by Lisa Eugene
He rolled over and wondered why the hell she always took so long in the bathroom. He’d allowed her to close the door this time, but was quickly losing his patience. Plus, the thought of her naked body under the warm spray of the shower had him rock hard again. He inhaled and caught the scent of clean fragrant sheets, fleetingly wondering when she’d changed them. Did she always change the sheets after sex? If she was his woman, she’d be changing sheets all night long. What a strange one she was…
The bathroom door opened and she stepped cautiously out. His breath hitched at the sight of her. She was clad in a new pair of sweat pants and a tank top. She was jaw-dropping beautiful. She looked voluptuous and well-loved. She’d blown dry her hair into soft silky waves that fell to her shoulders. Her lips were puffy from his greedy indulgence, and even in the partial darkness he could detect the brisk luminance of her slate blue eyes. He wondered if other parts of her were tender and had to squelch the urge to soothingly lave her with his tongue, to hold her in his arms and care for her.
God…maybe he wouldn’t wait until morning to leave. The sooner he was out of there the better. This attraction was doing him no good. Casting a wary glance at him, she skirted the bed to the opposite side and laid stiffly beside him. With a tortured groan, he pulled her close and braced his chin on her head, ignoring her protests.
“Go to sleep, Maggie.”
Gabe had fallen into a deep sleep. He wasn’t sure what had been the cause of his unprecedented lassitude, but figured it had something to do with how spent his body had been after his encounter with Maggie, and the warm comfortable curves that now molded against him. Something woke him. He lay still, his heightened senses picking through the dark quiet. Heavy shadows still blanketed the room and he guessed it was around four or five am. A quiet rustle by the door caused his body to stiffen, and before the murky form had detached from the shadows, Gabe seized the gun from beneath the pillow, took direct aim at the amorphous shape, and pulled the trigger. A grunt and muted thud followed, assuring him that his target had been hit.
The blistering noise forced Maggie awake with a start. He clamped a hand over her mouth and silently rolled them off the bed. He could barely make out her face in the blackness of the room, but he could tell her eyes were wild and round like saucers.
“Shhh…we’re in danger. I can’t explain now, but you have to trust me. We need to get out of here.”
“Wh…what are you talking about?” Alarm spiked her sleep-soaked voice. “What’s going on?”
“Be quiet,” he whispered, trying to modulate his tone. He didn’t want to scare her, and was glad she had the good sense to obey.
He crawled away from her and when he came back he wrapped her fingers around the gun he’d found on the floor next to the body.
“Oh God…”
“Stay here. Do not get up! If anyone comes through that door, pull the trigger, aim for the center of the chest.”
“Oh God…”
He made a move to leave, and she frantically clutched his arm, drawing him back. He could feel the tremors take over her hands, and his stomach clenched.
“Where are you going?” she asked, panicked.
“I need to see what we’re up against. Just don’t move.” Impulsively, he swooped down and kissed her. He missed her lips in the dark, and instead caught the side of her mouth. His heart leaped when she readjusted and brought her lips to his. “Remember, chest.”
He sensed her quiet nod before he scurried away.
Maggie’s heart thumped erratically against her ribs. Her hands were quaking so terribly she was afraid she’d shoot herself. What the hell was going on? The foreign weight of the cool metal against her fingers felt awkward and bulky. She crouched low at the side of her bed, listening for evidence of a threat and trying to calm her frayed nerves. She couldn’t see a thing, and the disabled sense magnified her anxiety. Where was Gabe? It seemed like hours since he’d left her, although her brain assured her it had been mere minutes. Her ears caught the sound of a scuffle in her living room and her anxiety spiked.
Panicked, she hastily crawled towards the door, keeping the gun in front of her. Fear stroked adrenalin through her vessels. Waiting for someone to come in and harm her was the worst fear of all. She felt like a sitting duck perched beside her bed. Her fingers met a flaccid bulk blocking her path and blood froze in her veins, sending a glacial wave rolling through her body. At the same time, a loud pop echoed in her ears, and jolting, she scrambled and huddled behind the door, curling into a small shivering ball. An eerie quiet followed. All she could hear was the rasp of her uneven breath expelled and consumed by the darkness. She hiccupped a muffled sound of fear. Was Gabe dead? Was she next?
She leveled the gun in front of her, its weight now giving her the confidence to face whatever lay ahead. If she needed to use it, she would. Aim for the chest.
“Maggie? Maggie? It’s me, Gabe. I’m going to come in now. Do not shoot.”
She sprang to her feet and pulled the door open; a sigh of relief hustled from her lungs.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay behind the bed?” he asked gruffly, pushing her back into the bedroom. He retrieved the gun from her grasp. A slither of moonlight followed him into the room and she could discern his furious scowl.
“And wait to get killed?” She watched him hastily scoop the flash drive from the table and tuck it into the backpack slung on his shoulder.
“We have to go, now!”
“What do you mean?” Her brows furrowed. She knew she was on the verge of a complete meltdown. She could now make out the form of the lifeless body sprawled on her carpet, the dark substance seeping from his chest forming an oddly symmetrical arc around him. She swallowed down the rapidly mounting panic. Her thoughts were taking flight in so many directions she didn’t know which one to follow.
