Accelerate

by Tracy Wolff

  “Of course not,” he agrees. He must be feeling generous. The bastard.

  We walk in silence the rest of the way to the psych building. I’m not sure what he’s thinking about, but my mind keeps going around and around the fact that in less than forty-eight hours my life has done a complete one-eighty. I went from having a safe, boring, predictable existence to…this. And while I admit that my life’s a lot more exciting than it was a couple of days ago, I’m not sure that’s what I want. I’ve had my share of excitement, had my share of being part of a shit show and I’ve worked hard to put all that behind me. Worked hard to make sure my life was as drama-free as it possibly could be.

  And now, here I am again. Only this time it’s not just my reputation, not just my sanity at risk, but my life. I don’t know how I feel about that. Don’t know how I feel about any of this, even Nic. Especially Nic. He’s a good guy, I know that now. But I don’t know if that’s enough to keep me here on this roller coaster that keeps accelerating a little more with each second that passes.

  Nic keeps his arm around me on the walk, keeps me cuddled right up against his body like he has some idea of the thoughts that are churning in my head right now. And though I’m confused, though I have no idea where this wild ride is going to end, I have to admit it feels good to be held by him. Good to have someone to lean on as everything goes to shit around us.

  Not to mention how good it feels to be in his bed, to have him focus all that sexy, sensual energy exclusively on me.

  Nic walks me all the way to my classroom door before dropping his arm from my waist and handing me my backpack. “Gabe will be here when you get out,” he tells me as I swing my bag onto my shoulder.

  “You’re not going to be here?” It comes out a lot more plaintive than I mean for it to and I wait for Nic to gloat. I did just give him hell for his assumptions, after all. But he doesn’t tease me, doesn’t highlight the fact that I’m obviously more attached to him than I’ve been trying to let on.

  Instead, he just tucks my hair behind my ear, runs his fingers over my cheek.

  I nuzzle into his palm, press little kisses wherever I can reach. And enjoy the way his eyes go from emerald to moss.

  “I’ve got to get to the shop to talk to Jace, see what else he’s found out. But Gabe will take good care of you. He’ll keep you safe.”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.” This time I’m the one who cups his cheek in my palm, the one who runs my thumb over that crazy sexy dimple of his.

  It’s the closest I’ve come to admitting I care about him and I can tell he understands from the huge smile that takes up residence on his face. “I think I like you worrying about me.”

  I roll my eyes. “Just don’t do anything reckless, okay?”

  “Who, me?”

  I start to answer him, but before I can say anything else, he kisses me. And it’s not your typical, have a nice day, see you soon kind of peck. Not by a long shot. No, this kiss is slow and hot and so thorough I’m all but melting into him by the time he lifts his head.

  Someone walking by wolf whistles, and someone else catcalls for us to get a room. At least until Nic turns around and looks at them. Then, suddenly, they’re awfully quiet as they look at anyone and anything but the two of us.

  “Wow,” I tease, straightening out his white T-shirt from where I’d tangled my fingers in it. “Having a boyfriend who’s a badass has its advantages.”

  His grin is blinding as he bends to kiss me again. “You called me your boyfriend.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head. It was a figure of speech.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He lifts a brow. “Which figure of speech would that be exactly?”

  “I should get going,” I tell him. “My class is going to start in a minute.”

  “Who’s stopping you?” This time when he bends to kiss me, it really is a peck. “Good luck on your test. I’ll be hanging out here in the hall until Gabe gets here, so if you need anything…”

  “What on earth could I possibly need?”

  “I don’t know. I was just saying…”

  “Go, Nic!” I give him a small shove in the opposite direction. It’s like shoving a wall, but at least it gets him moving. Just to the other side of the hall, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

  —

  I finish my test about halfway through the allotted time. I turn it in, then head back to my desk to pack up, doing my best to ignore the stares I’m getting from most of my classmates—especially the girls.

  Not that I blame them. I’ve come to this class all semester, have sat in the same seat in the second row every single day. And never, in all that time, have I ever done anything to call attention to myself. In fact, I’ve spent nearly every class trying to be invisible. At least until today when I showed up with the most perfect male specimen any of us has ever seen, then made a total spectacle of myself, and him, in the hallway. Is it any wonder they’re looking at me like I’ve been invaded by an alien life force?

  Well, some of them are looking at me like that. The others are staring at me with envy and it’s not like I blame them. After a night spent as the object of Nic Medina’s sensual attention, I totally get it. They should be jealous, because he is just as spectacular in bed as he is out of it.

  As I walk toward the door, I wonder who’s going to be waiting in the hall—Nic or Gabe? I’m hoping it’s Nic, and not just because I’d like another couple dozen of his kisses before I have to head into work and wait tables for the next eight hours.

  If I’m being honest, I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about being alone with Gabe. It’s not that I don’t trust him—I’m sure if Nic thinks he’s a good guy then he totally is—it’s just I don’t do well with men I don’t know. Period. And while, yes, Nic introduced us two days ago, the truth is I’m not even sure which one of Nic’s crew he is. I know Payton because she took me home. Lena, because she’s Nic’s sister and Benji’s mom. And Jace because he’s the one who’s spent the last two days sitting in front of three computers as he tries to figure this mess out. The rest of them are all a blur. And though I know that that will have to change if Nic and I actually make a go of this thing between us, I’m still a little wary. And probably will be for quite some time. Maybe forever. Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit.

