In a flash, he pinned her to the wall, leaned in close. “I’ll give you a place to put your hands, Teddie.”
Despite her fear, a thrill uncurled in her belly, heat flooding between her legs at the thought of his big hands on her.
And he knew it. Bent down, capturing her mouth with his, kissing her until she was dizzy.
When he pulled back, she still tasted him—the metallic taste of blood, mixed with mint and man. Her body had definitely responded; it wanted more and he knew it. He laughed a little—a hoarse sound—and backed away.
“Let’s go. We’re still not out of danger.”
We never will be. The thought made her shiver.
The men after her were very dangerous. The man in front of her, more so … and she hoped she was on the right side of danger.
She had a feeling she wouldn’t know for sure for a very long time.
CHAPTER
4
Kell hadn’t been lying to Teddie about the danger. Although he hadn’t seen who was in the truck waiting outside their hideout, he knew that a building like this was a perfect spot for criminal activity. Plus, it gave him the perfect excuse to search her.
Someone—or several someones—were stalking them. Going out the window was the best move. They were still boxed in but he’d rather fight out here, where there were two openings for escape, than inside.
But the fact that they were still running from an unseen enemy had Kell on edge. Teddie had nothing on her that they could track. If the men after her were trained mercs, they would be good at their job, but this was ridiculous, and he and Reid weren’t exactly slouches.
He licked his lips again, tasting her now. The bleeding had stopped, but the sting was still there, and hell yeah, he’d deserved it.
He was nearly beyond the point of no return—the kiss, the slap, Teddie in her underwear had his blood boiling in a way it hadn’t in months—years, if he was honest with himself—and despite the fact that this was neither the time nor the place, his dick didn’t care.
But the rest of his body had better sense, because something in the air made him stop cold. He paused for a long moment, looked down one end of the alley and then the other.
Nothing.
But he still didn’t move.
“Shouldn’t we run?” Teddie asked softly but he placed a gentle finger over her mouth to stop her from making another sound.
They wouldn’t get far. He’d been hoping by waiting it out here, they’d escape. But there was no such luck.
There was also no place for Kell to hide Teddie. “Don’t move. No matter what happens, don’t move away from the wall,” he told her.
The danger whipped around the corner seconds later, in the form of a man wearing a blue shirt and jeans, carrying a baseball bat. Kell went for him, noting out of the corner of his eye that Teddie instinctively moved away from both of them.
Shit.
“Against the wall,” he barked, but she was too busy staring at the approaching man.
Dammit. He turned his attention to the guy with the baseball bat—Kell had no doubt he was more heavily armed than he appeared to be. He also wasn’t one of the mercs from the picture Teddie had taken at the market in Khartoum. His gut clenched as he realized this had nothing to do with Teddie and everything to do with him. DMH? Or something else?
Before he had time to think further, Blue Shirt made his move, coming toward him with the bat raised.
It was time for Kell to make his, to let loose the adrenaline that soared through his body at full speed.
Teddie wanted to listen to Kell, but the fear made her dizzy. It was all she could do not to scream as Kell threw himself at the danger like he could extinguish it with his body. She stepped back as if pushed by the sheer brute force of the action, right into another man’s chest. Arms wrapped around her and she screamed before a hand clamped over her mouth.
It was only then that she understood Kell’s directive and she promised herself to never again ignore it if she could just get out of this safely. If she’d remained with her back against the wall, she would’ve seen the second man coming at her, the one now attempting to drag her back down the alley and away from Kell.
She would not let this happen. If she died tonight, she’d go down fighting, and so she concentrated on escaping the man’s grasp. She flailed her legs, twisted and turned and then went limp, so that her captor nearly dropped her. He didn’t, though.
Instead, together they pitched forward, Teddie narrowly avoiding landing on her face with the big man on her back. But although she’d saved herself by rolling at the last second, she still wasn’t free.
She caught sight of Kell, moving like a blur of action against Blue Shirt and another guy in a yellow shirt, who’d come out of nowhere. She heard grunts and fast breathing—but oddly, nothing else. A fight to the death that was eerily silent and she fought again as her assailant pressed her body closer to his.
She jammed an elbow back, heard a satisfying crunch and a howl and suddenly she could move. Her panic rose when the man attempted to grab her tighter, but she twisted away, tried to keep her eye on Kell as he continued fighting his attackers.
Hers called her a stupid bitch, ruthlessly twisting her arm behind her back and she cried out in pain.
It was then she felt the cold barrel of a gun press to her temple, and that stilled her. She heard her breath coming fast, willed herself not to hyperventilate, if such a thing could be done.
And then her captor called out, “Kell Roberts, you need to come with us.”
He knew Kell’s name—his first and last? It was Kell they wanted?
She hadn’t seen the face of either Blue Shirt or Yellow Shirt—or the one holding her—didn’t know if they were responsible for killing her family. But she’d thought they were.
She’d wondered how they kept finding her, had almost wanted Kell to discover something hidden in her clothing that would explain it. But now she knew this attack at least wasn’t about her at all.