“If you’d rather stay here, fine,” he asserted, following her gaze.
“No!” Maggie’s head shot up as he pushed past her. She followed closely at his heels, ignoring the other lifeless figure bleeding all over the pristine fabric of her couch. Swallowing hard, she blocked out the image. She didn’t protest when Gabe took her hand in his and kept his large body shielding her as they approached her door. She pulled away suddenly and quickly grabbed the bag that held her sneakers from the closet, hopping into them as he paused to check the hallway.
“Wake up your friend,” he said, pulling her into the hall. The light in the hall amplified the angles of his face in sharp relief. He looked entirely sinister.
Maggie stared, confusion lifting her pale brows. “David?”
“Now. We can’t leave through the normal routes. They’ll be expecting it. There may be more men waiting outside.”
She hesitated and he barked, “Now! We don’t have much time.”
Maggie knocked on David’s door, sending Gabe a reproving glare. It wasn’t like she fled from gunmen every day. Damn, her brain was barely functioning. In its sluggish shock, it was beseeching her to run from this man, run and never look back. It was only some elemental instinct that cautioned her she’d be better off at his side right now.
Her half sleeping friend cracked the door open, his fingers trying to displace the cobwebs in his eyes. His lids startled open when Gabe forced the door wide and hastily pulled Maggie inside.
“Mag, what the heck is going on?” he stammered, his awed gaze rolling up the hulking figure behind her. “Damn, am I still dreaming?”
“David. It’s okay. I just need a favor,” she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “David!” She strengthened her voice to command his attention. His head swiveled to follow the large man who had silently stalked to the windows of his living room to peer out into the streets below.
“Damn, Mag.” His eyes widened dramatically. “He’s friggin’ hot. Is he who you’ve been bumping and grinding all night long?”
“David, please try to focus. Look, I can’t explain right now.” She leveled her sober gaze at him. “But
, if anyone asks, you have not seen me—us. We did not come through here. Okay? It’s for your own safety.”
He looked perplexed, but nodded.
“I’ll be okay, really.” She hiccupped and hugged her friend tightly.
“We have to go.” The steely voice rang directly behind them.
David was still confused and curious about the man accompanying her, but he turned and smiled appreciatively. “Hi, I’m David.” He extended a hand and Maggie rolled her eyes. “You are…?”
She watched a hint of amusement twitch Gabe’s lips as he shook David’s hand. “Hot hobo.”
Maggie was pulled away just as David’s jaw dropped. She found herself fumbling down the last rungs of a rickety rusted fire escape, trying to remember when she’d gotten her last tetanus shot, and jumping into strong muscular arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
When Gabe had told her they were headed to his safe house, she hadn’t known what to expect. Her only reference was from gangster movies, and the safe house was always where the bad guys showed up and annihilated everyone in it. So the word ‘safe’ was met with dubious credibility. But he’d managed to get her out of her apartment relatively unscathed, and despite everything he’d put her through, she found herself trusting him. Perhaps he wasn’t as evil as she’d originally assumed him to be. After all, he’d only shot those men in self-defense, right? She relived the horror in her apartment, the shocking burden of the gun clutched in her grip, and realized solemnly she’d been prepared to do the same.
They entered a high rise building from a back alley, and after he’d punched a few numbers into a panel, they slipped into a padded service elevator. She noticed him nod discretely to the shaded globe tucked into a high corner and guessed it concealed a security camera. She tapped a nervous toe as the elevator glided to the top, half expecting men in pinstripe suits to jump out with machine guns, order them to put their hands up, and then riddle them with bullets. Unbidden, her mind kept flashing back the unbelievable events of the past week.
How could all this be happening to her? Her life usually flowed with habitual regularity. For the most part she was used to controlling what occurred around her; events were planned and predicted in order to avoid chaos and contamination. Things didn’t happen to her. She had friends that were always ending up in one conundrum after another. That just wasn’t her. David said it was because she lived in a bubble—a soap bubble, he always teased. Well, she bristled. She liked her sterile bubble. Unfortunately this…this…hobo Rambo next to her had shown up with his bulging biceps and a sharp pin! Now there were two dead bodies occupying her apartment, and she looked like she’d been mud wrestling—again! She’d left her apartment with just the clothes on her back. She had no supplies. No allergy medicine, no antibiotics, no disinfectant, and no sani-wipes! She was completely vulnerable.
She stole a glance at him beneath her lids. He stood stoically silent, his features unreadable. His classic good-looks, sinfully beautiful mouth, and dark hypnotic eyes were mesmerizing. But, upon deeper inspection, there was a sharp edge to him, a haunting intensity that made you want to cower and hide. Something else pulled at her, a nebulous pain cloaked deep in his eyes with layers and layers of smoky emotion. It was fleeting and intangible. She wasn’t even sure it truly existed, but she felt compelled to lay his head on her chest and gently stroke his hair.
The elevator doors slid open, interrupting her wayward thoughts and refocusing her on her current calamity. She stepped out and was lead to the only door in the large foyer. She had so many questions that they vied for space in her brain, some, she wasn’t certain she wanted the answers to.
