by Franca Storm
Fuck.
I see her aim falter.
And against all rules of armed combat, all commonsense, she takes her eyes off her target—Cartwright—and glares at me. “What?” she chokes out.
“Yeah. That fucker is still alive, because of your boyfriend,” Cartwright says, pouring more salt into the fresh wound.
“It’s more complicated than that,” I tell her.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Alana—”
“Do you!” she screams.
“You need to let it go.”
Her eyes blaze at me, burning right through me.
“Yeah, you want to kill him now, don’t you?” Cartwright laughs.
I take a threatening step towards him. “Why don’t you tell her why you want me dead, Rob?”
The arrogant smirk leaves his face and he glares hard at me, pissed that I’m about to rip his entire plan apart.
“Tell her!” I roar.
He hesitates.
“All right, then let me.”
Before I can get another word out, one of his guys takes a shot at me.
The bullet plunges into the vest, right on target for my fucking heart.
The brutal power behind it knocks me to my knees and I grunt at the impact.
The only thing I can think about is that I need to get to my feet and protect Alana.
I hear shouts. Mostly hers. Followed by rounds of gunfire.
And then I feel arms around me.
But they’re pushing me down, not helping me to my feet.
“Stay down!”
Alana’s voice.
I look up and see a remote in her hand. A remote detonator. The same one she’d threatened me with at my club.
She fingers it.
A second later, a deafening explosion tears through the house, ripping it apart in a ball of furious fire.
I hear shouts in the distance. Cartwright? Mark?
“We need to move. Now!” she yells.
I climb to my feet and she pulls my backpack off my shoulders before I can stop her. She slips it on, taking the weight for me and then grabs my hand, leading me towards the forest surrounding the house.
“I have a Hummer parked a couple of miles on the other side of the forest. Mark doesn’t even know about it.”
“You just blew up your own house.”
“It was compromised thanks to Mark. He took a bullet to the thigh for his betrayal.”
Shit, she just shot her best friend.
“I can’t believe I showed mercy. It’s all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Yeah. Making me feel shit,” she says with disdain.
I chuckle, but then end up choking as a result of the bullet still lodged in my vest and pushing painfully into my chest.
“Good thing you’re wearing a vest,” she says as she wraps her arms around me and helps me along. God, she’s strong for such a little thing. Adrenaline, I reason.
“How did you know?”
“That shot was fatal. You’d be dead if there was no vest,” she says matter-of-fact.
We finally make it to the car after what feels like a damned eternity. She hauls open the passenger door and I climb inside. She’s on me in a second, lifting my t-shirt to get a look at the vest.
She rips the bullet out and tosses it out of the car.
Her hands work quickly to open the vest.
“Shit,” she exclaims.
I follow her line of sight and see the severe bruising over my heart.
She traces her fingers over it gently and her eyes lock with mine for a moment.
I see the terror in her eyes at what could have happened had I not been wearing the vest.
Just as I start to see emotion filling her big blue eyes, she looks away and pulls back. She slaps my shoulder lightly and tells me, “You’ll be fine. Suck it up.”
“You’re a real Florence Nightingale, aren’t you?”
She responds with a smile and then shuts the passenger door and hurries around to the driver’s side. She shakes off my backpack and tosses it onto the back seat. She reaches into her leather jacket pocket and pulls out a shit load of keys. Choosing one, she shoves it into the ignition and the car roars to life.
“Buckle your seatbelt. We’re going over some rough terrain.”
I grunt at the strain of the movement on my chest and reach for the belt.
“Don’t be a baby,” she chides me.
I grin as I secure the belt to the buckle. “You want me to put this vest on you and shoot you with a fucking M16 close-range and see how you handle it?”
She pulls her jacket off her right shoulder and points to a scar there. I remember seeing it before in the bathroom the other day. “Bullet from a TEC-9. Close-range. No vest,” she tells me.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
As she maneuvers the car through the dense forest, I catch sight of her left hand. Blood is trickling over her fingers, coming from beneath her jacket sleeve.
“You were hit?”
She follows my gaze and shrugs her shoulders. “A blade. Cartwright wanted to have the last word, I guess. Before I kicked his ass.”
“How deep is it?” I ask, reaching for her.
She bats my hand away. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Let me drive. We need to get the fuck away from here as fast as possible.”
“I have a place.”
“Address?”
I give her the directions and she nods.
We reach a clearing and she makes a turn onto a back road. She clips the curb and I watch her eyes glaze over. She blinks hard and grits her teeth.
“Stop the car,” I order.
“What? No, I’m fine,” she says dazedly.
Yeah, sure you are, baby. “Stop the fucking car. Now.”
She blows out a frustrated breath and brings the car to a sudden jarring stop. I throw open the passenger door, grunting at the exertion on my chest and rush around to the driver’s side. I haul open her door, unbuckle her belt and gently ease off her leather jacket.
What I see shocks the shit out of me.
There’s blood everywhere.
And it’s not an arm wound as I’d thought. Is a goddamn chest wound. Cartwright just missed her heart.
But it’s deep. She’s losing too much blood, too fast.
