by Lily Diamond
The military background explains both his build and his relative ease in this crazy situation. It also makes him seem a little less like a lying punk, but…soldiers aren’t universally heroes. “Go on.”
“I got together with some guys from the old neighborhood in a bar one night and they were all miserable. There were no jobs, one of them had a wife with a baby on the way while the family was about to be evicted…and I started to get really angry.” He sighs in my ear, and the warmth of his breath along with the warmth of his body sends an unexpected jolt through me.
“I didn’t mean to drag you into all this. But here’s what happened. The guys and I became jewel thieves. We’re really good at it. Zero casualties. But then Max decided that he wants to take over, and set me up by planting a gun somewhere where it would be connected to me.”
He smells so good—leather and sweat, and a faint smell of beer on the back of his breath. And even though I’m still processing that this friendly, flirty hunk is a criminal, his scent affects me as much as his warmth. I’m not happy that I feel this comfortable and aroused in his arms with everything going on—I should be thinking about how to get us out of here, not melting into this stranger.
I should want to hit him. Instead I just say, “You make this mess go away, and I’ll see if I’m willing to let you make it up to me.”
He breathes in my ear, “How does a million dollars cash sound?”
What? Whoa. Now he’s not just a hot guy with a sad story and a winning personality cuddling me and promising to keep me safe—he’s also offering to make me rich. But I’m skeptical—of course. “You trying to buy my silence?”
“I’m planning to compensate you for fucking up your Halloween show.” A brief pause, and he concedes, “And I’m buying your silence. I was serious when I told Max I’m getting out of the game.”
I take a deep breath, relaxing a little more. “I’ll think about it. So why were you here anyway, and how did they know you would be here? This place doesn’t have anything worth stealing.”
“There’s a stash of diamonds here from a job I did over a year ago. It’s worth at least two million. I was alone when I went in to hide it, so I’m the only one who knows where this stash is. I was trying to retrieve it when I ran into you. It’s in the room where you were filming.”
Suddenly it all makes sense. “Plenty of places to hide a body in here,” I mumble. “That’s what Max must have thought when he followed you in.”
It’s so ironic that it makes me sick. The ghosts here have startled me, frustrated me, demanded hours of work for a single whisper—but I have never been afraid of them like I am of this Max guy. “You’re right, though. We can lose them down here.”
I say it aloud as much to comfort myself as anything else. But it’s right then—as I’m starting to feel a tiny bit of hope—that a terrible crash sounds from near the top of the dumbwaiter shaft.
I stifle a cry of horror against his chest. “Shhh,” he warns, and I do my best, cramming my hand against my mouth.
“Where the fuck did they go?” Max’s voice echoes down the shaft at us as they walk into the room, and I pray we reach the bottom before they discover the dumbwaiter.
“You sure they’re not hiding in here?”
I freeze. That voice isn’t Oscar’s—it’s Chad’s. Shaky with apprehension, and almost wheedling.
“It’s either that or they found a way out of the room. You two search, I’ll cover you.” Max’s voice is steely, and I hear the rolling sounds and bangs of the morgue drawers being opened.
“Oh God, man, it stinks,” Oscar grumbles.
Chad joins in with, “This looks like dried blood in here!”
“Shut up!” Max growls. “And as for you, keep your mouth shut and keep working. Remember, you only get to live until you stop being useful.”
“Sounds like they’ve got your ex hostage,” Drake whispers, and I nod slightly.
“That means they’ll have a guide. A piss poor one, but still. They’re less likely to get lost.” I hate admitting it.
“You guys hear something squeaking?” Oscar queries, and my blood starts running cold again. The dumbwaiter rope.
“Find the source of that sound!” Max snaps, and Drake and I both stiffen. I feel his heart start beating fast.
“Listen very carefully,” his deep, smooth voice murmurs in my ear. “The moment this thing stops you jump the hell out. Get clear of it. I’ll help you. It may be a bumpy ride, but we need to get out of here.”
