Blake placed his hand on my back and urged me along. We walked at a casual pace toward the side door of the airport.
Thomas stopped the limo in our path and popped the trunk. He and Blake tossed our bags inside and we sped off into the storm. The snow fell faster now, the roads felt icy, and I didn’t think we would be up in the air a few hours from now. I looked behind us twice, took a deep breath, and waited for my worry to be cut in half. We were no longer in public view, and no one was following us. I could relax now.
At least in theory.
My chest still held too much anxiety and the sight of Thomas did nothing to alleviate it. I placed my hand on the seatback in front of me to try to get a read on him, to little effect. There was too much cushion and divider between the two of us and I couldn’t get anything.
“Everything okay back there?” Thomas said into the quiet.
Blake turned to me, his own face hard and fierce.
“Yeah, Addie’s—”
I put my hand on his leg and shook my head no. “I’m just tired,” I said. “Long day.”
“Well, you’ll rest as soon as I get you to the Four Seasons. Blake, the documents you needed are in that envelope back there,” Thomas said, and dragged a hand down his tired face.
“We’re not going to the Four Seasons. Take us to that new hotel around the corner instead,” Blake said.
“Not the Four Seasons?” he asked.
“No,” I said in a tone that silenced Thomas. And to make sure he stayed that way, I reached across Blake’s lap to the control panel on his armrest and pushed the button that raised the partition between us.
“I don’t trust him,” I said. “He’s always unnerved me.”
“Thomas?” Blake asked.
“Always,” I said.
Doubt misted across Blake’s face. Thomas was an old friend, someone who had stood by Blake for half of his life. He understood Blake’s war with Otto, and his need to find and protect me. Something seemed off to me, always had. Like a vague resentment that built with time. And for what reason? I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly. It was enough to make me question him.
Blake signed several pages from the stack that Thomas had left for him. One collection of stapled papers contained photos of two paintings by Canaletto. They had been left to Blake by a friend of his mother’s and kept in a vault at his gallery.
“Where are those going?” I asked.
“Nowhere. Unless something…happens to me. Then they go to you.” Blake glanced at me, though his pen continued to scrawl across the signature line.
My world tilted and I focused on the drops of snow on the window to find some equilibrium. “I don’t want the Canalettos,” I said. And with that, the endless chaos, the feelings of being out of control, the fear of losing him that kidnapped my sense of peace and confidence…quieted.
Perhaps my fears had simply run out of steam, run their course. Or maybe it was the oddity of our situation—sitting in the middle of a snowstorm, in the back of a borrowed town car, easily discussing our future that would be spent on the run, in search of magical art and in hiding from dangerous, murderous men. One in particular, who also happened to be Blake’s father.
It would seem that all of the absurdity may have just tipped us across the finish line of this bizarre journey, and into the rational. The winner’s circle where the clouds cleared, where trust became easy, and love was the only answer.
The heat poured from the vents, swirled up from the floor and added a cozy warmth to our newest beginning. Blake’s smile widened when we sank into the comfort of one another’s arms. His blue eyes glowed in the hue of an outside light and I realized that the car wasn’t moving anymore. I looked out the darkened window and expected to see an illuminated hotel sign. Instead there was only the sparse lighting of the garage.
Thomas knocked on the divider and Blake lowered it.
“We’re here,” Thomas said without turning around.
We both surveyed the garage with caution. “Where are they?”
Blake texted and stared at his phone screen. “Inside,” he finally said.
With a loud ding, the elevator door opened in the distance and a young couple exited, then walked to across the wide cement floor toward a row of cars against the far wall.
I couldn’t decide if I would have felt more comfortable entering the hotel through the bustling lobby. We would have run the risk of being seen and not have known it, but the near-empty garage left me feeling vulnerable and exposed.
We replaced our baseball caps and sunglasses, and I ducked under the long strap of my cross-body bag and adjusted it on my shoulder. Blake stepped out first, then after a last search of the surroundings, he extended his hand to me.
The chill in the garage was in sharp contrast to the warmth of the car and Blake’s embrace, and the cold and the damp nipped at my skin. Thomas lifted our bags from the trunk and raised the handles for us. Then he grabbed a gun from the front seat, cocked open the chamber, showed Blake it was loaded, and handed it to him.
“I’ll be in touch,” Blake said in a low voice. He tucked the weapon into his waistband and we moved toward the elevator.
We traveled through the thickly carpeted hotel passageways like spies, never once taking for granted the silence or the apparent emptiness of a hallway or elevator lobby. When we arrived in our room Blake made me wait at the open door with one FBI agent, while he and the other agent pointed their guns into every shadow and checked for unwelcome visitors. Then they traced lampshades and picked up vases and searched for listening devices.
When everyone was finally convinced we were alone in the room, the agents took their posts outside our door. Blake shut and locked the door behind us, and placed his gun on the bedside table. I stood in the shallow foyer with the suitcases, a strange mix of angst and excitement coursing through me. How did one live a life where someone might always be lying in wait for you? Would our every entry into a new place begin the same way?
