Moving Target

by Rosalie Stanton

  He needed her to understand. He needed her to know he hadn’t chosen this. He hadn’t wanted this at all.

  “I was once a sharpshooter. Army recruited me outside a supermarket one day.”

  Anna’s brows perked. “A supermarket?”

  “Happens more often than you’d think. It’s a sweet set-up at first. I couldn’t pay for college and they could—with a catch. I had to pay off my debt in advance, and at the time the arrangement seemed all right, so I took the deal. They trained me up good and sent me off to do things that would give you nightmares.”

  She swallowed. “So you were a government assassin?”

  He glanced at her swiftly. “It’s not something I’m proud of and I don’t really want to talk much about it, but there it is.” He barked a dry laugh. “I wanted to be a fucking school teacher. They paid for my books, and I thought, ‘Fine. Two years of this and I’m set.’”

  “I take it that it didn’t work out that way.”

  Another dry glance. “I look like the teaching type to you?”

  “I dunno. You could have an Indiana Jones thing going on.”

  Wolf had to grin. “You’re adorable.”

  Anna’s eyes went wide, a vibrant blush firing her skin. “Where did that come from?”

  “Fact.”

  “You’re buttering me up.”

  “Can’t blame a fella for trying. I like you buttered up.” Wolf grinned again but quickly sobered. He didn’t talk about his past easily, and though he handed her the short version, any amount of revisiting those years required either concentration or a stiff drink. Since he was off booze, he focused on the memories.

  “I came back all fucked in the head.” Wolf’s eyes drew back to the road. “Taking a human life is terrifying, but more than that, there was a reason I was in my line of work. The bastards I took out needed taking out, the things they did… The people…” His jaw tightened. “I couldn’t get the images outta my head. Every day, all the time, over and over. Drove me and everyone around me crazy. Drove my ex-fiancée to a string of affairs I’m not convinced she wasn’t having to begin with, ‘cause she was crazier than I’ll ever be. Needless to say, that didn’t help matters.”

  Through his peripheral vision, he saw Anna nod, but she didn’t say anything. He was grateful. If she interrupted, he might never get through it.

  “I lost myself in liquor, lost perception, lost thousands in gambling ‘til I was in the kind of debt where they come after you with shiny weapons.”

  He threw her a sideways glance and saw Anna lick her lips but she didn’t say anything. “This was all I knew. Killing.” Wolf drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I came back to it and that’s it, only every time I made sure I’ve only taken offers for people who don’t deserve to live. Couldn’t live with myself any other way.”

  “That’s not your decision to make.”

  He let out a long breath and nodded. “I know, believe me. But a man gets desperate, right? And now I don’t know how to get out of it.”

  “So your debt’s gone.”

  “Three years now. Stacking up quite a small fortune for myself.” Wolf sighed again. “Like I said, I don’t know how to get out, but during the past few months I’ve found myself taking fewer and fewer jobs, doing more extensive surveillances of my target. I want to be fucking sure I don’t hurt people who don’t have it coming.”

  “And that’s what you did with me.”

  He nodded.

  “I guess that’s something.” Anna worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Is that why you…did what you did?”

  “What’s that?”

  “At the club. With the…touches and the…touches.” She blushed again. “I… That was a part of it, wasn’t it?”

  Wolf inhaled sharply. Oh, how much easier his life would be if he could say yes. “No. That was me being selfish.” He looked away, heat spreading through his cheeks. It had been a while since he felt vulnerable, since he allowed himself to feel exposed. At once he was in grade school again, gifting a few handpicked dandelions to a girl whose name he didn’t even remember, only to suffer the humiliation of becoming a classroom punch line. Or worse, the horror of walking in on his now ex-fiancée as she sucked on some guy’s meaty prick. Wolf didn’t have the best experience when it came to women or expressing his feelings, but Anna had earned his honesty, especially after everything that had happened and everything that lay ahead.

