by Kiki Swinson
“You’re not leaving me with a whole lot of choices. For all I know, you’re taking me somewhere so you can rape me and hack me into a million little pieces.”
“Yeah. Because that makes a hell of a lot of sense.” He laughed. “I’m saving you so I can kill you.” Eli rolled his eyes.
Blake’s face heated with embarrassment while she warred with herself on what she should do.
His patience wore thin. “Either shoot me or move that damn gun from my head. The last thing either of us wants is for you to have a muthafuckin’ accident.” As if speaking prophecy, Eli clipped a curb and Blake was thrown against the dashboard. Her arm went wild as she squeezed the trigger.
POW!
The back window exploded.
Eli ducked and then cut an angry glare at her. “What the fuck? Are you crazy?” He reached over and snatched the gun out of her hand. “Gimme that shit.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Blake stammered.
Eli clicked the safety back on and ground his teeth together. “Sorry?” he thundered while tightening his grip on the steering wheel. His ears were still ringing. What he wouldn’t give to replace the wheel with her long, beautiful neck.
“Well, excuuuuuse me if I’m a little rattled right now. I’m not used to having gangsters from Baltimore stalking, manhandling, and now shooting at me. Take a look around. This is Beverly Hills, not an episode of The Wire.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You know what? Fuck you!” she yelled, clawing her way back up from the floorboard. “Why don’t you pull the fuck over and let me out?”
“Why? Did you just remember that you have a Superwoman cape flying out your ass and bullets can’t harm you?”
“No. I’m violently allergic to arrogant assholes.”
He smirked. “Well, pop a pill, baby girl. I’m not going anywhere.”
His slick smile made Blake’s heart flutter. Before she could process her reaction, her protector’s GQ smile melted away and ripples of pain replaced it. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He released one hand from the steering wheel and clutched at his side. “Nothing.”
Blake’s gaze swept downward, but she couldn’t see through his black T-shirt. “Liar!” She reached across the seats and jerked up his shirt. Her hand was instantly soaked with blood. However, she couldn’t get a good look at his wound before the dude shoved her back into the passenger seat. “Hey!”
“It’s nothing,” he snapped. “It’s just a scratch.”
Blake glanced down at her red hand and then back up at him. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Nah. Nah. It’s cool.”
Twisting her face, she tried to evaluate whether he was serious.
He was.
“Look,” she started, “if you’re hurt—”
“No,” he barked, but then upon seeing her shocked face, he tried to soften the blow. “Really. I’m fine. Besides, hospitals ask too many questions.”
And they will probably call the cops.
He glanced into the rearview mirror and was satisfied that they had evaded whoever it was who had been chasing them because he started to ease off the accelerator. “We have to dump this car,” he said.
“What? But you have to get me home.”
“Chances are the po-po will pull us over long before we get anywhere near your side of town. I might be wrong, but I think the bullet holes may stand out.” He turned onto the next street, where a long string of restaurants lay ahead. “Bingo.”
Blake looked at him like he was crazy, but this time she kept her mouth shut.
A couple of seconds later, he pulled into an Italian restaurant’s crowded parking lot.
“This is stupid,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Just make sure that you grab all your shit,” he told her. He glanced over her shoulder to her gun lying on the seat. “I’ll get it,” he said, physically thrusting her away from the door.
Blake rolled her eyes while he grabbed her weapon and purse. He shoved it all into her hands and then tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans. “What? You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
Climbing out of the car, they caught curious gazes from guests heading into the restaurant.
Blake fluttered on a fake smile, tugged on her ripped dress, and hand-ironed her tousled hair. However, her self-appointed protector gave them all a mind-your-own-fuckin’ business glare.
“C’mon,” he said, yanking her arm.
Blake tried to jerk free, but with his steel grip, it wasn’t happening. “I could scream,” she warned.
“And I can knock you out and sling you over my shoulder,” he retorted in the same fake syrupy-sweet voice she’d used.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
His answer was a deadly glare that sent goose bumps marching down her spine. He would dare . . . and probably would enjoy it.
“Fine,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Like?”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, still dragging her along.
“No. Hell no. That doesn’t work for me.” She tried to dig her heels in but was reminded that she was now barefoot. “Stop. Or I swear I will scream rape at the top of my voice.”
Growling under his breath, he snatched around and faced her. “What is it now?”
“I want your word that you’ll take me home,” she said.
“That’s probably not the safest place for you right now. If these clowns are bold enough to come at you at your job, I’m sure they’ll try your house next.”
“Then what the fuck are you here for? If you’re going to protect me, protect me. But I’m not going to turn my life upside down and start hiding out in shady hotels for the rest of my life. No fucking way.” She glared up at the towering gangster, but in truth, she was just seconds away from bursting into tears.
He sucked in a deep breath, and Blake sensed that there was a small window to reason with him.
“Look, I have a top-of-the-line security system there. There’s no way they—whoever the hell ‘they’ are—will be able to get past it.”
