In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1)

by Leslie North

  Sasha nodded his profuse agreement. Perspiration sprang out all over his contorting face. Damian waited for Alexa to tighten the ties before releasing the man’s wrists and gave him the parting gift of a few strong words, directly in his face.

  “You ever, ever come near Alexa again, your balls won’t just be stinging. I’ll make sure they’re blown off.”

  Damian held out his hand. Alexa took it, without hesitation. He pulled her briskly across the intersection and into the diner. They bypassed the hostess and walked straight into the woman's restroom. Damian pulled open a tiny stall and shot the latch behind him before turning to look at her. They were chest-to-chest.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Alexa. What were you thinking?”

  Her arms looped around his neck before he could complete the question. Damian planted himself as her weight launched against him. Her lips captured his in a desperate, hungry attempt to purge wrongs and unleash all that they had failed to subvert for so long. She tasted sweet, fiery, and wholly forbidden. He answered her fevered exploration of his mouth with a not-so-subtle growl and a sparring match of tongues that pit a strong, passionate Russian against and equally tough protector, hell-bent on righting the missteps of the past.

  His dick sprang to life, and he found the only way to equalize the brilliant torture was to angle her spread thighs against it. He grabbed her tight buttocks and hauled her against his arousal, swapping places to leverage the metal door against his pressing need.

  She raked her nails where his hair met scalp, raining down a toxin in his brain that cleared all sense of time and place and danger. His name riding her gusty exhales nearly unzipped him from his skin.

  Her kiss subsided, from white-hot and desperate to the gentle strokes of something far more enduring than a lost moment in a public bathroom. When her lips tightened and pressed downward and tremors began to wrack her body, shaking him by proxy, he pulled away from her mouth.

  A single tear shot down her flushed, porcelain cheek.

  “Alexa?” He searched the severe lines etched across her forehead, the agonizing twist of her stunning features. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  Damian moved his hands from her backside to her waist and lowered her feet to the floor. He replayed the moments since they entered the stall to make sure he hadn’t misread her intent.

  “I can’t do this.” Her words surfaced around a weak, almost imperceptible sob. “I just can’t, Damian. I can’t betray my father.”

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he whispered. His hand came up to smooth her hair behind her ear. “You’re a good person, Alexa. It’s time to break free of his choices and make your own.”

  She leaned into him, as if she were desperate to sample that liberation with every inch of her body.

  Damian gave beneath her slighter weight and allowed her pliable body to press him back against the bathroom door. He breathed evenly, trying to calm her with each rhythmic intake of his chest, but he felt his exhales coming shorter with each passing second that he held her. Her breasts flattened against him, and his mouth watered at the imagined taste of her rosy, pink buds against his tongue. He was in more danger now than he had been in the street outside. He had to regain control.

  "I'm not so sure anymore," she whispered. Her fingers clutched and wrung at the fabric of his shirt, playing with the neckline. No, not playing… even he could tell this wasn't another one of her flirtatious attempts to rattle his composure.

  Not sure about testifying or not sure about him?

  One he could live with. Increasingly, one he could not.

  His holstered gun pressed against his spine from the door’s pressure, reminding him of his purpose, his place.

  Damian sucked in a breath. "We need to head back into the restaurant. Order something."

  He could scarcely think of anything except that they were behind a locked door together and safely concealed from the outside world. He needed to concentrate on the plan. He needed to concentrate on something other than the fact that if he kissed Alexa again, he would take her, right here, right now.

  She deserved so much more. More than a filthy bathroom stall in the middle of nowhere. More than a father who taught her love was conditional. More than a cop who inked an iron-clad promise to himself that he would never again betray the code of loyalty.

  He extracted Alexa from him slowly. She gazed up at him with swimming eyes, but no more tears came. Her jaw flexed in resolution. Whatever moral decision she had been wrestling with seemed to have been resolved, at least for now.

