Immortal Duty

by J. K. Coi

So she ran for her life, focusing on the streetlight that beckoned at the mouth of the alley.

  He yanked her back with an arm around her waist just before she would have dashed out of the darkness and into the lighted street. She screeched and kicked.

  “Oh no you don’t.” He was winded, and when he shoved her around to face him his eyes held grudging respect.

  “Don’t try that again.” He clasped her arm in his and looked down at her. “Your eyes are green. I didn’t expect that.”

  Amy’s fear was a palpable flutter in her chest. She knew it showed on her face but she couldn’t have concealed it at this point.

  He shook his head. “Look, we can do this the hard way, which means I haul you out of here over my shoulder, and I doubt you would find it very dignified. Or we do it the easy way—you cooperate and get to stay on your own two feet.”

  He held her close, hands curled around her upper arms, her body solid against his. Her heart pounded and she wondered if he could feel it. He probably could, just as he had to be able to see the fear on her face.

  She’d managed to ambush him with her Aikido move but he wouldn’t underestimate her more than once. His grip said it would take no effort at all for him to snap her neck in the blink of an eye, and his eyes gave her the strong suspicion he would barely think twice about it. She sure didn’t feel safe, but strangely enough she didn’t think he planned to hurt her.

  “You’ll be safe with me, Amy,” he said as if he knew the direction of her thoughts. Did his expression soften, or was it just her imagination?

  Hearing her name on this stranger’s lips yet again, combined with that rumbling, low voice, should have terrified her, but instead, something deep inside of her shivered expectantly.

  “I’ll walk.” She tried yanking her arms from his grasp. There were no other options available. At least for now. “Let me go.”

  He allowed her to put some space between them, but his fingers remained tight around one wrist and he started pulling her along as the sound of police sirens broke the deceptive silence of the night. Adonis had stopped at an intersection a few streets ahead and was waiting for them to catch up.

  “You took long enough,” he mumbled impatiently, glaring at her. Her captor ignored the comment.

  Amy was dragged about four more blocks in the opposite direction from her own apartment and into another dark alley. There, she was pushed into the back seat of a monster SUV. The brick wall followed her in while the blond got into the front and started the engine.

  The brute beside her leaned back against the soft leather. He hadn’t even broken a sweat during their mad dash from the crime scene, whereas Amy was still trying to catch her breath. “Home, Baron,” he said. She hoped “home” was somewhere close enough that she would be able to find her way back after she managed to escape this pair of psychos.

  Adonis glared at them both over his shoulder. He was clearly against the decision to bring Amy along and seemed to be trying to decide whether to make an issue out of it. Finally he turned back around and drove. Her hunch that the behemoth next to her was in charge of this duo was obviously right on. Adonis must have decided not to stage a coup today.

  He drove like he had the devil himself on his tail, a parallel that Amy thought quite fitting given her seating companion. He reached over the seat and whacked Adonis on the shoulder. “Hey, this isn’t NASCAR, you ass,” he said. “We don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves than we already have tonight.”

  Adonis immediately slowed down and Amy ground her teeth. If the car was pulled over, it would have been hard to explain the frantic, screaming woman in the back seat to the police officer.

  As Adonis stopped at every red light and signaled every turn, she tried to put the pieces of the last twenty minutes together in a way that wouldn’t seem crazy, but nothing made sense. Instead, she watched through the window to try to figure out where they were headed.

  She snuck surreptitious glances at the man beside her. He had removed her makeshift dressing and grimly examined the gunshot wound in his shoulder. Surprisingly, the bleeding in his arm had already stopped. She huffed, refusing to offer her help again. At that point even if the arm had been hanging from his shoulder by a single length of tissue, she wouldn’t patch him up.

  It wasn’t long before the car pulled into the drive of what seemed to be a deserted warehouse. Adonis pushed a button on the dash and Amy watched a set of double cargo doors open to let the car enter the building. Only after the doors had completely closed again behind them did the two men get out of the car, pulling her along with them.

  “What the hell were you thinking to bring Little Miss Curious along for the grand tour?” Adonis started shouting. “It’s not bad enough that she saw what she saw, now she has to know where to send the cops to come and pick us up?” He turned a threatening glare on his partner, whose expression remained cool and inscrutable.

  At the lack of response, a torrent of swear words flew out of that innocent-looking mouth and Adonis threw both arms into the air. “Fine,” he sneered, “but I want nothing to do with this. You can take care of her by yourself. Just don’t tell me where the body is afterwards.”

  Amy pressed a shaky hand to her throat as he turned and stalked off through a steel door near the back of the garage.

  She kept her eyes down, thinking it might be smart to make herself as invisible as possible. Not likely. The entire room was empty but for the SUV they’d driven up in, a pick-up and a non-descript black sedan.

  Oh shit, I’ve been kidnapped by drug lords. It sounded ridiculous, but what else could these guys be, with the cars, guns and the deserted warehouse? Not to mention whatever drugs they’d floated in that alley to induce such vivid hallucinations.

  She covertly scanned the room, looking for something—anything—she might use to get herself out of this mess.

  Her cell phone was in her purse. Which was currently lying on the floor of an alley.