“I got past it.”
Blake’s confidence collapsed. “You did? When?”
“That’s not important right now.” He sucked in a deep breath but appeared to be mulling over her request.
Even this pissed Blake off. Somehow she found enough strength to break his steel grip. “Fuck it. I’m going home. You can shoot me if you want to.” She turned and marched. She didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do next, and she was past caring. “I don’t know you, and I’m tired of this whole fucking situation.”
“Trust me. You’re safer with me,” he warned.
“Says you.” She kept marching.
Stalemate.
A series of muscles twitched along Eli’s jawline before he tossed up his hands and marched behind her. “All right. I’ll take you home.”
Blake jumped at the sound of his deep voice rumbling behind her, and when she swiveled around, she rammed into a brick wall of hard muscles. She stumbled backward, but he caught her before she fell to the ground.
Fuck. Was he built out of iron and steel? Blake swallowed and resisted the temptation to feel him up.
“Now, if you’re finished with your temper tantrum, we need to get off this fuckin’ street.” He went to grab her arm again, but she jerked it out of reach.
He closed his eyes as if praying for patience. When he opened them again, his black orbs seared into her, but when he spoke, it was in a tone dripping with saccharin. “After you,” he said, gesturing like a gentleman for her to walk in front of him.
Blake’s lips twitched at the small victory. “Thank you.”
Twenty minutes later, they arrived to her estate via a car service Blake kept on her cell phone speed dial. Since their little blowup, she and her protector hardly exchanged more than a handful of words. It didn’t mean that her mind wasn�
��t racing with new questions.
After entering her security passcode, she turned toward her unwelcome guest. The man’s Goliath frame swallowed up space like it wasn’t shit, and there was such a dangerous vibe radiating from him that she found herself questioning her sanity in allowing him in her house. With her .38 tucked in his waist, she had no other choice but to trust that he was who he said he was.
And who is that exactly? She frowned when she realized she hadn’t even asked him one of the most important questions. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t,” he stated as his eyes roamed about the foyer.
Blake’s hands balled at her sides. “Don’t you think you should tell me?”
His dark eyes zoomed back to her, causing her heart to stumble over a couple of beats. “Elijah. Friends call me Eli.”
“And what do your enemies call you?”
“Who said I had enemies? I’m a pussycat.” He winked.
“Uh-huh.” Her gaze drifted downward to the slow, steady drip of blood hitting her marble floor.
“Shit!” Blake rushed over to him. “You’re fuckin’ up my floor.”
Eli looked down and then allowed her to propel him to a half-bathroom on the bottom floor. “Pop a squat,” she told him while she made a beeline toward the medicine cabinet.
Eli lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down.
“Take off your shirt,” she commanded.
Ignoring the pain, he whipped off the shirt and then watched as Blake pulled out everything in the cabinet. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Why? Do you want to go to the hospital now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then pipe down and let me do what I have to do.” She doused some gauze dressing with peroxide and went to work on his bleeding left side. “Huh. It’s looks like it went in and out,” she said, referring to the small hole.
“Disappointed?”
She glanced up into his amused face. “Just because I’m not happy about this new situation doesn’t mean that I want you dead.”
“Good to know.”
Blake forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand, but it was difficult to pretend that she wasn’t feeling this brothah. Hell, he was simply too fine with his chiseled six-pack, V-cut hips, and a tapestry of tattoos. Her heart and clit thumped in the same wild beat. She was even afraid that if he looked close enough, he’d see her hand and legs were trembling.
“Do you want me to do this?”
Fuck. He has noticed.
“I got it,” she said, avoiding his gaze.
Eli’s sexy lips expanded while he watched her.
Blake suspected that she looked as nervous as a cat in a room full of Rottweilers. She half wished that he’d say something slick again so she could hide her attraction behind a fake wall of anger, but he failed or refused to accommodate her. At the feel of his gaze slowly roaming over her, she sped up the process.
“You’re getting a little rough there, aren’t you?”
“I’m just trying to finish,” she said tersely before slapping on an adhesive bandage. “There. That should hold you for a while.”
He glanced at her handiwork and then nodded. “Thanks.”
She shrugged as she stepped back. “Don’t mention it.” This time when he stood, she noticed old bullet scars. “Looks like you’re no stranger to getting shot.”
Eli glanced down at the keloids on his shoulder and chest. “Got them when I was eight.”
Her brows jumped. “A little young to be gangbanging, isn’t it?”
“You can say that.”
Blake waited for him to say more. She sensed that he wanted to, but only dead air hung between them. When he reached for his shirt, Blake grabbed hold of it first. “I’ll toss this into the wash. After that you can start this whole crazy story from the beginning.”
6
An hour later, Blake interrupted Elijah’s story for the millionth time. “What the hell is a blackout?”
