by Bella King
I don’t panic so easily. I’ve been in many dangerous situations, but this is the first one where I’m not the target. I feel surprisingly calm because of that. I’m merely an observer to someone else’s terror. It’s like a dream.
I spot Zeno crouched behind a display case full of sodas, a gun clutched in his hand, grimacing as he pops shots off into the broken glass leading to the parking lot. This is a shootout, and judging by the number of bullets coming into the store, he’s sorely outnumbered.
I’m torn between trying to help him and preserving my life.
What I should be doing is running the opposite direction, saving myself and letting Zeno sort out whatever mess that he’s in. This isn’t my responsibility, and quite frankly, I should’ve known that he was no good. People are never as good as they make themselves out to be.
There isn’t much I can do to help him in this situation, but I stay glued to the floor, unable to turn around and leave him. I keep watching him, observing the way that he expertly ducks and pops out to shoot.
He’s done this before, probably many times.
I watch his body – his broad shoulders and wide back. Something stirs in me again, primal and needy. I like the danger, the thrill of what he’s doing. I thought I wouldn’t, but seeing him letting loose, doing something nobody should ever be doing, is arousing.
My heart is in my throat, beating with a ferocious rhythm as I continue to watch Zeno. I bite my bottom lip hard enough to break the skin and draw blood. I taste the metallic copper flavor, savoring it in a bizarre fashion. My senses are heightened, and the world is moving in slow motion.
Zeno’s head looks around as he reloads, spotting me crouched a few yards behind him. He waves at me to move back, but I’m frozen in place by his scowl.
For the first time in my life, I feel like even in the face of a threat, I wouldn’t be able to flee. Fight or flight is out of the window. This is a different ballgame with Zeno around.
He’s visibly irritated, turning back and unloading his entire magazine into the parking lot before turning back to me. “Go back. Get out of here,” he yells, waving a hand again.
I shake my head, deciding now that I don’t want to leave him. Where would I go, anyway? The streets?
That’s laughable. I’d be right back where I was yesterday, counting pennies for a loaf of bread while I decided between committing crimes or freezing to death.
I’m not leaving Zeno.
He departs from his perch, rushing toward me with unmatched momentum. He doesn’t slow down when he reaches me. Instead, he lowers his shoulder and hits my pelvis with it, bending my body over him as he stands up.
His hand slaps against my ass to hold me in place, carrying me over his broad shoulder with no effort. The sting of the slap resonates through my lower half, bringing with it the raw lust and promise of a rough night of fucking if I ever did give in to my desires.
I’m far past reason with Zeno. The things that I’m feeling have overridden my brain and short-circuited the part that makes logical decisions. I’ve never been like this, but then again, I’ve never been around a man like Zeno.
His hand presses harder into my ass, and I know he’s doing it on purpose. I know that even in the heat of our escape, he can’t resist it.
Originally, I thought that Zeno was only trying to be nice to me, out of the goodness of his heart, and maybe he was at first. But now, things are different. They’ve escalated, and it’s clear that he’s willing to press further and show me that he’s attracted to me.
Or maybe it’s all in my head.
We crash through the back exit into the stock room. I look backward to where Zeno is charging to see an employee ushering people out of the loading dock. I think I could run with Zeno now, but I’d rather not. I like it up here on his shoulder, and his hand only grips my ass harder as he rushes out into the crisp evening air.
He jumps down the dock, bouncing me on his shoulder to reposition me and continuing through the grass into the parking lot of another store.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“We’re taking a car, and we’re leaving Portland tonight,” he barks, never once slowing his pace.
I guess that means no movies. I was looking forward to snuggling up with him on the couch. Plus, we never finished getting our groceries, but our lives are more important than that. I have to remind myself that food isn’t a precious commodity now that I’m with Zeno.
“Your car is back there,” I say as I watch the grocery store shrink from view.
“We’re not taking my car,” he grumbles.
We come to a stop suddenly, and I find my feet on the ground sooner than I anticipated. My knees buckle, and I stumble forward, only for Zeno to catch me in his arms from behind, pulling me back to my feet.
“Woah now,” he says, like a cowboy calming a rowdy horse. “I can’t carry you all the way home.”
I laugh, steadying myself in his arms, allowing him to hold me for a few moments before I break away. It’s incredible how stable his arms are, like those of a marble statue.
I can still hear the popping of bullets in the distance as someone unloads a wall of fury into the grocery store. The shooting will surely make the news. It makes me wonder if this had to do with Zeno at all, but then I remember how suspicious he was acting, telling me to retreat to the back of the store like he knew this was going to happen.
The scream of a car alarm breaks me out of my thoughts. Zeno has somehow pried open the door of a random car in the parking lot, and he’s leaning over inside of it, fumbling around beneath the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” I ask over the alarm.
He doesn’t answer.
I plant my hands on my hips, looking around for other people, but they’ve all left. I can hear the wail of sirens in the distance, but they’re heading to the scene of the bigger crime. They won’t be concerned with what Zeno is doing.
