Down & Dirty_Romantic Suspense Series

by AJ Nuest

  The second his hands were free, he spun and grabbed her upper arms. “Are you hurt?” Her brain rattled as he gave her a rough shake. “Dammit, Tanner, did anyone touch you?”

  Unreal. She blinked. He’d spent the past God-only-knew how long being beaten while tied to a pole and his first concern was for her.

  Shouts rang out in the distance. The rapid pop of a semi-automatic bounced off the trees.

  “Okay, reunion over.” Xander spoke in her ear. “You guys got incoming in T-minus twenty seconds.”

  Shit, they needed to move. Like, right now.

  Two long strides brought Ben to a lopsided card table, and he snagged the strap of his holster and one side of his leather jacket off the top. But it was the way he simultaneously slung both items onto his shoulders that made her tip her head with a frown.

  Okay, not a rodeo bull. When the guy wanted, Ben Archer had the grace and speed of a hired assassin. Trained by a jungle cat. That had been owned by a ninja.

  He glanced toward the exit and dove in her direction. “Behind you!”

  She whirled and released. Her blade embedded in the guard’s shoulder with a thwip at the same second Ben slammed into her back. She was pitched forward. His steel arm banded around her waist, and the ground disappeared beneath her boots as his momentum propelled them across the floor.

  Lifting her knees, she planted her heels on the guard’s chest and flexed, absorbing the impact to seize the knife.

  Ben’s hand covered hers. His fingers tightened and the angle of their attack shifted as he drove them toward a wooden post.

  A hard shove of her legs, a twist of Ben’s wrist and, together, they’d staked the asshole in place. He gurgled, lashes fluttering, and his gun thudded to the dirt as he slumped.

  Withdrawing a step, Ben kept her pinned against his hips. His groin cradling her ass, the hard wall of his pecs riding her shoulder blades and his harsh breath heating her neck.

  “Hey, look at that. Working together, we make a great team.” In fact, with the way Ben had wrapped her gloved hand in his, they hadn’t even left any prints on the weapon.

  Tanner lowered her legs, but it didn’t do much good. The toes of her boots still dangled several inches off the ground.

  “We’re leaving.” Yanking her to the side, he stooped to retrieve the guard’s sidearm, and then ate up the distance to the stairs as if he’d completely forgotten she could walk. She crossed her arms, a calculating brow aimed at the side of his face as he lunged up the steps two at a time to the top.

  “You’re taking the rear, you hear me?” He set her on her feet and smacked the weapon into her palm. Stealing a peek around the threshold, he withdrew his Glock.

  She glanced from the compact Sig Sauer to the solid firearm seated in Ben’s grip. Yeah that wasn’t really working for her. “How come I get the girl gun?”

  He snapped his head toward her and screwed up his face in a grimace. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Not really, no.” But she’d be damned before she picked another fight. Sighing, she stowed the Sauer inside her jacket and bent down to snag her helmet off the floor, tugging the Ruger from the small of her back as she straightened.

  “Now we’re talking.” Widening her eyes, she wiggled the gun in the air.

  A pop came from the woods and her ears pinged as the door frame splintered. Shit, with all the light, they were like fish getting shot in a barrel. She pivoted left and zeroed in on one of the halogen lights. At the same moment, Ben’s arm crossed over hers and he fired right.

  Glass exploded. Bright sparks lit up the sky and cascaded like a firework down the side of the building. Seizing her wrist, he yanked her through the doorway and they raced toward his truck.

  “Xander, we’re clear!” Arms pumping, she fisted her hands and stayed as hot on Ben’s heels as she could. “Bring the pain.”

  “Roger. Payload inbound.”

  A whoosh streaked over her head. The missile’s piercing whistle muted the spray of bullets rupturing the snow on her right. Pain tore through her hip as a percussive detonation rocked the ground and a wave of heat shoved her forward.

  Dammit, not there. She slapped her hand to her side, gritted her teeth and kept moving. Anywhere, but there.

