by Lu J Whitley
Jami roared. Actually roared, like a lion. “You scared the shit out of me!” The bag of groceries she’d been gripping in her mouth dropped like a stone as she stared at him, wide eyed and open-mouthed. Not 100% sure if it was the sound or the sentiment that caught her so off guard. He didn’t give her time to think it over. The rustling plastic hit the ground, and something broke inside him. Some tenuous hold. Maybe his sanity. And he rushed her, bags of groceries flying in all directions.
Calloused hands, long fingers curled around her neck, pulling her forward. He crushed his lips to hers. They were as strong as she’d imagined and twice as soft, like a velvet glove on a sunbaked terracotta tile, hot and firm. She gasped, and he took full advantage of the slight parting of her lips, sweeping across the inner surface of her teeth with fevered strokes of his tongue.
She planned to push him away. In a minute.
On a breathy moan, she leaned into him. Pressing forward body to body. He sexed her mouth with his, thrusting and retreating. His palms traveled hot paths down her back. One stopping at the base of her ribcage, leaning her backward to give himself a better angle to work her lips. While the other hand roamed to and fro, caressing a fiery trail over the waistband of her new jeans, which cupped her ass exactly like she was hoping he was about to do. She raised up on her toes, trying to give him the hint.
She pushed her hands up into his hair, cursing the damned braid that kept it locked tight to his scalp. Greta pulled him down to her, willing him to go deeper, harder, faster. Her tongue tangled with his. She licked his bottom lip, sucked it into her mouth and held it with her teeth. He growled, low in his throat, and it was the sexiest damn noise she’d ever heard.
She gazed up at him, prepared to put on her best set of bedroom eyes. But all she saw was. Glowing. Incandescent. Red. And she flinched. He slammed his eyes shut and pushed away from her so hard he almost knocked her on her ass.
Shit. “I’m s…”
He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “No.” His head was turned in her direction, but he didn’t open his eyes. “I’m sorry. That never should’ve happened.” As he talked, pinpricks of blood slipped over his lip and down his chin.
“Shit. You’re bleeding. Did I…” Her words died in her throat. His tongue darted out to catch the ruby beads, and just beyond his upper lip, she saw a pair of gleaming ivory fangs at least two inches long and wickedly pointed. She gasped, couldn’t stop herself. Even though she knew she was being ridiculous. She’d known. Somewhere in her nightmare memories, she’d known there would be fangs. But knowing and seeing were two very different things.
He turned his back to her, his ribs heaving with full deep breaths. She could use a little deep breathing of her own. Her heart was racing like she’d run a marathon, tremors running through her thigh muscles. Her new lace panties were undeniably soaked. From just a kiss.
“We should get going.” Jami straightened and turned. Red eyes gone, replaced with beautiful cool ice blue. She wanted to be kissing him again, those bruised lips on hers. And next time she wouldn’t fuck it up. He gave her a look that made it very clear there wasn’t going to be a next time.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Gods, will you just let it go,” he snarled. “It was a mistake. Won’t happen again.” He pushed past her, picking up scattered grocery bags on his way out the door.
“But…”
He whirled on her, any trace of sexual heat gone from his gaze. “Do you have any idea how lucky we are that that was my blood? If it was yours…”
The color drained from her face, and a sick, gritty feeling washed over her. “Could I… could I kill you?”
He exhaled on a shrug, all fire extinguished. “I honestly don’t know,” he said quietly, sincerely. “But I don’t really want to test the theory.” He scooped the last discarded bag up off the sidewalk and held his free hand out to her. The gesture shaking off a little of the looming pall over her head. “C’mon. We’ve got a long way to go before sunup.” She slipped her hand into his, letting his warmth seep into her and fight back the biting chill in her veins. He took a step forward and pulled her out into the coming night.
★Chapter 5
The ancient Toyota that Jami had 'commandeered' stuttered through a pothole, jamming Greta's lower teeth against the uppers and trapping her tongue in between. “Shit!” She tasted blood.
