Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense

by Leslie Johnson

  He nuzzles my neck. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Taking advantage of his position, I try the clinging maneuver he just taught me. I laugh. “I feel like a baby monkey holding onto its mother,” I say when he lifts onto all fours, taking me up with him.

  “Right. But in this position, I can’t reach the parts of you I’d want to rape and I’ll spend time and energy trying to make you let go. I can’t guarantee you’d walk away untouched with this move, but seconds matter in an attack. And, if you prove too much of a problem, the attacker might leave. Those fuckers usually prefer easy prey.”

  He lowers us until my back is on the bed again.

  “Now, try to get your hand under my shirt in the back and reach up until you can grab the neck opening.”

  I frown and slide my hand up his back and grab onto the neckline.

  “Now pull down toward my ass as hard as you can.”

  I do and the front of the neckline chokes him. His face turns red and I let go.

  “Good,” he coughs. “If you can hook your foot inside the shirt to give you more strength, do it.”

  I try again, pulling down and hooking the shirt over my toes, which lets me pull harder. His face is red again and I let go, laughing with pride as he coughs for breath.

  “Jax, why are you teaching me about rape when that guy back at the bank isn’t interested in that?”

  He frowns, his face serious again. “Mia, when women are held hostage, men often use whatever tactic at their disposal to break them down. Rape exerts their power, belittles the female. Makes them vulnerable emotionally and physically.”

  “Do you think that’s what would have happened to me if he’d been able to snatch me yesterday?” Heavens, it was just yesterday that everything occurred. I’ve not even known Jax twenty-four hours and so much has happened, good and bad.

  “It’s possible. He would have tortured you for certain. Rape is a favorite technique among inhumans.”

  I shiver and he turns on his side, pulling me against him. He’s still sticky with sweat from our exertions not long ago, but I don’t care. I cling to him.

  “If we hadn’t been at the bank at the exact same time, I would have died yesterday. Just like my mother, wouldn’t I?”

  He kisses my hair, but says nothing. He doesn’t need to.

  “I haven’t thanked you for saving me, or apologized for fighting you. Running.”

  His fingers walk up my spine, soothing me with such tenderness it brings tears to my eyes. “Shhh. I think we’re past all that. And no matter what happens from this moment on, I don’t regret opening that door for you.”

  We lay there for long moments, entwined together. “How are you still single?” I ask after a while. “With a rotten condom in your wallet.”

  He stiffens, then rolls onto his back and sits up, swinging his legs off the bed.

  Oh no, I’ve touched an emotional black hole for him. His back is to me, but I can see his face in the mirror and it is twisted with tortured grief.

  “I’m sorry. Don’t answer that, it was too personal.” I gather the sheet to my breasts and back off the other side. “I’ll take a shower now and get ready to leave.”

  As I pass him, he reaches out and grabs my wrist, stopping me and pulling me to him.

  “She died. My wife died two years ago. Cancer.”

  I gasp and pull his head to my stomach, brushing my fingers through his hair.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve been with since her.” He finally looks up at me. “And I know she’d approve.”

  I’ve never looked into a face that was so beautiful yet so manly and rugged at once, but Jax’s face is all that and more. The blue eyes that are so tender, yet hold such deep wells of intelligence and strength.

  “I’ll try hard not to let her, or you, down,” I tell him and shiver. It’s almost as if her ghost is in the room. He loved his wife and desperately misses her, that much is clear. If she were alive, he would be with her, not me.

  I shake the selfishness away. Shake away the feeling of being second best, even though the thought niggles its way into my consciousness. I’ve always felt that way, coming in just shy of winning. Second on the debate team. Runner up in the state science contest. Stopping at my associates degree instead of going for my bachelors or even my masters. Settling for being a clerk in an engineering firm rather than an engineer myself.

  Why is that?

  Why have I always settled, not strove for the number one spot?

