by Lisa Hughey
Thug one took a swing at him. Con arched away from the blow, his focus splintered between thug one and thug two, trying to intuit their plan. The open rear passenger door effectively hamstrung the driver. But Con was more worried the driver would change his mind and take off with Ava half in, half out of the car.
Con’s main objective was to rescue Ava.
His heartbeat slowed, the thud-thud echoed in his brain. The harsh rasp of his breath reverberated in his skull. His vision tunneled as he took in details. The engine gunned again. Thug one lunged at him and he knew had no choice but to unleash the fury boiling within him. With a fierce desperation, Connor pummeled the attacker in a barrage of blows, grunting at the force of his rage. No one was going to hurt Ava on his watch.
Finally the asshole dropped to his knees and fell to the side. Con scooped up Ava and ran for her car. His souped up Dodge Charger was too far away. She’d already unlocked the Civic, so he yanked open the passenger seat, and he tossed her in carefully, all the while trying to keep focus on her assailants. Luckily Ava carried her keys on a sparkly lanyard around her neck. He lifted the lanyard over her head and slammed the passenger door shut.
Connor raced around to the driver’s seat. As much as he’d like to capture these guys and beat answers out of them, his first priority needed to be Ava.
Con slid into the driver’s seat, and assessed her. She just looked like she was asleep, her chest rose and fell in deep, easy breaths. So Con turned his attention to the assailants. His brain processed information, noting that the old boat of Lincoln Continental was minus license plates. Although both thugs wore ski masks, their hands identified them as one Caucasian and one darker skin, could be Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or mixed blood. Likely not African-American.
While Con had been getting Ava in her car, thug two had rushed from the driver’s seat and shoved his partner in the backseat, threw himself back into the car, and then the Lincoln shot forward on a burst of speed.
He didn’t want to leave Ava alone on the bizarre off chance they had another partner. But he could follow the old Lincoln.
Con gunned the Honda’s engine, completely exasperated when her little car barely turned over. He shifted to drive. The car rumbled and coughed as he gave the engine more gas but the car only sluggishly chugged forward. He desperately watched her assailants’ car, powered by a V8, shoot away in the rear view mirror. He tried one more time to get the Honda to go faster than twenty miles an hour but the damn thing felt permanently stuck in first gear.
“Dammit.” Con rested his forehead on the steering wheel and took a moment.
He shifted into Park and leaned over to check on Ava. Her head lolled against the passenger window as she sagged limply against the car door. Her chest continued to rise and fall slowly. He lifted her eyelid and peered at her pupils which contracted slightly.
Con dialed with one hand while he measured the slow, easy beat of her pulse. When Amir, his doctor answered, he got right to the point. “If a woman is drugged—” Con sniffed and was pretty sure he detected the sweet scent of chloroform. “—with chloroform, how long will she stay unconscious?”
“You do know there isn’t any such legal limitation on doctor patient privilege. In a court of law I’d have to testify against you.” Con could practically see his pal smirking.
“Jokes later.” Con held Ava up against the worn passenger seat with one palm. “I’m serious.”
Amir quieted down and asked a series of questions. “Breathing?”
“Easy.”
“Nausea?”
“She’s not throwing up or looking like she’s going to throw up.”
“Color?”
“Color?” Con frowned. “What?”
“It can affect the liver,” Amir snapped.
“Oh. Rosy cheeks and lips.” Con looked at her heart-stoppingly beautiful face. “She just looks like she’s asleep.”
“Try to wake her up.”
Con glanced back out the garage exit. The kidnappers were long gone. Now he had to concentrate on Ava. He patted her cheek lightly. “Ava, sweetheart. Wake up.”
Nothing.
He patted her cheek a little harder, wincing at the sharp sound of the slaps. “Ava.”
She lolled her head to the side and squinted her eyes open. Her mouth curved wide and her tongue slicked across her lips as he cupped her jaw in his palm to hold her head steady.
