by Mandy Baxter
As though her current predicament wasn’t stressful enough, Luis apparently thought his single duty was to stand in the doorway. She’d already run that gauntlet once; doing it again didn’t exactly fill her heart with joy. Especially since she was already on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Ugh.
Landon grabbed her by the elbow and Emma paused, her brow arched. “Let me go out ahead of you,” he said. “Just to be safe.”
Safe? As in, Let me be the first one out in case there’s a firing squad waiting for us outside. That sort of safe? Her mind was too unfocused to voice a reasonable protest and it wasn’t as though she’d be able to change Landon’s mind anyway. Luis stepped out of the way, letting Landon through the door, and Emma let out a sigh of relief. Maybe he was through with acting like a dick.
Nope. The second Landon was through the doorway, Luis reoccupied the space. He looked Emma over from head to toe, the sensation similar to being coated with a thick layer of slime. Gross. Emma steeled herself and headed for the doorway, head held high and shoulders back. She refused to let him intimidate her. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction.
As she eased through the doorway, his body hunched over hers and he put his face close to her head, inhaling a deep breath. The whisper of contact made Emma’s skin crawl and when she tried to rush past him, he thrust out one bulky arm, blocking her path. “I wonder if you taste as good as you smell.” His hot breath in her ear caused Emma to shudder. “I bet you’re tight as a fist, too.”
Emma pushed at his arm, but she might as well have been pushing against an oak. Her face grew hot and adrenaline dumped into her system, making her legs weak and shaky. “Move.” She infused the one word with every ounce of bravado left in her stores.
Luis answered her with a leering grin that made her stomach bottom out. Her mouth went dry, and she tried to force something, anything, out. But before she could utter even a squeak of protest, Luis’s arm was knocked away and Landon wrapped his hand around her wrist, hauling her out of the way. Emma took a stumbling step through the doorway only to have Damien catch her before she fell flat on her face.
“Landon—”
Whatever she’d planned to say died on her tongue as Landon’s fist swung out at Luis’s face. The contact was solid. A sickening crunch that Emma almost felt in her own jaw. Caught off guard, Luis stumbled back, but Landon didn’t let off. He came at the taller man with a ferocity that startled Emma, his fist connecting with the other man’s face once again before Luis finally had the common sense to fight back.
He shoved Landon away, but it didn’t deter him. He came at Luis, body hunched as though he intended to lay into him with a full-body check. Luis reached for his waistband and produced a weapon almost too large to be considered a handgun and swung it up into Landon’s face.
“Come at me,” Luis goaded, regaining his cocky attitude once he had the upper hand. His tongue flicked out as his bottom lip, lapping at the blood that dripped from the split. “Come on!” His voice escalated, taunting Landon, who stood stock still, his expression seething with rage. “Do it, hijo de puta!”
Never once had Emma thought of Landon as threatening. Sure he had the tough-guy cop routine down, but beyond that there was an easygoing openness to him that she couldn’t help but find attractive. Now, though, she was seeing a totally different side to Landon McCabe. One with rough edges and violent tendencies, and yeah, he was sort of scary.
And oh-my-God sexy.
She shouldn’t be turned on by the dark look in his eyes, the hardness of his expression, or the fact that his body was tense and practically vibrating with restraint. His broad chest heaved with labored breath and his nostrils flared. Emma couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Her eyes didn’t even want to blink. And forget about a heartbeat at this point. As the reality of the situation hit her, every particle of Emma’s body froze, fear settling over her like a heavy mantle as she watched Luis shove the barrel of his gun into Landon’s face. Oh my God. This is my fault. He’s going to shoot Landon in the face and it’s my fault.
“Stop!” The word exploded from Emma like a shot and she rushed forward, inserting herself between Landon and the barrel of Luis’s gun. Stupidity was obviously the better part of valor in this case, because Emma had no freaking idea what she was doing.
Luis’s expression went from stunned incredulity to amused hilarity in a second flat. He busted out into a round of raucous laughter. “Good thing you have your girl here to fight your battles for you, asshole.” He thrust his chin in Damien’s direction and said, “Can you believe this shit, hermano ? His woman has bigger cajones than he does.”
Behind her, anger radiated from Landon in palpable waves. His chest brushed up against Emma’s back with every breath he took, stirring the hairs on the back of her neck. Damien cursed under his breath, the sounds of his footsteps brushing against Emma’s consciousness as he approached them. “McCabe, get in the car. Emma, unless you want your father’s stay here to be even less accommodating than it already is, I suggest you follow him.”
In front of her, Luis’s eyes narrowed, and she suspected that this hiccup was about to cause more than a little trouble between Damien and the other man. Great. All the past few weeks had managed to prove to Emma was that the more she tried to fix things, the more broken they became.
The heat of Landon’s body disappeared and he sidestepped her. Talk about stubborn stupidity. It wasn’t enough that Landon had been about to get his face shot off—he wanted another go at Luis? Damien intervened, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt as he gave him a solid shake, like a wolf bringing one of its pack members into line. Landon seemed to get the hint and threw Damien’s grip off before heading toward their ride, the sounds of his departing footsteps like ominous thunder in Emma’s ears. She closed her eyes for a fleeting moment and let out a weary sigh before turning on the balls of her feet and following Damien and Landon out the door toward the awaiting car.