I grab my backpack off the backseat and rummage inside until I find the first-aid kit. I rest it on her lap as I take what I need.
“Not deep, huh?” I scold her.
“We need…to go…they’ll…come,” she wills me weakly.
“In a minute,” I tell her. “If I don’t stop the bleeding, none of that will matter, baby. You’ll bleed out. This is serious.”
“No…hospitals…the cops.”
“Fortunately for you, you have me. No hospitals needed.”
I apply some alcohol to the wound, needing to disinfect it. She hisses and bucks against me, but I hold her steady.
“Could have…warned me.”
“Giving a warning just makes it worse,” I tell her. “Suck it up,” I jest, echoing her words to me earlier.
I work to compress the wound as much as possible, given my limited supplies.
“You need stitches, but that’ll hold until we get to my place.”
I drape her jacket over her shoulders and pull off my own and wrap that around her too to keep her as warm as possible. She’s shivering and I know it’s shock.
I carefully lift her over to the passenger seat. She grunts in protest. “No one…drives…my car.”
“Yeah, okay. You think you can drive right now, tough girl?” I buckle her seatbelt and then do my own. I start the car and crank the heating to max to keep her warm. “I need you to keep talking. About anything you want. You can’t sleep. Do you hear me?” I thunder at her.
“Yes...fuck, Damon,” she says, clearly offended by my tone.
Right then I know she’s weak and not herself. Normally, she wouldn’
t give a crap about what I said to her. She’s not an easy woman to upset.
I pull back onto the road and step on the gas. I need to hurry. She needs proper treatment. I just need to get her to my place and I’ll be able to take care of her.
“Damon...” she calls tiredly.
“Yes, baby?” I respond gently.
“I…love you.”
My gaze snaps to hers. She’s really out of it. Shit, the first time she says it and I have no idea if it’s really her talking or not. “You do, do you?” I respond, casually.
“Maybe,” she giggles. “You do.”
“You think I love you?” I ask, coyly.
“I know.”
I smile to myself. I was not prepared for this cutesy side of her at all. “I do,” I end up admitting, figuring she won’t even remember it tomorrow anyway. No harm done. And right now my priority is keeping her talking, no matter which route the conversation takes.
Her hand brushes my arm and she grips my bicep weakly. “Fuck me later,” she breathes.
“What?”
“I want you…to…fuck me…how you said.”
“You want me to take control?”
“Yeah,” she says, grinning at me.
I try to keep my eyes on the road and not on the come-fuck-me expression all over her face. Those eyes of hers do something to a man. I feel my cock responding. “We’ll see how you feel about it tomorrow.”
I bring the car to a halt at a set of lights. Lights on a damn country back road? Ridiculous.
“Kiss me,” she says suddenly, leaning into me a little.
I glance at the lights. Still red.
I grasp the back of her head gently and press my lips to hers, taking her in a soothing kiss. She responds aggressively, thrusting her tongue down my throat, moaning as she tastes me.
Shit.
I pull back quickly, trying to catch my breath and quell my raging hard-on.
I glance at the lights again. Green. Phew.
This is gonna be a long-ass drive.
10
~Alana~
“You bitch. I’ll kill you and then your poor choice of a boyfriend!” Cartwright seethes as he twists the blade in my flesh, widening the searing wound.
I grit my teeth to stop myself from crying out, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much agony he’s causing me.
I know only one thing: I need to take him down right now or he’s gonna kill me. And I’m sure as hell not prepared to die at this bastard’s hands.
My hand shoots out and I grip his wrist painfully, digging my nails into his flesh. Caught off guard, he loosens his hold and I use the opportunity to rip the dagger out of my chest. Fucking hell! The pain is searing! Unbearable.
The adrenaline coursing through my veins spurs me on, giving me the strength I need to thrust my fist into his jugular. He chokes and stumbles back. I assault him with a roundhouse kick that knocks him to his knees. I thrust my steel-toe boot into his face and he’s out cold.
I hesitate.
I need to kill the fucker. But I hear Damon’s grunts nearby. He needs my help.
I turn away and rush to him.
I open my eyes suddenly. My heart thunders in my chest. That’d been too close. Cartwright had been so close to killing me. If he’d twisted that blade any more it would have pierced my heart.
I hadn’t been prepared for Mark’s betrayal. I’d trusted him. Big mistake—one that had almost cost me everything.
Looking around, I realize I’m tucked up in a gorgeous four-poster bed, golden drapes hanging down from all sides. The sheets are the same color. I shift beneath them and moan at the feel of them on my bare thighs. Mmm…silk.
Wait…bare thighs?
I throw the covers aside, grunting at the exertion it puts on my chest wound. I glance down at it and see that it’s dressed. I can feel the stitches restricting my movements. Did Damon stitch it himself? I told him no hospitals and he promised he wouldn’t take me there.
I look myself over and see that I’m wearing a baby-blue strappy chemise. It’s expensive—silk with lace adorning the hemline. It’s barely long enough to cover the tops of my thighs. And it’s all that I’m wearing. No underwear.