  Or maybe she should be happy. If she had to get hit, the one area of her body that held less sensitivity than the rest would be the best spot.

  An orange glow lit the side of Ben’s face. She shielded her head with her arm as trees cracked and crashed to the ground on a surge of thundering booms.

  “Can you drive?” The last thing she needed was to bleed all over the inside of his truck. Give him any clue she’d been hurt so he could plow into the building and try to take out whoever had gotten off such a lucky shot. “Ben, can you drive!”

  “I’m U.S. Special Forces!” He wrenched open the driver’s side door and dodged inside. “I can drive with both my arms hacked off and blind.”

  “You don’t need to get pissy, I’m just asking.” Her glove slipped and left a dark red streak along the top edge of the bed as she leapt over the side. Landing in a crouch, she glanced down at the jagged hole in her leather pants, scooped up a handful of snow and packed it on top of the injury. “You need to slow down at the entrance so I can hop out and get my bike.”

  “Good Christ, woman. Any other details you wanna check off the list before we’re done fighting for our lives?” The door slammed and the engine roared as he wrenched the gearshift into Drive.

  Yeah, now that he mentioned it. She could think of few.

  A smile tugged one corner her lips as she swiveled on her toes to lay down some ground cover. That was, if he was up for the million plus ideas flitting through her head.

  The back of Ben’s truck hydroplaned in a wide circle, and she hissed as her kneecap smacked the metal ridges lining the bed. The inside of her right pant leg grew slick as he spun out the tires and peeled from the scene.

  Her next move would depend on where they landed—her place, his…Smith Manor—and whether or not she could stop him from having a complete meltdown once he found out she’d been hit.

  Chapter 11

  “Tell her we’re almost there.” Palming the wheel right, Ben docked his cell on the dash and prayed Xander would still be able to hear him through the shitty reception. His tires bogged as the back end of his truck fish-tailed out of the turn, and he quickly compensated while sparing a glance at his passenger-side mirror. “The cabin’s five miles in.”

  The single beam of Tanner’s headlight swerved onto the country road, and he squinted at the black void behind her as she followed one of his tire tracks through the snow.

  Nothing. Not one goddamn thing.

  An aggravated growl vibrated the strained muscles in his chest. Joints popped as he white-knuckled the wheel. But there was no way in hell they’d gotten out that easy. After all the confusing shit he’d learned, dispatch should’ve had eight or nine squads crawling up their asses by now.

  “Hold on.” Xander’s voice buzzed the speaker, cranked to full volume ever since Ben had barreled away from that war zone they’d left in the preserve and ransacked the glove box for his phone. “I’ve been listening in on the police band to see where we stand.”

  Good idea. Fucking excellent idea.

  The split second that deafening explosion had lit up the night, Ben had known the Brofessor was running remote back-up from an outside location. And hooah to that, since having him eyeball their retreat had confirmed every suspicion dumping a gallon of acid into Ben’s gut.

  “She asked if your GPS is malfunctioning or if you’ve just decided to ignore it and drive around in circles.” Xander paused. “And then she grumbled something about men being ridiculous and directions.”

  Damn woman. Ben cocked a brow at the high beam staring back at him in the rearview mirror. This wasn’t funny. She didn’t have the first clue what kinda clusterfuck they were in.

  He never should’ve let her jump out of th
e back. Should’ve just slammed on the brakes and insisted she dump that damn motorcycle on the side of the road the minute he’d decided to vacate the city. Over a half hour they’d been driving through this shit storm. With the speed and 50 mph gusts beating at his truck, he’d have to fire up a heat gun just to pry her sweet ass off the seat.

  Cutting another sharp glance at the disturbing emptiness behind her, he gunned the engine through a high drift and hoped his reflexes remained sharp enough to react.

  Goddamn it, where were they? Guilt dug its gnarled claws into the wall of his stomach. Panic, rage, dread, all vied for placement as they raced up the lining of his throat. And why in the high holy hell couldn’t he shake the needling anxiety he and Tanner were worse off for not being chased?

