“What, are you in some kind of biker ga—I mean, club?” she asked. Way to go, Emma. Accuse him of being in a gang.
He flashed her a quick look, his eyes unreadable. “Something like that,” he said.
“So where are they?” she asked, looking around.
“Home,” he said, and she could have sworn there was a touch of sadness in his voice. He leaned in closer, raising his hand and running his fingers slowly down her cheek. “I’m all alone, this trip. It’s kind of lonely, you know?”
Their eyes met, and Emma felt her breath catch. He was obviously trying to get in her pants, and yet underneath she sensed something else. A true loneliness, and a kind of desperate longing. An answering longing spread through her body, and she stared into his golden eyes, feeling like she was falling into infinity.
Holy shit.
With a shrill buzz, the timer on Emma’s watch went off. They both jumped, and the moment was broken. She glanced quickly at the screen. Damn. Eleven-thirty. She had a ten-minute window to reach Grizzly and let him know she was still on the way.
She realized her fingers had somehow become entangled with Jace’s. She freed herself and slid off the stool.
He grabbed her wrist lightly, stopping her. Heat lightning shot straight up her arm. He looked intently into her eyes, a small puzzled frown between his eyebrows.
For a moment she felt breathless. Then she remembered. Grizzly. Alexander. She had to focus.
“Where you going, darlin’?” Jace drawled. “You’re not gonna leave me all alone, are you?”
“Just going to the little girls’ room,” she said, with a Darlene-like simper.
Jace grinned at her. “You set a timer for that?”
Oh, crap. Thinking quickly, she smacked his arm lightly with her free hand and said, “No, silly. I have to call my mama, too. She’s been sick, and I told her I’d check on her after the eleven o’clock news, before she goes to bed.” She pulled her hand away, and this time he released her. Somehow she felt colder and lonelier after he let go.
Focus, Emma. You’re on the run, for fuck’s sake. Forget the hot guy. You’ll never see him again.
She found the pay phone in a hallway near the bathrooms. She’d ditched her cell phone almost as soon as she left Nashville. Alexander was such a control freak, he probably had a tracking app hidden on it. Digging into her bag for quarters, she started feeding them into the phone. Credit card calls could be traced, but not cash. Cash was king when you didn’t want to be found.
She dialed the number Grizzly had given her and waited. Each ring of the phone felt like an eternity. Four…five…six…“Yeah,” came a gruff voice.
Emma breathed a sigh of relief. “Griz,” she said. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“I’d say the same to you, young lady, but it sounds like you’ve gotten yourself in a heap of trouble.”
Just talking to Grizzly almost made her hard-won strength crumble. He’d served in the military with her father, and been a surrogate dad to her after hers died. Right now, she just wanted to throw herself in his fatherly arms and cry.
But she couldn’t. She pulled herself together, and told him her whole story. All the things Alexander Grant had done, and how the local cops and judges were in his pocket. She had to go higher up. “Were you able to get hold of that friend of yours in the FBI? I don’t know if I have enough to convict Alexander, but I sure as hell have enough to justify opening an investigation.”
“I talked to him, and he’s interested,” Grizzly said. “I can’t come to you, though. Messed up my leg, and it’ll be a day or so before I can use it right. Can you get yourself here? How close are you?”
“A day away, maybe,” Emma said, biting her lips. “I just hope I can stay ahead of Alexander.”
“He following you?” Grizzly asked, concern in his voice.
“Gotta be, Griz,” she said. “Haven’t seen them yet, but trust me, they’re there. He thinks I’m his, and Alexander Grant doesn’t let go of anything he thinks is his.”
He grunted. “You staying out of sight?”
Emma gave a short laugh. “I’m wearing a disguise. Switching rides. Using civilians, if I can do it without endangering them. Just like you taught me.”
Grizzly gave his dry, wheezing laugh, but it soon cut off. “You’re playing a dangerous game, girl,” he said.
“I know I am, Griz,” she said softly. “But I have to do this. Don’t worry, I listened to everything you ever told me. I can work a mark without—” She saw Jace at the end of the hallway and broke off. “I gotta go,” she said quickly.
“Be careful.”
“Yes, Mama.” Emma hung up the phone as fast as she could. Damn. She’d meant to duck out the back and ditch Jace, and now she was going to have to make up some excuse. At least he was too far away to have heard her conversation.
She sashayed down the hall towards him, trying to think. She needed to get the hell out of here and back on the road. But she was so tired—she didn’t even know if she could make it to the next state without crashing the car.
When she got near Jace, she could almost feel the heat coming off him. Something in her chest expanded, pulling her to him like a magnet. She saw his flirtatious expression change to something else, something more real. He held her eyes for a long moment. Everything around them seemed to go quiet and still.
Finally he smiled. “You and I need to dance,” he said.
He held out his hand, and like an idiot, she took it. What are you thinking? her sensible self was screaming inside her. Leave!
But she wanted to be memorable, right? To slide under Alexander’s radar by looking like something completely different from what she was. A hot babe looking to get laid, instead of a terrified fugitive.
All right, then. One dance would work, if she did it right.