Great. Who else could she manage to piss off today?
Wait. Maybe she shouldn’t ask.
Chapter Eighteen
“Crawford said you were going to be a handful, McCabe,” Damien remarked as he pulled out of the warehouse lot. “But I didn’t think you had a death wish.”
Emma wondered how they’d managed to leave without a full escort. Though it stood to reason that, once her task was done and they figured she could be trusted to a certain degree, Sousa’s guard dogs would back off. It was nice to know that her suspicions were confirmed that Damien was in fact the SOG marshal working undercover. It made the wink he’d given her after lunch a lot less unsettling, anyway.
Landon sat at Emma’s side, stoic. He stared straight ahead, his eyes focused on some unknown point. A muscle ticked in Landon’s cheek, his jaw sawing back and forth as if he were making a meal of his own teeth. Nervous energy skittered up Emma’s spine. He was pissed—there was no doubt about that. But now that they’d left the warehouse behind she figured he’d take the opportunity to cool off. Maybe McCabe wasn’t the sort who bounced back quickly.
Rather than respond to Damien’s ribbing, Landon remained silent. He looked like he might blow at any second and Emma was afraid of making even the smallest misstep to set him off. “I know it’s not your responsibility, but have you been looking after my dad?” Emma was pretty sure the last thing on Damien’s list was watching out for an ailing old man, but she had to ask. “I mean, he’s holding up all right, isn’t he?”
“I’m doing what I can,” Damien said. “I’m not around a lot, but when I am I check in on him. He seems to be holding up fine. Sousa won’t let anything happen to him until he gets his money back, Emma. They won’t be giving him the gold-star treatment or anything, but at least he won’t be intentionally hurt.”
Intentionally. That one word tied Emma’s stomach into an unyielding knot. “I never should have taken the money,” she said more to herself than Damien.
“No,” Damien said. “You shouldn’t have. But it’
s too late to worry about that now. Focus on damage control, on convincing Sousa that you want on his payroll. You did a good job today. You proved not only your worth but that you’re willing to do what he asks of you. With any luck, we’ll have this wrapped up soon.”
“But that depends on how quickly I give Sousa back his money, right?”
“More or less.” Damien shrugged. “He’s calling the shots now. Your job is to sit tight and play your part. Do that and this will all turn out fine.”
She wished she could be so optimistic.
The rest of the drive passed in silence. Beside her, Landon sat like a statue, anger radiating from every pore. For the first time all day, Emma almost wished she was back in the warehouse with Sousa’s men rather than about to be dumped off to spend the rest of her evening cooped up in a hotel room with one super-cranky deputy U.S. marshal. With any luck, the hotel cable carried the beIN SPORTS network. A good soccer game was the distraction she needed to take her mind off of her growing list of worries.
Or maybe not . . .
Damien pulled up to the rear entrance of the hotel, and Landon jumped out of the backseat, slamming the door behind him. The SOG marshal returned Landon’s gun to him, and he waited with his back turned to Emma, arms folded at his chest. “I’ll be in touch. I suggest staying close to your phone.” He rolled up his window and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a car’s width of distance between Emma and Landon. Those few feet that separated them might as well have been miles.
Landon didn’t take a single step until Emma caught up to him. Even then, he waited for her to take the lead, staying close behind her right shoulder, almost crowding her but not quite.
“Are you going to say anything?” Emma hustled through the back entrance and made a beeline for the elevator. Urgency took on a new meaning with her head sweating like someone had encased it with a layer of heated plastic. Which wasn’t half as annoying as her itchy scalp. When all of this was said and done, she was ceremoniously burning the damned wig. She doubted it did much of anything to change her appearance anyway. The only thing it was good for was pure, unmitigated torture.
Landon refused to speak, all but ignoring her as they stepped inside the elevator. He punched the button for their floor with so much force, she’d be surprised if the button ever worked properly again. Why was he behaving like a spoiled teenager who’d lost his Internet privileges? Was he pissed off that Damien had pulled him out of the warehouse before Luis could blow his fool head off? Or maybe it was Emma’s own interference that had him so bent out of shape. She cringed as she took a tentative step back. Now that she thought about it, she could see how that might have dinged his ego.
Great. Was there anything she hadn’t managed to screw up yet?
The elevator doors slid open on the second floor to a couple waiting to jump on board. Emma reached up and pulled the blond locks of her wig down around her temples, averting her gaze as she maneuvered to the rear of the elevator. One floor passed and then another. Though it was unlikely anyone would recognize her out of the blue, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She’d really crossed the point of no return, hadn’t she? Criminal. Thief. Extortionist. And dead.
Being dead was the worst part.