“Ho-la hombre guapo,” she slurred as her lids drooped closed again. Then she barely whispered, “Usted es muy caliente. Usted me hace mareado.”
Amir snickered on the other end of the phone. “Let her sleep. Unless she starts having problems breathing, she should be fine. And it’s likely the chloroform making her dizzy, not you, hottie.”
“You sure she’ll be okay?” Con ignored Amir’s teasing.
“Just let her sleep it off. She’ll wake up when her body has equalized the drug, and probably feel like she’s got a hangover.”
Con flicked the end button on his phone. The band of worry around his heart eased and he breathed a relieved sigh. He pulled the seat belt over her prone form and buckled her in. “Safety first,” he murmured. Then he asked the unconscious woman, “Who wants you?”
Besides me. The thought popped into his brain with surprising forcefulness. He smoothed her hair away from her face and frowned at the dark bruise forming on her cheek. He pressed a soft, gentle kiss to her skin, and then headed toward the only safe place he could take her while he figured out what to do next.
Home.
***
A dull thud persisted in knocking against her skull like the boom of a wrecking ball. Her tongue felt about ten sizes too big for her mouth and her sealed lips cracked when she tried to separate them. As she attempted to swallow a sharp, thick pain hurt her throat. Dios, she had the worst hangover in the history of time.
Her eyelids were crusted shut and through sheer force of will, Ava finally pried them open. Watery light filtered through her vision. Sheer filmy curtains she didn’t recognize hung in front of her and blocked her vision of what lay beyond the bed. She’d been a little disappointed when she’d left the office but she didn’t remember going on a bender. She wasn’t a drinker except for a cerveza on hot summer nights and the occasional glass of champagne for special events. And she didn’t remember anything special happening last night. So why was she in a strange bed? Her heart kicked. Why didn’t she remember? The harder she tried, the more her head hurt.
She frowned and took stock as other details shimmered in her foggy, sluggish mind. The inferno of heat that emanated from behind her. The heavy weight across the curve of her waist, and the gentle, unexpected cocoon that sheltered her and protected her. She felt so safe.
The steady rise and fall of the chest behind her. The thick column of thighs that spooned her legs. The insistent throb of the erection pressed into her butt. Except, she had never in her life slept with a man.
She was fully dressed. In her workout clothes. Somewhat tight and uncomfortable, spandex wasn’t the best sleepwear.
She jerked in surprise when all the details came together and coalesced into a coherent picture. A distinctive, masculine scent drifted over her senses and she identified the man behind her. Connor Stone. She was in bed with Connor Stone. Panic, insistent and urgent, caromed through her. How had she ended up in bed with Connor?
As if attuned to the slightest change in her body, Connor stiffened against her back and his arms tensed, then squeezed lightly before he let her go. He carefully rolled her around to face him. “How are you feeling?” he tenderly brushed a lock of hair from her face and frowned at something he saw.
Apparently, she’d been drop kicked into some alternate universe where her fantasies were reality. She was in bed with Connor Stone.
“Connor?” Her voice was raspy as if she’d been asleep for a thousand years instead of…. Why couldn’t she remember?
“You okay?” Connor asked.
But she still didn�
��t answer, trying to process.
“Nothing?” As if he had read her blank mind and understood her memory was completely unclear.
The last coherent memory she had was of them on Jack’s desk. She flushed, a deep full body blush that started at her toes and tingled through her until her face was as red and hot as a habanero chili.
Connor threaded his fingers through hers, his palm hard and calloused against her much smaller one. His chest was bare and he wore a pair of plaid flannel drawstring bottoms that hung low enough on his hips that his exquisitely-defined inguinal muscles were clearly exposed.
His chest was a sculpted work of art with thick deltoids and pecs that tapered down to a rippled eight pack. His skin was marred with dings and a few older scars, battle wounds that she was sure would make her flinch if she knew exactly how he received them.