That thought was confirmed when the fighting slowed as Kell glanced over at her and moved away from Blue Shirt with his hands in the air. Yellow Shirt, whom he’d kicked to the ground, stumbled to his feet now and moved forward, and his face was illuminated by one of the two dim lights in the alleyway.
It definitely wasn’t one of the mercenaries who’d killed her family.
“She doesn’t need to be involved in any of this. She can go, forget she ever saw you and write it off as an unfortunate one-night stand,” the man who held her continued.
What would happen to her? Suppose the killers who were after her were lurking?
It seemed an impossible choice and yet she knew in her heart Kell wouldn’t let her get hurt.
“Who the hell are you?” Kell demanded of the man who held her tightly. There was a bruise already forming on Kell’s cheek and blood on his forehead and running down his left arm.
Her captor laughed at Kell’s question, which jostled her. Her shoulder ached and she stayed as still as possible out of fear that if she moved, her arm would break.
“You’ll find that out soon enough,” he said.
“Who do you work for?” Kell persisted.
“We know who you’ve worked for. How many assassinations you carried out for Delta Force. How many more you did independently, with no record of them in any government files. Who knows what other intel I have on you, how many innocents you slaughtered on your quests … let me give you some examples, in case you think I’m lying.”
He went on to list about ten places—countries and cities—and dates. And numbers, which no doubt meant something to Kell.
She closed her eyes as if that would stop her from hearing things she didn’t want to know—never wanted to know about anyone.
When she opened them, Kell was staring straight at her, his expression pained. “Let her go,” he said slowly. “I’ll go with you.”
She wasn’t sure what panicked her more—the thought that she would
be without Kell, or that she’d be with him.
“Let her go right now.”
Blue Shirt snorted and tossed handcuffs his way. “Put these on first and then walk to me.”
Kell locked his wrists behind him, but he didn’t move. “Let her go down the alley. Now.”
Slowly, the man behind her released her arm and she winced at the jolt of pain. She turned swiftly as he brushed by her—she was no longer of interest to him, but Kell was. His face wasn’t familiar either.
And she turned to Kell, not sure what to do. Leaving him behind did not seem right.
“Run,” he told her as he whipped around so he and the man who’d first grabbed her circled each other and it was then she saw the look in Kell’s eyes. The man she’d been literally attached at the hip to was in fact as dangerous as the men who were after her—maybe even more so.
Kell’s blood ran cold. The fact that these men knew his name was bad enough, but coupled with his dubious list of accomplishments, most of which should’ve been completely classified since they were Delta missions … Damn, this was not good.
When Teddie turned tail, all three men moved in on him, treating Kell with caution, as they should.
“Start walking,” the one with the gun told him and Kell turned the opposite way from where Teddie had run—and where Reid was parked—and followed the directive.
He hoped Teddie would run directly into Reid. And when he didn’t hear her footsteps anymore, he made a forced stumble forward. The one in yellow grabbed for his biceps to right him. Kell took that opportunity to throw all his weight against him, smashing him against the building hard enough to knock him out.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Blue Shirt swing his bat, tried and failed to move completely out of the goddamned way, so the bat caught him on the side of his neck and back of his head, taking him to the ground. He landed on his shoulder and when he rolled, the one who’d grabbed Teddie earlier was standing close, holding Kell at gunpoint.
Fuck.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said.
“Stupid would be going with you,” Kell snarled.
“Dead or alive—those are my orders. I know which one I’d rather.”
Just then, the blue-shirted one came up from behind him, reached out to grab Kell around the neck, holding a gun directly to his temple.
“Dead sounds good to me,” he said, and Kell shifted to elbow him in the throat—a risky move, but he was not getting taken. His head throbbing, he reached blindly for the gun with his hands still shackled behind his back as he heard a sharp crack and saw the man with the other gun pitch forward toward him, gun clattering away across the alleyway.
Teddie stood behind him, still half in shock, the bat held tight with both hands—and goddammit, to his right, Blue Shirt was regrouping again.
“Go,” Kell told her harshly, ignoring the fact that she’d just saved his life. “Get out of here, now!”
Finally, she moved, but only to drop the bat. It fell with a dull clatter and he cursed and forced himself to his feet.
As the man in yellow got up too, Kell swung around with a vicious kick. He heard the satisfying crack of Yellow’s jaw, saw the man Teddie hit was still nice and unconscious, but having all three only temporarily disabled wouldn’t be enough in this situation.
No, he needed them dead and then investigated, in that order.
As she watched, Kell rooted in Blue Shirt’s pockets awkwardly, pulled out keys and managed to get his cuffs off.
The man with the gun—the one she’d hit—stirred and she shifted to move away, wondered what the hell she’d been thinking coming back here, trying to help.
You saved him.
Kell was up, moving closer to her, pushed her out of the way roughly as he neared the stirring danger, as if daring the downed man to rise.