The engine of the car starts and Zeno finally pulls his head from the under the steering wheel. He looks over his shoulder at me. “Hop in.”
“Shit, you can hotwire cars?”
“Yep,” he replies proudly.
“I thought you couldn’t do stuff like that anymore,” I reply, circling to the other side of the car.
“You can’t,” he says, dipping back into the car and meeting me in the cabin. “It’s the older cars that will still allow you to. I didn’t choose a random one. This particular model has almost no security. Did you see how quickly I got the door open?”
“And you’re totally not still a criminal, right?” I ask sarcastically.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he says with a shrug.
“True, but you also can’t just go around and–”
Zeno slams his foot on the gas, and we lurch forward, leaving thick black streaks of rubber on the pale cement. My body is pressed back into the seat so hard that I can feel my eyeballs sinking back into their sockets. Zeno isn’t wasting any time getting us out of here.
I grip the edges of my seat as he flies over the curb and out into the road, knocking down a cheap picket sign in the process. I let out a yelp as he nearly slams into the car in front of us, but he swerves out of the way at the last second, gunning it down the road. We didn’t die from the shootout, but his driving might just be the nail in our coffins.
“Now you have to tell me what’s going on,” I shout over the noise of the engine.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I thought I had settled things,” he yells back.
He leans forward on the steering wheel, getting a better view of traffic as we rush through an intersection. “The shooters at the grocery store weren’t the same guys from the bagel shop. I don’t know them.”
“Why would they shoot up a whole store just to get to you?” I ask, thoroughly confused.
“Maybe it’s not about me,” he says, staring off into the distance as he speaks.
I doubt that. There’s too much e
vidence pointing to him, and he sounds like he’s still trying to make excuses. I’m so torn between wanting to go along with him and wanting to know the real truth.
Is it possible for me to live a lie with him? How much longer will this go on, and how much more danger will he put me in before he finally cracks?
Will I die before I know the truth?
I cross my arms, pressing my lips together and staring at the side profile of Zeno’s serious face as he drives. I don’t know where he’s going. Is it back to the house? Is it all the way to California? I don’t know, but I know that wherever it is, I want it to be with Zeno.
Even if he’s in some deep shit, I’m stuck to him, and I know I won’t be able to pull myself away unless the truth is too horrible to bear.
Chapter Nineteen
Zeno
My plans are crumbling faster than overbaked cornbread. I don’t know why someone is trying to kill me, especially since I managed to get Boris’s idiot crew off my back. This makes no sense.
The shootout at the grocery store wasn’t done by a single amateur. It was a group of people in long black sedans, toting machine guns, and bulletproof vests. They intended to kill me and anyone who happened to be in the same building as me.
Whoever they were, they had some pretty serious bloodlust. I saw a lot of people die today.
For some reason, being so close to them, seeing the look of terror on their faces as bullets ripped through them – it made me feel bad for them. Coming from someone who kills for a living, that’s a serious emotion that demands a deeper look.
I mean, these people weren’t my targets. I wasn’t looking at them through the scope of a rifle, piercing their skulls with clean shots and then dusting off my hands. I wasn’t getting thousands of dollars in cash for each one that hit the floor, either. This was different.
And hell, it’s not all about money. I fear that when I saw their faces, their terror, that I saw the face of Alexia with them, and that’s what really got to me. It means that the feelings I have for that young woman run deeper than lust.
I consider my options. I’m going to take Alexia to California, but I’m not going to tell Boris about it. He’ll still think I’m at the hideout, watching movies, eating ice cream, and convincing Alexia that it’s a good idea to get married.
Instead, I’ll be all the way down in San Diego, soaking up rays and convincing Alexia to go out in a bikini. Nobody said I couldn’t make this into a vacation. There’s no way I’m not going to take some pleasure from her, scooping it up like candy we share out most intimate parts with each other. I’m going to make this happen, if not for one last hoorah before the bullet impales her brain.
Fuck, I don’t even want to think about it. The thought is painful, jabbing at my guts like a rusty blade. I hate the idea that this has to end.
I think Alexia genuinely likes me, and that’s what makes it worse. She trusts me to keep her safe, even when my tower of deceit is collapsing around us.
I place my hand on Alexia’s thigh. She’s been silently fuming beside me for the past half-hour, but I haven’t said anything to her. I don’t know what to say. I have no excuses, and I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t tell the truth because I don’t know what the truth is.
Her skin is hot in my hand.
And soft. She’s so fucking soft.
I sink my fingers into her thigh as I grip the steering wheel hard in the other hand. I don’t look at Alexia in fear of breaking the moment and drawing attention to my hand on her thigh, but she knows. She definitely knows.
I’m not a young man anymore. I’ve had years upon years of experience with women, and yet, I feel like I don’t know how to act around Alexia. My heart beats double-time when I’m with her, and I have no control over my erections.
“Does this piece of shit have music?” Alexia asks, finally breaking the tension.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I don’t know,” I admit, looking over the cheap plastic console.