  He must see the uncertainty on my face, no matter how hard I try to hide it. He stands and pushes my hair back from my face before lifting my chin until I meet his eyes. “Don’t do that, Mia. Don’t try to live life for someone else or prove your value to others. It’s not necessary. You’re special to me because of the differences between you and Laura, as much as the similarities.”

  Wrapping my fingers around his wrists, I hold onto him, trying to keep steady as I admit the fear in my heart. “You said you believe in love at first sight, then I imagine you also believe in soul mates. She was yours, I can see that. Where does…?” I can’t finish. The selfishness is too great.

  “Where does that leave you?” he finishes for me and I nod, ashamed at myself for making this about me. His thumb traces my lower lip and I kiss the pad of it as I watch him think through his answer.

  I pull away. “We can talk about this later,” I say, “we need to get ready—”

  He yanks me back. “No. Now. I was just trying to find the words I never thought I’d ever have the chance to say.”

  “You can be really bossy, you know that?”

  He grins and the mood between us shifts, grows lighter.

  “Growing up, I thought love was bullshit, even in my early twenties. My parents hated each other but stayed together for the kids.” His lip curls. “Trust me, divorce would have been a blessing for the three of us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too, but it was what it was. Anyway, I grew up pretty jaded about relationships and then I met Laura and yeah, love at first sight, soul mates, yadda, yadda, it all applied. Right before she died, she told me to find someone else to love. But I thought that was bullshit too. I’d found my one and then watched her wither away into nothing and couldn’t do a damned thing about it.”

  I can’t help it. A tear rises, then falls, no matter how hard I try to blink it back. He brushes it away and goes on. “In the past,” his eyes flick to the clock, “eighteen hours or so, I came to the conclusion that our hearts have the ability to expand, to grow and make room. And I think our soul shifts too, changes as we experience life, the good and bad.”

  “And your soul was ready for another mate?”

  He exhales and the warmth of his breath caresses my face. “Oh yeah. From minute one, my soul had a hard on for you.”

  I slap his chest. “Well, my soul had a hard on for you too, Mr. Gorgeous.”

  His dimple pops as he reaches between my legs, feeling me up. “Good God, you’re right. We must take care of this immediately.” His mouth crushes down on mine and I push him away a few inches.

  “What time will my passport arrive?”

  Another glance at the clock. “Approximately forty-seven minutes.” His eyebrows wiggle up and down.

  I don’t even hesitate, just snatch up another condom as he drags me to the bathroom and under the shower.

  Chapter 5 – Jax

  We’re packed up and ready, and I’ve already carried a load of our stuff to the 4-Runner. Correction. I carried the load to where I thought the 4-Runner was, then walked back to the hotel to find out where Mia had moved it. Then carried all that shit back to the new location, a red-faced Mia shutting the door behind me, a hand over her mouth.

  I consider moving the vehicle closer, but hold off, even after I stick the key into the ignition. I’m feeling twitchy, like my skin is too tight. And not because Mia and I had fucked it all off last night and this morning. Yes, I was raw, scratched
up, sore as hell. But this was different. And I respect that feeling. I turn my internal alert system up to DEFCON 1 and leave the SUV where it is to hike back to the room.

  It’s too quiet.

  Crouching down behind the bed of a truck, I watch for movement, listen for any sound. Somewhere far away, a dog barks and there’s the distinctive sound of a baby crying. A thump-thump of bass. I look up and see nothing. No drone. No contrails behind a plane. Airports are still shut down, so that makes sense.

  So what’s fucking with me?

  To my right, a big brown truck pulls into the hotel parking area and drives straight back to park in front of our room. I hadn’t given Dave our room number. UPS was supposed to leave the package in the office. But there it is, a guy in brown jumping down from the truck, big envelope in hand, heading for 131.

  I pull my gun from my ankle holster and curse myself for leaving the burner phone in the room. Don’t open that door, Mia, I try to project to her and look around the area. Where there is one bad guy, there will be more. But where are they?

