Better Run

by Shel Stone

  “There’s a Turkish kebab place in my neighborhood.”

  “I’m sure it’s the height of culinary achievement.”

  “Don’t be snobby. They do really nice kebabs.”

  “Yes, you are uncovering all of my most horrible character traits,” he said dryly, taking a deep draught of the wine.

  “Like killing people.”

  He couldn’t help the smile playing on his lips. “If you run this business well, there isn’t that much involved. Only when dumb shits, like your friends, come gunning at you in your own house. You have good people, you don’t need to take them to task all that often. And I don’t work with people who need credit. Maybe that is a lesson you need to take to heart when you consider what kind of people you spend time with.”

  “They were just some dudes I occasionally hung out with, who told me there was some cool party they wanted to go to. That was all I knew.”

  “Again, maybe you need to pick your people a bit more carefully.”

  “Fine, I have shit friends,” she relented. No need to harp on about it.

  “Well, you have former friends now.”

  Nook had had enough of the beef. It was so rich, she wasn’t sure she could take any more. Obviously delicious. Her second vodka arrived. Palmer stuck with the wine. He was probably really into that as well. To her it had always been bullshit rich people were into—wine connoisseurism.

  The food, the wine and the drinks were making her feel a little mellow, even if Palmer annoyed her with how snobby he could be. Because they both came from the same place.

  He’d finished eating and was nursing the last of the wine. Nook was full and leaned back with a contented sigh. “I will admit, the meal was fantastic.” Proper restaurants like this just hadn’t featured in her life. One of her mother’s boyfriends had taken them out to Denny’s when she’d turned twelve, which had been nice, until he’d gotten so drunk they’d been kicked out.

  “We should head back,” Palmer said, rising after putting cash in the small leather folder the bill came in. There seemed to be no end to his stash of cash. Not that she cared. Not stealing was something she prided herself on.

  “No, I don’t want to go back,” Nook pleaded. “Why can’t we just have another drink? It’s awesome here.”

  Those vodka limes were going right to her head and she was tipsy—enjoying this too much to want to return to a motel room to go to sleep.

  “There’s music next door,” she said hopefully. “Come on, even you have to like music.”

  “I also really love sleep,” Palmer replied.

  “Just another hour, tops,” she said. “Then we can head back. I mean, we’ll be in Miami tomorrow.” Which reminded her that she needed to get away, but he was stubbornly sober and she wasn’t. And a part of her was, like, screw it and have another drink, because this was the best she’d felt in a while. For a little while, she could just shut off all the negative parts. If all else failed, tomorrow she would just throw herself out of the car somewhere on the highway and run for it. “Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “I insist.”

  He didn’t budge as she tugged him and Nook rolled her eyes. “Seriously, live a little. You can return to being a badass douchebag tomorrow.”

  “Well, now that you have managed to charm me,” he said wryly, but she knew she had him. Letting go of his hand, she walked, which she should have done in the first place, because he would go where she went, if only to threaten her if nothing else, and right now, he could take his threats and shove them.

  The place was packed. It was still light outside, but it was full of tourists looking for a good time, or a place to hang out while they slowly got themselves pickled. A rock cover band was playing. Clearly dudes who had normal jobs, but lived out their dreams of being rock stars in their time off. Probably had wives and kids at home, but right now adored the attention up on the small stage of the bar.

  “No more drinks,” Palmer warned. Not that she would, because drunk as she was, she knew to preserve any cash she had—for tomorrow, when she’d have to make her move.

  The thing was, though, that she just couldn’t imagine Palmer hurting her. It just wasn’t the vibe she got from him. Obviously, that was wrong. He was a dangerous guy and she knew that, but still, there was something about the way he looked at her. His eyes followed her as she moved closer to the stage to where predominantly girls were dancing. She joined them as the band was playing ‘Eye of the Tiger.’ Corny, but one of those songs that make complete sense when you’ve had a few.