I don’t question it. I just roll over, needing his help because the damn backpack is making me clumsy, and brace my feet against the back wall of the dumbwaiter.
A moment later, the dumbwaiter door slams open from above. “What the fuck?” Oscar mumbles. We both freeze. Then, after a long pause, “It’s a little elevator thing! It’s going down!”
“Fuck,” Drake breathes, and I swallow and try not to start crying.
“Get out of my way!” Max snarls, and I hear a struggle.
“No, wait, what are you gonna do?” Oscar cries, getting increasingly upset about the decision to kill us.
“I said move!”
The dumbwaiter shudders to a stop at the bottom. Drake shoves the door open at once and launches us out into darkness. Panic jolts my scream loose as a gun starts going off at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft.
Oscar and Chad are both yelling as the gun bangs again and again. We hit a dirt pile and Drake rolls us over, shielding me with his body. The dumbwaiter splinters, the rope snaps, and I hear the heavy thud of the counterweight hitting the ground from high above.
The yelling continues as the gunshots end. “Oh fuck!” Chad is yelling. “Oh fuck Jesus Christ man you didn’t have to kill her!”
“Yeah we did. Now shut up and make the damn elevator thing come back up, I want to make sure that they’re dead.” Max sounds pleased with himself.
“Uh, I can’t, dude. You shot the whole thing to Hell.” Chad sounds terrified. I almost feel sorry for him. He’s a childish prick, but he doesn’t deserve this.
“Fuck. Fine. Then we go down and make sure.” Footsteps walk away from the dumbwaiter shaft.
As soon as I catch my breath, I whisper, “We have to get out of here.”
Drake rolls over and grunts in pain. “Damn it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s my ankle. I think I’ve been hit.” He sounds almost apologetic, even though he just got injured saving us both.
“Shit, okay, let’s check.” I hastily dig out my flashlight from my vest pocket and turn it on.
The dirt that padded our fall is a pile excavated from the mass grave, which we’re just feet away from. The pit almost takes up the entire room; a huge gouge in the dirt floor of what was once a vast storeroom. The beam illuminates the spindly old wooden staircase that clambers down the wall from the main basement high above; the lower part is covered in old tarps and lets out practically at our feet.
I shine the light down Drake’s outstretched legs and see a gouge in the leather of his boot. No blood, thank God. “I’m not sure but the leather might have done its job for you.”
He takes the flashlight and checks—and lets out a sigh. “Yeah, it didn’t go through the boot. Must have winged me. I’ll have a hell of a bruise, and this is going to slow me down.”
The urge to panic wells up inside me like icy water—but I lift my chin and look at him firmly as I get to my feet. “Then we find a place to hide.”
Chapter Eight
Amanda
I know Chad knows about the staircase. They will be here soon. I help Drake along as we go to the far end of the cavernous room where the excavators had set up a base camp in a side corridor. “We have to keep moving,” I apologize as the fast clip jostles his ankle.
“Don’t worry about me,” he hisses, his voice tight with pain. “Just find us a good place to stash ourselves.”
“I’ve got one in mind. Chad was too scared to stay down here. I had to shoot it on my o
wn. There are big brick chambers and a wine cellar lower down that the forensics team was using. I know the cellar has a locking door.” As crazy and spooky as it is, I’m in my element down here. I know the layout—and I’m the only one who does.
The old larders line a hallway that leads to the root cellar door, their doorways still covered in hanging tarp from the forensics team that was here so many years ago. I help Drake inside the cellar and then push the heavy door closed with all my strength, shoving a big crate in front of it. I grab a full water bottle from my bag and set the light against it, sending a softer glow all over the walls.
“Here. Lean on the wall a minute, I’ll give you a place to settle and then we can look at your leg.” I unsling my backpack and pull out my mummy-style sleeping bag, unrolling one of the tarps to lay it on. “Come on.”
I help him settle onto it and then sit beside him, grabbing my pen light to illuminate his leg. The bullet took a chunk out of his boot and leather trouser cuff, gouging down to the sock beneath—but the sock is dry, not a speck of blood to be seen.