  Still, deserving or not, Wolf couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat. He could dodge bullets and shoot bad guys, but he hated the part that came after spilling his guts to a woman. However, he wouldn’t run or hide. He wanted her to know she meant something to him, even if it left him exposed—even if he had to feel his heart thunder and his skin burn.

  “Watching you these last two weeks has changed me. You’ve changed me. You’re… You’re everything that’s right with this world, Anna. Everything. Everything you do or say, the way you smile, the way you dance when you’re happy or hug yourself when you’re sad. I’ve never met anyone like you, and it’s intoxicating. That was what touching you was about. I just had to have you, and I’m not sorry. You make me want to be better than I am. I can’t imagine living in a world, knowing you, and not wanting this—you.”

  Anna drew a sharp breath. “But you don’t know me.”

  “Believe me, I do.”

  “From watching me?”

  “I do it for a living. I’m pretty good at it.”

  “Yeah, and have I mentioned how creepy that is?”

  He smirked. “Once or twice. Look, kitten, you asked. Can’t get a refund just because you don’t like the answer.”

  Anna looked at him, and he would have sworn the world stopped. “I didn’t say I didn’t like the answer.”

  * * * *

  Wolf had disappeared inside a convenience store to buy drinks and pay for gas, leaving Anna alone in the car with her thoughts. Not a good thing. Her life had taken a drastic turn in the span of only a couple hours. The road ahead seemed a long one. Wolf had yet to mention any possible destinations, but finding a place to sleep would only leave her problems for tomorrow, and her problems had taken a turn for the catastrophic.

  Her problems suddenly included the sick plot of a power hungry politician. Anna jerked from her reverie. The only person who knew about Monroe, who could confirm her suspicions, was Molly. Her friend was the person who could tell her she was right—the hit was Monroe’s doing, and she wasn’t crazy for thinking so.

  “Call Molly,” Anna murmured, shifting and fishing her cell phone out of her purse. “Call…”

  Molly didn’t answer. She was probably asleep, like most reasonable people. Midnight had passed several hours ago in Missouri, meaning it was some ungodly hour in DC. A lengthy phone message updated Molly on everything, including Wolf’s involvement and the bounty on Anna’s head. She concluded with a request for a call back. It seemed unnecessary as Molly would phone her the second she heard the voice message, but she included it anyway, anything to fill the silence.

  Anything to keep her mind from treading a dark path, down which she wouldn’t find her way back.

  Anna shivered and rubbed her arms. She didn’t want to think about Monroe or his plan, or anything, truly. It felt a lot to digest—her former boss planned on killing everyone in order to take the White House. The idea seemed beyond absurd. He was the Secretary of Agriculture, not a Bond villain, yet she had no trouble mentally placing him on a black throne stroking a furry cat. There existed no words to describe him, and he’d put a hit on her head to keep her silent.

  She might never have known what she had if Monroe had simply let her walk. Perhaps the unthinkable would have occurred, perhaps her former boss’s plan would have gone off without a hitch, and she wouldn’t have known until it was too late.

  A loud crash from outside jerked her from her thoughts and immediately her insides flooded with dread. It could be nothing, but she was sure it wasn’t. Every sound rig
ht now seemed a threat, and she had no one to trust but a man she didn’t know.

  “Wolf.”

  By the time she managed to get out of the car, most of the action had ended. The parking lot stood mostly empty, save an abandoned Buick with a missing bumper and a cracked windshield. It was well past peak cruising hours, and aside from bored high school students and sleep-deprived truck drivers, this stretch of road didn’t see much action past eleven at night.

  Anna wasn’t certain if what she saw actually happened or if her mind filled in the gaps. A tall blond man in black lay on the pavement, the air buzzed around him. Wolf stood ten feet away, gun still aimed as though he thought the man might stir, a silencer protruding from the weapon’s business end. She’d heard silencers in movies, but had never given thought to what they would sound like in person. The gun’s pop was definite but hushed.