“What now,” Jami groused, prying his eyes away from the winding back road to glare in her direction.
“Nothing.” She stuck her sore tongue into her cheek and hunkered down in the seat, crossing her arms petulantly over her ribs. “It's nothing.”
He huffed a breath and turned his attention back to the roadway, making a wide turn around a combine that was blocking half the lane. Its lights, making it look like a UFO in the darkness. “Right. Nothing.”
“If you must know,” she tossed across the dusty cab, “I bit my tongue.”
“Maybe if you kept your mouth shut...”
“Urgh! That's it!” She reached for her door handle. Not quite sure what she intended to do, but knowing it involved getting out of this fucking car. “Pull over!”
“No.”
“I mean it, Yums!” She popped the door open, letting a swirling cloud of field dust sift through. “Pull over!”
He slammed his foot down on the brakes. Stopping so fast, the car behind them had to veer to keep from smacking into their rear end. “Are you fucking insane?”
Her seat belt was off, and she was out the door before she was forced to answer. Was she insane? Maybe she was. But if so, it was because someone was driving her there in a rusty Toyota. “Urraagh,” she grunted, stepping over a shallow ditch and stomping off into the cornfield that bordered the road on both sides. Dry stalks smacked against her as she walked.
Four hours! Four hours of near dead silence. Maybe if the radio in the rust-bucket he'd picked had worked... But no. He'd made her an accessory to grand theft auto, and he couldn't even steal a car with a working radio. One that was made sometime in the last century, perhaps. “Too many electronics,” he'd said, “Too many ways to track it.” So for four hours she'd had nothing but the accompanying buzz of the various rattles and clangs in the ancient engine to keep her busy. That and a few choice, “No, we're not there yet” and “You need to go again,” thrown in for good measure.
She pushed a few stiff stalks of corn out of her way, tripping over her own two feet, but catching herself before she went down in the mud. She hated corn. She hated fields. She hated this whole damn situation.
A few yards in, even the glare of the Toyota's headlights faded away. The moon, obscured behind the thickening clouds, gave her no help. She might as well have been blind. She kept going anyway, stewing in the mess of thoughts that were fighting for real estate inside her mind. She needed to get some distance from him. She couldn't breathe with his big body taking up all the available space. The smell of him still lingered in her lungs.
“Are you done now?”
“No,” she huffed, turning in a tight circle. Not entirely sure which direction his voice had come from.
“Look, Greta,” Jami sighed. She could just make out his shape in the gloom. “Come back to the car.”
“That's your apology?” She reached out with both hands and shoved his chest as hard as she could, heaving against the solid wall of muscle. “Come back to the car?” He didn't budge.
“My apology?” He sounded incredulous. “What the hell should I be apologizing for?”
“How about for shooting my mother?”
He harrumphed, grabbing her wrists and removing her hands from his chest. “Are we really going to do this again? I didn't shoot your mother. I shot the Taker that killed your mother. A little thank you wouldn't hurt.”
“Thank you?!” Greta shrieked.
“You're welcome.”
“Urgh! You're such an ass!” She shook her arms from his grasp and shouldered past him, heading back toward the car.
&
nbsp; “What? Because I won't apologize for saving your life?”
Greta wheeled on him. “How about for kidnapping me? Hmm? For stripping me and leaving me to wake up alone in a dingy motel room? What about for kissing me and then spending the next four hours driving through the middle of Buttfuck Egypt pretending like I don't even exist?!”
He reached out, lightning fast, and ensnared her shoulders when she went to turn away again. “Is that what this is about?” His clear blue gaze bored into hers, the dim light from the roadway glinting off his long lashes. “You're mad that I kissed you?”
“No.” She tried to wrench away, but he held firm. “I'm not mad that you kissed me.”
“Then, you liked that I kissed you?”
She huffed, sending an exhale up toward the spiky fringe of hair that was wilting into her eyes. “I didn't say that either. Let me go.”