The car is at least thirty years old, but it should have a radio.
Alexia leans over and presses a button. Static flows from the speakers, jumping from station to station as she spins the dial. “I like rock music,” she says as she turns it.
“The classics, or something newer?” I ask.
“I don’t care, as long as it has a guitar in it,” she says.
I love her honesty. She’s always so direct and upfront about things. That’s something you don’t see after years in the mafia. Everyone is shrouded in layers of secrecy. Some of them don’t even know who they are anymore, mere ghosts of who they once were, floating amongst men and trying to blend in.
I fear I’ve taken on the same fate, but I’d like to think that I’m closer to being human than anything else. Even after a lifetime of assassinations, I still have a personality. The mafia hasn’t stolen it. I barely interact with other people, allowing me to keep it safeguarded.
Alexia is the same way, but she shows bits and pieces of herself to me, letting me in as time goes on. It’s easy to forget about the fifty-million that sits on her head when she captivates me with her character.
“This song is good,” she says, turning the music up to the point where the speakers distort and crackle.
It’s a song I’ve heard a thousand times, but it takes on new meaning when I listen to it with Alexia. We’re on a highway to California, fleeing in a stolen car. By the time it gets reported, and the cops come looking for it, we’ll have already ditched it.
“It’s going to be a late night,” I say to Alexia over the music. “We’re not making any stops, other than to get food and to pee.”
“Straight to Cali,” she says with a grin stretched across her freckled face.
“You don’t mind, do you?” I ask.
“Are you kidding me?” she asks, leaning forward and turning down the music so that it no longer drowns out our voices. “I’ve been wanting to go since forever.”
“We’re going far down south,” I say. “But we need to stop in Sacramento first. I need to have a chat with my boss about taking some time off work.”
“For me?” she asks, putting a finger to her bottom lip.
I laugh. “Yeah, it’s all for you, Alexia. You’re good company.”
“I’m the best company,” she says, crinkling her nose as she smiles.
“Of course.”
She leans back in her seat, turning to face me and throwing her feet into my lap. Her sneakers land with a hefty thud just to the left of my cock and balls, sparing me the pain of a nut shot. I feel like she knows what’s she’s doing.
I try not to react as she shifts her feet on my lap, pressing the backs of her heels into my cock. It feels good, relieving the tension in me as I drive and causing a noticeable erection. She must be aware of that, but she hasn’t said anything.
I glance over to her, slightly frowning as she presses her heel into my erection again.
“What?” she asks, feigning innocence.
“What are you doing?” I ask, alluding to her actions, but not addressing them directly.
“I’m relaxing. You said this would be a long drive,” she replies.
“Relaxing with your shoes on my lap.”
“Oh, sorry. Should I take them off?” she asks, pulling her feet back and allowing me to breathe.
“Yes, you could put them up on the dashboard instead if you want. I’m sure the chair leans back far enough,” I begin to say.
But then I glance over at Alexia. She’s undoing her shoelaces, sliding her shoes off to reveal small pink socks. She wiggles her toes through the socks, a wicked grin on her face, and throws her feet back out onto my lap.
“There, is that better?” she asks, pressing the ball of her foot into my stiff cock.
I take a sharp breath, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“I hope my feet aren’t stinky,” she teases, rubbing them across the tent in my slacks.
“Not in the least,” I reply throug
h clenched teeth. It feels like every muscle in my body is flexed and stiff, just like my cock. If she keeps this up, I’m going to cum in my pants while I’m driving.
Maybe that’s what she wants.
But Alexia slows down the agonizing strokes of her feet after a moment, finally settling in and relaxing. I don’t dare look over at her, least she decides to start moving again. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even now, with the slight weight of her legs, my cock is a few strokes away from an accidental orgasm.
I concentrate on the music and the road ahead, trying to take my thoughts off sex. There’s no time to do it now, even if Alexia wanted to. We’d have to wait until we got to California.
“Can you go to this rest stop?” Alexia asks. “I have to relieve myself.”
I look toward her, squinting my eyes. “Sure,” I reply, and I have the sneaking feeling that the type of relief she’s talking about has nothing to do with the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty
Alexia
Zeno is catching on to my games, but why should I care? This whole time, he’s been screwing with my head, weaving lies and playing his own games. Why can’t I have a little fun too?
I can no longer resist the urges that are pumping through me.
I want Zeno.
I want to experience the power of his body, the thrust of his hips, and the girth of his cock. I know he’s packing serious heat, and I’m not talking about guns.
I want all of him, and I want it now. I wonder if I’ve riled him up enough to where he’s going to give it to me, or if I should keep pushing him further until he snaps and lets me have it. I’m not sure I’m ready for that, but I want it at the same time. Does that make me crazy?
Whether I’ve lost my mind or not, we’re taking the exit onto the lonely rest stop a few dozen miles out of Portland. I’ve been to this one before. It’s almost always empty. The first time I tried leaving Portland, this was as far as I made it before turning back. After this one, the highway turns into a deathtrap for anyone on foot.