  Nook lost herself in the music for a while, finally looking back to see Palmer sitting on a stool at the bar, a drink next to him. So he got drinks and she didn’t—philistine. Moving away from the dancing crowd, she returned to where he was. “I see some are not as equal as others,” she said, taking his drink and putting it to her lips. It had that deep, smoky caramel smell of bourbon.

  Someone at her back bumped her into Palmer, whose hand came up to steady the drink. “Careful,” he said. His other hand was on her hip. They were so close, she got that lovely scent of him that had been around her for days now. It wasn’t cologne, because she hadn’t seen him use any. Just him and soap. A heady combination, it turned out.

  And that little pulse at his neck that sometimes drew her attention. Seriously, was this Stockholm Syndrome? Or was being attracted to him a real deep fault in her moral character? She should be stepping back, but she wasn’t. Goosebumps rose along her skin, and she exhaled hot air slowly through her lips.

  Taking the tumbler out of her hand, he took a sip of his bourbon and put the glass down on the bar. “I think it’s time to go.” His hand on her wrist, he led her out of the bar onto the street. It had gotten a lot more crowded in the time they’d been in the bar. Anyone who had felt it was too early to party had changed their mind and was seeking their place for pre-dinner drinks.

  For a moment, Nook wondered if she could just wrench her arm out of his grip and run for it. She probably wouldn’t even get two feet before he’d grab her, but she’d never know if she didn’t try. Luck could be on her side. Wasn’t this a better plan than throwing herself out of his car?

  There were two cops on horseback combing their way through the crowd. If she made a fuss, she would draw their attention. Stop thinking and just do, she told herself, and she used her whole body to pull her wrist out of his grip. It worked—he released.

  It was like slow motion to her as she tried to make her legs move fast enough. They were moving purely on instinct, turning her away from him, but she also saw him turning toward her.

  She only got a few steps before his arm came around her waist and he lifted her up. Surely the cops would have seen that. It happened too fast for her to react as he swung her toward a small alley between two buildings. The cops would have seen that. They couldn’t have missed him manhandling a girl like that, surely.

  Her back thudded into the wall behind her, Palmer’s hand on her chest, pushing her back. A horse head was just coming into view and Nook absently reached toward it—until Palmer’s lips crashed down on hers, hard and demanding. His hands were on her neck, holding her head to him. It made them look like a couple sneaking a kiss just out of the view of the crowd. His tongue rushed into her mouth, utterly distracting her from the horses that were now riding past.

  He softened as the danger passed. His lower arms on her chest held her in place as the kiss continued. Whatever sense of disappointment she had was being drowned by the physical sensations of the kiss as it softened. His thumbs stroked down her cheeks and the kiss deepening again, but different from before. How could he be so rough and so gentle all in one kiss?

  The taste of him suffused her mind. His firm body pressed to her, crowding her. The sensations made any thinking sluggish and incoherent. Slowly he pulled away from the kiss, but he didn’t release his hold on her neck. Hot, heavy breath caressed the bruised and sensitized skin of her lips.

  At some point, her plan had been to sed
uce him, to make what he intended to do as difficult as possible, but it was working the other way around. He’d kissed her and now she was trying to pick up the pieces of her thought processes.

  Looking up into his eyes, she saw confusion rather than anger. They were a mix between green and blue. A frown drew his eyebrows together and he cleared his throat before taking a step away from her. “Bad call, Nook,” he said.

  “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she managed to get out with a hoarse voice.

  For a moment, it looked like he didn’t know what to do. His gaze flashed down to her lips before he looked away. He exhaled deeply as he looked back at the crowd. “Shall we—darling?” he said as he put his arm around her waist and urged her toward the street.

  They walked side by side now, his arm around her waist. They looked like so many other couples there. Nooks lips still burned from the kiss, blood pumping through her body. It wasn’t just the disappointment from the failed escape attempt that had her disturbed, but that kiss too.