She led Jace over to the jukebox, elbowing the local honeys out of the way and ignoring their bitchy looks. One of them could console Jace after she ditched him to hit the road. She turned the knob, flipping the song list until she found what she wanted. Jace put the money in, and she pushed the buttons.
It was an old Bonnie Raitt song—“Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About.” Hopefully when she was done, that’s all anybody in this bar would be talking about—that out-of-town honey who did the come-fuck-me dance with the hot biker. Not Alexander Grant’s fugitive girlfriend.
She saw Jace grin when he recognized the song. He slung her bag off her shoulder and over a nearby chair, and then took her hand. He spun her out away from his body, then back in close. His other arm wrapped around her waist and they were hip to hip, moving in unison.
He was an amazing dancer, and she felt as if they’d been dancing together for years. They seemed to sense exactly what the other one was going to do next, whether it was dirty booty-shaking or a dip with a leg extension, his hand running sensuously up her thigh. Everyone in the bar stopped whatever they were doing to watch them.
Well, she’d wanted memorable. She’d just never imagined anything like this.
The driving beat of the song finished, and everyone started clapping—except the locals by the jukebox. Suck it up, girls. Emma was breathless and exhilarated, and Jace was grinning.
Emma turned to him, and then saw what was going on behind him and froze.
There was a man talking to the bartender, clearly asking him a question. He was dressed in neat tan chinos and a button-down shirt that didn’t match the hard, wary lines of his face. He pulled out his phone and showed the bartender a picture.
Shit.
She’d known they’d be looking, but she thought she’d be gone by the time they showed up. How had they caught up with her so fast?
She couldn’t let him get a good look at her. The jukebox slid into a slow song, and she pulled Jace to her, burying her head in his chest. He gave a low chuckle and wrapped his arms around her, hips swaying seductively to the music. She leaned against him, her hair covering most of her face, k
eeping one eye on Alexander’s minion. The bartender shook his head, and the man headed for the door.
Emma felt her whole body relax in a sigh of relief. Jace tightened his arms around her. Emma just wanted to bury her head back in his chest and stay there, letting the whole world go to hell.
But she couldn’t. As soon as Alexander’s man left, Emma tried to pull away from Jace. It was like trying to climb out of a lake of melted caramel—the warm sweetness just kept trying to pull her back in.
She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes. “I should really go,” she said breathlessly.
He was looking down at her, the gold gone from his eyes. They were dark and opaque, completely unreadable.
From feeling like she was drowning in a lake of caramel, she suddenly felt like she was at the edge of a cliff. Like this man could be cold and dangerous, as well as warm and sweet. But all he said was, “Well, come on then, darlin’.”
That wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, but she realized it was safer going outside with Jace than it was on her own. She retrieved her bag and they headed out the door, Emma keeping an eye out for Alexander’s man. Hopefully he’d driven off, trying to find her somewhere else down the road. Hopefully he hadn’t found the Malibu hidden in a dark corner of the parking lot.
The chilly spring air slapped her back into alertness, but she giggled drunkenly, leaning on Jace, arms around his waist. No one jumped out at her—no one was lying in wait. She was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw Alexander’s man leaning against the side of a car, smoking a cigarette. He was directly between her and the Malibu. The man turned to face them, and she pulled Jace’s head down and planted a huge kiss on him.
She cringed inside at the bad movie cliché—kissing some random guy to keep the bad guys from seeing her face. But she forgot that when Jace’s lips touched hers. Warm caramel and heat lightning. Her arms slid around his neck, and he angled his head to deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding between her parted lips, tracing the tender skin inside. Emma pressed herself against him, sliding her tongue over his, tasting him, wanting to devour him.
Oh, no. Emma broke the kiss, panting. Jace’s lips moved down her jaw to her throat. Emma tried to drag her mind back to reality. How was she going to get out of here with Grant’s minion lurking around? Did he suspect who she was? Was he watching the Malibu? Or was he just taking a break?
She had to find someplace to hide. And the most obvious place…
Damn. Pressing herself against Jace, she whispered, “Take me back to your motel room.” She saw the heat in his eyes, felt it radiating off his skin. He wanted her.
She just hoped she’d be in less danger inside with Jace Monroe, than outside with Alexander Grant’s ‘security specialist.’
But she wouldn’t bet on it.
Chapter 4
Jace was furious.
He swiped his key card to unlock the door and pushed Darlene inside, not caring that he made her stumble on her way-too-high heels.
He was pretty sure he’d just been had.
He barely stopped himself from slamming the door, remembering how thin the walls were in this motel. He’d left the bedside lamp on, and he turned to face her in the dim light, his anger and alpha energy filling the room.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she said, regaining her balance and standing up to her full height. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“No, it’s what the hell do you think you’re doing,” he ground out. “What kind of scam are you trying to pull?”
She gave him injured-innocent drama face. She was good at it, too. It almost looked real.
“I’m not a scammer,” she said, but she looked wary, as if trying to figure out how much he knew. “Why would you even say that?”
He rolled his eyes. “Nice try,” he said. “Let me count the reasons. First off, you’re wearing a disguise—”
She fingered her platinum curls. “Lots of girls wear wigs. Blondes have more fun,” she said.