“Yeah, looks like I was lucky,” he mutters. “Fucking Max and his love of guns. Damn it.” He leans back against the wall next to me. “I’ll have to reinforce the boot with something, but it’s better that I don’t remove it. If it’s a sprain or a bone bruise, pulling the boot off and limping around without its protection will just aggravate it.”
I nod, sitting back against the wall, trying to regain my bearings after our terrifying escape. “Okay. Well, if we’re not moving fast it’s better to wait here until they check the area and move on. There’s a back way up to the first floor.”
His arm goes around my shoulders and I lean against him, feeling the need for a serious distraction. “Then we had better wait it out. Can they get through that door?”
“No. Some of this area’s closed off for instability. Chad hasn’t even gone down this hallway. He thinks it’s a death trap.” I nestle my head against his shoulder, the unfamiliar warm and tingly feeling coming back, wearing away slowly at my fear.
“That’s lucky, then. So we hide out here, wait until they come by, give them some lead time to get off the floor and then….” He looks down at the FLIR still hanging from its strap and checks it. “Okay, it’s still functioning and has half a charge on its battery. If we can use this puppy to move around we should be able to get past them in the dark.”
I smile, relaxing a little against him. We don’t have weapons, but we definitely have all the brains and preparation in this fight.
“I can’t believe you haven’t punched me in the face yet,” he admits, and I laugh a little.
“I’ve…thought about it a few times. But you’re kinda paying me a million bucks not to. So as long as you keep up your end, I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
He lets out a soft laugh…and his hand drifts gently over to my knee. “Actually, I would rather you didn’t keep them to yourself.”
He turns to me, taking my chin in hand, and leans over to feather a delicate little kiss onto my nose. A spark catches inside me and I tilt my head up, chasing his lips with mine. He kisses me firmly, then delicately, then firmly again, ebbing in and out while I whimper against his mouth.
This isn’t the time to be thinking about sex. We have people chasing us, trying to kill us. But as he pulls me against him, I know that this is exactly the kind of distraction that I need right now.
Besides, to be completely honest with myself, I might be dead soon. There’s a cheery thought—but it also means that being shy seems a particularly stupid waste right now.
His kiss is shivery and almost too gentle at first, as are his hands as he starts exploring my body. It’s as if he doesn’t trust his strength—or his eagerness. But as I strip off my vest and lay the pen light aside, I think, I won’t mind much if he gets a little rough.
There’s more to this than simple revenge on Chad or taking a chance with a hot guy when my life’s at risk. It’s more than raw animal attraction. There’s nobody hot enough to get me fumbling off my clothes in the depths of a haunted hospital while my life’s in danger just on looks alone.
It’s the soft sounds of delight he makes as I kiss him, as I unzip his jacket and run my hands up his chest and over the soft turtleneck under it. It’s that strange tenderness I keep getting glimpses of, which balances his strength so perfectly. Mostly…it’s just something about Drake himself.
His hands slide over my body and then up under the back of my shirt, his long fingers so hot they almost sting on my chilled skin. I gasp as his palms move up and down my spine, then grip my waist as he pulls me onto his thighs. I go willingly, careful of his ankle.
His arm snakes around me, supporting my back while the other hand starts exploring me again. His mouth gets rougher and hungrier on my skin, sucking and nibbling, offering pleasure edged with pain. My toes curl inside my boots and I gasp for air; the cold, stale chamber seeming to recede behind a little bubble of growing heat around us.
I run my hands over his chest and under his jacket to clutch at the bunched muscles of his back. He shudders, his eyes hooded in the dim light from my improvised lamp. I’m surprised; his body seems as hungry as mine.
Maybe he’s coming off a bad relationship too.
He shrugs out of the jacket and lays it aside, his chest heaving, then turns back to me and captures my mouth with his own. I can feel waves of tremors running through him, and the rough way his fingers grip me now and again when he loses control of his passions only spurs me on. It feels so damned good that I don’t care if he bruises me, as long as he doesn’t stop.