  In the harsh lights of the garage, the woman looked very small and fragile. Her hair was tied back, but dark strands had escaped and curled around her temples. Rhys wanted to push them back off her forehead. She wore no makeup, but her lips were pink and soft-looking, set off by the smooth creaminess of her fair skin. In contrast to her pale features, her eyes practically shone with life, strength and determination. He couldn’t help feeling drawn to her.

  Rhys watched the expressions racing across the woman’s face. She was an enigma. Scared but brave. Fragile-looking but strong. She couldn’t seem to hide any thought.

  Like now. He could see her brain working. Rhys recognized fear first and foremost, and for some reason it bothered him that she was afraid. But as he watched, determination tightened her lips, straightened her spine, and he knew she was busy trying to figure out a way to escape.

  She’d already complicated matters just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when he thought of the trouble she could have gotten herself into if that watcher had found her when he hadn’t been there…his stomach felt queasy and his chest tight.

  Now that she was here, though, he had no clue what he was going to do with her.

  “Come with me,” he said. “I’ve got to get cleaned up and you could probably do with some of the same.”

  “Ooh, dinner and a show.” He shot her a bemused look and Amy’s cheeks pinked. She hadn’t meant to let her mouth run away with her common sense like that, but it happened without fail whenever she was nervous.

  Rhys walked through the same doors Adonis had fled through, obviously expecting her just to follow along. With a frustrated sigh, she did exactly that. With the doors firmly shut against her, there didn’t seem anywhere else to go for the moment. “What is this place?” she asked. “Do you guys live here, um…together?” She kind of doubted it, but there was a possibility that they might be gay, given the apparent living arrangements.

  He looked like he was fighting not to laugh. “Baron is in training right now, so he’s st
aying here for a while.”

  “So you’re not…”

  “No. No, not that.”He did laugh then. A deep chuckle that rumbled from his chest.

  Amy’s curiosity took over. “Training, huh? What kind of…wait a minute, are you guys in the military? Undercover for the government or something? It has something to do with what happened back there, doesn’t it? Are you testing some kind of hallucinogen?”

  “We’re not military…exactly, and that was no hallucination. Believe me, you don’t want to know any more than that.”

  “But—”

  “Come on.”

  He abruptly turned and continued down the hall.

  I guess that’s the end of that conversation.

  Well, it didn’t look like they were planning to kill her and drop her off the end of the nearest pier. At least not right away. With that immediate danger postponed, her body was shutting down as the adrenaline started wearing off. Weariness settled in. She wondered what was going to happen next, and if she would actually get to go home at some point.

  Amy intended to ask him that very question, but he turned through a doorway. She was surprised and dismayed when she followed him into a large bedchamber. She wouldn’t quite use the word “cozy”. It was actually very nice, with a definite masculine feel. The laundry scattered across the floor added to that effect.

  Comfort seemed to be of foremost importance. A large, oversized chocolate-brown leather chair sat next to a table in one corner. A reading lamp gave off a soft ring of light. One entire wall had been outfitted with built-in bookcases that were loaded with what had to be hundreds of books. Avoiding the huge bed on the opposite wall, she drew her finger across the spines of one set of books, marveling at the titles, which seemed to be in Russian. She moved to another section, and noticed that these were all written in German.

  Amongst the more literary selections were a number of popular fiction novels, mostly mysteries and science fiction. She noticed some John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison. She chuckled silently when she spotted Douglas Adams’ Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  “You have quite a selection of books. Have you read all of them? Somehow, I wouldn’t have pegged you as—”

  She glanced over her shoulder. He was turning a key in the door, which he then pulled from the lock and dropped into his pants pocket. Oh hell. She swallowed and quickly looked away, but he wasn’t paying her any attention.

  He dragged his bloody T-shirt over his shoulders and his head, and her mouth went bone dry as she stared at the fabulously chiseled frame being revealed to her. The view was amazing.

  There’s not an ounce of fat on him. He was like finely carved granite.

  She couldn’t bring herself to do the polite thing and look away. Instead, her eyes gobbled him up, greedily drinking in the sight of those abs rippling deliciously with his movements, and the lean waist that teased her with a thin line of hair traveling down into the waistband of his pants.

  She swallowed hard as heat bloomed in her belly. A tattoo snaked over each of his shoulders. It looked as if it ran across his back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. She found herself wishing he would turn and let her examine it more closely.

  Turn around, turn around, turn around.

  She wanted to touch it. She wanted to walk up to him and reach out and…

  Oh God. She sucked in a hard breath. She wanted to slide her palms up his bulging arms and trace the path of whatever pattern had been inked into his skin.

  It was crazy. She shook her head. Completely nuts. She shouldn’t feel like this about a stranger. She shouldn’t feel jittery and breathless. She shouldn’t feel…anticipation.

  Physically Rhys’ body was mostly recovered from the gunshot wound already, but his arm still throbbed, the pain arching deep into the surrounding tissues when he poked at it.

  Bloody shirt still in one hand, he prodded before realizing that Amy was silent. She was staring at him, awareness obvious in her expression. Rhys thanked God for hundreds of years of strength training, before clearing his throat.