I ease myself out of bed and a sudden wave of light-headedness assaults me.
Shit. Am I on something? Painkillers?
I grip the bed for support as I glance around the room.
Holy shit! Talk about money!
A few feet to the right of the bed are some intricately carved wooden balcony doors. I peer closer and it looks like it’s a wraparound balcony. I note the marble floor. Over on the other side of the room is a huge seating area—two oversized cream couches and chairs—facing the biggest flat screen television I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s hooked up to a state of the art entertainment unit. I turn around and notice the open walk-in-closet. Just a quick glance inside tells me that it’s the size of an entire room. Wow. Beside it is a closed door. Bathroom, perhaps? A crystal chandelier hangs in the center of the vaulted ceiling. The walls are painted silver. Black and white paintings hang on the wall. I smile to myself as I realize what they are—erotic paintings. All over the walls. This must be Damon’s bedroom then, not just a spare room.
Where is he?
I cross to the door, being smart and taking my time now. I’m uneasy on my feet, but I manage to make it to my destination. I open the door and step out into the most gorgeous living room I’ve ever seen.
The first thing that catches my attention is the magnificent fireplace just beyond the white leather wraparound couch and its accompanying chairs. I’ve never seen one so big. And it’s real. Not that fake shit. I hear the satisfying crackle of the logs burning.
A sharp sound of glass grating upon metal catches my attention and I look to my right.
Beyond a glass-top dining table, I see Damon pacing outside on the balcony, the doors closed as he smokes and lifts a glass of what looks like scotch to his lips. I see him slam the glass against the balcony railing, making the same sound that I heard a moment ago.
I reach the doors and step out onto the balcony. “Hey.”
He spins around in surprise and I see his grim expression. As he notices me, he softens immediately and smiles happily. “You’re up. How do you feel?”
“Did you give me painkillers?” I ask. It comes out characteristically harsh, which is not what I’d intended at all. Urgh. I’m such a natural bitch.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, but you were suffering too much.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m grateful. I didn’t mean to sound so…harsh. It’s my natural tone, I guess.”
“You guess?” he teases. “It most certainly is, Alana.”
I grin and take his hand. He seems surprised by my intimate touch. “Thank you.”
He pulls me into him, wrapping his free arm around me. I stiffen in surprise at such a loving embrace, but as he plants a gentle kiss on the top of my head, I find myself relaxing against him. Christ, what this man does to me. Unbelievable.
We pull back after a little while and his gaze rakes over me, desire flaming in his eyes. “That looks incredible on you,” he says, fondling the hem of the chemise.
I blush. What? I never blush. What is happening?
“You’re blushing,” he teases me.
“Shut up.”
“It’s funny. I catch you fucking some random guy in the alley outside my club. I eat you out in my limo. No blushing. And yet, I compliment you and your cheeks are on fire.”
“Sex doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but—”
“Intimacy does.”
An intense look passes between us. I look away first.
He clears his throat and says, “You didn’t tell me you were allergic to antibiotics.”
Phew. A subject change. Thank God. “Yeah, I am. Why?”
He smirks. “You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“When we got here you were still awake
. I asked you if you were allergic to any medications and you assured me you weren’t. I gave you some antibiotics to prevent the wound from becoming infected. A little while later, I’m holding you over the toilet as you’re throwing them up.”
Shit, that’s embarrassing. “Sounds like you had an eventful night.”
“You’re lucky I like you, baby.”
His words jog something.
A memory.
I love you.
Fuck.
Yes, I remember. I’d told him that in the car. Oh no! No! No! No! “Yeah,” I say casually.
I reach for the bottle of scotch on the patio table. His hand grips mine.
“No,” he tells me. “You’re on strong painkillers.”
His hand touching mine sends pulses of pleasure straight to my core. God. This man has too much control over my body. I jerk my hand away quickly and he grins with amusement.
I wrap my arms around myself defensively. “Uh…are you okay? You seemed like you were pissed. I saw you with the glass.”
He stubs his smoke out on the floor and avoids my gaze as he says, “I didn’t want to drag you into all of this. I’m sorry.”
“This is Cartwright’s doing. And Mark’s. Not yours, Damon. Forget it.”
“He won’t stop coming, Alana. You know that, yes?” he says, his gaze snapping back to mine.
“Of course. Not until the job is complete.”
“I’m going after him so that doesn’t happen.”
Before I can respond, he brushes past me and walks back into the living room.
“Damon!” I call. “He is my mark, not yours!”
He spins around, his expression dark.
I recognize it instantly.
The eyes of a killer.
“Not anymore, Alana. This job is mine now. He won’t touch you again.”
“He said you used to be like me—a contract killer. But that was years ago, Damon. You’re not up to it now.”
His eyes narrow. “You don’t know me.”
I bristle at his words. I was prepared to let his secrets slide for now. But after that comment, he can fuck himself. “Then tell me what I need to know. Now.” I’m not asking, I’m telling him.
He stalks towards me, his eyes flashing with fury. He backs me up against the wall. But even in his temper, he’s careful not to touch my wound. Instead he grips my forearms and holds them tightly to the wall.