  Her side was to his and she found she didn’t mind at all. On some less conscious level, it felt like it was a place she really wanted to be.

  When they reached the road where taxis were waiting, he left her and she felt the loss of his warmth. Opening a door to a taxi, he let her get in first, then followed, giving the name of the motel.

  They were both silent on the ride home. Nooks body was burning with heat. The alcohol was still dulling her mind. Looking over, she saw him looking out the window. “Why aren’t you angry?” she asked before she could think.

  He looked back at her. There wasn’t anger in his features, instead what looked like forlorn defeat in his eyes in his otherwise stoic face. It was only there for a microsecond, but she saw it. It wasn’t an expression she’d seen in his eyes before. Because the giveaway of what was going on in his head was to read the expressions in his eyes, but now confusion flared in Nook’s mind.

  “I’m sorry if you expected something else,” she said. Like what? What could he possibly expect from her, and then look hurt by her actions? She didn’t understand. Was she supposed to show some kind of twisted loyalty? She didn’t get it.

  “I didn’t,” he said. Then why did he look so hurt?

  “I don’t understand what’s going on right now,” she said.

  “There is nothing going on,” he said. “You did as expected; I did as expected.”

  The kiss had not been expected. The look was gone now, replaced by a neutral expression.

  Chapter 26

  NOOK DIDN’T FIGHT as he led her into their room and set the chain lock. He was well past being tired, and she was even worse, being drunk and tired. Although, her drunkenness seems to largely have passed.

  “Why do I feel like I have to apologize to you?” she asked as she took her shoes off.

  “I don’t know. Why do you?”

  “Obviously, I don’t. Trying to get away from you is my number one mandate, right? That’s unarguably clear, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Taking his suit jacket off, he draped it over the back of a chair and walked over to the bed, where he lay down, tucking his wrists behind his head. “We should sleep.”

  She wasn’t moving from where she stood, leaning against the table the TV was on, her arms crossed and her wild, blond hair cascading down her shoulders. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. There was something undone about her—her guard down. But on some other level, it felt as though they’d reached an impasse he didn’t understand.

  “Is everything calculated with you?” she asked after a while.

  What he felt when he looked at her right now was anything but. “I try for it to be.”

  Leaning forward, she placed her hands on her thighs. “And the kiss?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Didn’t feel calculated.”

  “It served its purpose.”

  “Why’d you take me to the French Quarter in the first place? In the Bad Guy handbook, wouldn’t that be the last place you’d take your hostage?”

  “What are you implying, Nook?”

  “That we went because I wanted to go.”

  It was true, but he wasn’t about to admit it. it hadn’t strictly been a wise thing to do with a hostage.

  “Was that like the last meal for the condemned kind of thing?”

  The one thing he prided himself on was that he didn’t lie. Obviously in his profession, fudging the truth was necessary, like saying you were a flooring company owner, which was very much true. There were just some omissions. But he didn’t lie, and that came to bear now. “No,” he said.

  Nooks eyebrows rose and she pressed her lips together and released them. “So what was it? A date?”

  “No,” he said more emphatically. “Just dinner companionship.”

  “Sounds like a date.”

  “I don’t date.”

  “’Cause taking a girl out on a date before you kill her is fucked up.”

  Palmer stared at her for a moment, trying to frame what he wanted to say. “The same could be said for you. You did ask me to take you out.”

  “Touché,” she said. “So what happens tomorrow?”

  “We drive to Miami.”

  “And then what?”

  Palmer bit the inside of his cheek for a while. “Then… I will figure something out.”

  A beaming smile spread across her lips. “You’re not going to kill me,” she sang, “’cause I think you like me.”

  “No,” he said. Alright that wasn’t strictly a lie, because he couldn’t quite pinpoint his take on the issue.

  “And I think you liked kissing me.”

  Saying no now might be a bit of a lie, so he didn’t answer at all.

