CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
You want me to do what?!
Nixon
"We have to go," I barked.
"What the heck? No please this time?" Trace teased, lazily picking up her jacket off the ground.
"Not this time." I dumped everything onto the blanket and quickly stuffed it in the back. "It's more of an order, as in, get your ass in the car before I do it for you."
"Wh-what?" Trace's face went ashen white.
Shit.
"Get. In. The. Damn. Car. Now!" I snapped. My palms started to sweat as I jerked the door open and got in.
Shit.
Sometimes cops were such idiots. Thanks, genius, for just telling everyone within the good ol' US of A my exact location. Really solid, guy. I should send him a cake or something.
I had two guns with me.
One shotgun under the back seat.
And my trusty old Colt 1911 under my own seat.
"Shit," I mumbled again. If they trapped us, if we didn't make it back to campus…
It wasn't just the Alferos who could be after us, but every other freaking assassin who had a hit out on me or one of my family members. I had enemies — a lot of them. And a lot of them wanted me dead. Most of the time I had protection with me, so this was about to get loads more interesting.
I put the SUV in drive and sped toward campus.
Trace looked out the window, silent, probably confused, pissed. I reached across the console and grabbed her hand.
"Hey…" I squeezed and maintained a calm voice. "…I'm sorry about…" I released her hand and hit the steering wheel. Why couldn't anything be normal? I'd wanted to be a normal guy for her. Take her on a normal date. Have a normal make-out session where visions of guns and blood didn't dance through my head. "Damn, I'm just sorry I freaked out. But we needed to get out of there." Yeah, that wasn't vague as hell.
"But it's your property," she argued in a shaky voice.
"Which the cop had no problem explaining to his other little friends who were out patrolling tonight." Little friends who worked for other families, who carried out tasks for my enemies, and who would stop at nothing to shoot at me if I was alone.
"Whatever," Trace grumbled, biting her lip and crossing her arms. "I don't even know why that matters. Why would you care? It's not as if they were going to come watch us make out too!"
Her blush was freaking adorable.
I burst out laughing. "I wasn't worried about them, Trace." I couldn't care less if I stripped naked in front of strangers — as long as she was in my arms. I seriously had no shame. I was a Mafia boss. Embarrassment wasn't an emotion I practiced.
"I don't understand."
"Protecting," I said honestly. "I promised to protect you, right?"
She finally looked at me and nodded.
"So trust me. What I'm doing right now? This is me trying my damnedest to protect you. Okay?"
"Yelling at me and ordering me around is protecting me?"
Well, when she put it that way, I sounded like some grouchy old bastard.
"I said…" I pinched the bridge of my nose. "…I said I was sorry. You're right. I shouldn't have been so rude, but we needed to get out of there, like fast."
She was silent again.
Irritated, I clenched the wheel with both hands and finally started to see some of the city lights. Good, no tails — yet.
I turned the corner and then looked in the rearview mirror again.
Well, damn it all to hell.
Trace moved in her seat to look. I slammed her back against the seat with my arm. "Don't look."
"Nixon," Her lower lip quivered. "What aren't you telling me?"
Oh you know… just about everything.
I took a hard right, trying to lose the tail. "Nothing you need to know… yet."
Hell. They were still following us.
"Um, Nixon. Nixon… the car behind us? They have guns. Nixon, they have guns."
No shit. They also had a few semi-automatic weapons, but to name every piece of ammunition they had just seemed pointless.
"Shit." I reached for my gun. "Trace, I need you to lay low. Can you do that? Just lean down in your seat. Alright, sweetheart?" I was starting to sweat. She leaned down in her seat as I took another right and then pointed the gun out the window and started shooting.
The guy behind me shot directly for my hand, missing me and hitting the window, thank God.
I brought my arm back in and stole a glance to my right. "Trace, how are ya holding up? Talk to me, Trace," I said in a smooth and calculated voice. I wasn't afraid for me — but for her.
"I'm… fantastic," she said through clenched teeth. The SUV hit a bump, and she let out a scream. The car behind us was trying to run us off the road.
"Are they trying to kill us?" she shouted.
Hell yes. "Possibly. I'm guessing they just want to see who I'm with and why I'd go to such lengths to hide you." Because she was everything — the key to my salvation. They key to my soul. They weren't touching her. I'd die before I let anything happen.
My mind was going a hundred miles a minute. We weren't far from campus. It may come to a gunfight. I'd lose. It was just me. The guys wouldn't get there in time, which meant I'd have to pull into an open lot and tell her to run while I held them off.
Five minutes, maybe six.
And I'd be dead.
She'd have to make good time. I hoped to God she was a runner, if it came to that — it's the only thing that would keep her alive.
