Parts of her dress fall over her face and she wrestles it back to reveal her mouth pulled back in a sneer. Much more and she’d be foaming. “You have to let me out of here. Don’t let them leave without me; I have to go back there.” Beautiful eyes widen with anxious fear.
Panic and that same fear tear across her expression. It doesn’t faze me. She has to be out of it. No way in hell this chick knows what she’s asking for.
“Get off me. I don’t know who you are or what game you’re playing but I swear if you don’t get off me and let me leave I’ll stab you in the heart.” Her dress falls back over her face, diminishing the heat of her glare.
I clutch my fists around all her damn dress and pull it back off her face. “With what?” I challenge her and she immediately has an answer to my surprise. And possibly my untimely death.
She bucks her hips and dislodges me enough to reach for the ends of her dress. With lightning-fast moves, the she-devil snatches a heel from her foot. The spike on her stilettos is pretty serious looking.
She swings and I bat her hand away, knocking the shoe to the floor beside us.
For a moment she stares up at me dumbfounded but the surprise doesn’t last long. She plants a foot firmly on the floor and lets another hellish war cry out. We roll and this time she’s on top, those hips spread wide open.
I’m just enough of an asshole to be getting hard at the sight of her all fired up and hell-bent on kicking my ass.
The straps of her dress hang off her shoulders and she’s breathing hard like we just spent an all-nighter together. Hair hangs in her face. She looks seriously pissed off. I smile. I have to admit. All that creamy skin is an unmeasured distraction.
Her beautiful mouth pulls back in a sneer. She lunges, kicks, and fights to free herself from my grip.
Three bouncing steps and she’s out the door I realize I failed to lock behind me.
Devil’s question comes back to me. “Yeah, she’s worth every last penny I spent for her freedom and then some.”
* * *
Nova
I run for it. I kick off my other shoe and hit the stairs at top speed. “Faster!” I scream mentally and almost break my neck in doing so. I cry out when I slam a shoulder into someone coming up the stairs. I don’t stop to offer up an apology.
Floors whizz by as I descend. There’s no such thing as breaks in this scenario. Only full throttle. If I hurry maybe,maybeI can follow the van that brought me here back to my sister. Heavy pounding on floorboards sends my heart thundering. I can’t tell how much ahead I am and I am NOT going to stop and look.
I fist my dress and bound down yet another flight. Why the hell I am wearing a wedding dress is anyone’s guess but I’m not about to stop and ask. I guess it’s better than going full Monty but come the hell on. Ruffles? What the hell kind of joke is this.
I don’t stop until I hit the last of a million and come to a sketching halt. A man wearing a leather vest with an ugly skull on fire is standing by the entrance. To his left, I spy the front door wide open. He turns, beer in one hand and a phone in the other.
Perfect.
I take my chances and grab the phone, leaving behind a startled dude who looks to be in his early seventies and way too amused.
“Thanks,” I yell back and keep trucking toward the front door. I try for the emergency dial option on the phone but I’m jostling too much to hit anything on the touch screen.
“Where the hell did you come from?” he shouts after me.
“Grab her, Bear!”
Goosebumps sprinkle over my skin instantly. I throw a look over my shoulder when I hear a string of Russian tear through the space between us. A bull of a man thunders down the stairs ricocheting off every inch of wall and hand-carved banisters in his rush to reach me. His dark eyes track my every move and he’s pretty nimble for a man of his size. Tall, wide as a door, and the size of a bulldozer fueled by...panic? Odd.
But yeah, no thank you. I’ve dealt with enough crazy in my life. Pass!
There’s an aura of power and strength with strong undertones of danger about him that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. He’s rugged, probably pumps Volkswagen bugs for weights at the gym, and looks like he’s been in several brawls with a bear. And lost. He might know how to fill out a pair of tuxedo pants with all that rippling man meat, but so do thugs, murders, and all-around bad guys. I learned that the hard way. Not gonna fool me again. I deal with the shady-ass people all day long. True. But it’s all done under an alias and from behind a screen. Does that make them any safer? News flash to self. None of them know my real name nor are they currently chasing me.
Maybe that is what all this is about? Maybe one of my client’s enemies found the hacker behind their money disappearing or a million other black hatoperationsI’ve performed. Don’t judge. I have my reasons.
My internal danger-dar whirrs to life with flashing red lights and sirens.Get out!
I dash around the old man and don’t stop until the soft pads of my bare feet hit sharp gravel.
Dead ahead the blurry shine of red taillights fades in the distance along with my hope.