“Kero?” Junker asked.
“That’s right,” Strike said and then glanced at her. “Should I just cut out his tongue?”
“No!” she said. “You know Torres will put all of this together, he must know who I am.”
“You don’t exist anymore,” Strike said. “And Benjamin Gallagher’s assistant is not famous. Even if he suspected it, he doesn’t know it and we don’t tempt fate around here. Besides, that goes away if you let me put him out of his misery.”
Strike was capable, she knew it, and if she agreed, he’d end Torres’ life now. Rora wasn’t sure she liked having this kind of power. “You can’t kill a man in his… profession,” she said, because offing an NSA agent, whether he was rogue or not, would have serious repercussions.
Her ex stayed loose. “We can make it look like suicide… You and I have some experience with that,” he said, which she didn’t appreciate.
Putting her hands to her face, she covered her glare. “No, we’re not talking about this. Either we help him, or we abandon him.”
“He’s here for intel,” Strike said. “He thinks if he hangs around long enough that you’ll start to feel sorry for him or he’ll learn something useful that he can use to put us away.”
“I already told him I wouldn’t flip.”
“Yeah, and how did that work out the first time?”
“You mean the time you set me up?”
“Ok,” Junker said, stepping between them, taking a turn at being peacemaker. “We’re not going to leave a bleeding man to die. The longer we stand in here talking, the more blood he’s losing.”
“And he figured out my evil plan,” Strike said. “Maybe he’s not so dumb after all.” Rora smacked his chest, Strike’s hand rose to the spot she’d struck. “You’re hitting me a lot these days, Cupcake, even for you. Sexual frustration?”
She smiled, but not in happiness. Rora was smug. “I like doing it because I know you won’t hit me back. It frustrates you to be out of control.”
“Oh, I’m in control, baby. And it turns me on whenever you use those hands on me.” Moseying closer, he pinned her to the vanity. “You remember the first time you saw my scars?”
She shivered and tried her best to swallow away the awareness tingling inside of her throat. “Yes.”
“I told you it wasn’t happening back then,” he said, grabbing her shoulders to spin her around. Tugging her hair, he yanked her head aside and dropped his lips to her carotid before lifting them to her ear. “Now I say it is.”
“Uh, excuse me,” Junker said and grabbed Strike’s arm to try pulling him away.
Instead, Strike growled at him and grabbed him by the throat, thrusting him back against the wall by the door. “Touch me again, Square, and I’ll break every one of your fingers and then your face.”
“Flame,” Rora soothed, drawing his arm down from Junker’s neck. “You need to calm down. And Junk, Exile really doesn’t like to be touched.”
“We have a man out there, dying!”
Junker was right. She and Strike were distracted by each other, and it would be kind of unholy if Torres died just because she liked it when Strike kissed her neck and touched her body.
“Good luck with that,” Strike said, turning his back to the vanity behind her to lean against it, folding his arms.
Rora turned to make eye contact, beseeching him without words for half a minute. “Baby, you have to help him.”
“Me?” Strike asked and pointed past her to Junker. “What about him? This is his great plan.”
“He’s right, I can handle this,” Junk said. “We have a med kit. I can sew up a wound, it’s not that hard… right?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never done it,” she said. “I guess we can figure it out.” Strike mumbled something, making her turn. “Something to say?”
“Goddamnit,” he said, marching past both of them to leave the bathroom and return to Torres. “If you sew up the wound with the bullet still in there—” he bent to grab the comforter and pulled it hard to drag Torres to the side of the bed closest to him “—he’ll die of infection. Get me towels, water, and whatever med supplies you have.”
Rora ran off to get everything and when she came back, he had a small black case on the nightstand and a syringe in his hand. “What is that?” she asked, climbing onto the bed on Torres’ other side.
“Morphine,” he said, taking a bottle from the small zipped case.
“You carry morphine around with you?” Junker asked. “Talk about never meeting your heroes, he’s an addict!”