  His front axle hit a dip, and he gritted his teeth as his sore ribs creaked. Knowing exactly what came next was the one thing that had stopped him from pulling over and tossing her inside his truck. Fight or no fight.

  She revved the engine and the hair along his nape rose the same distance her headlight floated over the top of his back window. Muscles groaning, he shook his head as she bounced to the road with several feet to spare. Even though it would’ve made his entire fucking year had she opted to ditch that death trap she called a bike.

  The moment it was found and the plate called in, the trace would’ve led straight back to her. After everything he’d missed, he wasn’t about to make another moronic move by letting some idiot uniform flag her name in the system.

  He knew a cop when he saw one.

  Clods of frozen dirt kicked against his wheel wells. He swerved left then right as traction took a quick vacation over a slick sheet of ice.

  Tanner was right when she’d said they had a smell. Five years he’d spent walking the halls of the precinct, and he hadn’t been fast-tracked to detective in two by ignoring the obvious when it had been repeatedly shoved in his face.

  No, goddamn it. Everyone from the DA’s office on down could request he turn over his sidearm and badge before he gave up the one person who’d risked everything to save his miserable hide. He’d be knocking back high balls in hell before he let them sink their grubby meat hooks into her.

  “What’s the status?”

  “Confusing as shit.” A deep sigh filled the cab as Xander clicked his keyboard. “Local law enforcement is on the scene. Emergency personnel rolled in about twenty minutes ago. Background chatter is that a transformer malfunctioned. Which is about the only thing that adds up since that’s what I hit. But Jesus, Ben. No witnesses have been reported. No injuries sustained. Based on the way everyone scattered, whoever was in charge of this operation knew how to execute without leaving a trace. It’s like they were prepped for the police to show up before Tanner even got there.”

  Not hard to figure since the police had already been present on the scene. And the same fucked-up reason he and Tanner had no choice but to hunker down someplace quiet until Ben could wrap his head around whatever the hell they were supposed to do next.

  Molars set in hard grind, he pounded his fist against the wheel. It didn’t take a ranger with his time on patrol to know any bullets they dug from the snow would be a waste. No hits in the database. Ballistics unable to track the striations on a bunch of unregistered weapons.

  But he and Tanner had squeezed off a few shots, as well, and the last thing he needed were their casings circling the precinct in a plastic evidence bag, all while he struggled to un-blur the line between who could and couldn’t be trusted. “You get eyes on which direction they headed?”

  “They jammed my signal.” The irritation in Xander’s voice easily cut through the static disrupting Ben’s cell. “Right along with all the other wireless uplinks in the area. The only thing I can tell you is that the radar looks clear and, so far, you got nothing on your six.”

  That oily son of a bitch. Ben’s throat worked a swallow as the toxic memory of burning rubber and dead bodies coated the inside of his mouth. There was only one man he could name who would be able to pull off that kind of stealth operation. Who’d perfected the art of infiltrating the enemy and poisoning them from the inside out.

  Vaheed Shahzar.

  Ben had closed in on the asshole only to be left with the dust of Shahzar’s escape gritting between his teeth enough times to know. After the way he’d been lured in, the tactics they’d used as they’d beaten him for information…

  All along Shahzar had been setting up shop in Ben’s house. Sticking him in that cold place between knowing who was responsible and not having one shred of evidence to prove it.

  The entrance to his father’s old hunting shack came up on the right, the gap in the trees as familiar to Ben as the back of his hand. Another glance in his mirror to check Tanner still stuck tight to his bumper, and he accelerated straight into the snow bank that had drifted across the drive.

  “You lock down the manor, you hear me?” He roared under the exposed carport canted against the southern end of the building and jammed the gearshift in Park. “Mocha, Molly, Nick DeFranco and his wife, bring ʼem all in. Assign them rooms if you have to. Track down Eden and Kelly and let them know we got trouble, but it’s critical they stick where they are for the time being. No one else gets access to the grounds. Up to and especially Adder. Any uniforms ring the bell with a warrant, you tell them to cram it up their ass and send them packing.”