He did as asked, freeing his hands to scrub across his scalp. “I don't understand you.”
“You don't say?” She spun on her heel and stalked off in the direction of the car. Or was it the other way? She just couldn't concentrate when he was in such close proximity. What the hell was wrong with her?
“We need to get moving,” he said and walked in the opposite direction, without looking back.
She watched him stride away, the faint light from the car surrounding him like a halo. What now? She looked up at the cloud riddled sky. Down at the mud beneath her feet. How far could she make it on her own?
Jami hadn’t told her where they were going. He’d said the Takers would assume they’d go west, staying ahead of the sunlight. So they’d been wending their way northeast instead, on a seemingly endless string of county roads and rural highways. Staying clear of populated areas. Travel centers. Rest stops. All places he’d said they would be watching, waiting for them to pop up on the radar.
She was sure she could pinpoint which state they were in, but that was the extent of her navigating capabilities. “Shit.” For now, she was at his mercy. With a sigh, she counted to sixty Mississippi, not wanting to seem too eager. Keep him waiting. Then she walked from the field with her head held high, like it'd been her idea the whole damn time.
★ ★ ★
“Don't look at me like this is my fault.” Greta plopped down on the side of the road, sitting Indian style in the tall grass.
“Fucking fantastic,” Jami grumbled, the hiss of steam from the radiator masking the sound. He pulled his head out of the engine compartment and slammed the hood closed. Flakes of rust broke off the side panels of the Toyota and fluttered away on the breeze.
“If you hadn't left the car running...”
He blocked out Greta's yammering and turned his gaze up to the sky. The clouds had begun to clear, and the moon was out. He could see his breath fanning out from his mouth. Three hours, he thought, maybe four, if he was lucky. He reached in through the open driver's side door, pulling out his satchel, the rest of the scattered grocery bags, and Greta's makeshift duffel. “Gods, what's in here,” he grunted, tossing the bag into Greta's lap. “A dead body?”
She cuddled the neon canvas against her chest like it was a favorite pet. “Necessities.”
He settled his own bag across his chest and stuffed the grocery bags inside. “If you can't carry it, you don't need it.”
“I can carry it,” she harrumphed, pulling the hot pink strap over one shoulder.
“Good.” He looked up and down the abandoned roadway. Once. Twice. No one would be coming by this late at night. The farmers had all shut down and gone home. He didn't like being this out in the open, but they had little choice.
“What are you doing,” Greta called as he began making his way north, striding at a normal human pace for her benefit. He felt like a fucking snail.
“Where I'm from, we call it walking.”
“Ha. Ha.” She ran a few quick steps to catch up and then kept pace beside him, pulling on the strap of the duffel every few feet to keep it on her shoulder. He sighed and held out his hand. She snubbed it away. “I got it.”
“Suit yourself.”
The minutes ticked by as they walked on in tense silence. The crunch of loose gravel under their shoes the only sound in the chilly fall air. Jami could almost feel the words dangling on the edge of Greta's tongue. “Just spit it out.”
“It's nothing.” She readjusted the strap on her bag and gazed off into the corn field.
“Nothing is always something with you.”
She ground to a halt, her hands resting on her hips. That ridiculous bag swinging uselessly from one wrist. Violet eyes flashed with rage in the moonlight, and he had to bite his tongue so he wouldn't open his damn mouth and tell her how beautiful she was when she was angry. “What's your deal?” She stomped her foot for emphasis. “If you don't want to waste your time with me, just go. I'll be fine on my own. No one asked you to ride in like Prince Charming and be the hero here.”
“Actually, your mother did.” As soon as the words were out, he wished he could pull them back in.
The fire in her eyes faded. Her shoulders slumped forward a little, defeated. “Right.”
“I promised her I would protect you, Greta.”
“Right,” she repeated, taking a few steps forward, making him catch up this time. “Did you know her?” Her voice was so low, he barely heard it above the breeze rustling through the dry fields.