  The heavy ache squeezing the front of his button-fly wasn’t such a quick recovery.

  They walked out of the bathroom together and took up their usual formation at the far side of the diner bar, away from the windows. He wasn’t happy with how he had handled the situation with Sasha. Damian generally didn't go for shows of bravado or excessive force, not unless they were required. He had threatened the man because he had been angry at himself for leaving Alexa unprotected.

  He ordered one coffee to go then doctored it with a concoction of cream and sugar—the way he had seen Alexa enjoy it. He caught her staring and wondered if their stall encounter replayed in her mind, relentlessly, overwhelmingly, as it did in his.

  "I always hated Sasha," Alexa said as she sipped from his coffee. "He doesn't just love my father—he worships him. That sort of loyalty is easily disappointed."

  "What do you mean?" Damian glanced again over his shoulder as he kept an eye out for their ride. His boot heel tapped out a faint rhythm on the dirty linoleum beneath the bar stool.

  Where the hell was Flynn?

  "I mean that the higher the pedestal you place someone atop, the easier the fall. I was always so afraid that my father was going to say or do something to set him off."

  "I won't let him near you again," Damian promised. "You can bet on that."

  "The week will be over soon." Alexa set the mug down on the counter in front of her. "If we make it through this, Stone, that's where your obligation to me ends. I don't expect you to be there to protect me for the rest of my life."

  And like a season that changed in a blink, he became Stone again. Truths always found inroads into intention. Damian’s stare blurred the ugly gold and yellow diamond pattern in the bar surface until a hand on his shoulder caused him to jump.

  "Stone."

  The voice—the hand—belonged to a tall, red-headed man dressed in a sweater and slacks. Damian turned, taking in the man's altered appearance. Flynn’s dark-rimmed eyeglasses were most effective at spoiling his past appearance, but there was no mistaking Locke. The former drug dealer had traded in his street wardrobe for the conservative attire of a fashion-challenged professor. He had also grown out a full beard on a recommendation from Rockwell.

  "Locke. Married life looks good on you."

  "I assume this is the girl." Flynn turned his gaze on Alexa and made an obvious study of her tits.

  Bastard.

  Damian knew the man was privately weighing whether or not the two of them were worth risking his new life in the witness protection program.

  "Susan." She extended her hand to shake.

  Alexa’s left eyelid blinked faster than her right, a nearly imperceptible tell had Damian not memorized everything about her for the past few days. He filed it away in his might-need-someday file.

  Even Flynn, a married man for the better part of a decade, couldn't tear his eyes from her. Alexa certainly knew how to turn on the charm. Damian didn't know if he should feel jealous or relieved that he wasn’t the only guy to lose himself to her spell.

  "Nice try, doll. I know who you are. I've had dealings with your father." Flynn held her hand for a second longer than was necessary.

  Damian shifted. "He's a standup guy," he added wryly.

  Alexa's mouth formed a grim line.

  As the trio made their way out to Flynn's car, Damian shot a look over his shoulder. Something didn't feel
right, but nothing tangible presented itself. As Flynn pulled open the door for Alexa, Damian studied him closely. Sure, his change in appearance was startling, convincing, but even reformed criminals like Flynn Locke carried baggage from their previous life. It went against Damian’s every instinct now to trust him.

  Too bad they didn't have a choice.

  CHAPTER 9

  Flynn Locke didn’t fool Damian.

  One. Damned. Bit.

  To the untrained eye, Flynn was a fascinating assemblage of quirkiness: Ivy League, an affinity for liberal politics, and decades-old brown sweaters that pilled from overuse. To the untrained eye, he was a simple man with deep thoughts and shallow pockets.

  But to Damian, Flynn betrayed his former profession with his words: their cadence, the nasally and gaping hole his vowels left behind, the way his volume increased on the downbeat. He was pure Long Island, pure hustler, pure scum. To Damian, Flynn had passed the road sign to give-a-shit long ago.