He lugged and organized our suitcases, checked the flight schedule with the pilot, then sent a text to William. Like most men he was his sexiest and most confident when he was fully in control. I realized that not only did he need to be in the lead to protect us, but that it served him somehow. Fed him. As if not doing it was unfulfilling to the point of weakening.
The presence of the two agents made me feel safe, though I knew we had no guarantees on anything. Today was all we had. Grace and Isabella had been right about that. As had every ghost I’d ever met. If I spent any time resenting the past and afraid of the future, then I was just a ghost myself. Suffering in a state of neither fully here nor there.
Blake moved toward me—his next order of business. There were no words of comfort, no warnings of caution to keep me safe from Otto’s warpath, as had become his custom with me.
There were only his lips on my neck, always softer than I thought they would be. It seemed intentional, as though he knew that unexpected tenderness was what I needed to make me forget myself. His clever tongue, smooth in contrast to the rasp of his beard, was relentless with demand. Taunting in symphony with the graze of his hands over my breasts.
Clothes dropped to the floor. His head dipped and his mouth worshipped, each caress ignited a succession of raw sensations, the next more feral than the last. His now-longer hair tangled in my fingers and I tipped his head to meet my gaze. A smile curved along the swell of his lips, my hardened nipple between his teeth. His fierce blue eyes sparkled with the perceptible newness that bloomed between us. A new future, the pursuit of a prize that would end the threats. Now was the beginning which would put an end to the past that had preyed upon us all.
With our kisses at their deepest, his finger circled, danced between my thighs.
“Oh. Oh, Blake.” I tugged at his buttocks and pulled him to me, but he refused.
His mouth traveled, mindless with hunger down my midsection. The harmony of his lips and tongue caressed my body, the curve of my thigh, s
oft and slow, tracing a delicate sign of infinity. He nestled his mouth between my legs, the velvet touch of his tongue dancing along the sweet ache that promised reward. Its waltz elicited a moan from somewhere deep within me, and Blake echoed it in response.
When he finally rose to meet my lips, he pushed me hard against the wall, the firmness of him pressed against my belly. With effortless strength he lifted me and I wrapped my legs around his hips, desperate to be with him, as though we could mark what was ours in the center of this chase. As if his strength and force and my willing response could push everyone outside the boundary of us, he drove himself into me.
“Oh, Sassy,” he breathed, and stilled himself deep inside me. Our eyes locked, a cross of claim and need shining on his face. “Oh, God, I love you,” he whispered.
I sighed with profound content, reveled in those first moments of becoming one with him. I could never belong to anyone else. He was the only one with whom I shared my love, my soul. He moved in me, amidst our ragged breaths and blind need until my flesh convulsed around him, and demanded his release with each constraint. He looked up, his heart touching mine, and joined me. The surge of him inside of me made the both of us shudder. My eyes closed, our breathing echoed the reverent pulse left on our skin.
Chapter 42
We settled into the bed, Blake’s arm cradled me behind the neck and I examined his hand. His nail beds were nearly the exact same shape as I remembered my father’s. I ran the pad of my finger against the edges of their short, clipped length, then kissed them.
Though the heater was on in the room, it rattled and struggled to fully warm the area where we were. The sheets were still cool, and I curled into the pillow of Blake’s chest. I clamped my thigh over his to capture more of the heat that rose off of his body. His heart beat regular and strong against my cheek.
“Not exactly what we’re used to.” Blake studied the room that had clearly been designed for guests with long layovers, cancelled flights or flight-related extramarital interests. From his vantage point on the bed he could see everything but the door, a flaw I knew he must have hated.
The hotel wasn’t that old but desperation from previous guests had already seeped into the walls, and I hoped for an early release from our temporary jail cell. The snow had stopped. Hopefully de-icing had begun.
The text alarm on Blake’s phone beeped and he glanced at the screen.
“Flights resume at 8 a.m.” He said it casually. Factually. Though I caught his slight grimace.
“That’s later than we’d like, isn’t it?” My fingers skated through the cloud of curled hair on his chest, then trailed downward over the moguls of his abs.
“Maybe, but it’s not bad. Just a few more hours.” He put the phone down and rolled toward me, his head rested against his fist.
The muscles beneath the smooth, tanned skin of his stomach twitched when I scraped my nails against it. Other less tawny parts of him pulsed and jerked when my hand wandered lower. His mouth touched mine, his tongue gently seeking. He tasted of sex, of me, and of his own piquant flavor that reminded me of honey and red wine. The warm, satiny skin of his penis stretched taut in my hand. The hardened length of him sent a smile to my lips.
“We’ll make good use of the extra time.” He climbed on top of me, edged my knees apart, and rested between my legs. “Now give me those lips.” He slipped inside, a long and slow thrust that made me arch beneath him. The firm muscles tensed beneath the skin when I brought his hips against me.
“Addie.” He stilled on the instant.
“What—”
He shook his head, shushed me, and reached for his gun. We parted and I sent my awareness into the hallway, expected to find the two FBI agents who were outside our door, but instead I felt the strange absence of them. My search was broken by the unexpected turning of the door lock and a crash that bounced off of the wall with a bang.
Blake pushed me off the side of the bed. I hit the floor and landed on my hip. Several shots rang out and someone fell to the floor.