“Did I know her?”
“My mother... Did you know her? Well, I mean.”
Did he? At one time, he would've said he'd known Hannah better than just about anyone. She'd had few friends, and there was none she could tell her whole story. For a long time, he imagined he was all she had. But in the past few years, he'd been so distant, wanting to avoid the perilous connection that linked him to Greta. “Not as well as I would have liked,” he answered honestly, “Your mother was a good woman.”
She seemed to take that in, mulling it around in her mind as she trudged onward through the gravel and mud. He could see tears shimmering just beyond her eyelids, but he didn't point it out. She'd had little time to stop and think. Even less time to grieve.
“Would you... Tell me about her?”
★ ★ ★
“Oh my God, she didn't?”
Jami's eyes lit up like two orbs of blue fire. “Yes, she did.” He let out a hearty laugh. “I bet I still have the bruises.”
Greta laughed as well, though she was a little taken aback by the change in the big man. All the tension leaving his body, and the constant company of his voice keeping her from throwing herself a well-deserved pity party. “She always did have a temper.”
“Yes,” he sighed, “She did.”
Greta focused on the sting of the new blisters forming on her heels to distract her from the squeezing ache around her heart. Would she ever get used to the idea of referring to her mother in the past tense?
Jami cleared his throat awkwardly and stared up at the darkened sky. She followed the direction of his gaze, watching lights dance across the low clouds. Wait... Lights? “Someone's coming,” Jami hissed, grabbing her around the shoulders and ushering her to the side of the roadway.
She ducked and shook her way free, breaking back to the asphalt. Turning, she could just see a pale set of headlights cresting a hill a few miles away. “Finally,” she sighed, ready to give her aching feet a rest.
“Greta! What are you doing?”
She took up a position facing the oncoming car and stuck out her thumb. “Where I'm from, we call it hitchhiking.”
“Are you insane?” He tried to pull her back, but the pick-up had already turned on its indicator and begun to slow. “You have no idea who that could be!”
“My idea is that we're stranded in the middle of nowhere, and this is a ride.” She stepped past him and put on a fake smile. “You scared?”
He harrumphed under his breath. “Phhtt. Scared?”
“This man bothering you, honey?” The grizzled old farmer cracked his window and shot a suspi
cious look back and forth between them.
“No.” She kept the smile plastered across her face. “Our car broke down. And we're a little lost.”
Jami grumbled, “We're not...”
Greta elbowed him in the ribs. “Can you give us a ride?”
“Sure thing, honey.” The farmer popped the handle and opened the passenger door for her. “Where you headed?”
“Next town is fine.” Jami pushed past her, wedging himself into the narrow middle seat and garnering an irritated huff from the farmer.
Greta rolled her eyes and climbed in, slipping underneath the muscled arm that was draped protectively across the seat back. “Where are we?”
“Few miles south of Chesterton. As the crow flies.”
“Chesterton?” Greta breathed a deep sigh of relief, and Jami raised a quizzical eyebrow in her direction. “Would you take us as far Beverly Shores?”
The farmer pulled the side of his lip between his teeth and gave Jami another once over. “S'pose I could.”
“We'd be more than happy to reimburse you for the gas,” Greta offered, and Jami nodded grudgingly.
“Don't worry about it.” The farmer put the idling truck in gear and eased out onto the road. “S'not too far out of the way.”
Jami ducked his head down and whispered into her ear, his breath tickling across her short hair and making her break out in goose bumps. “What's in Beverly Shores?”
“A safe place.”
He nodded and turned his attention back to the road ahead of them. “I hope so.”
★Chapter 6
The cottage was smaller than she remembered. Perhaps it was just that her world was so much bigger now. The stone hearth, where she and Jen had shared late night slumber parties and secretly read Mrs. Collum's stash of erotic novels, was black with collected soot. The air inside the oak paneled living room was musty and smelled disused, a testament to the fact that all the Collum children were grown and out on their own.