His nimble hand cups my breast, stroking my nipple through my bra. It’s so different from Chad’s impatient fumbling. Instead he’s skilled and attentive, responding when a particular caress makes me gasp. Suddenly I don’t mind the setting so much—I can’t wait until we’re free and I’m safe to have him. Especially since I don’t know if we’ll actually escape at all.
He opens the bra—thank God I wore a front-fastener—and gasps with delight as my breasts spring free. “Oh wow,” he murmurs reverently, and then kisses his way down my throat toward them. He buries his face in them, stroking, kissing, swirling his tongue over them, while I whimper and squirm on his lap.
He sucks one of my nipples into his mouth and I throw my head back, panting silently. This is so different from my experiences with Chad that it makes me feel like I’ve never been touched by a man before. Waves of tingling heat roll through me from the pull of his lips, and I loll my head back into his hand, completely under his control.
It takes everything in me to keep quiet while he pleasures me. I can feel my cunt starting to tighten, hungry for satisfaction in a way that’s too familiar—this is the point Chad would tease me up to and then never fulfill. “Keep going!” I gasp desperately, clutching his hair with one hand. “Don’t leave me like this…don’t stop…”
He rolls us over easily, wary of his injury, and pins me down, leaving me squirming and moaning under him. His hand cups my vulva through my jeans and kneads firmly, and I shimmy my hips, grinding against the heel of his hand in time with his insistent suckling. My back starts to arch, pleasure more intense than anything I have ever experienced gathering in my body.
He groans suddenly, reaching down to unbuckle his belt. “This is killing me. I’ve got to fuck you.” His voice is a growl, but with a desperate, pleading note in it. His words affect me as much as his hand, and I unbuckle my own belt and unzip my fly.
“Do it.”
He’s just starting to unzip when my flashlight suddenly turns off by itself.
We both freeze, and to my horror I hear footsteps approaching outside. He claps a hand over my mouth and moves to shield me from the door, holding me tight against him. Terror mixes with desire like a jet of cold water against my hot skin.
“What about down here?” Max’s voice echoes down the short hallway outside.
Oh fuck.
“You don’t wanna go dow
n there,” Chad stammers. “A lot of these tarped off places have parts of the ceiling falling. On this level, that means bricks and stuff.” He doesn’t seem to realize that the people on corpse recovery detail used a lot of tarps too.
As if on cue, there is a thud outside. “Whoa, holy shit!” Oscar yells, and I hear the footsteps stumbling back.
“Okay, kid,” Max replies, sounding a touch shaky. “Given that a giant brick just nearly brained me, I’m gonna go with your judgment on this one. If your ex knows this place like you said, she’s not dumb enough to go down there.”
The footsteps move on, and Drake removes his hand from my mouth, relaxing with a huge huff of air. “Jesus, that was close,” he mutters. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I’m trembling still, as much from frustrated desire as the adrenaline rush. But I’m also trembling because there’s something happening all around me that I can’t record.
Lights that turn off by themselves. A brick that falls on cue. I can’t shoot it. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to talk about it with anyone after this. I’m not even bringing it up with Drake yet—after all, I know better than to rely on this presence the same way you would physical backup.
But it gives me hope. I think some of my ghost friends might be looking out for me.
Hopefully they aren’t watching too closely, though, because Drake starts kissing my neck then, trying to distract me from what he thinks is strictly fear. I hesitate for a moment, wary of Max and company somehow deciding to come back, but then smile and let him.
It doesn’t take long before his kisses and caresses have me squirming under him again. He braces himself over me and I shuck my jeans—then moan as I feel him slide down over my body. He starts rubbing his fingers up and down my slit through my silk panties, then takes my other nipple in his mouth and starts sucking roughly.
My head falls back; I bury my fingers in his hair and then slide my nails down his back. He’s already unzipped his pants, and I grip them by the belt, sliding the leather off his ass. His cock springs free as I pull his pants down further, and I feel its thick round head slide up my thigh.