“—and come-fuck-me clothes, and you’re picking up travelers in bars.”
“Slut-shamer,” she sneered. “Did someone forget to ping you when the 21st century started? I can wear anything I want and have sex with anybody I want. You have no call to get all judgy about it.”
“And,” he added, refusing to be distracted, “that sick mother story was a load of shit. We might not come from the same place, but I don’t know anybody who calls their mama ‘Grizzly.’ Or talks to them about ‘working a mark.’”
He saw her eyes go wide. “How did you even hear that?” she asked. “You were nowhere near the phone.”
He just barely kept himself from wincing. He had a wolf’s hearing, even in human form. Usually he was paying enough attention not to let that slip.
“It’s my superpower,” he said. “Let’s stick to the point, hmm? Minutes after that phone call, a man oh-so-coincidentally comes into the bar flashing a picture around, and you act all alarmed. You drag me outside and spook in the parking lot, and beg me to bring you to my motel room. So what’s the plan? Fuck me silly and steal my wallet? I’d bet money you have some kind of rufies in that suitcase-sized purse of yours.”
Not that they’d work on him, probably. Or not for long. His shifter metabolism would take care of that. But he was still pissed that she thought he was that much of an idiot. And, if he admitted it to himself, more disappointed than he had a right to be. He’d felt a connection with her.
“I do not have rufies,” she said. “And I didn’t drag you outside, either. You dragged me. And you really think I’m some kind of thieving prostitute?”
He didn’t know what to think. She smelled confused, and scared, but that didn’t help him figure out if she was guilty or innocent.
“Well, if you have any other explanations, feel free to share,” he said, leaning against the door and folding his arms over his chest.
Darlene was biting her lips, looking uncertain.
“The truth would be awesome,” Jace added. He watched her, trying to figure out her game. He sucked at reading women. He’d spent most of his time in male-dominated environments—oil rigs, lumber camps, biker bars. His relationships with women—shifter or human—had mainly been one-night stands, lost weekends, and mate interviews.
He was totally out of his depth, and he hated it.
Well, when in doubt, be an alpha. Jace straightened up, arms still crossed to make his biceps look even bigger and more intimidating. He focused on his inner wolf, ratcheting up his dominance even more than usual. Humans could feel it, though they didn’t usually know what it was.
“I’m waiting,” he said. “You have about three seconds to give me one good reason not to dump your lying ass in the parking lot, right at the feet of your disappointed partner.”
She stared at him for a minute, clearly making up her mind. Then she sighed, and pulled off the wig. Glorious dark waves tumbled down over her shoulders. Her breathing was still faster than normal, and her lips were red and swollen from that amazing parking lot kiss. Jace found himself wanting to take one between his teeth, biting it gently before kissing her breathless again.
Don’t even think about it. This one is trouble with a capital T.
Instead, he started counting down. “Three…two…” He took a step forward.
Darlene backed up. “Okay,” she said. “That guy isn’t my partner.” She spat out the word. “He works for my evil ex. Who is very angry with me.”
Might be true, might not. Jace raised an eyebrow. “And that would be because…”
“Um, when I found out what a scumbag he was, I stole some stuff from him. Including his car.”
No way. This really was a revenge binge. Jace rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky he didn’t call the cops.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Crap, he did call the cops?”
Darlene bit her lip. “Maybe,” she said. “That was in—um—California, though. Would the Colorado cops care
about stuff that happened in California?”
Jace rubbed his hand across his forehead. He was getting a headache. “Grand theft auto is a felony,” he said. “And transporting stolen property across state lines is a pretty big deal too. So yeah, if there’s a BOLO out on the car, the Colorado cops would care.”
And if he helped her, then he might be charged as an accessory, if she were caught. Shit.
“So if your ex is so evil, why didn’t you go to the cops?” he asked.
She snorted and looked away. “Do you think I didn’t try?” she said. “They wouldn’t do shit. He’s a big deal where I come from, and everybody just lets him get away with whatever he wants to.”
That had a ring of truth to it. She smelled hurt, and bitter, and bewildered, and scared.
Jace’s wolf whined inside him. She’s unhappy. Help her.
Seriously? Two dozen perfectly nice shifter women and his wolf didn’t give a rat’s ass how they felt. But it wanted him to help this crazy-ass human woman.
His wolf whined again.
Shit.
Jace relaxed a little, letting the dominance slip away. “So what exactly did he do?” he asked.
She raised her eyes to his, biting her lip. “He hurt and betrayed a lot of people,” she said finally. “And I have proof. So if he catches up with me, he’ll probably kill me.”
That had the ring of perfect truth.
Jace sat down on the bed and ran his hands through his hair, trying to think. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
Darlene was studying him with those fathomless blue eyes. “You believe me now, don’t you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do. You’ve been lying to me all night, but I can tell you’re not lying now.”
She nodded, her body relaxing slightly.
“Okay,” he said. “If you’re not going to the cops, what are you planning on doing? You can’t just keep running.”
She shook her head. “I have a friend who’s going to help me get the proof to the right people,” she said. “I just have to get to him. Without getting grabbed by that asshole in the parking lot.”
Fugitive Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 1) Page 2