When the doors opened to their floor, Emma politely excused herself as she slid past the other passengers. Landon stomped out behind her, each step pounding on the carpet as he followed her to their room. Crap. They hadn’t had time to get a different room. Or adjoining rooms as Landon suggested the night before. Well, tonight was going to be an absolute blast. He shoved the key card in the slot and cranked the doorknob so hard it was a wonder he didn’t break it off. Emma walked in behind him, closing the door and swinging the latch into place. Without a glance backward, he strode past the bed, jerked open the sliding glass door, and stepped out onto the terrace, slamming it shut behind him.
Emma slouched down on the bed and grabbed the remote and a room service menu from the bedside table. She hoped the hotel bar delivered because she needed a drink.
Landon filled his lungs with cool air and held it there for a few moments before releasing it. Roiling thunderheads darkened the sky, making it seem much later than it really was. Closer to evening than only late afternoon. He took another deep breath and one more. No amount of fresh air was going to calm him down, though. He was about to climb right out of his fucking skin.
He’d never lost his grip like that before. Hell, he wasn’t even close to leveling out now. A cool breeze washed over him, and Landon gripped the wrought-iron railing and let his head hang between his shoulders. His nostrils flared as he took another deep breath in an effort to cleanse the anger from his system. Jesus, what in the hell was wrong with him?
“Landon?”
Emma’s voice slithered over his skin in a warm caress. It was like silk, smooth and soft and decadent. His gut burned as he thought of that piece of shit Luis blocking Emma’s path out of the warehouse, burying his face in that ridiculous wig and eyeing her like his next meal. Anger flared hot and fresh at the memory. Before this was over, he was going to beat that fucker’s smug face into a pulp.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t force out more than just the one word. And that even seemed like too much. It choked him on the way up, a harsh sound that caught on the knot that had formed in his chest.
“I . . . I um, haven’t eaten anything yet today and I’m starving. Is it okay to order room service?”
Landon locked his elbows and stretched out his back. Can you be more of a dickhead? “Go ahead and order whatever you want. But don’t answer the door when the food shows up. I’ll take care of it.”
“Do you want anything?”
Her sheepish tone cut straight through him, slicing every major organ to leave a path of bloody destruction. It was damned tough to hold on to his anger when she spoke to him like that. And really, who exactly was he pissed off at? Her for stepping in and virtually emasculating him in front of Sousa’s men? Damien for pulling him away from Luis before he took a .45-caliber bullet to the temple? Or himself for his own unchecked jealousy the second another man laid eyes on Emma? What. A. Loser.
“Just get whatever sounds good.” He was too wound up, too damned embarrassed by his childish, macho bullshit behavior to turn and look at her. He simply braced his arms against the railing like an idiot, head bowed. “And order as much as you want.” Because, since they’d emptied his bank accounts, you could bet that Crawford and the SOG were going to be covering his tab from here on out.
“All right.” Emma paused, and even though he couldn’t see her, he knew she’d taken a step closer. Could almost feel her at his back. “It looks like it might rain. Do you want me to bring you a coat?”
He snorted. Was it that she felt bad about stepping in between him and Luis and was trying to make amends for the virtual castration? If so, further coddling wasn’t going to improve his sour mood. “I’ll be fine. Remember, don’t answer the door. Got it?”
“Yeah.” Emma’s tone chilled from his curt response, proving that no matter how big of an asshole he could be, there was always room for him to sink lower. “Got it.”
The sliding glass door whispered shut, leaving Landon alone on the terrace with nothing but the sound of the rushing wind for company. Even in his humiliation, his anger, his damned stubbornness, he wanted Emma so bad that it hurt. A bone-deep ache that ate at his marrow and left him completely hollow.
He might as well be that stupid rookie kid again, lusting after the pretty girl. And what’s worse, she had so little faith in his ability to take care of himself, of them both, that she’d stepped in when she’d thought he was in over his head. With a vote of confidence like that, maybe he should turn in his badge and call it a day. After all, he could always ask dear old Dad for a job and make his family happy. Yeah, right. He’d rather gnaw his own arm off.
With a groan of frustration, Landon pushed himself away from the railing and spun around, leaning his ass against it so he could se
e inside the room. The drapes partially obscured his view, but it wasn’t like he wanted Emma to notice him watching her like some sort of creepy jerk. Still, the cityscape beyond, Puget Sound in the distance, not even the majesty and violence of the building thunderstorm held his interest the way the woman inside that room did. He could watch her for hours, even if she did nothing more entertaining than fold laundry.
She’d removed the blond wig, thank God, and let the dark curls of her hair fall down over her shoulders in a wild tangle. Her expression thoughtful, she puttered around the room as though looking for something to distract her. After a few moments, she settled on the bed, remote control in hand. She leaned against the headboard, legs crossed at the ankles, and her eyes drifted shut. Landon leaned forward as her lips parted, as though he could reach right through the glass and touch her. A raindrop smacked his shoulder. Another bounced off the top of his head. Tap, tap, tap. He couldn’t be bothered to notice when the rain picked up in earnest, pelting him with cold, wet drops. His attention was focused on Emma, her fierce beauty and commanding presence. How could he possibly go back to his life after this? After having kissed her, touched her. Each moment with Emma made Landon crave more. And despite his self-coached detachment, he was forced to admit to himself that distance was the last thing he wanted when it came to her.