Gabe keyed another series of numbers into a pad on the wall, and the heavy metallic door swung open. It reminded her of a door to a bank vault. She stifled a gasp when she entered the large living area. She could see several other spacious rooms directly beyond the cavernous one she occupied. It was barren except for one diamond tufted leather couch that sat in its center facing the biggest flat screen television she’d ever seen. The chunky television was hung over a sleek marble fire place that begged for a priceless piece of art to adorn it instead.
She followed him into an adjacent bedroom, her sneakers soundless on the sparkling marble floor. The bedroom had no furnishings except for a king-sized bed pushed against a far wall with another large flat screen hanging across from it. Maggie couldn’t help but imagine that this would be a dream apartment for a college frat boy. What caught her eye was the adjoining closet. Distracted, she stepped into it. It was a little smaller than her bedroom. Instead of clothes hanging though, each wall held small TV screens that she guessed were fed from security cameras somewhere. A rolling desk chair and small table sat in the center. She frowned as she looked around, her hobo becoming more and more of an enigma.
She heard him moving around in another closet and she joined him. The eerily hollow apartment combined with the terrifying events of the early morning made her feel uneasy and funneled chills down her back. She gaped in stunned silence as she watched him stuff items into a black duffel bag. The closet she was now in looked like a military arsenal. Rows of guns, large and small, lined one wall. Shelves were filled with small boxes and items she didn’t recognize but knew were lethal. She watched him take a large box from the top shelf and gasped as he emptied neat stacks of cash into the bag. Passports and driver’s licenses were next, followed by several small cell phones. He took several guns from a shelf and checked them, a deep frown lining his handsome face. He hadn’t acknowledged her, but she could tell from the stiffness of his shoulders that her presence bothered him.
“The fridge should be well stocked. You should eat something,” he said without looking up. “We won’t be here long. Don’t know when we’ll be able to stop.”
She stared silently. Her gaze followed his long fingers as they adroitly fitted a magazine into a gun handle, flipped a switch on the side of the weapon, and dropped it into the bag. She winced. Those were the same fingers that had brought her so much pleasure. Now they seemed intent and sure, only capable of destruction. He reached for another gun, this one smaller with a longer barrel.
“What is all this? What is it that you do?” she asked quietly.
His hands stilled, but he didn’t look up.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”
“I want to know. Whose apartment is this?”
“Mine.” Finally he looked at her, his dark eyes like opaque marbles.
She waved a hand around the room. “And all these weapons?”
“Mine.”
“What is it that you do?” she repeated.
He stared for a long time, his gaze scrutinizing her face. She wasn’t sure he was going to answer her.
“I do jobs for people.”
She frowned. “What kind of jobs?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Li—like stealing?” She ignored the crack in her voice. She remembered what he’d told her about the flash drive. She wasn’t sure she’d believed him then. She did now.
“Among other things.”
“Someone hired you to steal information from Cryostar? Who? A competing company?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and she thought he almost looked contrite.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said at length, dragging his fingers through his thick dark hair.
“I’m sorry you did too,” she replied, then unable to hold his piercing gaze, her eyes darted around the small room. “What do we do now?”
A wry smile lifted the corners of his lips, and Maggie felt her breath catch when her gaze landed there.
“We do nothing. I have to find a place where you’ll be safe for the time being.”
“A place?” What was he talking about? She already had a place. Okay…so she had left two dead bodies there, but surely that could be rectified. She wondered if the police were in her apartment at this very moment. Had someone heard the shots and called t
hem? She’d have to call the police as soon as she could. She wouldn’t give the police any information about Gabe, but couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the research data. Come to think about it, she really didn’t know much to tell the police. She didn’t even know his last name.
As far as she was concerned, he was her biggest threat. Whoever had broken into her apartment had been after him, and she assumed, that flash drive. This had nothing to do with her. The sooner she got away from him, the safer she’d be. Now that he had what he wanted from her, he had to let her go. She explained this in unambiguous terms.
“Maggie, you don’t know the type of people I deal with.” He slowly shook his head.
She huffed. “I gather they’re not the righteous, church-going type. But I have nothing—”
His obsidian eyes locked with hers. “They’re very powerful, and don’t like being thwarted.”
“I didn’t thwart anyone!” She gritted her teeth, feeling the urge to stomp her feet.
“Just me.”
Nonplussed, she continued. “What would be gained by harming me?”
“Nothing. They would simply kill you for what you don’t know.”
“But I’m nobody. Just plain, ordinary Maggie Lawson.” She shrugged.
“Hardly.”
She hated the way that word did a lovely slow dance inside her.
“I’m obsessive, neurotic, argumentative…”she continued, needing a reality check, needing to stop the dancing.
“That is true. You’re crazy.”
The music grounded to a halt.
“In a strange, sexy way,” he continued.
She ignored him and sighed heavily. She needed to start putting the pieces of her life back together.
“Who is after you, and how did they find you at my apartment?” she asked quickly, unloading two of the many questions that had plagued her all morning.
“You ask too many questions.”