  I step out of class to find a mountain of a man waiting for me. That’s right, I remember, thinking back on those first introductions. Gabe is the six foot six guy who’s built like a professional wrestler. The Martinez love machine, I think Payton called him.

  Now that I’m not freaking out about being kidnapped, I totally get it. No doubt, he’s hot. He’s got dark eyes and a really nice batch of stubble covering a jaw that can cut glass. His jet-black hair is pulled into a short ponytail at the base of his skull and he’s got a huge grin on his face that seems to be directed at me—I’m just thankful it doesn’t seem to be of the love machine variety.

  “Hey, Jordan, you doing okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Thanks for doing this. I’m sure being a babysitter isn’t exactly in your job description.”

  “Don’t think of me as a babysitter,” he says as we start walking down the hall. “Think of me as your new best friend.”

  “Really? That’s a little sudden, isn’t it? Two meetings and now we’re best friends?” I smile to make sure he knows I’m teasing.

  “That’s how it works with Nic. Doesn’t matter how long he knows you. Once you’re in, you’re in. With all of us.”

  His words match up to what Lena told me last night but I still can’t help wondering if it’s really that easy. I’m also wondering what happens to a person who comes into their orbit who isn’t accepted by Nic. I doubt it’s pretty.

  Deciding not to dwell on that, I quirk a brow at him. “So I’m in, huh?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” He shoots me a grin. “You’re Nic’s woman. It’s pretty hard to get more in than that.”

  There’s that descriptio
n again. Nic’s woman. I’ve only been around a couple days—how the hell has everyone already decided that I belong to Nic?

  I start to ask Gabe, but then decide I’m better off not knowing.

  We walk toward the same parking lot that Nic parked the Mercedes in this morning and I’m not the least bit surprised to see it still sitting there at the very front of the lot. There’s not even a ticket on the windshield. Whatever mojo Nic has, it obviously extends to his cars.

  “So, where to?” Gabe asks as we’re pulling out of the lot. “Nic told me you don’t have to be at work until eleven.”

  “I want to stop by my place, pick up some clothes and toiletries. I can’t keep borrowing Lena’s stuff.”

  “She wouldn’t mind—she’s like Nic in that way. But give me directions to your apartment and we’ll get whatever you want.”

  I live about twenty minutes off campus—where the rents are significantly cheaper than they are in La Jolla—and I’ve kind of been dreading being trapped in the car with a strange guy for that long. But Gabe makes it easy. He puts on a cool playlist and we end up spending most of the drive talking about music. It turns out we’ve got very similar tastes, especially when it comes to Ed Sheeran and Kings of Leon.

  We pull into the parking lot in front of my apartment just as the last notes of Eminem’s “The Monster” ring through the car. High on the music we’ve both just been singing along to, Gabe throws a grin my way as he pulls into the closest parking spot.

  His grin dies, though, when I tell him, “Why don’t you stay in the car? I’m only going to get a few things—there’s no need for you to come up, too.”

  “Nic asked me to watch you, not the car. It’s a fine machine, but I don’t think he’d appreciate me choosing it over you.” He turns the car off then climbs out, slamming the door behind him with an air of finality I know better than to argue with.

  He follows me up the stairs to my place, but once I get the door opened, he moves in front of me. “Wait here,” he says as he walks through the two tiny rooms. I’m not sure who he thinks he’s going to find hiding in my bathtub, but no one can fault him for not being thorough. Studio apartment or not, he takes his job seriously.

  After a couple minutes, he gestures for me to come in. But once I step over the threshold I notice something he obviously wouldn’t since it’s his first time at my place.

  Things have been moved.

  Oh, not a lot. Not even a little bit, really—most people wouldn’t notice that the throw pillows on the couch are just a little bit out of place or that there are no pens on my desk when I usually leave four or five lying around. But I notice because that’s what I do. I notice things. More, I’ve spent a long time making sure my apartment is arranged exactly the way I like it—after having so many people try to press me into a mold of who and what they thought I should be, making sure my space is really my space, that no one else has any influence over it, is kind of an obsession of mine.

  The knowledge that someone else was in here—that someone else touched my things and rearranged them and used them to try to figure out who I am—fucks with me on a soul-deep level.

  I don’t say anything at first—if I’m being honest, I’m a little too shell-shocked to do anything but stand here and stare as I try to figure out what they put their hands on. What they touched that belongs to me.

  My gut tells me the answer is everything. I really hope it’s not true, but the longer I study my apartment the more I have to acknowledge that it is. And that just pisses me off. Who the fuck does this Anderson guy think he is? He thinks he can just walk in the apartment of some private citizen and search it because he wants to? There’s a fucking Fourth Amendment that says he can’t do that, at least not without probable cause. And him stealing my car is not probable cause.

  “Everything okay?” Gabe asks from where he’s standing next to my two barstools.