  Her lips parted as she met his gaze and a sharp stab of heat flared low in his gut. He knew he would regret it later, but at this moment there was nothing on earth that was going to keep him from sifting his hands through the softness of her hair, and he intended to find out if her skin tasted as succulent as it looked.

  He started toward her until he was close enough to feel her uneven breaths ghosting across his skin. The softness turned the blood racing through his veins to molten lava.

  He reached out for a strand of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. With just that one touch, he courted danger. Something about this woman was irresistible. He needed to keep her close. He might just kill to have the warmth of her skin pressed against him.

  She still wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  He cupped her chin in his hand, tilting her face up.

  Amy groaned softly, not wanting to look at his face. If she did, she’d have to admit the things he was making her feel. Crazy things. Hot things. Things no sane person would let herself feel for a man who had abducted her.

  He kept up the gentle pressure and she finally looked up. His eyes were so bright they seemed to glow like silver fire. They delved inside her as if to seek out her most closely held secrets and desires.

  She tossed her head to the side as she tried to avoid the intimate pull of energy back and forth between them. “How do you know my name?” Amy asked, clearing her throat, “And what am I supposed to call you?”

  “Whatever you like.” He shrugged.

  “Really.” She snorted. “Okay then…Cupcake.”

  His deep, rumbling laugh caught her off guard. It made him seem infinitely more human. “I guess you can just call me Rhys.”

  Those strange silver eyes were compelling. They locked her to him and she didn’t have the power to pull away. She tried to speak but couldn’t get the words past her lips, tried to say something that would bring them both back to reality, but she couldn’t make it happen. Her teeth clenched together and she tried desperately to stop her traitorous body from swooning with lust.

  Then he kissed her, and there was no doubt that she was in trouble.

  Chapter Three

  The touch of his mouth was electric and went straight through her, stimulating all her nerve endings and firing her blood. She thrilled in the rush of heat that pooled in her core. The intensity stunned her so that she didn’t immediately push him away.

  Rhys took advantage and deepened the kiss, running his tongue along the smooth line of her lips, urging her mouth to part for him. Amy moaned and he slipped inside with all the skill and deliberation of a thief in the night.

  Forgetting why it was so imperative that she not let this happen, she hoped it wouldn’t ever stop.

  Yep. She was in Trouble. Capital “T”.

  Her heart was jack-rabbiting. Her nipples tightened to little beads inside her lacy bra and she curled her fingers into the thick muscles of his arms. Rhys’ breathing was shallow and fast. He wanted her and wasn’t hiding it, and her desire intensified. His hunger sparked a heady feeling of power that she ached to indulge.

  An arm tightened around her waist, pressing her hips tightly to the erection straining against the zipper of his denim.

  Whoa.

  Shaking her head, she raised her arms to push some space between them, but at the touch of her palms flat against his massive chest, Rhys growled low in his throat, his teeth pulling on her bottom lip as his hand slipped under her shirt. She stilled at the slide of his palm up her side and gasped when he cupped the weight of her breast, slipped his thumb across the hard peak of her nipple.

  She couldn’t remember why she’d wanted him to stop.

  Her fingers clutched his strong arms, and she fantasized about how they would flex and strain, covered with a fine sheen of sweat as he held himself above her, thrusting—

  Wait just a damn minute! This was the same m
an who had been shot. Tonight! Not two hours ago.

  He had been shot…hadn’t he?

  Amy knew a lot of the things she had seen tonight would be relegated to the relative safety of “imagination” by morning, but in this she knew she wasn’t mistaken. She had wrapped the wound with her own jacket, a jacket that was probably still lying in a bloody heap on the floor of the car.

  Determined to get some answers, she tore her mouth from his and, taking deep breaths, ran her hands over his arms, examining him for signs of injury. There was a bit of dried blood on his left shoulder, and a red, raised scar, but as she rubbed the skin, she failed to see any evidence of a recent wound.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked. “I could have sworn you were injured.” She looked to him for confirmation while her hands skimmed over his arms and chest. “You were shot. I was sure of it. What—”

  Instead of answering her, Rhys clasped her face in his hands and kissed her again. He almost succeeded in distracting her, but she wasn’t going to let him. “What’s going on?”

  His eyes were still hot as they moved down her body, but he stepped away. “I’ve got some things to do,” he said. “Maybe we can pick this up later.” He drew the tip of one finger along her cheek and neck, down into the V of her shirt.

  Angry with herself, Amy replayed what had just happened between them in her head. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she refused to let him see her embarrassment. He was purposely provoking her in an attempt to change the subject.

  Just what was this guy’s deal?

  “There’s nothing to continue.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “This thing that just happened between us is nothing. A simple reaction to adrenaline. Believe me, I have no wish to repeat it, and it won’t happen again.”

  “If you say so.” A slow smile danced across those luscious lips, as if he were already thinking about the next time.

  She shook her head and poked him in the chest. “Listen up. There’ll be no more kissing of the kidnapee. Do you hear me?” She didn’t wait for an answer but poked him again. “Speaking of which, I think it’s about time to let the kidnapee go home.”