by Tommy Twist
Then again, it's just going to be putting my brothers in more danger, and I'm not going to do that. Not again. Not after what happened. Not after how bad Brian got messed up. I can't see that happening again, no matter what. It's off the table.
I lay my head back. I'll think of something, I'm sure. It's just a matter of time until something comes along and shows me a solution to my problem, but until then…
Brian comes in. He's lost weight. The guy was already thin, and now he's downright skeletal. I don't know what they've been feeding him over there, except that it's sure as hell not enough.
Still, he smiles. I know a lot of guys get out of shit like that, and they can't get over it. It sticks with them, the rest of their natural lives. I don't want that for Brian. Don't want it for Logan, either. I swallow hard.
I don't have long to get the hell out of here. Not long at all. Soon, very soon now, they're going to tell me to get the hell out of this hospital, and I'm going up the river.
Straight up the river to D.C. where they'll charge me, try me, and sentence me to life in a hole in the ground. Especially killing some big A.T.F. guy, they're going to put me in a hole so deep I forget what the sun is. But I did what I had to do.
I hope nobody sees my face as I try to get used to the idea of my new home, what I'm going to have to get used to over the next few years. The next several years, in fact. Probably the rest of my life, but I never figured on living that long in the first place.
I never had anything to live for, except my brothers, and if I could launch them off like a damn rocket then that would be good enough for me. Fizzle out after that.
I just can't shake the hurting feeling that it all gives me. I don't like it one damn bit, and I want it to stop. But it's not going to, not ever.
So instead, I sleep. I go to sleep early that night. I like to stay up late, because at least then there's something on the one channel I get on the flat-screen. But I'm feeling pretty down, and with feeling pretty down is feeling pretty damn tired, and I just want to sleep.
I wake in the night, though. Something moves in the bed. Shakes me awake. A hand. The hand's attached to a woman. Maguire leans in and whispers into my ear.
"You want to get out of here?"
I nod my head.
"Come on."
She sticks a key into my cuffs and undoes them. Easy as that. I'd imagined it would be harder, but I guess she's a cop, and that's how it goes sometimes.
My wrists hurt. They always hurt more, somehow, after the cuffs come off. As if now that I've got a little freedom, my wrists are going to make me suffer for putting them through that kind of hassle.
Some clothes are folded at the foot of the bed. They look like mine, more or less. I fit them on quickly and quietly. I don't know what's going on, but I'm not going to ask questions.
She beckons me over to the door. I follow. Not loud, but I could be quieter. Every step makes me wince. I should be damn quieter, but I just… can't. The boots keep making noise on the floor, no matter what I do.
Danny Ball's asleep in a chair outside. He doesn't move as we walk by. I try to keep my steps extra quiet, and I don't wake him up. Thankfully for me, at least. I don't know how it's going to affect his career, if we get out of here.
But I know how it's going to affect mine.
When we've turned the corner, Maguire stops sneaking so much. We straighten up. I don't have a mirror, but I'd say we almost look like two perfectly normal people walking through a hospital. Sure, it's late, but I have to hope we can get out of here.
Nobody stops us. I expected someone to. I've been stopped just visiting hospitals before by over-zealous nurses who think it's their damn job to play security. But this time, when I'm breaking out of a prison bed…
Now's the time that they've decided that it's my business whether or not I walk out of the place.
It shouldn't feel this easy. Shouldn't feel this calm. But it does, somehow, as we're walking out. I don't know what the hell is causing any of it, but I'm pretty satisfied either way.
Because as we walk out casually, we get out the door, and Maguire pulls me in for a kiss, and that makes the past couple of days pretty damn worth it. Now we just have to get real gone.
Chapter Sixty-One
MAGUIRE
I suppose that the best time to leave was when we did it, anyways. I suppose that at night, that would be when Ryan would know the right people to talk to. He'd know where to go, how to get there.
I'm in the passenger seat. I'm not sure if that's totally wise, honestly, but it really doesn't matter all that much in the end. I could have driven, if I chose to, but I wanted to let him do it this time, and he did.
The car pulls up in front of the house. An hour to get his stuff together. He comes out with two bags, drops them into the trunk, and I guess that's him ready to go. It occurs to me suddenly that he has no idea where my apartment is.
He takes the bike, though. Of course he takes the bike, I should have expected it, but somehow it hadn't occurred to me. I move over to the driver's side and he follows behind.
Walking into the apartment, it doesn't take me long to realize that I don't know… honestly, I have no idea what I'm taking. What I want to take. I grab a bag and throw some clothing in it. Enough to last me a week or two, I suppose.
None of it was ever that important to me. I never needed anything here. I was always at the office, so there's really very little in the apartment that I need.
The thought sends a chill down my spine. I have to stop myself from getting too morose, to find a way to put a tent-pole to stop my sagging mood as the night goes on. There's hope, though. I at least have that much.
I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I know it's not going to be that I throw myself into my work, running after another pretty-boy gangster.
The bag's pretty heavy. I sling it over my shoulder and carry it down. Ryan's waiting on the Indian.
