From his vantage point on the couch, he could only see the back of her, but what an amazing view. Her long, shapely dark brown legs emerged from a pair of zebra-striped shorts that clung to her round ass like his Victory motorcycle hugged the highway’s curves. She wore a matching tank top, leaving her lean, muscular arms bare.
It took less than a single breath to forget every ache and pain he’d noted only a minute before. All he could think about was her and how bad he wanted her—on the small couch, in her bright purple bed, or against a wall, he didn’t care. In the early morning hour, he was close to losing every bit of self-control he’d clamped onto last night.
“Damn.” He muttered the word to himself, but Drea must have heard him because she turned around.
If the view from the back was phenomenal, the front made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and his dick stand at attention. Her skin glowed in the morning sun coming through the window, and the soft light outlined her every luscious curve. An inch-wide line of skin showed where her top didn’t quite reach the rise of her shorts. The temptation to lick his way from east to west across that bare strip nearly knocked him back into the couch.
“My eyes are up here,” Drea teased, pulling his attention north. She held his gaze as she sipped from the orange Color Me Awake coffee mug cradled in her long fingers.
Lucky fucking cup.
She licked her lips and held the c
up aloft. “Want some?” She held it out and—
A nearly silent crack sounded and the cup shattered in her hand. Thick shards of ceramic exploded outward, and Drea yelped in surprise.
“Get down!” In one fluid move, Cam leapt up from the couch and sprinted the six feet to the kitchen.
He wrapped an arm around her narrow waist, pushed her down, and shoved her into the corner, away from the open window where the bullet had entered. He used his own body as a shield and blocked her in. “Don’t move.”
His gaze flickered from one possible entry point to another—the door, the kitchen window, the living room window, and the bedroom door. Their options boiled down to hunker down or scatter, both of which sucked. Thirty long seconds passed. Each one lasted at least a minute.
He readied for whatever came next. Another shot through the window? Forced entry? But either the shooter was lying in wait for a better shot…or he was gone.
He wanted to believe in the latter, but why would an assassin take a shot if he didn’t intend to finish the job?
There was only one way to find out, but he wasn’t risking Drea’s life on a lousy situational read.
“If I say run, do it.” He spared a glance back at her. She looked more pissed off than scared. Good. That would help her keep her head straight if he ended up bleeding out on her kitchen floor. “Don’t wait for me.”
Hyper alert for noises coming in from outside, he stayed low and made his way over to the broken mug. He trained his gun on the open kitchen window and took in the sight line from the fractured cup across the narrow alley to the roof of the building behind Drea’s. A shadowed figure scurried from the industrial sized air conditioner to the rooftop stairwell door leading inside the building.
Cam couldn’t go. He damn well couldn’t stay. But he had to do something.
Hoping he was making the right choice, Cam swiped the phone off the counter and handed it to Drea. “Call 911 and stay low.”
A second later, he was halfway to her front door. How quickly could the shooter hit the street? What was the best place to cut him off?
“Don’t go.” Drea’s words weren’t a plea or an order, but something in-between.
In his old life, it was easy to compartmentalize. The person or thing they were rescuing was a package to be retrieved. There wasn’t any emotion to get in the way of achieving the objective. This time it was different. She hadn’t asked for any of this. Not for the shooter to attack her, and not for Cam to protect her. But they were stuck in this together, at least for now. It was hard enough to walk away from her bed. Like it or not, there was no way in hell he could walk away with her life on the line.
The doorknob felt cool in his overheated grip. “I can catch him.”
He could. He would. And then he’d beat the ever loving shit out of him.
The phone rang in her hand. The sound blared in the quiet room.
She looked down at the receiver as if it were a live grenade.
The call could be a coincidence. He wanted to believe that, but his instincts told a different story. And he trusted his instincts. They were what had kept him alive when everything had gone to shit in Cambodia a few years ago.
He released the doorknob, then strode over and guided her a few steps over so the refrigerator blocked her from the window. Then he put himself between her and the door. If someone forced their way in, they’d have to go through him before they ever got to her.
“Put the phone on speaker,” he said.
She did.