Heat surrounded her, emanating from his body like the sun on a hot summer’s day. How could she even focus on what he was asking? All she could think about was the notion that he’d reached right into her deepest, darkest, most hidden fantasies and given them to her.
She clenched her fist against the desire to smooth her hands over his naked skin and curl her fingers around the bulge she could clearly see beneath his pants. All the yearning she’d hidden behind downcast eyes and furtive glances rose to the surface as if he had turned over her fallow field and exposed the roots of her attraction. If she dared to look into his hypnotic eyes would she see desire or disgust? Either answer terrified her.
Ava refused to look at him and he let her get away with it.
“You were attacked, drugged.”
A hazy memory of Connor running at her full bore as an overly sweet odor invaded her senses surfaced.
“Do you remember anything?”
“No. Not really.” She swallowed, and licked her lips. “Why am I here?”
“It was the only safe place I could bring you.”
“Where exactly am I?”
“My family’s house.”
She shot straight up in bed and finally looked at him. “Your mother’s house?”
“Technically, she’s my stepmother, but yes.”
Ava got caught by the odd inflection in his voice. Why did he have that little catch when he’d mentioned his stepmother? But then the more important factor registered. She was in bed with him in his family home. And as much as waking up with him next to her was at the top of her fantasy meter, doing so in his parent’s house was not.
“What did you do?” She tried to disengage their fingers but she couldn’t because Connor held tight. “Why am I in bed with you in your mother’s house?” her voice rose as the full implications hit her.
“I needed to keep an eye on you until you regained consciousness,” Connor said patiently, calmly. He spoke to her like her family when they talked to her ancient Tia Lucia, who couldn’t hear well and thus had trouble understanding simple conversations.
She had to get out of here. She was scrabbling at the covers with her feet and trying desperately to disconnect their fingers. “Well, consciousness regained so adios.”
Eight
It didn’t take a genius, which he was, to figure out she was upset. But Con didn’t understand why. He was more charmed as he noticed that her accent was all but eradicated unless she was upset or aroused. And the heated look in her dark eyes, before they’d started discussing exactly where they were, told him she might be a little bit of both.
She was going to hurt herself if she kicked much more and Con couldn’t stand for that to happen. He drew her up against his chest and whispered in her ear, “Shhh. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
She balled up her fist and punched him in the stomach but the hit lacked intensity because of the proximity of their bodies. “You, imbécil. I can’t be in your bed in your parent’s house.”
“Technically it’s not my bed. We’re in the guest room.” Con’s mouth quirked as he nuzzled the sweet spot behind her ear and slid one hand to curve over her butt. “You didn’t hurt your hand, did you?”
“What?” She drew back and for a second, she looked so angry, Con thought she might head butt him. “Can you focus on the bigger issue here?”
Even more important than the ‘bigger issue’ was the fact that she was looking him in the eye again. “I am. The bigger issue is who is after you. You aren’t going anywhere until we figure that out.”
He swallowed his worry. He’d spent the last few hours digging deeper into Jose Fernandez. But the guy was clear as crystal. He had done everything to make sure his actions were never construed any way other than straightforward. While Fernandez had personally advanced his political star during the search for the abducted girls, he never profited from the situation in any other way. Everything he’d done had brought good things to the migrant community.
Many of his friends and constituents regarded him as a hero.
And even though Jack and Ava didn’t have a good feeling about him, Con could not find anything nefarious or wrong with his past and nothing to implicate him in Stone Consulting’s current problems.
The only other thing Con had done was call his sister. He’d come to the conclusion that he couldn’t tackle the current situation with the company alone if Riley missed check in number two. He needed her here and ready to take on an extraction.
“We don’t need to do it from bed,” Ava cried.
Con couldn’t stop the swell of gratitude that rolled over him. She was safe.
But as she tried to get up and away from him, she undulated and the move thrust her breasts into his bare chest. Connor groaned at the unexpected contact, but he also noticed that she was clearly aroused as the hard points of her nipples brushed against him. He insinuated his leg between her thighs, and went light-headed at the heat from her sex. She was saying one thing but her body was telling a completely different story.