"Okay, now follow me," he says softly. He waits until I'm in the car to kick-start the Indian to life. He's already spent a minute getting it turned around before I came back outside, so it's no trouble to let out the clutch and get the bike moving.
He takes it real slow until he sees I'm behind him. It wouldn't be any good to get lost. If I'm following, I'm following. The night's getting pretty late, though.
Danny shouldn't have done me the favor he did, but I can't take it back now. Any minute now, he should 'notice' that we're gone, and then it's up to us to get the hell out of Dodge before they can find us.
Won't take long after that until they drop it. He eases himself onto the highway. I don't know about him, but I settle into the drive. It helps to take off the edge of tension that I've got building up in my chest.
Then, a mile or two before the border, we pull off to the side. There's tracks worn in the road, not so visible that you'd notice just driving by. It feels like we're following them, but I have a suspicion that Ryan knew the route before they were there.
He seems to be going by windage. We turn back south at a particularly nasty-looking tree. The tracks turn with us. A mile or two more, and you can see a chain-link fence that's been poorly-repaired from someone cutting it right in half and splitting it a mile wide.
Ryan's bike slows to a stop, and he gets off. He points back at the trunk as he walks up. I pop it and when I see him again he's closing the trunk, a pair of bolt cutters in hand. It doesn't take long to get the fence popped apart. He pulls it open by hand, holds it for me.
This is really the moment of truth. I don't know that there's going to be any coming back from this. I knew that I couildn't go back from the minute that I put those keys in his handcuffs, but now it seems to be a real, conscious choice.
Am I doing this?
I close my eyes and ease onto the gas. The car rolls forward, slips through, and my headlights illuminate into the dark night. It doesn't occur to me until I'm all the way through that maybe it'd be smarter to leave them off. That way,
nobody comes to investigate the far-off lights heading right through.
Oh, well. Too late now. Ryan heads back and jumps onto his bike. It growls loud enough that I feel it in my chest as he comes through behind me, and gestures me to follow. He drives through the night, mostly without lights.
Twenty minutes later, we're finally back on a real road, and then thirty minutes after that we're in a town. Ryan smiles and presses a kiss against my lips as we sit in a Mexican cantina as the sun rises.
I don't know what our plans are. I don't know if Ryan knows, either. But I know that whatever they are, we're going to figure them out together.
Up In Flames
Billionaire Erotic Romance
Dalia Daudelin
The fire engine arrived too late. Adeline's house, older than her parents and built in the country of Northern Michigan by her grandparents, was now ash. Ash, dust, and memories.
A small voice inside of Adeline mused that it was better that it burned down after her parents died, rather than before. That voice was overshadowed by grief.
She was able to save her cat and her laptop. Adolf, her cat, was saved only because he snuck out before she left for work. Her laptop was saved because it was with her for a presentation.
Adolf wailed in misery from within his temporary home, a cage given to Adeline to keep him from running too close to the flames. The old cat was nearly as old as she was, and had never spent a day outside. What luck that he chose today to escape.
“Ma'am?”
Adeline turned, and saw a fireman approaching her. He was chubby and short, his face bright red aside from the fire's dust on it.
“Any news on what caused this?”
“We don't have anything conclusive yet, but we did find evidence of a gas leak. Do you know where you'll be staying? We can contact you with any new information.”
She didn't have a place lined up to stay, and there was no money in her account to pay for a hotel. Maybe one of her credit cards wasn't maxed out yet?
“I-”
“She'll be staying with me. Here's my card.”
Adeline turned on her heel. “Mr. Gardner? What are you doing here?”
Joel Gardner, Adeline's absolutely gorgeous and unbelievably rich boss, held out his card to the chubby fireman, who nodded and then left.
“I came to thank you, because your presentation to Tokyo Corp sealed the deal. You brought us a multi-million dollar contract. When I saw the smoke, I was worried you had been hurt.”
Adeline looked at Joel, whose gray hair and black eyes always reminded her of a wolf, and felt her face scrunch up. “Everything's gone. Everything.” The tears were falling down her face before she even realized how miserable she truly was.
In no time, Adeline was brought into Joel's arms. They were warm. The embrace had a calming effect on her.
Joel held her for a long time. Long enough for her tears to dry and her sobs to turn into nothing more than sniffles. Adolf settled in his carrier with one final meow.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” He asked, stepping away from her. There was an awkwardness between them, stemming from an emotion that Adeline was unprepared to acknowledge.
“No,” she stammered, crouching down to pet Adolf through the slits in the plastic carrier. “I don't.”
“Then obviously you'll stay with me. I have a spare bedroom, and it will give your cat a chance to spread out instead of being cooped up in a hotel room.” Joel put a hand on her shoulder. It stopped any refusal she might have wanted to give.
“What's his name?”
Adeline set the carrier down in the living room, which had sports posters framed on the walls and pristine leather couches surrounding a huge television. As the owner of a tech security firm, Joel had for years been on Forbes' Top 100 CEOs in America. All things told, his house, his living room, and everything about Joel was very subtle for a billionaire.
“Adolf,” she said. “I know, it's weird, but my grandma got him. She was German, and old. She wouldn't let us choose the name, and by the time she died it was too late.”