  On top of the hotel, a shadow moves and I hunch back down. Through the window of the truck, I look again. Sniper. Shit. I move to the next car on my left. I need to stay covered, but circle around, get closer, create a distraction that doesn’t end up with me being dead.

  For the first time in two years, I want to live.

  Keeping an eye on the sniper, I hurry to the next car when his gun swings back to my right. Watching him again, I make my next move, then the next. I’m four cars closer by the time the delivery guy is knocking on the door.

  Don’t open it, sweetheart.

  I make it to the fifth car, then the sixth and the door opens a crack. I can see the sparkle of the chain holding it closed. There’s talking that I can’t hear, the words don’t come to me from that distance, but she isn’t opening the door.

  He’s trying to convince her to sign, I know it as I get a car closer. She reaches through the crack for the signature tablet, but he doesn’t give it to her. More talking, this time louder. Mia tries to close the door. The guy rams his shoulder against it, and I turn to make my move.

  Click.

  I freeze, both at the sound and the feel of steel on the back of my skull.

  “Get up.” The voice is deep, thick with an accent I immediately recognize. Russian.

  Raising my hands, I let the gun dangle from the trigger guard. It’s immediately ripped away. At the hotel, the guy is still attempting to get in. The shove of his shoulder opens the door farther. The chain breaks and he’s pushing, slowly overpowering the much smaller woman. But she isn’t making it easy, that’s for damn sure.

  Then he’s in and I hear her scream, but it’s cut off abruptly. Something overturns. A thump. Another scream. The firing of a gun.

  Jerking to my left, I bring my leg around as I drop to the ground, my foot connecting with the guy’s knee. It pops and he screams as I go for my knife and slice the arm holding the gun.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  I lower my head as the sniper’s bullets shatter the car glass behind me. My immediate threat drops the gun as the torn tendon in his arm releases his grip. He comes around with my gun in his non-dominant hand. The movements are jerky and it’s easy to overpower him.

  A bullet in the chest and one to the head stops him for good, and I grab both guns and dive for the next vehicle. I’ve got to get to Mia.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  Shit.

  I’m being held in place by the sniper and also by two suits I can now see behind the brown truck. One of them is Black. I recognize the ugly mother right away. I dive for another car and a bullet makes a hole in my pants, but doesn’t catch skin. Too close. Way too close.

  That’s their goal, I realize. They’ll kill me if they can, but they want the box. They want Mia.

  Bam.

  I’m astonished when I see the sniper fall. I’m astonished even more when Black and the other man turn to face their new adversary.

  “Go, go, go!”

  Oh my God, it’s Dave. He’s shooting from the street on the office side of the hotel, using his old truck as a barrier. The man next to Black takes a bullet in the arm, is rocked back against the truck. But I don’t see anymore because I’m running, digging in, crossing the parking lot in seconds, bursting through the hotel door.

  Mia’s face is covered in blood and I quickly realize it isn’t her own. She raises the gun, pointing it at me as I crash through.

  With a sob, she lowers it. “I killed him.” She’s crying hard, the blood running down her cheeks in streams. Killed him indeed. The man doesn’t have a face left.

  We have no time for comfort. I grab her hand, the steel box and the phone still on the desk, stuffing it in a pocket. I find the envelope the delivery guy had been holding and hope like hell Mia’s passport is in it. There’s a towel and I snatch it too, thrusting it at her.

  “Be quiet, sweetheart,” I tell her and lift a finger to her lips. She nods and presses the towel against her mouth. She pulls it away, sees the blood, and starts scrubbing it against her face.

  Sneaking a peek out of the door, the goons are still distracted by Dave, and I take advantage, pulling Mia after me. At the end of the lot, I break into a run, not stopping until we’re behind the cover of a house. Looking back, checking on Dave, I pound a fist to my chest and hold it in the air. He does the same, then jumps into his old truck and hits the gas, a huge plume of black backfiring behind him.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Mia and run to our SUV.

  Chapter 6 – Mia

  I killed a man.

