Lucas thanked them and took off down the street. This would be the absolute last time she got away from him. Whether she liked it or not, from now on she’d be joined at the hip or unconscious.
Stopping at each shop on the main road long enough to peer through the front window, he searched for any sign of Max.
Outside a crowded bakery, the smell of fresh bread and doughnuts made his stomach rumble. How long had it been since he last ate? He’d devoured a drive-thru burger and fries on his way into Riverbend yesterday, but nothing since.
His stomach rumbled again. Food was next on his agenda, right after he found Max.
After passing half a dozen stores with no sign of her, Lucas wondered if she’d bribed the two men to lie about which way she’d gone…
A flash of pink snared his attention, and he stared through the window of a woman’s clothing store just as Max disappeared through a doorway in the back. A changing room or a back door?
Stepping inside, he approached the counter. The sales clerk looked up from a crossword book.
“Hi,” he began, his voice purposely low so Max wouldn’t hear. “I’m looking for my wife. This tall—” he held up his hand to chin level, “—beautiful blue eyes, sexy smile. Looks great in pink.”
The clerk smiled knowingly. “She’s in the back trying on a couple things.”
“Would it be all right if I went on back? I want to surprise her with something.”
“No problem.”
Lucas moved as quietly as possible to the changing rooms. After confirming Max was the only one in the back, he tested the handle and, surprised to find it unlocked, shoved the door open—
And found Max naked from the waist up.
Chapter Six
Swallowing past the rough spot in his throat, he slipped inside.
Max grabbed her sweater and hugged it to her chest. With her hands occupied, he snatched her bag off the stool and tossed it into the aisle before closing the door.
“Get out.” Her normally round eyes were tiny slits.
Lucas imagined she was more annoyed at being caught off-guard than cornered in a four-by-four square box with only a pink fuzzy sweater between them.
That was for him to worry about. Even without a gun, Max was dangerous, but his mind wasn’t focused on defending himself. Instead, it was preoccupied with the slope of her shoulders and how the ill-positioned sweater revealed enough curves to set his senses on edge.
“I said, get out,” she hissed.
Lucas forced his attention to her face. “No.”
“Then turn around.”
“And give you the opportunity to jump me again? Sure,” he drawled.
“Fine.” Max dropped the sweater, and it took way more effort than it should have not to look.
He would have been just fine, except the hostility slowly drained from her face, replaced with something too raw and vulnerable to be misinterpreted for any kind of sexual ploy.
At least that’s what he told himself when she slid on a new bra. The one at her feet was ripped, her sweater too, and stained with blood. It was then he noticed the angry scratch that curved down from her side and slashed across her abdomen.
“You okay?”
She angled her body away from him, reaching back to clip her bra and wincing as the material tightened over the scratch. “You’re getting better at sounding like you care.”
“Maybe I do.” He stepped closer to her. “Turn around.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Max.”
Watching him in the mirror, she did as he asked, which surprised him. He brushed her hands away, then proceeded to take a full minute to get the tiny clasp to hook properly.
“I hope you’re better at taking one off.” Her gaze darted away from him, a flush of pink creeping into her cheeks. “That didn’t come out the way I meant.”
“So let me get this straight. Shoot-outs and car accidents don’t shake you up, but lingerie does? Interesting.”
Interesting like the pretty lace edging on her bra strap, especially where it curved over her shoulder. He slid his finger beneath the strap, running his thumb over the satin material, up to the exact spot he’d been staring at since moving closer to her—the tempting curve where her neck and shoulder met.
The perfect place to press his mouth and run his tongue across her skin…
Christ, he was having problems. Two of them, he quickly realized, as he caught her reflection and noticed her nipples were hard and pushing against her bra.
If it was part of her plan to distract him, it was working. Because, God help him, he lowered his head. Her hair grazed his cheek, and he turned his face into it, breathing her in.
That should have been enough when he knew better than to go any further. Instead, it made him need just a little more. Just…
His jaw skimmed her shoulder, and her breath hitched, giving way to a soft moan when he opened his mouth on her.
She shifted just a fraction, her body pressing back against his. His eyes slid shut, and he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tighter to his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman this close, and Christ it felt good. She felt good.
He dragged his teeth across the back of her shoulder, backtracking with his tongue and loving the way she trembled in his arms.
“Lucas,” she murmured, the breathy sound of his name on her lips almost enough to mask the worry in her voice.
Almost, but not quite. “I know.” He pressed his lips to her once more, lingering for another few heartbeats before finally lifting his head. It took him another minute to let go of her entirely, his fingers sweeping across her abdomen before he finally forced himself to back up.
He turned away from the mirror, telling himself it was to give her room and not because those couple of minutes with Max had been more intimate than any of the women he’d hooked up with in the last few years.
Jesus. Maybe she really had nailed him good last night.
“How are you making out?” the sales girl asked from outside the dressing room.