  Time itself seemed a concept outside reality. Every molecule in her body froze. Nothing could have prepared her for watching a man collapse and topple. No movie or TV crime drama did it justice. Nausea wrapped around her stomach, poking at the dinner she’d eaten in another lifetime. Before she could help herself, she tore away from the scene and vomited. “Oh God,” Anna mumbled. The hard pounding against her head knocked the ground from beneath her and sent it spiraling in a tizzy, threatening to turn out the lights completely.

  “Anna!”

  She fell to her knees and retched again.

  “Christ, I didn’t know.” Wolf stopped behind her, his steps hesitant. Anna found it comforting. She didn’t know if she could look at him. She didn’t know if she could do anything.

  She only saw the man hitting the ground.

  “His name was Ericks.”

  Anna willed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to know his name.

  “He works with a guy named Harper, and I’d bet the house Harper was the one at the club earlier.”

  She swallowed hard, bile rotting her throat. “An assassin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here? How the hell did he find us?”

  A beat. “Too many ways, sweetheart, but he knew about me.”

  “About you?”

  “About how I make sure my targets deserve what’s coming. Others in the trade know about me, know about my standards. One look at you would confirm you’re not the raging bitch your friend Monroe advertised, which means I’m not gonna follow-through and suddenly you’re their meal ticket, not mine. They reckon they can collect if I don’t.” Wolf shook his head. “Fuck.”

  A shudder of fear seized her spine and she welcomed it—anything to replace the disgust. “Do you think you were bugged or something?”

  “No. I would’ve known.”

  “What about me? Someone could have—”

  “Not a chance. Been watching you, remember? We were followed.” Wolf’s jaw tightened. “We were followed and I didn’t notice, son of a bitch.”

  She didn’t know how to react, but at the moment, the best option seemed to take it at face value. Anna wiped her mouth and nodded, not trusting her legs to support her if she tried to climb to her feet. “I’ve never seen a man die before.”

  Wolf inhaled. “Anna…”

  “No, I get it.”

  “He was after you, kitten. I didn’t know what else—”

  She held up a hand, nodding shakily. “I know. Thank you.”

  A long silence settled between them. Wolf waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, he sighed. “Anna… God, I’m such a jackass, but we gotta go. Can’t stay here. The kid on watch in there was half asleep, but someone’ll be by before long, and then we’re in police business. We wanna be long gone by then.”

  She nodded again, holding up a hand. He accepted it automatically.

  Her stomach hurt. Everything spun. She’d watched a man die. A man had been here to kill her, and she didn’t know whether to cry or thank her strange savior, but she didn’t need to know at the moment.

  She only needed to get in the car.

  * * * *

  He was royally fucked.

  They stopped an hour ago at a motel along the side of the highway, and immediately upon crossing the threshold, Anna bolted for the bathroom and locked herself inside. Around ten minutes later, Wolf heard the shower kick on. Now he could only suck on his cigarette and wait until the world caught up with her and she realized the severity of everything that had occurred—the shooter at the dance club, the price for her hide, the magnitude of the situation with Monroe and witnessing a man get gunned down at a convenience store. Her reality would crash if it hadn’t already.

  Watching Anna from a distance felt absolutely incomparable to being with her up close. Touching her, speaking with her, being on the receiving end of her jabs and eye rolls, her curiosity and wit all made him a part of the picture he’d long admired, and it felt nothing short of wondrous.

  He was falling in love with her.

  Wolf sighed, his head collapsing into his waiting hands. He always rushed this part, always fell before he should. It had dragged him down with Pru—he’d loved her without rhyme or reason, and she’d nearly destroyed him. Loving Anna would redefine him in ways he wasn’t prepared for. Wolf didn’t get to meet people—women—like Anna in his line of work. He hadn’t known they still existed. Standing close to her, touching her, made him want to be a better man, and though the knowledge terrified him, it remained too real to ignore. Anna couldn’t be with a guy like him. She shone with purity, beamed with too much radiance, and he’d been tarnished years ago.