A visceral thrill ran through him. She was as helpless in the grasp of their sexual attraction as he was. Her breathy sigh blew across his forehead. She had her head tilted back on the pristine white cotton sheets and the long column of her neck was exposed to his gaze. With unerring accuracy, his attention narrowed on the rapid flutter of her pulse in the hollow of her neck.
He could feel his own heart pick up rhythm as his body responded to hers. And the longing that had struck him last night when he’d held her in his arms, rescued her from the attack, and protected her from the threat against her, came back in triple force.
The need to touch her, hold her, confirm that she was safe and whole and here, slammed into him. What would have happened if he hadn’t followed her to the garage? What would have happened if they’d been able to get her into the car before Con had gotten to her?
So instead of bringing those worries up, he asked what he really wanted to know. “Would being in my bed be so bad?”
She stilled, her deep black eyes widened. “Of course not.” She shifted in the sheets, her body a hairsbreadth away from his and yet, she was so distant she might as well have been across the room in the chaise lounge at the window. “But what will your mother, stepmother,” she corrected before he could. “Think?”
She would be thrilled that Con had finally brought someone home. But Con couldn’t say that. He couldn’t reveal how big a deal it was that he’d brought Ava here or she’d be out of the house faster than he could say, “It’s not what you think.” And that was unacceptable. Someone had wanted her badly enough to drug her and attempt to kidnap her in a public garage. No way in hell was he letting her leave this house without him.
Nothing he said was going to put her at ease. Her lashes lay dark and thick against her bruised cheekbone. Connor couldn’t resist the lure of that hurt and he brushed a gentle kiss against the obscene purple blemish even as he cursed the fact that he hadn’t gotten to her in time.
“I’m just happy you’re okay,” he whispered in her ear.
“You…saved me.” Her eyes blinked open. “I—I’m starting to rem
ember.”
Con’s pulse quickened. Maybe she could give him more information. “What do you remember?” Maybe they could catch the fuckers who hurt her. “Did they speak? Say anything?”
“No. He just grabbed me.”
He remembered with sickening detail how the guy had jammed that cloth over her nose and she’d sagged in his arms. His stomach cramped in distress.
“Damn, Ava. I saw it happen but I couldn’t get there in time,” he said. “Swear to God, my heart nearly stopped.” He curled his arms around her and tightened his grip as if unwilling to let anyone get near her again.
“Connor.” She brushed the hair from his face tenderly. Her body melted against his, her soft to his hard, tightly clenched muscles. “You rescued me.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again,” he said fiercely. “That’s a promise.”
They needed to get out of this bed before Con did something he’d regret. Something like roll her over and make sweet love to her. He’d already broken that rule and the aftermath hadn’t gone so well. Not to mention that Ava had to be traumatized by the events of last night.
“I thought my self-defense class had taught me the right moves,” she said. She hunched over, shoulders rounded, and head down.
“Let me show you some other moves.” Connor figured it would serve two purposes, to help Ava learn to defeat her attacker next time, God forbid, and it would get them out of this bed. “You can practice beating me up.”
She straightened up and a brilliant smile lit her face. Her mouth curved and the downcast expression disappeared in a wave of delight. “Yes, please.”
Con wasn’t sure she needed to be so happy about beating him up but he liked her happy rather than worried or embarrassed. Con vaulted out of the bed. He gestured to Ava in a ‘come here’ taunt with his fingers. Ava gingerly slid off the bed. Then he looked at her, really looked at her. She was a vision with her hair tousled and her eyes heavy-lidded as she swept the last of sleep away with a lazy rub of her fingers.
Ava yawned, with her mouth wide open and her head tilted back in abandon, she stretched her toned sleek arms over her head and her breasts shifted beneath the constricting spandex top. Con thought about all the other things they could be doing in a bedroom rather than working on self defense. His cock, which had seriously deflated after their talk about her attack, stirred to life.