  "How do you like witness protection, Mr. Locke?" Alexa asked politely from the back of his car.

  Damian, who had insisted on taking the seat beside her despite the empty passenger seat in front, shot her a warning look.

  "It's not the total fucking drag I thought it would be, let me tell you," Flynn responded. His thought sounded more like tot, completely out of place in the Midwest. "I definitely don't miss my former life. And anyway, I've got my wife, April, and my son, Daniel. He's eighteen. He's away at college, so the two of you will be sharing his room."

  Damian caught Flynn’s rear view mirror glance. His suggestive tone, coupled with a slight neck crane—presumably to catch any backseat action—churned Damian’s stomach. He wondered if his connection to Alexa was more obvious than a blinking neon sign.

  "That's very kind of you.” said Alexa politely.

  "I figure it's the least I can do to repay you." Flynn's eyes shifted again to Damian in the rearview mirror. "You saved my ass a time or two."

  "I haven't forgotten," Damian responded.

  "Funny how the tables turn sometimes, huh, pal? Well, I don't want you or Susan to worry about a thing. We'll put you up and take you to see Rockwell in the morning."

  For the better part of ten minutes, they drove in uncomfortable silence. Damian catalogued turns and reset his internal map. Occupational hazard. Beside him, Alexa fiddled with her once-immaculate fingernails, the polish now splintered. Sunflower stalks streamed past the windows, higher than the car windows, making Damian’s stomach flip around the unease that had already lodged there.

  They parked in front of light green 1940’s farm house. At first appearance, the structure seemed quaint, whitewashed and homey. But upon closer inspection, the roofline sagged, weeds threw the tiny lawn into mutiny, and rusted farm implements lay scattered as if they had been left to the mercy of the winds. What preoccupied Flynn’s time when his only task was to sink into a believable, domestic life?

  Flynn’s wife, April, waved to them from the porch. Flynn had met April the spring after he entered the program. She had been good for him, wrangling his drifter mentality into expectations of a husband and father. Still, Damian wondered if her natural appearance and her proclivity for fundamentalist Christian beliefs didn’t make Flynn wonder after his choice to testify.

  "Damian." April greeted him with a hug. She extended the same gesture to Alexa. "Please, come inside, you two. Flynn said you've had a rough couple of days."

  "It wasn't all bad." Alexa glanced at Damian.

  At her words, he was back in the restroom stall, the backseat, the ordinary moments that were anything but ordinary. He clenched his molars at the thought of another night in a bedroom, alone with Alexa, trying to distract himself from the very thing he shouldn’t want. But mostly, he remembered her confession, so honest it unearthed tears he was sure Alexa Volkov rarely shed.

  I can’t do this.

  And that, more than anything, recommitted Damian to his mission.

  Keep Alexa alive.

  See that Volkov pays.

  Loyalty above all.

  ***

  They resigned to their attic bedroom shortly after slices of rhubarb pie. The day’s final hues of orange and pink streaked the sky near the horizon, nowhere near sleeping hours, but Damian suggested they rest while they could. To Alexa, the thought of more than four consecutive hours of slumber almost made her weep with relief.

  He had been distant during dinner conversation. April tried her best to keep the banter friendly and welcoming, but the air hung as thick as the fresh milk she poured with dessert. Alexa tried several times to mentally telegraph Damian questions—what’s wrong? and what are we going to do?— not entirely related to witness protection but rooted in something deeper and more personal. Damian rarely made prolonged eye contact. She had wanted nothing more than time alone with him. But at dusk, when she finally got her wish, she longed to shimmy down the trellis outside the open window and flee into the neat, orderly, predictable rows of crops.

  "Flynn thinks I'm right about Rockwell."

  Damian’s voice was hoarse from disuse. He slid off his boots and arranged them together, facing the door, then unpacked a few items from his duffle.