Max pulled on the gray half-zip hoodie on the hanger next to her. “Fine, thanks. Be right out.”
He waited until she tugged the hoodie over her head before he pulled the handcuffs from his pocket and snapped one around her left wrist, then his right one.
Max burned a stare from the cuffs that joined them together, to his face, and back again. He vaguely wondered if the blistering death-glare was hot enough to solder the handcuff to his skin.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you are. And seeing as we’re now stuck with each other, you don’t have much say in the matter.”
Whatever vulnerability he’d glimpsed earlier vanished beneath the rough-and-tough exterior. “The hell I don’t,” she hissed.
He shrugged. “If you want to go kicking and screaming, it won’t bother me. Of course, it might generate a little too much attention. The kind neither of us can afford after yesterday.” He jerked just hard enough to tug her off balance. “And let’s not forget you’re wanted for murder and the Canadian government would hand you over in a heartbeat.”
Strained silence fell between them.
Lucas ignored the sliver of guilt at forcing her into this when only moments ago he’d been ready to undo the buttons on her pants and slip his hand inside. “Are you coming willingly, or do I need to drag you?”
Max scowled up at him. “After you.”
In the aisle, she stopped and gestured to the handcuffs. “And what about these? Not exactly inconspicuous,” she added, nodding toward the girl at the counter.
“It’ll be fine as long as you make it look good.”
“You strung up by your balls would look good. Does that count?”
The clerk smiled as they approached, but her polite grin faltered when she noticed the handcuffs. “Is everything okay?” she asked slowly, alarm creeping into her eyes.
“Everything is great. Right, dar
lin’?” Lucas glanced down at Max.
Her spine was straighter than fortified steel, hostility rolling off her, leaving him completely unprepared when she turned in his arms and slid her palm up his chest.
“The best,” she purred, winking suggestively.
The abrupt change, right down to the way her fingers traced an outline around his heart, caught him ridiculously off-guard even though he’d suggested she play along. After six years in Special Forces and three working for the Lassiter Group, he’d participated in dozens of missions that depended on him adapting to changing situations as smoothly as possible.
Never before had an unexpected development played such havoc with his senses, and he was damned if he could figure out what throwing him off this time.
Max ducked under his right arm, wrapped it around her and flattened her hand over his as she faced the counter. “Isn’t he sweet? He doesn’t want me out of his sight for even a second.”
Lucas barely registered the clerk’s shy nod and soft smile. The lazy sway of Max’s hips and bottom against his lower half had his full attention. Did she have any idea what the sweet friction was doing to him?
Of course she did. She was probably counting on it. Maybe it was some twisted idea of revenge for cuffing them together.
Either way, he didn’t move an inch while Max chatted with the clerk ringing up the new clothes, doing his best to ignore the way she played with their linked fingers the entire time. Her hands were soft and warm, and a vision of her running them down his bare chest to his waist had his whole body clenching.
When the clerk finished, Lucas headed for the door, forcing her to keep pace with him. How was it that he and Cara had pretended to be a couple for the occasional assignment and he’d never had a problem mentally distancing himself from it?
At least he had Max where he wanted her—with him. Except now there could be no running away from the unsettling sensation that he was altogether screwed.
God, she was so screwed.
Max shivered in the chilly morning breeze as she tried to determine the most appropriate place to shoot Lucas the second she got the chance. The jerk had cuffed her.
Again.
Either he was desperate to hold onto her for Blackwater, or he was truly convinced she could help him more than she’d been able to help Cara. If Lucas was on the up and up—and being cuffed to him made that a really big if—he had to realize that being anywhere near her put his life at risk.
Not that she should have to point that out after his shoulder injury yesterday.
Max deliberately slowed down. “So what’s the plan, lover?” Her pulse picked up as soon as the word left her mouth.
Tossing around endearments while traveling down the highway was one thing, but after what just happened in the changing room, she was anything but laid back about pretending to be involved.
She exhaled slowly, annoyed with herself for getting rattled by something that wasn’t even a big deal. So he’d kissed her neck. No big deal.
Yeah, right.
Lucas glanced across the street, waiting until a car drove past before stepping off the curb. “I’m working on it.”
Working on something. Like maybe something to do with whoever he’d been talking to before she’d turned the teenagers loose on him earlier. “So you’re from California originally, right? Miss it much?”
He gave her a knowing look. “Minnesota, not California. But then you knew that.”
She shrugged. As if she needed to apologize for remaining suspicious. “And now you’re living in…”
“Boston.” He adjusted the cuff around his wrist, and she hoped like hell it was pinching him.
“Oh, yeah? Go to many White Sox games?”
His lips twitched. “I go to the occasional Red Sox game, yes.”
“So are you still in the military?” The question might not have been necessary if she and Cara had reconnected under different circumstances and had the chance to talk more about their lives.
“Been out for a few years.”
“And what do you do now?”
“Private security.”