“We meet again,” the voice said, cold and vapid. “Put the gun down.”
“I don’t think so,” Blake said, and he faced his enemy from the bed.
“My orders were to take you alive. I don’t have to. The only one I have to take alive is her.”
I peeked over the edge of the bed and saw Blake, belly down on the bed with his gun aimed into the small, dark hallway that led to the door. I hunched again behind the bed and tried to think of the right next move, but I had nothing. I felt Blake push the hidden gunman energetically. There was a pause, then three more shots rang out.
“Argh,” Blake grunted. Then there was a thud.
I stood halfway.
Blake scrambled toward the floor and the man pointed his gun at him. “Leave it.”
His lips spread into a wicked smile after he shot his eyes toward me for only a brief, pathetic second. I didn’t try to cover myself with the hope that the gunman would be distracted enough to allow Blake to grab what I thought must be his gun on the floor. The man kept his eyes on Blake.
“Back away.” His voice was cold and flat.
Blake lifted himself fully onto the bed. His blood drained through the clasped fingers against his right arm. I rushed toward him and the man pointed his gun at me.
“Easy,” he warned. The man kicked Blake’s gun toward the far wall with his scuff-marked shoes, then lifted it and put it in the waistband of his jeans.
“I’m just going to help him.” My hands shook in the air.
The gunman’s head shook back and forth. He moved slow and remote, like a character from a movie scene. Some vital part of me simply wasn’t present.
“No—”
Blake channeled every ounce of his fear into how he pushed the gunman. “You want her to help me.”
The air in the room shifted and the gunman’s resistance relaxed. He seemed none the wiser about his sudden cooperativeness, but I moved cautiously, just in case.
“What a pretty sight,” the man said to me. I recognized him as the dark-haired half of Otto’s pair who confronted us in Blake’s gallery. He ogled me slowly, but ignored my face. His palpable stare brushed across my bare breasts, and my stomach, then lingered between my legs. The man sniffed a dramatic inhale through his nose then licked the corner of his lips.
Blake scooted off the bed and backed in my direction while I moved toward him.
“Dammit, dammit,” he said. He stood between me and the gunman and I peeled his hand away so I could examine his arm. Bright red liquid slid down the front and back of his arm and down his torso. The scent of his blood, the burnt air of gunshot, and the stale molded odor of the hotel room filled my nose.
“There’s an exit wound,” I whispered to Blake, my breath panted at a breakneck pace. “I think the bullet is out. It went right through the outer muscle.”
He lifted his arm and inspected the hole in the back of it. “Fuck.” He steadied himself on the bed with his other arm, the result of dizziness, I expected.
I forced him to sit while I ripped at the white sheets and managed several long strips. Blake’s eyes were glued to the gunman who smiled at his handiwork, our helplessness, now tainted with Blake’s blood. His high cheekbones rose up with his grin and accented the dark eyes that brimmed with malice.
“Hurry up.” He waved the gun at me. “Finish this and get dressed.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said softly to Blake, and wrapped the lengths of white fabric around my whole world.
“You’re doing fine. Right now we just want to stop the bleeding. Wrap it tighter.”
He groaned when I did. His breath was faster than normal, and I tried to remember the signs of shock.
“What about infection?” I kept my voice low, and lightly caressed the fabric that attempted to hold his skin together.
Blake didn’t answer. There was no answer. Wherever we were about to go I was sure it wasn’t the emergency room. Cold fear swept throug
h me at the sight of his blood oozing through the sheets, and I felt our life together slipping away. I decided this must be what it feels like before the plane crashes or the car hits you. That “all is lost” feeling when your future disappears.
“Blake, it’s not working.” My eyes welled up.
“Just do it again,” he said. I half-dressed us both and redressed Blake’s wounds with white washcloths over the entry and the exit sites this time. Blake pushed the gunman several times to leave, to no avail. The normal dust of bronze left his face and left an ashen paste. My eyes shifted around the room in search of anything I could use for a weapon.
I lowered myself to Blake’s eye level. “Just focus,” I said casually. “You can do this.”
Blake took a long inhale then glared at the gunman. “You need to put the gun down and go back to your car. Hurry.”
The gunman cocked his head a fraction of an inch and lowered his gun, then walked rote and zombie-like toward the door. He stepped over the body on the floor and left the room.
“You’re amazing,” I said. I found our black caps and sunglasses on the table and made us wear them once we were fully dressed. We stepped over the gunman’s blond partner, who lay in the hallway with a dark red blotch on the chest of his gray sweater. His spirit stood next to his body and was attached by an etheric cord. I guessed his body must have been slightly alive.
Blake opened the door an inch, then another, and searched the hallway. The two FBI agents sat outside our room, slumped to the side in their chairs, matching bullet holes in their heads.
Blake held my hand and stepped to the right. I stopped. “There’s someone down that hallway. The stairway.” I nodded in the other direction after I determined it empty.
With each step down the stairway, my mind ran in several different directions at once, but it kept anchoring on how. How had they gotten the door unlocked? How had they gotten a keycard? Why was our room positioned on an empty hallway? Someone had known to set it up this way.
Somewhere in Time Page 20