by Jill Shalvis
Exactly none.
Not that she’d been neglected. The opposite, really. She’d been pampered and sheltered and protected, even when it wasn’t in her nature to hide behind someone. No, her nature was to come out fists swinging. “I think we should—”
“Stay here, stay down,” he said, nudging her to the floor. He placed his hand over hers and lifted it to her mouth. “Keep the shirt over your face.”
So much for her leading. Fine. She could share the power, if she had to for now.
She just didn’t want him to get used to it.
It wasn’t until he vanished that she realized the smoke had followed them, and that suddenly she couldn’t see more than a few feet. “Hello?” she whispered, squinting, but no one answered.
He’d left her.
She was alone.
Keep trouble at bay.
“Amelia?” Annie whipped her head to the right, then the left. Through the filtering smoke she would have sworn she’d just seen Amelia standing there, her silver hair neatly coiled on top of her head, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping down her nose, her satchel firmly at her side.
But that couldn’t be, it just couldn’t. Amelia was with Lili at a museum opening. And yet it had seemed so real, right down to Amelia’s intense, all-seeing gaze.
Annie peered harder into the growing smoke. If Amelia was doing something magical, it wouldn’t be the first time. Lili, Natalia and Annie had long ago come to terms with one thing. Amelia was…different. Very different. “Hello?”
Of course, there was no answer.
But thinking about Amelia made her just a tad homesick, not that she’d admit it to anyone. She longed for Nat, who would be absolutely no help.
She must be inhaling too much smoke. Must be near passing out. How infuriating. She never passed out. Fainting was for sissies, and no one had ever accused her of being a sissy.
If she passed out and ended up in a hospital in this dress, someone was going to have to die.
“Hey.”
At the low, husky voice she blinked. “I don’t want to die here.”
“That makes two of us.” His face was blurry through the smoke, but even so, he had such a way of looking at her. Like no one else ever had before. “Jimmy set a fire to smoke us out, I’m sure of it. He’s a known pyromaniac.”
“He’s trying to kill us,” she whispered, suddenly sad.
“He’s trying to kill me.” He hunkered before her, touched her face. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
Annie’s heart did a stupid little leap at the brave, confident statement. Taken, Annie. He’s taken. “If we get out of here, I’ll never complain about this dress again,” she said. “I’ll wear it and smile through the entire wedding if I have to glue my lips into place.”
“Uh…” His gaze ran over her body. “You do remember you ripped half of it off, right?”
Oh. Yeah. Mostly she just remembered him ripping off his own shirt. That had been nice. She felt a little funny thinking about it. A little light-headed. “Well, the dress does look better now.”
“Yes, it does.”
She felt his hand on her face. A big, warm, slightly calloused hand, and without thinking she turned her cheek into the palm and closed her eyes. Sighed. Wondered if she started coughing again would he rip off his pants this time. That would be nice. “Hey, cop man.”
“Yes, Pink?”
She didn’t open her eyes, just concentrated on the feel of his hand on her. “I thought I saw Amelia. From Grunberg. She’s my fairy godmother. You know, like Cinderella had? Only she doesn’t sing.”
“Annie?”
“What would my old nanny be doing here?”
“Ah, hell,” he muttered. Then he put his hands, those wonderful hands of his, on her shoulders and gently shook. “Come on, baby, snap out of it. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Baby. He’d called her baby. It made her smile dreamily. “I’ll be your baby,” she said. “If you call off the wedding.”
“Come.” He hoisted her up into his arms, which were deliciously corded with strength.
“Come?” She sighed against the delicious warmth of his bare chest. “I don’t know about that.” She sighed again and set her head on his very wide, very lovely shoulder. “I should tell you, I can’t seem to have an orgasm with a man.”
He made a rough sound, and for a moment went still.
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, needing to know the truth from a man’s perspective. “Do you think sex is overrated?”
He choked. His hands tightened on her, and since one was on her bare thigh, and the other on her ribs just beneath her breasts, it caused an interesting reaction within her own body.
“What?” he asked a bit unevenly.
“Sex.” She put her nose to his shoulder because he smelled good. “I want to know if it’s as overrated as I think it is.”
“You think sex is…overrated?”
“Um…” Suddenly, with his hands causing such an interesting reaction, she couldn’t be sure. “Put me down, I’m feeling better now. I can help—” She wriggled, trying to get loose, but he merely tightened his grip.
“Don’t,” he demanded, staring down at the bodice of her dress, reminding her that she wasn’t exactly sewn in, and that any little unplanned movement could free a nipple without warning.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’d help if you didn’t speak or move.”
Yes. She could do that. Only because she felt dizzy and nauseous. In order not to stare at his bare chest—possibly the most distracting sight she’d ever seen—she tipped her head up. That’s when she saw the corner loft. “There’s one more floor.”
Just as she said it, a sound came from the exact location they’d just been. The elevator shaft.
Their faces jerked toward each other. His eyes were the color of the darkest of dark chocolate. Her very favorite flavor. “I’m not going to die in this dress,” she said.
He squeezed her gently. “Nor me in this tux.”
“The loft?”
“The loft.”