“He is not an addict,” she said and watched Strike put the needle in the bottle to drag out some of the liquid. “Have you ever tried it?”
“Try not to ask me questions in front of the narc, huh, honey?” he said and put the needle in front of Torres’ face, though the guy was half out of it. “I stick you with this, the pain goes away, and I patch you up. Your alternative is that I don’t, and we leave you here to bleed out.”
Torres sucked in a breath. “Lidocaine.”
Strike hissed. “Sorry, fresh out of the sissy drugs and I’m not raiding a pharmacy for you. If it’s not bad enough for this, then we leave you here to bleed out.”
“What about doing it without?” she asked, looking around. “I’m sure we still have liquor.”
“Fine, then you take responsibility for my murder charge,” Strike said. “If I dig that bullet out, it’ll hurt, and he’ll lash out. What happens when men lash out at me? What’s my patience level like, babe?”
She considered it for a blink and then looked to Torres. “Take the morphine.”
Torres looked at them both and clenched his teeth to breathe through a bite of pain. He nodded. Strike stuck him and less than a minute later, Torres’ body relaxed.
Strike went to work, and she bounced off the bed to grab jeans and a sweater that she pulled on over her nightdress. When she was dressed, Rora returned to the bed, kneeling on the mattress next to Torres.
“I’d have raided a pharmacy for you,” Strike said, holding up the bullet he’d just dug out of Torres’ shoulder to show her it.
“That’s disgusting,” she said of the bullet and then made eye contact with him. “And I’d have let you stick me with the morphine, I don’t need any sissy drugs.”
Turning his smirk back to the wounds, Strike got back to work. “You remember what I did when Jewel drugged you in Wonderland.” She did and didn’t have to say it because he carried on. “Next time, I’m doing the opposite.”
Instead of protecting her virtue, he’d take advantage of her incapacity? He’d warned her about that during a conversation before they found her former workplace in flames.
“Then I better make sure not to get myself hurt,” she said and slapped a hand to Torres’ uninjured arm before climbing off the bed. “Come on, Junk. Let’s get some food and some ice for his face.”
“Can we leave him alone with Exile?”
Going to Strike’s jacket first, she pulled some money from his pocket. “Exile isn’t subtle,” she said, pulling on her own jacket and grabbing a scarf, aware that Strike could hear them. “If he was going to kill the patient, he’d have done it already.”
“Kero,” Strike called when she opened the door. “Show me your blade.” She took it from her pocket to prove she had it. “Defend yourself or die… and you know what happens if it’s the latter.”
Spinning around, she left with Junker on her heels. “What happens?” Junker asked.
“Never mind,” she said, stopping to give him some money. “Go and get a couple of pizzas.”
“Where are you going?” he asked as she walked away.
“To raid a pharmacy,” she said, striding away from him.
FIFTEEN
On returning to the room, Rora found Torres still unconscious on one bed, Strike sitting on the other, and Junker pacing the room. But the moment the door closed, both conscious men stopped to focus on her.
“What?�
�� she asked the two men who were fixated on her, making her squirm.
Junker was still just gaping when Strike got up from the bed and came to her. Braced for whatever reaction he might have to the bag of supplies she was carrying, she didn’t fight him when he took it from her.
Strike opened it, looked inside and then threw it aside to grab her face and haul her up to kiss her. She was so shocked by the kiss that she froze for a minute and didn’t respond. He pushed her jacket from her shoulders and rushed her back against the door.
“You naughty, naughty girl,” he said, shoving her head back to suck on her neck.
“Stop,” she said, pushing at his shoulders, but her knees were starting to buckle. “Don’t.”
Junker came up behind Strike and she had to shove harder to make the man kissing her back off. “You can’t support this, Exile,” Junker declared. “I can’t believe that even you—”
“I can’t be mad at her when she misbehaves,” Strike said, clasping her throat then letting his hand drift down over her torso. “Fuck, I love it when you’re bad.”