She caught the glint of metal in the dark as Kell’s hand whizzed through the air. Only when she looked down again at her original captor did she realize the metal was the barrel of a pen. Now it stuck out of his neck.
Kell’s eyes glittered in the dim light as he looked down the alleyway.
“I told you to run,” he said, and in the next instant she did, refused to look back for him no matter how badly she wanted to. Instead, she concentrated on keeping her footing, on trying to anticipate what might lay ahead of her.
It couldn’t be worse than what she’d left behind, could it?
Her footsteps echoed in the near-silent night, too loudly, her heart banged in her ears and she wanted to scream for help, but that would be stupid.
She was done being stupid.
A black truck screeched to a stop across the alley, and she nearly ran into it. She moved to try to go around it but then heard her name.
Reid was coming toward her. “What the hell?”
“Kell … a fight …” She could barely breathe again and she cursed her weakness.
“It’s okay,” Reid told her. But it wasn’t. None of this was okay. She pushed against his chest in an attempt to move past him.
“Whoa.” Reid grabbed her before she could escape.
She flailed again, felt the panic overtake her, and he cursed.
God, she knew these men had saved her ass, but they were also just as capable of ending her life in a second if things got too complicated.
Things had just gotten too complicated.
“Teddie, come on, get into the truck,” Reid was saying, and she jerked when she heard the sharp echo of footsteps heading in their direction. She went still, as did Reid, and it seemed like forever before either of them moved, although if she had to guess, only mere seconds had passed.
Reid pulled his gun, trained it on the dark alley, and she struggled again as she heard Kell call out, “Get her in the truck—we’ve got to get out of here.”
Reid shoved his gun into the back of his jeans and grabbed her so her arms were pulled behind her back. He drew her wrists together, cuffed them the way they’d been earlier, and then he unceremoniously picked her up and shoved her into the back of the double cab, as though she weighed nothing at all.
In seconds, Kell was next to her, Reid was in the driver’s seat, the doors closed and locked.
She tried to lunge forward as a sudden attack of claustrophobia overwhelmed her, needed out of the car, the cuffs …
“She’s hyperventilating,” she heard Kell say, and there was rustling—at the same time her hands were freed, a paper bag was placed over her mouth. The truck began to move, the windows opened and fresh air poured in.
Breathing became easier and she felt less closed in. After several minutes, she moved the bag away from her mouth, realized Kell was watching her, but he’d shifted, so they weren’t touching.
That was good, because she realized she did not want him near her. “What happened back there?” she asked finally.
“Don’t worry about that now. Come on, sit back and try to relax,” he told her, his voice slightly hoarse, his face bruised, and she realized how close they’d both come to being seriously hurt. Again.
She complied with his request, as if in surrender. But she was far from actually doing so. Reid continued to peel down the streets, finally merging the truck in with the light nighttime traffic on one of the main streets.
“How did those men know you?” she continued.
Kell didn’t answer her and she pressed, “Those men weren’t after me, they were after you. I’m in more trouble with you than without you.”
Or it could be in equal amounts, but still. She’d known that since she’d heard them fire their rifles earlier, when she’d first stumbled into them.
Neither man said a word to her as the truck whipped through the streets, although Reid made a cryptic phone call that she assumed was about the attack. Her gut tightened and the abrasions on her arms and palms began to sting. Her muscles were sore and tight from the running and the stress and she was sure she’d see a mess of bruises when she took her clothes off.
She wanted
out, but she had nowhere to go. “I know you killed people when you had me handcuffed in the Jeep—I heard the shots. Who was it then? Was that connected to this?”
Kell gave her a long look. “Better you don’t know a thing, sweetheart. You’re in enough trouble of your own.”
“You need to answer me. Who were those men in the alley?”
“No clue,” Kell said finally, and she didn’t know if he was lying.
“What did they want with you?”
“Seemed like they wanted me dead,” he said mildly, infuriating her further. “I know what you want—but I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“I saved your ass,” she spat, and Reid snorted.
Kell drew closer to her and suddenly the backseat seemed far too small. “You think your little stunt helped matters? I told you to run—you put yourself in danger by not doing it.”
Then she wouldn’t have seen what she had. These men were deadly. She knew that, but watching Kell single-handedly take on the three in the alley …
The violence had been mind-numbing. And still, he’d saved her life. Again. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” That was the truth, spilling from her before she could stop it.
In the light that shone in from the storefronts and street lamps, she swore she saw his expression soften, but his tone didn’t reflect that. “What do you want? You want us to bring you someplace where there’s no danger? Right now, for you, that simply doesn’t exist.”
The implication that it might never wasn’t lost on her.
“You have no idea what I want.”
He turned to face her. “You think you’re safer without us. You’re wrong. You might even be thinking you’re safer with the marshals right about now. You’d be wrong again.”
She would be wrong—because Kell was the better choice to keep her safe from the men who’d murdered her family.
It took like to fight like. And right now she needed that on her side.
Night Moves: A Shadow Force Novel Page 5