The car behind me swerved. They must have had an idiot driving. I smiled in triumph.
"Why are you smiling?" Trace's voice was bordering on hysteria.
My smile grew. One mile to the school. "Because we're almost to campus. They know we're on our way and no chance in hell are those guys coming within a hundred feet of the place. We're almost there, sweetheart." We may just make it through after all.
The car jolted again. My poor Range Rover was going to be scratched to hell.
Trace let out another scream.
I kind of liked it.
As in, if we were in a totally different situation and she was screaming — you know because I was making her scream, I could come to really like that sound coming out of her mouth.
"Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!" Her eyes squeezed shut, and then she shouted. "I'm going to die a virgin!"
"What?" I roared. Holy shit. She was a virgin? I'd guessed, but hearing her say it out loud? I should have been horrified — instead I was amused, pleased as hell, feeling a bit prideful that it would be me. Nobody else would touch her for that first time. She didn't want to die a virgin? Hell, I'd help with that. Sign me up.
"I'm going to die a virgin!" she repeated, her voice rising higher and higher. "I'm going to die without ever going overseas! I've never even been naked in front of a man before."
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
"Oh my gosh! I'm never going to have kids! What if I want kids! What if—"
"Trace," I interrupted.
"Nixon!" She smacked me in the arm. "You have to promise me that if we live through this — and that's a giant if, considering we're literally trapped between two death machines — you have to take my virginity. Take it!"
"Trace, I don't think this is the time to—"
"Promise!"
"Trace—"
"Promise me, damn it!"
Never in my life have I made a promise so fast — scratch that, it was a freaking vow. I'd take her virginity, and when I was done, I was going to take her overseas. Then I was going to possess her over and over again until she forgot all about guns and car chases.
"Crap, crap, crap!" She covered her face and started rocking back and forth.
I pulled the car up to security and gave the guard a quick rundown of what happened while Trace's face turned about thirty different shades of red.
She was silent the entire drive through campus.
With an amused sigh, I pulled her hands away from her face. She held
on to herself with the cutest death grip ever.
"Trace," I whispered, my lips so close to hers I could almost taste her, "Are you okay?"
She whimpered and then shivered. "No, I'm not okay! We could have died! Who were those people? Why did they have guns? Is it like this all the time when you're out and about in public? What the hell, Nixon! I need answers."
And I needed her to change the subject. "As well as a volunteer." My eyebrows shot up in amusement.
"Come again."
I burst out laughing at her confused look. "Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"My answer." I winked. "Just name the time and place. I'll be there." With freaking bells on. "It would be an honor." She had no idea how serious I was. So she'd never been with a man before? Never let them look upon her naked perfection? Good. Because no man would ever see her — no man but me. "I mean, I would love to be the one guy going into uncharted territory and…"
"Shut up! Just shut up!" She covered her face again and moaned. "Oh my hell, I'm so embarrassed."
Pity, because I was so turned on I couldn't think straight.
"Hey," I nudged her. "That was a real bonding experience back there." I gently pulled each finger from her face and kissed the inside of her wrist. "And don't worry, we'll wait until you're ready…" Or until I die from want. I may die first…
"You'll be waiting a long time." That's what I was afraid of.
"It's not like you didn't," I teased.
Her eyes narrowed as she let out a little gasp. I took the opportunity with enthusiasm, crushing my mouth against hers with all the aggression that had built up over the past fifteen minutes.
I used my lips to convince her it was me — I was hers. It was a punishment. Hell. Getting to only kiss her, instead of taking her up on that promise right then and there? Could only be described as hell.
I reached around her body, tugging it closer to mine, as close as it would get with the console between us. It would be so easy to lift her into my arms, to toss her in the back seat, to convince her that this was what she wanted — even though I knew it wasn't what she deserved. My body screamed in frustration as her tongue swirled with mine.
Her taste was my heaven.
"Now is good too…" She surprised me by saying as she tugged my hair with her hands.
Hell yes.
I lifted her, slowly. Hell, I was a Mafia boss. The straight and narrow? Moral compass? Yeah, not in my vocabulary.
I was going to wreck her for anyone else.
And then my worst nightmare came true.
At first the knocking was distant, and then it became louder. I pulled back and stared Frank Alfero down.
His eyes narrowed.
He opened his jacket and pointed at his gun.
And I knew in that moment, whatever fantasy I had created for me and Trace, whatever future I may have built up — was about to come crashing down at my feet.
Funny, I always thought I'd die before I experienced heartbreak.
And there I was… twenty-one years old, and feeling like my heart had just been ripped from my chest.
He would take her from me.
And this time — I wouldn't survive it.
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