“Someone had to do it, Junk,” she said, touching the spot Strike had marked on her neck. “Exile did the heavy lifting with the patient.”
Strike glared at Junker. “Yeah, what do we need him for again? You and me can rely on each other to do whatever’s necessary. We don’t need a square or a narc.”
Leaving the door, she went toward one of Junker’s packs. “Can we use one of your laptops, Junk?”
“Uh, yeah, I—”
But she had already taken one from its case. Strike came over. “One of?”
“He has three,” she said, grinning at him as she held it up. “Guess some guys carry a bigger wad than others.”
“Guess some need to,” Strike said. “Mine’s all-purpose and obviously more powerful. Guess his doesn’t measure up.”
Presenting the laptop to him, she smiled. “I was careful. But will you cover my ass, please, Flame?”
“Oh,” he said, folding his arms. “You want me to use his kit to clean up your mess.”
She thrust the computer toward him. “A mess made for your friend.”
He pushed the computer back to her. “I don’t have friends.”
The tension in the room didn’t need to be fueled, but as they stood toe-to-toe with this computer between them, she could feel the air begin to crackle. “So, what am I?” she asked.
“You’re my girl,” he said.
Pushing the laptop against his chest, she didn’t mind jolting him. “I am not your girl.”
“Yeah? So why keep calling me your flame?”
“ ‘Cause I can’t use your real name and I feel stupid saying Exile… It’s a stupid name, by the way.”
“You know his real name?” Junker exclaimed, but she didn’t respond.
Rora wasn’t going to break eye contact with Strike; no way was she giving him the satisfaction of winning this stare down. “Yes, I do, and I’ll be happy to start using it if Exile keeps screwing with me.”
“Someone’s crabby,” Strike said. “Guess I won’t be getting any this week if it’s that time of the month.”
Rora hated that way he looked into her, he knew she was getting riled and he took great pleasure in being the one to push her buttons. But then again, no one could press her buttons the way that he did.
“Would you take this and do your job, please?” she said, picking up his hand to put it on the laptop she’d pressed to his chest.
“Give me mine and I’ll do it,” he said. She sneered at him. “Tick, tock, baby, you could be creeping onto the wanted lists right now.”
“Do you want me to check if the robbery has been reported?” Junker asked from somewhere in the periphery of the room.
The corner of Strike’s mouth rose, but there was no joy in his conceited expression. “There you go, baby. The square will check for you.”
Strike dropped onto the couch, opening his arms along the back. “Uh,” she said and licked her lips when she turned to Junker, deliberately stepping on Strike’s foot as she did. “Thanks, Junk, but Exile does a little more than just check.”
“What does he do?”
“Yeah, Cupcake, what do I do?”
Narrowing her eyes on him, she hated that he got such gratification from her need. Instead of fighting him, she surrendered. “Fine,” she said, bending over him to put the laptop on the end table next to his chair. “Don’t do a thing.”
Walking away, she headed for the door.
“Whoa,” Strike said when she pushed Junker aside and grabbed the door handle. Rora rested her weight on it as she twisted around to look to him. “Where are you going?”
“To get myself arrested,” she said. “Maybe I’ll try solicitation this time. Let’s see how much you get while I’m in jail.”
Pushing down the handle, she was about to go out, but he rushed over and put his hand on hers to try prying it away from the handle. “Baby,” he murmured, trying to slide an arm around her waist, but she pushed it away.
“No,” she said, giving him a push. “No, go away.”
Crowding her, he kept trying to pull her into his arms and she kept pushing him away. “Cupcake,” he mumbled into her hair and tried to duck down to kiss her, but she twisted away from him. “You want me to apologize, huh?”
Lifting her chin, she looked right past him. “Try it, see what happens.”
