her so passionately. Maybe they could have a real conversation, one that went both ways for a change, and she'd find herself opening up . . .
"Tell me about Mario."
Jade bit back her disparaging laugh at that, and had to shake her head at herself. When would she get it? In this nightmare she'd found herself in, she didn't matter. She wasn't even a person.
She was the pawn.
"We should call the police," Jade said.
"Yes," Will agreed. "As soon as we can tell them where Mario is." He kept his hands on her. It seemed to help her beat back the fear of the dark she had, the one that was trying to swallow her whole. "Come on," he said softly. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing much to tell." Her voice was low, and still a little trembly. "Tomas and I met at an antique function two months ago, and he asked me out. He was persistent when I said no."
He tensed at that. Wendy had said the same thing, and yet she'd opened up to Mario shockingly fast, scaring Will, scaring the rest of their family and friends.
Wendy had brushed off their concerns, and a month later, Will had gotten that panicked late-night call he'd never forget, with Wendy in fearful tears,
saying Mario had done a bad thing and she was scared.
With murder on his mind, Will had raced to her place, only to find her gone. She'd shown up in the Los Angeles River the next day, dead, about the same time the gems had been discovered missing.
But the answers had died along with her. It was believed that she'd acted as an accomplice to the crime, then been deemed unnecessary.
Unnecessary. Christ, that slayed him. "Persistent," he said slowly to Jade. "As in . . . physically aggressive?"
She said nothing and his heart sank. "Did he hurt you, Jade?"
"At first he was a perfect gentleman," she said very quietly. As if ashamed. Goddamn it.
"But after a while," she went on, "it seemed off to me. He knew everything about me, and I got to know nothing in return. I questioned him."
"What happened?"
"He brushed off my questions, saying he only wanted to know more about my business to help me, that he thought he could buy and sell out of my shop, and make it profitable for both of us. But it made me uncomfortable because he didn't want to tell me where he'd get his inventory."
"Probably because the inventory was hot."
"He suggested a couple of times that the gems I had were more valuable than the settings they were in. That I should strip them, let him sell them for me."
"Where he could swap them out with some of his."
"Sort of like laundering them."
"So to speak. Why did you say no?"
She didn't answer.
"Jade."
"Because he was starting to scare me."
Ah, hell. He reached for her, pulling her against him, stroking a hand up and down her slim back in the dark. "Didn't you have anyone to call? Family?"
"No. I have no family left."
"I'm sorry."
"I know. But you're going to get him."
"No doubt," he promised. "Can you tell me anything else? You mentioned Mexico."
"His parents live in Baja. They bought a bar in the name of a fish, or something like that."
"Baja." There were a dizzying number of bars there.
"I have an old world map in my office, and once I caught him tracing Cabo San Lucas, looking sad—" She broke off. "I hugged him for it," she said, angry. "Can you believe that?"
"Yes, I can. He's slick, Jade. And now, back to my original question. Did he ever hurt you?"
"No. Not until last night."
His stomach clenched. "Tell me."
1 broke it off with him, and asked him to leave. He pushed me, and I lost my balance. I fell, hit my head."
Will was grateful for the dark so he didn't have to try to wipe the rage off his face. He slid his hands up her body, cupping the back of her head, his fingers lightly sinking into her hair to feel the bump there. "Here?"
"I'm okay."
"Yeah, you are." Leaning in, he kissed her once, softly. "And you're going to stay okay." "You don't know that."
"Yes, I do." He'd failed Wendy. He wouldn't fail Jade, too.
She shuddered, and he gathered her in. She surprised him by pressing her face to his throat. "I'd thank you," she said very quietly. "But I'm still mad that I'm here, and at the moment I blame you for that."
In the dark, he smiled bleakly. "Whatever keeps you mad, baby. Because mad'll get you through." He realized he was still stroking his fingers up and down her body. Something about her was softening him, and he couldn't afford that. Neither of them could. Only hours ago he'd been willing to take down Mario at any cost, even if it meant destroying one Jade Barrett's life.