  Touching her at the club had been a bad move, doing scarcely more than wedging awkwardness into an already tense situation. On some level, he had to have known she would discover the truth about him, even if he hadn’t foreseen the night spiraling into the chaotic mess it had become. Harper, Wolf felt certain, had made an attempt on her life at the club, likely because he’d seen them together and realized Wolf had honed in for the kill. It was just as likely Harper had realized Wolf had pegged her as an innocent and fallen prey to her inherent charm.

  There seemed no way he’d ever deserve her. No way would her soft skin ever fit into his harsh, unforgiving world, but he wanted it so badly, and these walls, this confining space, smelling her and sharing her world would be his undoing.

  He couldn’t go back to the place he’d known after touching such light, but there seemed nothing else. “Give it up.” Wolf snuffed out his cigarette.

  The shower clanked off in the other room, and countless seconds later, Anna emerged, dressed only in a towel. Her skin had flushed under the water’s heat and her hair fell damp and tousled, immediately attracting his cock’s attention.

  Wolf murmured under his breath and turned away before the spell that had fallen over him at the club blurred his judgment again. But God, it didn’t help in the slightest that he knew how perfectly her body fit against his, how hot and tight her pussy felt, the sounds she’d made when touched—and he imagined how those sounds would blast into a symphony when he slipped inside her.

  “Shower’s yours.” She hopped toward her clothes. God, she was cute. His cock twitched and his heart sang, his gaze following her until she stopped and frowned, picking up her dirt-stained blouse between two fingers. “Maybe we should’ve picked up some clothes at that gas station. You know. Route Sixty-six underwear or—”

  “My duffle bag.” Wolf rose to his feet, looking everywhere but at her. One glance would compromise him. He’d shove her against the nearest flat surface and lose himself in her hot little body, and she’d want it. Her eyes betrayed her. She wouldn’t stop him if he touched her, and that remained why he had to keep his distance. “Got some tees and boxers in there. Help yourself.”

  He said nothing else. Another second and his control would snap.

  * * * *

  Everything felt different.

  The life she’d known had disappeared. The apartment, the job hunts, the lonely nights, the phone calls from Charity, the worrying over Monroe and how he woul
d try to sabotage her next—everything lay behind her. It had occurred to Anna in the shower—something she realized she should have known since Wolf took her arm at the club and whisked her into a brave new world. She had answers and direction. She knew what lay ahead, even if the path stretched shadowed and frightening.

  Her feelings for Wolf were confusing but valid, and God knew into how much trouble they would lead her. She’d done the bad boy thing before and had her heart squashed by unfeeling assholes, but she’d never felt anything like what she felt now. It might be gratitude or the rush of the moment, but she didn’t think so. Her reaction to him at the club alone hadn’t been entirely her body’s fault. Something lurked in his eyes—an old-world knowledge running deeper than she could follow. A haunted sadness, a sense of utter desperation, a need unlike anything she’d felt or experienced. Though her world spun hard and fast around her, holding onto the few stolen minutes they’d enjoyed at the club seemed the only thing keeping her real.

  Despite everything she’d seen, the sickness she’d felt at the gas station, the creep factor of having been tailed, the knowledge there were still men out there gunning for her head, she couldn’t ignore the honest truth. Wolf might be a killer, but that didn’t make him a bad person. His voice, the look in his eyes and the way he’d cared for her all added up to a good man, and he acted the way he thought he needed. He didn’t want to hurt the innocent, and even if it remained vigilante justice, she couldn’t condemn him for choosing the only path he’d thought had been available to him.

  The look in his eyes when she’d emerged from the shower had been undeniable, and she wanted what she saw. Forget everything else, she wanted it. She’d half-expected and wholly hoped he would invite himself into the shower while she soaped up, but he’d remained a gentleman, though not out of lack of desire—the bulge in his jeans had been too pronounced to be a lighter.

  Forget the past and never mind the future. She wanted this now. It had been too long.