  Alexa wandered the perimeter of the gabled room, absently picking up comic book figurines and setting them back. "You don't like Flynn."

  Damian glanced up sharply.

  She stopped her exploration long enough to cross her arms in amusement. "Are you really surprised I noticed? I was pre-law. Studying body language for jury selection is a hidden talent."

  "My personal feelings for Flynn never had anything to do with our professional relationship," Damian replied. "I'm grateful for his help."

  "Do personal feelings ever factor into your work?"

  Alexa feigned indifference to his response, but she already knew his answer. No one was more aloof or more committed to his job than Damian Stone. She pulled a book off the shelf and turned it over in her hands. It was a dog-eared paperback of The Count of Monte Cristo, the ultimate story of betrayal.

  "You know they do." He had stopped rummaging through the reserve bag. The silence in the house felt absolute.

  “Edmund Dantès found there were limits to justice. No matter how much his enemies suffered, it never equaled the pain that he carried all those years. His imprisonment wasn’t the only thing that kept him in darkness. His thirst for revenge kept him from true happiness, peace,” She set the book back on the shelf. “Love.”

  Damian remained silent.

  “What do I know, anyway? Guilt is surely no different a prison.”

  Fatigue sapped her limbs. She had been over the room twice already, but had failed to turn up a spare bed—there was only the one, a full-size frame that took up most of the available floor space. There seemed little question as to where Damian would sleep that night. They had no other option but to share.

  Alexa had been longing to sleep close to him again since the night in the car. She hadn't been able to banish the memory of his arms around her, nor had she been able to forget the way he had clasped her waist to maneuver her into a more suitable position. She had thought about their close encounter with increasing frequency over the past days—even daydreamed about how their first night on the run might have turned out differently had he rested his hands on her for even a moment longer.

  They changed with their backs turned to each other. Alexa was the first to slip beneath the sheets. Damian followed, though he insisted on remaining on top of the quilt. When he turned the light out, the barrier he had imposed between them felt paper-thin and ineffectual. His body radiated heat. She edged a bit closer to him under the guise of adjusting her position. Exhaustion beckoned her to slumber. Still, she lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

  "Damian?" she whispered.

  “Hm…?”

  "Do you have nightmares about that day?"

  A long silence stretched between them. She thought he had fallen asleep when his answer came.

&
nbsp; "I don't sleep much." His statement rumbled deep in his chest, like the first muffled warning of an approaching storm. "When I do, I sleep lightly. It's part of my job."

  Alexa tucked her elbow beneath her head and turned over. She startled to find him already facing her, already close. "Why do you throw yourself into your job so much? Don't you ever take a day off to feel things like a human being?"

  “I feel everything. I just have enough self-control not to act on those feelings.” His voice was a quiet protest, devoid of the energy to fight.

  She missed that energy. The temptation to spar him back into the Damian of old overcame her.

  “Like the self-control you displayed in the restroom today when you dry-humped me?”

  He barked out a sardonic laugh, far too loud to be drowned out by the crickets and the gauze-thin walls of a post-depression era house. “You attacked me, sweetheart,” he snapped, his endearment anything but. “You’ve done nothing but try to seduce me from day one to advance your agenda—an agenda, I may add—that shifts as frequently as your father’s criminal alliances. The sooner we get you to trial, the sooner we can go back to being who we were when this unfortunate pairing began.”

  In the moonlight filtering through the billowy, cotton drapes, she watched him bound to a seated position, punch his pillow and reposition himself with the stiffness of a felled tree. Mattress springs quieted from the assault. Night sounds tiptoed back into the room.

  “Damian?”

  “What?” Had words been a guillotine, that one would have severed her head.

  “I don’t want to go back to who we were, and I don’t want the trial to come. I want to keep moving.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you.” The caliber of his tone was a fraction of his previous answer. His words vibrated low and even through the mattress, through her diaphragm, where words gathered to die with no breath, straight to her heart. Part of his job, remember?