Easing himself closer, he slid his arms around her, pulling her hip to his groin. “I’m sorry, babe,” he said, crouching to nuzzle her neck through her hair. “You were so bad. You know what it does to me when you’re bad.” Yeah, it turned him on. “You make me want to be bad too. We’re so good at being bad together.”
Recognizing the growl in his voice, she smiled and tried again to push away his embrace. “Don’t start that,” she said.
Strike yanked her to him. “Let’s fight, baby. I love it when you’re angry.”
“Yeah, because you usually get some,” she said, trying to wriggle out of his arms, but that just made him hold her tighter. “Ok, I get it.” Matching her eyes to his, she used the heat she saw in his to her advantage and stopped fighting him. “Do you have my back?”
“Always,” he said, and leaned in for a kiss.
Avoiding his mouth, Rora ducked out under his arm and slipped away to go to Junker. “I think we’ll have to pack up here and move on.”
“He’s out,” Junker said, nodding at Torres on the bed. “And we just got here.”
Rora felt Strike’s eyes on her as he passed, but she just smiled and ignored him. He went back to the armchair and picked up the laptop she’d tried to give him before, Junker’s laptop. Weird as it might be for him to work on a different machine, and for her to see him on a different one, it impressed her that he could pick it up and do what he needed to without skipping a beat.
“We don’t have to go far, just away from here. Pack up the truck and we’ll worry about moving him when it’s done,” she said.
Junker accepted this and got to work.
They’d need to know where to go and she needed to get a better lay of the land. Because she needed to make some decisions about direction, and because she knew it would irk Strike, she retrieved Opal from beneath the pillow she’d been secreted under.
Instead of sitting on the bed, Rora went over to the dresser and sat on the floor against it, straightening her legs to prop her feet up on the chair Strike was sitting on, resting them between his thighs. It was nuts that she was using Opal for something as basic as checking maps, but when she peeked up and saw Strike fixated on her, she felt a surge of satisfaction that made it worth it.
“This machine’s a piece of shit,” he said.
“Bad workman blames his tools.”
“I’m doing the job, I’m just not impressed,” he said. “Good call bailing out though.”
“How do you think they found us? The authorities have never been this close to our ass… have they? All this time
I was impressed by your skills. Are you showing me now that without Opal, you can’t keep me safe?”
Sliding further down into the chair, his groin bumped against her feet. “You’re safe. Torres is clear of trackers,” he said. “What about your new buddy?”
“How would they know to track him?” she asked.
Strike shrugged. “He’s not as vigilant as you.”
“Someone used to call me paranoid,” she said, remembering what had happened in a certain convenience store parking lot after she told him she had a creepy feeling.
“Whatever,” he said. “The square might not notice someone pinning something on him.”
“Well we can’t ask if—”
Strike rose, putting the laptop onto the chair and a hand on her head when he lifted his leg over her. “Yo, Square,” he said just as Junker came back in. “Come here.”
Closing Opal, Rora leaped to her feet and put the laptop on the dresser before darting over to get between the men. “What are you doing?” she asked Strike.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking something from his back pocket. “It’s painless.” He began to wave the device in his hand up and down over Junker. “And saves me from having to touch the guy.”
“What’s he doing?” Junker asked.
Strike put a hand on her stomach and eased her aside to move around to Junker’s back. “Just go with it,” she said.
To her surprise the device bleeped when Strike moved it over the back of Junker’s neck. “And what do we have here?” Strike muttered and ran his thumb up the inside of Junker’s collar to pull out a miniscule flat square. Holding it up on a fingertip, Strike showed it to her.
“Wow,” she said, getting in close. “It’s so tiny.”
“Now I get to hit him, right?” Strike asked. She tutted at him. “What? He endangered you.”
Dropping the device to the floor, Strike stamped it with the heel of his boot. While she was still examining the shattered remains, Strike lunged forward and threw an arm around Junker’s neck, pulling him backwards and locking the unsuspecting man in a chokehold.
Kiss Chase Page 15