“He looks pretty old, too,” he said, watching the feline as Adeline opened the cage. He stretched out his legs and his claws got stuck in Joel's carpet.
Adeline fussed with some plastic bags. “Where should I put the litter box?”
Joel motioned towards a hallway. “You can put it in your bathroom. I'll put the second one in mine, so Adolf doesn't have to go too far.”
Adeline followed Joel into a huge bathroom, with a standing shower and a soaking tub. “There are towels in that closet, and plenty of soap and shampoo. I try to keep it stocked up for guests. My mom stays here pretty often, so there should be something you like in there.”
Opening the closet, Adeline glanced at the bottles. Fancy brands, all. She sighed. “I don't know if I can stay here, Joel. Not for long, at least. I don't want to impose.”
“I won't let you leave until you're on your feet, Adeline. You're too important to our business, and to me, to let you fall through the cracks. Come on, let me show you your room.”
They stepped into the room to the right of the bathroom, again huge and luxurious. A large king size bed surrounded on each side by beautiful antique side tables and lamps. A large desk opposite the bed would be the perfect place for her to work from her laptop while she stayed here.
“Wow,” Adeline said, pressing her hand on the bed. Oh, it was so soft. She knew instantly she was going to miss sleeping on it when she left. “I don't even know what to say.”
“You don't have to say anything. Set down your bag and come have a drink with me. You clearly need to relax.”
Following him into the kitchen, Adeline wondered why his hair grayed so young. Sure, he was a decade older than her, but he wasn't old enough for a full head of gray hair. Was it stress?
“Here we go,” he says, handing her the red wine. She didn't tell him that she didn't like wine. She sipped it daintily, watching his mouth against his own glass.
He looked down at her, his black eyes impossible to read. “Adeline, did you always want to work in cybersecurity?”
She laughed. “No, not really. I wanted to be a veterinarian. It turns out I'm much better with coding and computers than I am with handling blood or the suffering of animals. I volunteered for a day at an animal hospital when I was 16, and the next day I saw my counselor about sending letters to the top tech colleges in the country.”
He nodded as he watched her speak. She never could suss out what he was thinking, what made him tick. She never noticed before, but it suddenly became obvious to Adeline that she was attracted to her boss. Her face blushed bright red, but if he noticed he didn't make any indication of it.
She nearly asked him what he wanted to be, if not in cybersecurity, when the power cut out. “Shit,” he complained, setting down the last drops of his wine. “I'm sorry, when it gets windy the power cuts out easily in this neighborhood. I don't know where I left my flashlights, let me go find them.”
He left her in the kitchen, in the dark, alone with her thoughts and the realization that she'll be staying with a man that she would love to sleep with. Adeline wasn't a prudish woman, but awkward was a good word for her interactions with romantic interests in the past.
How was she going to manage to work for him now, let alone sleep under the same roof as him? Would she just have to burn with desire until she somehow saved up the money to leave?
Awful. Awful. She wished she hadn't thought about how handsome Joel was. But how could she not?
From far away, she heard her cat yowl, angry. “Adolf?” she called out. She stood in place for a moment, but then hurried down the hallway. Old cats could get into so much trouble.
Before she could find him, though, she bumped into something. Oh, it was Joel. He held her, steadying her as she wobbled.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Still, he held her. His touch, his soft hands, burned against her cold arms.
“I stepped on Adolf's tai
l. He was pretty pissed, but otherwise he's okay.”
She sighed in relief. “Oh, good. I was worried.”
Finally, he let go of her arms and handed her a flashlight. Lighting his up, he looked at her. “You look scared.”
“I'm not...” she protested. He wiped a lock of hair off of her forehead, which sent a shiver down her spine. Their eyes met, and then so did their lips. Pressing, licking, sucking, trying to breathe. He said her name, so softly it was barely audible. She moaned his, her nipples going hard. His hand brushed against one.
Breaking the kiss, Joel took a step back and held out his hand. Adeline took it and allowed him to lead her into his bedroom. It was much less clean than hers, and smelled of aftershave and bodywash and leather.
Her heart thumped against her chest, fluttered and made her gasp. Never in her life had she felt like this before, so taken by someone.
Joel guided her to his bed before grabbing her by the waist and pushing her down onto the soft mattress. He kissed her deeply again, tangling his fingers in her hair. He pressed his body down against hers, trapping her below him. Plucking each of the buttons on her blouse, he undressed her in the dark and then unclasped the front of her bra.
It didn't take long for both of them to be naked. Their hands wandered over their skin, exploring and grabbing, groping and manipulating. Joel rolled over and pulled Adeline on top of him. She pressed her warm slit against his cock, and then slid down his body.
Joel closed his eyes. Adeline slid her hand up his thigh, gripping it at times. She wanted him to feel how badly she wanted him with each movement her body made. She wanted him to know how badly she burned for him.
Joel sighed happily when she wrapped her hand around his meat. It had some of her juices on it, sticky and wet. She tossed her hair back and licked her lips. Merely holding his huge cock forced a moan from her lips, a shiver down her spine. The muscles in her lower abdomen tickled, her cunt became hotter and wetter.