  After Jax shoved me into the 4-Runner and we’d driven several miles with no one chasing us, my heartbeat slows enough for me to think. I pointed and I shot, over and over, watching in horror as his face became that of a monster, but I couldn’t stop pulling the trigger. Not even when there were no bullets left to shoot.

  The knock on the door had come as a horrible surprise. I’d been waiting for Jax, sitting on the bed dreaming about him. When the knock came, I jumped up, thinking it was him. I almost threw the door open without thinking, but stopped myself as soon as I touched the handle.

  I peeked through the little hole and was startled to see the delivery guy. We’d been expecting him, of course, but I hadn’t known Jax had ordered the package delivered directly to our door. Just to be safe, I put on the chain and opened it slowly.

  The man seemed so friendly at first. A bright smile gleamed from his face as he held the envelope in front of him. “Delivery for a Mr. Jax Hawthorne.”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll accept it for him.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” The smile didn’t fade. “I can only accept his signature.”

  I dug in my pocket and pulled out a twenty, holding it up to the crack in the door. “If you’ll hand me the clipboard, I’ll take it to him. He’s in the bathroom,” I lied as I folded it in my palm and stuck my hand through the inches wide opening.

  Same big smile. “Sorry, ma’am. I need to see him personally.”

  Behind me, Jax’s phone rang. It was the third time it had gone off in the last ten minutes. I should have answered it before, but didn’t know if I was supposed to. It felt ominous as it echoed through the room.

  “Then you’ll have to wait,” I snapped and tried to shut the door. The phone started to ring again.

  I screamed when the door bounced open against the chain and I shoved back against it as hard as I could. It came open wider and the chain broke, but I pushed it back a little. I couldn’t hold it. My toes were digging into the carpet and I was holding with all my strength, but it wasn’t enough.

  Remembering the gun, I let go of the door and lunged for it. The second the cold steel was in my palm, I dove over the bed, rolling to the other side as the door crashed into the wall. I came up, pointing the weapon. The man picked up the small round table and threw it at me.

  I screamed again, ducking as it smashed to pieces over my head. But I came up shooting th
is time, not hesitating. I hit him in the stomach, then raised the sights higher and hit his chest. He was rocked back, but didn’t go down. He was wearing a vest, I realized, and aimed higher, even as he was pulling his own weapon. My finger pulled and pulled and—

  “Mia!”

  Snapping back to the present, I realize I’m trembling uncontrollably. My teeth are chattering so hard the sound is ringing in my head.

  “Breathe, Mia,” Jax says, his voice soothing, his hand stroking my thigh. “That’s right. Breathe. You’re doing great. Just perfect. That’s right, in and out.”

  I want to cry, but refuse to, so I just rest my hand on his, seeking the comfort he’s trying to give even as he’s weaving in and out of traffic, trying to get us to safety. Whirling in my seat, I look behind us, trying to see if we’re being followed. I look up through the sunroof. Nothing there either.

  “It’s okay,” he says, turning his hand until our fingers are linked. “There’s no tail. I think—”

  I yelp when his phone rings.

  Pressing my fingers to my temples, I try to find a place of calm as he pulls the phone out of his pocket. He hits the speaker function and a man’s voice flows from the phone.

  “You’re clear, man.” I think it’s Jax’s friend, Dave. “I’ve got eyes on your bad guys and they’re doing clean up right now and are still casing the room. I don’t think they realized you got out.”

  “I owe you, Dave.” Jax glances over at me. “Big time. Where did you come from anyway?”

  “Yesterday, after I’d dropped the passport off for delivery, I spotted a tail. I didn’t know if they could intercept the package or what else they’d try to do. I also didn’t know if I was just being paranoid, so I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “And you drove here to keep watch?”

  “Yeah, a just in case measure. There were eyes on my house, but I got out the back and used my old truck I keep parked at my sister’s. I spotted you leaving the room, then spotted the sniper up top. Then all hell broke loose and I positioned away from you, hoping to distract.”