  “Fuck.” Weighted silence echoed from the speaker as Ben shut down the engine and snatched his cell off the dash. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “My recruits were there.” A hard shove against the door, and he yanked the key from the ignition as Tanner slid in beside his truck. “Until I can nail down some proof to connect the dots, I got no idea how deep this shit goes.”

  He ended the call as she climbed off her bike, and then had to clamp down hard on the urge to lay into her right off the top. Her movements were stiff. Disjointed. She pried her helmet off her ears, and it took everything in him not to shake his fists at the sky with a loud roar.

  Her cheeks were so damn pale the blinding snow whipping through her hair seemed gray.

  “Inside.” Right now.

  Grabbing her upper arm, he dragged her past the corner of the cabin and onto the narrow front porch. The second she tugged back, he considered whether the wiser choice might’ve been to just throw her over his shoulder no matter how much she kicked or complained. “Hold on, I wanna get my stuff.”

  “Later.” He needed to get her warm. As it was, her lips had already gone a hypothermic blue that made his chest ache.

  Doing his best to shelter her from the wind, he walked her to the door and fumbled the key into the lock. Tanner entered and he followed her inside, flicked on the lights, slipped the deadbolt and strode straight for the fireplace to light the kindling he’d stacked prior to leaving a couple months back.

  Despite everything he’d said to her at the wedding, she still didn’t understand. Pivoting away from the building flames, he jerked his head toward the crackling heat and crossed between two overstuffed arm chairs for the kitchen. One wrong move on his part, the smallest chance she would suffer irreparable harm because of his stupid mistakes, and he’d never survive it.

  Goddamn it, she’d saved him.

  Reaching into the cabinet beside the sink, he brought down two juice glasses and a fifty-year-old bottle of scotch. The crazy, headstrong, beautiful woman had appeared amid the stench of his reality like some dark avenging angel out of the mist of his dreams. The bottle neck jittered against the rim of each glass. Liquor sloshed over the sides, and he slammed the bottle to the counter as his hands shook from the adrenaline crash.

  She’d been the one person to ignore the rules. Do exactly what he’d always feared and put herself at risk.

  And in return, she’d saved him.

  He gripped one of the glasses in an effort to steady his twitching muscles. Jesus, he didn’t know whether to drop to his knees and beg her to never leave him, or
demand she save herself by running as far and as fast away from him as she could.

  “Are you all right?” She stepped to the counter and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  No. One look at her and the war he’d been fighting would be lost. He tossed the drink down this throat and prayed the alcohol would help numb the burning in his gut. If the reckless urge to pull her into his arms didn’t get to him first, the defiant spark he’d grown to crave in her eyes most certainly would.

  Returning his glass to the counter, he lifted the scotch and poured himself a second shot. But she deserved better. Not some broken-down, half-empty shell of a soldier who couldn’t even find the right words to thank her for what she’d done.

  Her sigh whispered through the quiet, and in his peripheral vision the angle of her shoulders deflated as if she’d lost the will to fight. “I’m sorry.”

  He jerked his gaze to hers and was instantly caught. Like he knew he would be. One hundred percent destroyed by the frustration shining in her wide blue eyes. Trapped by the way she appeared so damn fragile when, inside, she was tough as nails.

  “I knew you’d be mad I came after you, I just…” She tossed her hands in the air and they hit her thighs with a lifeless smack. “Needed to be the one.”

  Wrong. How was it the woman always misunderstood?

  Leaving the counter, he stormed straight toward her. Again and again, she constantly misunderstood. “I’m not mad, I’m furious.”

  And he’d had enough.

  Enough of letting her assume the worst when the disappointment he put in her eyes didn’t belong there. Enough of her hating the way he’d gotten stuck in her orbit as if protecting her was the wrong thing to do.

  Enough side-stepping. Enough pretending and bashing his head against a brick wall as if the way she’d come to his rescue was something he was supposed to ignore.