She paused. “The kind of security that grants you access to information on freelance government operatives? I mean, how else would you know where Cara was the night she died, right?”
He grinned. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise me Cara told you what she was working on.” He led her around another corner, past a closed arcade and a liquor store.
She glanced longingly at the bottles lining the shelves inside. A nice shot of tequila would go a long way to take the edge off when it came to dealing with Lucas. She could handle the attraction that seemed to crackle between them, or that’s what she kept telling herself anyway, but tough guy Lucas was harder to read, harder to anticipate.
Even a beer would go down pretty good right about now. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d truly enjoyed one. Cara had joked about how Max would owe her a beer when she saw the information she’d come across. An hour after that conversation had taken place, Max had gone to meet Cara and was snatched right off the street by Blackwater’s men.
She’d run the scenario through her head hundreds of times, imagining that if she’d done just one thing differently that night Cara wouldn’t have been killed—butchered, by some sick bastard who got off on torturing women.
And Max had been next on the list, saved only by a Russian’s insistence that his deal with Blackwater needed to take place earlier than planned. If all hell hadn’t broken loose that night, she would have ended up on that run-down warehouse floor with her friend.
Blackwater himself had nearly succeeded in preventing her escape, earning a nasty scar that bisected his right eye for his effort. Even if he didn’t blame her for his night going to shit, she had no doubt he would have still pinned Cara’s murder on her for the damage she’d done with a jagged shard of glass.
Although she’d gone to her commanding officer, detailing everything that had happened, any credibility she’d held on to following her suspension was wiped away the second two eye witnesses stepped forward, along with the murder weapon Max had apparently used to kill Cara.
She didn’t have a clue what Blackwater was holding over the witnesses’ head or how much he’d bribed them to confess to witnessing Cara’s murder, but if not for the heads-up from her partner, Glen, she’d be locked up right now.
Not that her present situation was any more promising.
A loud horn erupted behind her, jarring her into Lucas. He glared at the driver of the car then glanced at her.
“I’m fine,” she said before he could ask again if she was okay. She waited until they rounded yet another corner and asked, “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
“About as much as you, I suspect.”
They strode past a diner and the mouth-watering smell of bacon, eggs and toast wafted on the air.
Lucas paused and glanced thoughtfully from her to the near-empty diner. “You promise to behave?”
Max held up their wrists. “Are you going to take these off?”
“How stupid do I look?” She opened her mouth, but he was quicker. “Don’t say a word.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Then don’t make it so easy for me.”
He rolled his eyes and reached into the shopping bag, withdrawing her pink sweater. He draped it over their wrists, and pulled open the door.
Inside, only a handful of tables were occupied and Lucas led the way to a booth farthest from the door. He slid across the blue vinyl seat, pulling her after him. She bumped into him before quickly wedging her bag between them as a buffer.
“Cozy, huh?”
Max ignored him, studying the black and white prints of past Hollywood stars and musicians that lined the walls.
“Sit still,” Lucas insisted.
“I am.”
“You’re bouncing your leg.”
Max ceased the nervous tapping. “I am not.”
&nb
sp; “Morning. Can I get you some coffee?” A pretty waitress with big brown eyes and a flirtatious smile held up a pot of coffee.
“Please.” Eager to continue feeding her caffeine addiction, Max pushed her cup toward the waitress, who ignored it and reached across the table to fill up Lucas’s first.
Once both cups were filled, Jane—according to her name tag—pulled a pad from her apron. “What can I get you?” She laughed at herself. “You probably need to see the menu first, huh?”
Lucas shook his head. “That’s fine. We’ll just have your breakfast special.”
“And how would you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled,” they said in unison, then glanced at each other.
The waitress’s smile dimmed as she noticed just how close they were sitting to one another.
Max waited until their waitress was back behind the long counter that ran the length of the diner. “You do you realize how lame we look crammed together like this?”
He leaned toward her—thank God for her bag—his lips curved in a secretive grin. “We look exactly as we’re supposed to, like we’re into each other.”
“Into each other?” Max echoed, feeling a little lightheaded. A side effect she quickly attributed to not eating anything since lunch yesterday.
“Yeah.” Lucas’s voice deepened. “Like we can’t get enough of each other.”
“Well, if anyone actually buys it, it won’t be because of your stellar performance.” Not until the words left her mouth did she realize how much that sounded like a challenge.
Shit.
She slanted him a quick look, and the calculating glimmer in his eyes made her stomach tug.
He lifted a hand and rubbed his thumb across her cheek, before capturing a strand of hair and tucking it behind her ear. “Are you saying I’m not playing my part convincingly?”
She smacked his hand away, not impressed with how good he was at the role all of a sudden. “You wouldn’t need to play at anything if you hadn’t lost your mind and cuffed us together.”
“Asking for your help wasn’t getting the job done.”
“Asking? Is that what you call dragging me around at gun point?”
Trust Me: The Lassiter Group, Book 1 Page 8