But now that he realized she'd done nothing to deserve any of this, same as Wendy, he couldn't do anything but protect her through it. She was soft and sweet, everything his life wasn't, and though he hadn't known he was missing anything, he knew now.
"I'm tired of being a coward," she whispered into his throat, winding her arms up and around his neck with a trust that destroyed him.
"You're not a coward, Jade."
She went still, then turned her head, slowly, letting her lips and nose and cheek graze the side of his jaw as she tipped her face up in the dark. He couldn't see her, but he could feel, and knew her mouth was a breath from his. "You're not," he said again, softly, and kissed her.
He kept it quiet and tender rather than the hot ball of fire it'd been before, or he'd intended to, but the taste of her took over his senses, and he slid his hands over the torn denim skirt barely covering her hips now, pulling her onto his lap for better access.
She let out a sound, a hum of pleasure and desire mixed, and it undid him. So did the weight of her small breast filling his palm. He rasped his thumb over her nipple, which ripped that sound from her throat again, but she covered his hand with hers, stilling his movements. "This is a bad idea."
Her nipple was still hard beneath his fingers, a velvety pulsing point that had his body hard and achy. He wanted to say that this thing between them had a mind of its own, that they were in close proximity, with no end in sight, that they should take every spare second for themselves that they could, but he had no right to say any of it. He was here, with her, to get to Mario. Not for this.
But, damn it, she'd already gotten to him. In a matter of only one day she'd gotten to him, and deep. "A bad idea?"
"That's right."
Even with her fingers over his hand, he managed to glide his thumb over her again. Her body jerked, and she couldn't quite bite back her soft sigh. It floated on the air between them, erotic in its neediness.
"Your body is telling me something different, Jade."
His other hand skimmed down her skirt to her bare thighs. He wondered if between them she was wet. Wet for him. Wanting to know, he spread his fingers wide, his thumb glancing over the soft, creamy skin of one inner thigh.
Again that little murmur escaped her, sexy as hell, and made even more so by the sound of frustration in it. His thumb took another lazy stroke, higher this time, and just barely brushed against the material of her panties.
Oh yeah, she was wet.
And at the knowledge, he went painfully hard.
Belying her words, her arms tightened around him, as if she was afraid he'd let go before she wanted him to.
He had his own fears as well, such as not wanting to let her go at all.
But she stood, and now the only sound in the dark, grim room was her heavy breathing. "I don't know you," she said. "Not really."
And after Mario, that would matter to her, very much. He stood, too, and reached out for her, getting her on the first time because she hadn't gone far. Wouldn't, not in the dark that so petrified her.
"I want out of here, Will."
"Soon," he promised.
"I need out now."
Her hand was cold, too cold, and he rubbed it between his. "Sit a sec. Let me go see if they're gone."
He moved to the high, narrow window, straining up, barely shifting the shades to look out. The afternoon sun glinted off the sidewalk, and off the hood of an unmarked luxury sedan that slowly cruised by.
Too slowly.
"Not yet," he whispered, watching for a long moment before moving back to the couch in the dark. "Stretch out, Jade. Relax, if you can."
She didn't move, and he sat, pulling her back
against him, setting her head on his shoulder, wrapping his arms around her to keep her warm. "Just close your eyes."
"When I do, I see my shop, locked off to me."
"We'll get it back. You don't want him to win, Jade."
"No." After a moment, she let out a shuddering sigh and relaxed against him. "No, I don't."
Alone in the dark, she knew. He was dead, and the men who'd killed him were waiting for her to come out so they could kill her, too.
The blackness closed in on her. She could see and hear nothing.
But she could feel. She could feel his lifeless body at her side, the sticky wetness that was his blood leaking out the gunshot wound on his chest, past her fingers as she held pressure on it.
And yet, even at age eight she knew it was too late, but she couldn't stop. If she stopped, she'd have to face it.
Her father was dead.
God, she hated the dark. Hated listening to her own unsteady breathing, hated the utter silence around her.