  “Someone’s been here,” I tell him, forcing myself to finally step into my apartment. It’s harder than I expect it to be, but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. Someone came in here and put their hands all over my stuff without my knowledge or permission. After what happened three years ago, is it really such a shock that that’s a hot button for me?

  “What do you mean?” Gabe demands, as he moves to put himself in front of me like he thinks whoever did this is still here or something. “Is something missing?”

  “No. But there are a lot of little things that aren’t quite where they belong.”

  I brace myself, expecting him to argue with me, to tell me I’m letting my nerves get to me and am blowing things out of proportion. After all, it’s not like I haven’t heard it a million times before.

  But Gabe doesn’t do that. Instead, he grabs my arm and propels me back out the door and down the stairs. I’m walking double-time to keep up with his long strides, but when that still isn’t fast enough for him, he wraps an arm around my waist and all but carries me the last fifty yards to the car.

  At the same time, he’s pulling his cellphone out of his jeans and speed dialing someone. Nic, I assume.

  A brief conversation ensues, one rich with cursing and insults and maybe even a little paranoia because it’s decided by the two of them that I can’t go back to my apartment, even to get my things. At least not until Jace and Nic go through it and check for anything out of the ordinary—although I don’t have a clue how Nic thinks the two of them are going to be able to figure out what feels off in my apartment.

  Gabe doesn’t hang up the phone until we’re a few blocks from my place. When he doesn’t immediately say anything to me, I demand, “What am I supposed to do now? I need my stuff.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” he answers and a couple minutes later he pulls into a Target parking lot. “You can pick up necessities here, then in a couple days or whatever, Nic and Jace can do their thing at your apartment.”

  “Their thing?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Whatever Jace does with electronics to make sure no one is watching or listening to you.”

  My stomach rolls just at the thought that someone might have bugged my apartment. That they could watch me anytime they wanted and I’d never be the wiser.

  For a second I really think I’m going to be sick. In fact, I’m so convinced of it that I throw my door open as soon as Gabe pulls into a parking space and climb out so that if I do throw up it won’t be in an obscenely expensive Mercedes.

  I spend a few minutes gasping for air and swallowing down my nausea as Gabe pats me on the back and tells me to “take deep breaths.” As I follow his instructions, he prattles on about the cars around us, telling me more than I ever wanted to know about the Tesla parked on our left and the BMW on our right.

  I know what he’s doing, though, which is why I put up with it. Well, that and the fact that it works. His rattling off a bunch of inane facts about cars I don’t give a shit about gives me something to focus on besides the sick feeling of violation that’s seeped into my every pore.

  It takes a little while, but eventually I get myself back under control. When I do, the first thing I do is apologize to Gabe.

  “What for?” he demands. “You’ve got a right to be upset.”

  “I know, but maybe not this upset. It must seem over the top to you.”

  “In the last forty-eight hours, you’ve been kidnapped, had your car stolen, been implicitly threatened by a dirty cop, and now you’ve had your home violated. I kind of feel like you deserve a little over-the-top freak-out time.”

  He glances over his shoulder at the Target entrance. “I could be wrong, but I’m guessing you don’t really feel up to going shopping right now.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Fair enough. Do you want me to take you to get something to eat or would you rather go straight to work?”

  I think about Doreen, about the way she fussed over me yesterday when I came in. About how worried she’d been about me when I disappeared from work. And how under
standing she’d been when I gave her an abbreviated story about what had happened to me.

  Instead of firing me as I’d feared, she’d insisted on paying me for all the hours I’d missed. Plus, she gave me the easiest job in the house for the day—playing cashier instead of waitress—so that I could “rest up after my ordeal” and still get paid.

  Suddenly, I want nothing more than to see her. Nothing more than to let her fuss over me a little bit more. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a mother since mine died when I was twelve, and right now a little mothering is exactly what I want.

  “Work, please,” I tell Gabe, who nods and gestures for me to get back in the car.

  Ten minutes later, we’re pulling up in front of the diner.

  I kind of expect Gabe to just drop me off, but he walks me to the door instead. Even grabs himself a corner booth since we’re between the breakfast and lunch rushes. Doreen takes the time to fuss over me in between orders and Gabe watches it all with a huge smile on his face. By the time eleven o’clock rolls around and it’s time for me to start my shift, I feel almost human again.

  I feel so good, in fact, that I barely notice when a man in a cheap blazer and expensive shoes walks in at quarter to three. He sits in my section, but after greeting him and taking his drink order, I forget all about him. At least until he demands that I sit down on the other side of the table. When I refuse—like I’m going to sit with some strange man I don’t know—he slides a card across the table. And when I see what’s written on it, I don’t know whether to cheer or run scared.

  Because his name is Chris Jacobs and he’s with the internal affairs department of the San Diego PD.

  Chapter 22

  Nic

  My day has been shit so far. Total and utter shit. Jace isn’t making enough progress digging up information on that list of cops—I want to know who’s paying the bastards, not just how much they’re getting paid and where they’re storing the money—and my eight o’clock deadline is fast approaching. He’s been working double-time trying to pull something up on Anderson that I can use to blackmail the guy into letting me live, but so far there’s nothing good enough to scare him away.