He set her down. She let him lead, because after all, it had been her idea. And if she had her heart in her throat, wondering if she’d feel the unspeakable pain of a bullet, she could try to distance herself by staring at his butt as they silently made their way to the loft.
Another woman owned that butt, she reminded herself.
They made it to the stairs, ducking and dodging through the rows of boxes. The problem became not the threat behind them, but the condition of the stairs and loft itself. Archaic was too kind a word. Given the heavy layer of dust and spider webs lining everything in sight, whatever was in the boxes up there on the small, rather thin-looking floor had been there a good long time.
Annie put her hand on the wooden banister that was more splinters than handrail. The stairs didn’t look any better off, and she wondered if it would even hold their weight. “Good thing I skipped breakfast.”
“It’ll hold. It’s holding all those boxes.”
Good point. She wished she believed it. “So up we go then.”
“That’s right.” He touched her arm. “You’re doing great. We’ll get out of here yet, okay? Together.”
Together.
He was acknowledging her. Respecting her.
It was entirely possibly every single bone in her body melted right then and there, because never, in her rather adventurous life, had a man really respected her as an equal.
And he was getting married. Well, she’d go home and lick her wounds over the unexpected and startlingly real attraction she had for someone else’s husband when the wedding was good and over.
First they had to survive. So up the stairs she went, carefully, wondering if he was watching her butt like she’d watched his. Just in case, she swung her hips, getting so into it that she was at the top of the stairs before she realized her cop hadn’t followed her at all.
He was gone, vanished back into the smoke
.
* * *
KYLE QUIETLY and quickly made his way through the warehouse back to the elevator shaft. Staying hidden by a stack of boxes, he peered out, and sure enough, there was Jimmy, peeking his head out the opening they’d climbed up. Waiting. Gun in hand.
Kyle pulled back. Where were the cops? Waiting for the smoke to flush them out? Did they even realize he and Annie were in here? He didn’t know, and one thing Kyle hated was the unknown.
He could make his way to the wall of windows and wave around like a damn flag until they saw him, or he could go back and keep Annie safe until Jimmy was caught. If he’d been alone, he would have said the hell with waiting, and gone after Jimmy himself.
But there was the fire to worry about. And Annie. A princess of all things. He remembered now, in the distant corners of his crowded mind, being told that there would be some very special foreign royals attending the wedding. But he’d been told a million other details, all of which had made his eyes glaze over.
He definitely would have remembered if he’d been told a princess with golden hair and even more golden eyes was coming—a woman with major attitude, a smile guaranteed to drain all brain cells and a body designed to make a grown man beg.
He stole back to the loft. They had to move. But one look produced no Annie. His heart all but stopped. What if she hadn’t stayed up there? What if she’d followed him back around, and was right this moment heading toward Jimmy-The-Scum, who took pleasure in hurting people, especially women?
No. She had to be up there. She was smart, she’d hidden herself. God, let her just be hiding. He took the stairs as fast as he dared, imagining her hurt, bleeding, or worse. Taking care, he made his way across the loft floor that was little more than floor joists and a few pieces of plywood tossed down. There were big, gaping holes between the wood that allowed him to see all the way through to the third floor beneath him, and he imagined the worst, imagined—
Anything other than the toes poking out from what appeared to be a stack of forgotten white wedding dresses. The toes weren’t moving, and since Annie hadn’t been still a single second from the moment he’d first seen her, his blood ran cold. He surged forward on the rickety planks and lifted the white dress.
“What took you so long?” she hissed, pulling his shirt away from her mouth, sitting up so fast he fell back on his butt, narrowly missing a huge gap in the plywood where he would have plunged to the floor below.
Did she worry about that? No, and as if his balance wasn’t precarious enough, she smacked him in the chest, making him grab for purchase on a beam that drilled no less than three splinters into his palm.
“You tricked me into waiting up here,” she whispered furiously. “You—”
Everything she said was drowned out by the roar of adrenaline in his ears. Her pink dress had shifted again. The hem of the skirt had risen above the line of her silk stockings, and was so high on her thighs he thought maybe he caught another peek-a-boo glimpse of those heart-attack-inducing panties.
The blood roaring in his ears abruptly shifted south. Very south.
But above it all came the one thought that made his heart threaten to burst right out of his chest, the heart he hadn’t realized worked.
She was unhurt. She was alive.
So he acted without thinking—which was why he wasn’t a brain surgeon—and hauled her up on his knees to face him.
“What—”
He didn’t give her time to finish the sentence. She was alive, her lips were parted and she had a very perky nipple once again poking out of her dress. There wasn’t a man alive who could have resisted the urge, and Kyle didn’t even try. He slid his hands into her hair, his thumbs skimming along the deliciously creamy skin of her jaw as he tilted her head and covered her mouth with his.
She tasted like heaven for one glorious second before a pain exploded in his belly.
Annie pulled back both her fist and her mouth and glared at him.
“Hey,” he whispered, rubbing his gut. Being sucker punched wasn’t the typical reaction he got when he kissed a woman. In fact, usually they melted like a charm and begged for more.
“You’ve bossed me around, you’ve tricked me, you’ve scared me to death and now you…you kiss me?”