Huffing out a long breath, he wrestled with his straining patience. He understood her need to know why her life had been tossed upside down, but it grew harder to remember his place in the story while trying to keep his dick from stretching down his leg while he did so. He found that last part frustratingly difficult.
Bossy—yes.
Attitude—off the fucking charts.
None of that shit had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to toss her back on the overpillowed chaise she was sitting on and fuck her damn brains out. He didn’t normally go for the uptight, bougie type, but then again, Blake Scott did exhibit some gangsta touches that appealed to him. And what the hell was the name of that sweet perfume she had on? Come Eat Me? Fuck if that wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do right now. On cue, Eli’s stomach churned and his mouth watered at the thought of some Grade A pussy.
She’s Mafia Don’s daughter, he reasoned with himself. And you’re like a son to him. So hooking up would be like some fucking weird incest thing. As soon as that jacked-up rationale crossed his mind, the devil on his right shoulder reminded him that there was no shared DNA coursing through their veins. Like a son was not the same thing as actually being a son. That was a major fucking loophole as far as his dick was concerned right now.
“Hello?” Blake waved a hand in front of his face. “What the fuck? Are you going to tell me what the hell a blackout is or not?” she demanded.
“It’s when a hit has been ordered on someone’s whole family.”
Her already large green eyes grew wider. “What?”
He held up his hands in an attempt to calm her down.
It didn’t work.
Instead, she launched onto her feet and shouted louder, “WHAT?”
Eli stood and towered over her. “I know that all of this is coming at you fast and heavy. Just take a couple of deep breaths—”
“FUCK YOU!”
“Or not.” He shrugged. “Though screaming and shouting isn’t going to change anything. What’s done is done.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Nobody is trying to kill your whole fucking family!”
A memory clip of Eli’s sister, mother, and twin brother and father getting smoked flashed in his head.
“What the hell am I talking about?” she asked, smacking her forehead. “The only fucking family I have left is some ghetto wannabe mafia boss on the East Coast who got me into this situation in the first place.”
She’s fucking beautiful when she’s mad.
“C’mon. He’s your old man. You can’t seriously believe that he wanted any of this shit to come down on you.”
“How in the fuck should I know? I don’t even know the man.”
“And who’s fault is that?” he asked.
“Excuuuuuse you?” Blake folded her arms and swiveled her neck. “What the fuck do you know?”
Eli’s lips twitched while his dick did a slow creep back down his leg. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but a few years back Mafia Don did roll out here and reach out.”
“Yeah. At my parents’ funeral.” She paused while her eyes narrowed. “He didn’t get them killed, too, did he?”
“No.” Eli thought about it. “At least, I don’t think so.”
She gasped.
Quickly he shifted back into damage control. “No. No. No. I’m sure he didn’t.”
“You know what? I don’t want to hear any more of this shit. I want you and your boss out of my life!”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen—especially now that we know Midnight’s threat is real.”
“For how long?” she erupted.
Eli shrugged his big shoulders. “For however long it takes.”
A look of sheer horror covered her face. “That is unacceptable!”
He laughed. “This isn’t a contract negotiation. You can’t pay me off or blackmail me.”
Blake unfolded her arms to jam her fist onto her hips. “And what the fuck is that supposed to m
ean?”
Eli kept his stony features blank. “It means whatever you think it means.”
Blake’s fiery green eyes narrowed, while a cute wrinkle lined her forehead. “Just how long have you been following me around?”
“Long enough to know that you and your father aren’t as different as you like to pretend.” He lowered back into his chair and stretched out his long legs.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. The last time I checked, playing hardball with a bunch of Hollywood studio heads isn’t the same as selling poison to the young and the weak-minded.” Her gaze raked him again—this time with a hell of a lot more contempt. “Something I imagine you know a whole lot about yourself.”
He smiled. “I know a whole lot about a lot of things.” Eli took his time allowing his gaze to roll over her Coke-bottle curves, and he reflectively bit his bottom lip.
“Stop that,” Blake snapped.
“Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me as if you’re mentally fucking me.”
One of his groomed brows rose toward the center of his forehead. “Familiar with that look, are you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she hissed, turning and marching toward her kitchen.
Eli climbed back up onto his feet and followed.
Opening the refrigerator, Blake grabbed a beer and turned around, only to jump two feet at seeing him standing so close to her bumper. “Goddamn. Are you going to follow me if I have to take a piss too?”
“Only if you’re into that kind of thing.”
“What? No. Gross.” She popped the top off her beer bottle and then downed half the contents in one chug.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“That will happen only when this whole nightmare is over and you and Daddy Dearest are out of my life.”
Eli bounced his shoulders with indifference. “I’m not so bad. I have a way of growing on people.”
“Yeah. Under the nails like fungus.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Damn. Is that your bougie way of telling me to fuck off?”
“Oh. I haven’t made that shit clear yet? Fuck off!”
“Baby girl, you’re directing your anger at the wrong person. I wasn’t the one trying to shoot that beautiful head of yours off your shoulders. If Midnight—”