  “Because that kiss went on long after those cops were gone.”

  The silence in the room was stark. What was there to say? It’s not as if it weren’t true. That kiss had gone on for a long time—much longer than necessary. “The kiss is unimportant.”

  “Not to me.”

  “It was just a kiss.”

  “It’s never just a kiss.”

  Growing serious, Palmer considered her. “As I said, not important, because however this plays out, you’re going to have to leave town—for good.”

  Slowly, she moved closer and part of him wanted to tell her to stop, which was unreasonable.

  “What happens if I don’t?”

  “Bad things for everyone.”

  “This is a risk,” she said. “You’re taking a big risk for me.”

  “Yes.” Weakness wasn’t something he allowed around him, but right now he was signing up for a big one. “You will always be a threat to me.”

  She looked down onto the bed for a moment. “Thank you.”

  Being thanked wasn’t something he wanted. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but he wanted her out there in the distance, away and safe. He could think of her that way, the one he let get away.

  There was a compromise he’d made taking on this profession. It wasn’t a profession for family and attachments. That was the very source of weakness.

  Why was he even thinking like this? How had this happened. Had it been the kiss. No, He’d known it this morning, but it had been there before. Maybe even all the way back to stalking her on the Internet before getting that number off her mother. No, in fact, it had gone back to the moment she’d walked in the door.

  His attention had been on her the moment she’d appeared. Her hair, the clothes, that attitude. It had gripped deep inside him, an excitement that was still there. An energy he’d attributed to anger, but it was showing itself for what it was. Nook had fascinated him and he’d chased her down.

  Shifting toward him, she came closer, putting her knee down on the bed. Her intentions were clear.

  “Don’t,” he said. In his gut, he knew it would make it harder later. Her as a concept was bad enough, but going down this route was bad, an even bigger weakness, because he wanted her—had fro
m the very start, and that hadn’t changed. The kiss had just ignited it and it burned. But part of him didn’t care about the future. It only cared about right now.

  But she refused to listen, and leaned closer, her soft lips stroked his. Desire flared inside him, deep and heady as it had in that alley. The kind of desire he hadn’t felt in a long time—a dangerous kind of desire. And that made her dangerous—although, not enough that he could make her stop when she shifted closer and deepened the kiss.

  The taste of her suffused him, honed every one of his senses. The weight of her as she shifted her body on top of him. The softness of her breasts as they pressed to him.

  Unable to stop himself, he kissed her back, that desire tugging deeper still. His hands shook as he stroked down the side of her body.

  “You were trying to run from me a minute ago,” he said, trying to steady his voice. His body ached for more, but his mind was telling him to be careful. “And now you’re seducing me.”

  “Am I?” she asked and sat back, straddling his hips. The pressure and weight were divine. There was no hiding how hard he was. She knew it too. “I’m not having to work that hard. Maybe it just is what it is.”

  “There can never be anything coming from this,” he said. The undulation of her hips had him losing his grip on things, being sucked down into the cloying desire that peeled any notion of common sense from him.

  With her arms, she pulled her skirt up along her thighs and then up her body and over her head, along with the t-shirt she was wearing. Her lacy bra was turquoise, matching the small briefs. If he had any objection to this, or note of caution, it was gone now. All he wanted was her, and the desire he saw in her glossy eyes. She ground down on him mercilessly and he groaned. This might be the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

  Leaning down again, she kissed him, her hands roaming his chest, to settle on the buttons down the front of his shirt.

  He should be stopping this, but he couldn’t bring himself to. It felt both urgent and compelling, and he would pay for it later.

  Her hands on his bare chest had him breathing hard. She leaned up again, letting her head drop back. “I want you,” she said barely louder than a hoarse whisper. Sitting up, he joined her, undoing her bra and releasing her lovely flesh, the pink buds that compelled him to suck. Her moans echoed through his ears. “Now, Palmer,” she urged, a frantic edge to her voice.