“Well…” Logic defied him. “Yeah.”
She yanked her dress back into place, which was probably a good thing because now he could concentrate on her face. Her eyes were filled with the fear she hadn’t yet admitted to. That really got him, that flash of vulnerability.
“I don’t care how good you kiss, you can’t just go around—” She glared at him. “Are you listening?”
Yeah. He kissed good. That was what he’d heard. He risked his life and touched her face. “I thought you were dead.”
She didn’t punch him, which he took as a good sign, but she did back away. “So that was…a happy-to-see-you kiss?”
“Something like that—” He broke off at the sound directly beneath them and he threw himself at Annie, using their momentum to take them to the far corner, just as a bullet ripped up through the plywood they’d been kneeling on.
Heart tattooing a frantic beat against his, Annie lifted her head to stare at him with horrified eyes.
“Stay here,” he mouthed, praying she’d listen as he pulled back. He crawled across the treacherous floor to the stairs, then peered over the edge.
Below, off to the right and hidden behind a box, was Jimmy, his gun hand jerking all over the place.
Kyle glanced up and nearly had a coronary. Annie had scooted toward the ledge on the far side of the loft where he’d left her. Slowly, she stood. Slowly, she lifted one leg over the edge, then the other, holding on to the wood behind her as she prepared to…Good God. She was going to jump!
Down on top of Jimmy.
And Kyle was too far away to stop her, too far away to call out to her or he’d cause Jimmy to look up. He’d shoot her. Kyle had no doubt of that. Jimmy would shoot that bright, sassy, stubborn, amazing, beautiful woman without a qualm.
“Jimmy!” he bellowed, waving his arms. “Over here.”
Dutifully distracted, Jimmy swung toward him, and with an evil grin lifted his gun.
Crying like a banshee, Annie let go of the wood and flew into the air. Pink satin whirred. Golden hair whipped her face as she jumped Jimmy.
It all seemed to happen in horrifying, terrifying slow motion.
Jimmy glanced upward. His jaw dropped. He slowly lifted his hand, the one that held the gun.
Kyle leaped over the banister, landing at a dead run and getting halfway there before Annie landed right on top of Jimmy.
The gun flew in the air.
Still in slow motion—or what felt like it—Kyle hauled Annie off of Jimmy, then reached down and flipped the thug over so he was kissing the ground. Kyle wrenched Jimmy’s hands behind his back and held him still with a knee to his back.
“This isn’t over,” Jimmy spit out.
“For now it is.” Kyle, breathless, lifted his head and pinned a furious gaze on Annie, who sat where he’d dropped her. “You.”
“Me,” she agreed, coming to a stand, tossing back her hair, putting her hands on her hips, and overall looking so damn proud of herself he felt his anger dissolving on the spot. “No need to thank me.”
His anger returned as he stared at her.
“I saved us,” she said.
Jimmy laughed and Kyle dug his knee a little harder into his back. “You want to run that by me again, Princess?”
“Princess?” Jimmy repeated.
“Shut up,” Kyle and Annie told him in unison, still staring at each other.
From the direction of the elevator came the sound of running feet. Through the smoke, several uniformed policemen appeared, all with guns drawn.
“Now they show up,” Kyle said to no one in particular.
* * *
BY THE TIME the fire was put out and Jimmy was hauled off, Kyle had a killer headache.
&n
bsp; Annie sat not too far away from him. Someone had tossed a blanket around her shoulders. Her hair had long ago rioted wildly around her face, and yet she looked every bit the princess—chin high, eyes flashing—as he approached.
“You coming over here to thank me?” she asked, and he had to pause. She was a most remarkable woman, he’d give her that. But he didn’t want a tough-as-nails, know-it-all, irritating, sexy-as-hell woman in his life.
Annie rolled her eyes and stood. “Who asked you?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You just said you didn’t want a tough-as-nails, know-it-all, irritating, sexy-as-hell woman in your life—thank you for the compliment by the way—but I’m wondering…who asked you?”
He’d spoken out loud. Perfect. He would attribute it to the usual adrenaline rush after a close brush with death, as he was most definitely feeling an adrenaline rush.
But he was deathly afraid he felt something else as well. A rush of lust for the hot princess with the cool head. “It’s nothing personal,” he said. “All I want right now is a nice long leave of absence and a one-way plane ticket.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere.” He needed to rejuvenate, needed to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. And if a woman, or two, came along during that time and wanted to wear him out with wild sex, then great.
But he doubted a princess would fit the bill.
* * *
AND CERTAINLY no cop would fit the bill for Annie, though it had nothing to do with his profession.
In fact, his profession, and all the innate danger and excitement associated with it, was a turn-on for her.
No, it was his upcoming nuptials that stopped her. Even if just looking at him made her hormones quiver he belonged to someone else.
It was normal, she assured herself. He was a decorated, respected, intense, badass cop. She’d learned those details from his fellow officers, all of whom were as in awe of him as she was.
He was a magnificent specimen, standing there shirtless, his body tough and rugged. She could well imagine her sisters’ reaction to him. Lili would blush. Natalia wouldn’t. She rarely blushed over anything.