Hiding Jessica (26 page)

“Go get the key for the bathroom,” he said tightly, his jaw rigid with the pain. Jess didn’t dare question the command. She simply slid out of the truck and obeyed.

She came back with the key and Mitch took it from her for his own use. She waited only five seconds, then she followed. He hadn’t quite shut the door all the way, and she didn’t bother to knock. Instead, she strode straight in, her face blindly determined as she kicked the door shut behind her. The small room smelled of urine and sweat, the light dim and rusty from above. She refused to notice any of it.

“We should stop and get some hydrogen peroxide,” she said. Mitch’s gaze swept up to meet hers in the scratched glass that served as a mirror, his eyes dark and set. He had a fistful of wet paper towels in his hand and was doing the best he could to clean his arm.

“I’ll be fine,” he said through clenched teeth as his careless motions drove another shard of glass deeper into his skin. “They’re just scratches.”

Jess didn’t say anything; she didn’t quite trust herself to speak. His face and arm looked awful, and it was all because of her. He’d been keeping her safe. He’d been doing exactly what he’d promised.

She stepped forward and took the paper towels from his hand.

“Let me,” she said.

He didn’t stop her, though her actions placed her far closer to him than he would have liked. Now he could smell the faint remnants of peaches, see the shine of her brown hair in the badly lit room. Her hands were gentler than his own, and even as he watched, her careful fingernails sought out and removed the splinters from his arm.

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” he said grimly, his eyes focused blackly on the top of her head.

She didn’t have to ask to know he was talking about her mother. Instead, she simply shook her head without even glancing up.

“Was it worth all this?” he demanded harshly, the muscle jumping in his jaw filling him with more pain. “Was it?”

She glanced up. “I...I don’t understand what you mean.” She could feel the anger in him. This close it radiated out like a magnetic field.

“Like hell,” Mitch ground out, the words flat and furious as his eyes narrowed in on hers. “Les knew about your mother. He’s been staking the place out, just waiting for you to contact her so he could trace it back. How the hell did you think I found you?”

That answered one question, but somehow she’d never bothered to really wonder how he’d come to the prison. A part of her had always known he would find her. He was Mitch Guiness, the magician.

“But I didn’t contact my mother,” she replied coolly enough, focusing her attention on the matter at hand. She saw the open doubt in his eyes, and it struck her deeply. Her head bowed back down, her eyes and fingers returning to his injuries. “I swear, Mitch,” she said softly as she found and unearthed another sliver of glass, “I swear I did not contact my mother while under protection. I figured Les probably had some men stationed there. That’s why I waited for my new identity. And then I ran away on my own...” Her voice trailed off, then she forced herself to sound brisk. “That way...that way even if they did find me, at least it wouldn’t harm anyone else.”

Her hands trembled on his arm. She could still picture the shocked eyes of the unsuspecting driver when the shots had broken out. She was trying so hard to get away. Yet it seemed everything she did just sucked more people into the whirling darkness.

Mitch’s right hand came down and tucked under her chin. Before she could react, he’d tilted back her head until she was forced to meet his intense eyes.

“You mean to tell me that you never contacted your mother from New Hampshire?” he demanded to know. In the tight quarters, her body practically pressed against his own, the low intensity of his voice sent tremors down her spine.

Slowly she shook her head.

“What about before that?” he snapped in rapid fire, his eyes boring into hers. “Or from the hotel?”

“Not at all,” she replied, the words slightly breathless. “I just showed up.”

“You just...showed up,” he repeated. She nodded once more, and then inexplicably, Mitch swore. Before she had time to react, his right fist went flying immediately past her to slam into the wall. The rickety mirror trembled and Mitch winced instantly from the contact.

Jess couldn’t help herself—she shrank back toward the sink, her eyes open and wary.

“Don’t,” Mitch warned, low and tired. “I’m ticked off but I’m still not a man who hits women.”

“You’re angry at me,” she said, the words soft and hushed. She could no longer look at him, her gaze falling down to the bloody mess of his arm. The sight made her cringe, and the pain inside of herself was sharp and sudden.

Mitch stared down at her bowed head for a long minute, feeling the adrenaline finally slow in his system. At long last he raised her chin back up.

“Yeah,” he told her. “Yeah, I’m angry at you. I’m angry at this whole damn mess and the fact two good men are dead. I’m angry that Les seems to be one step ahead of me, and I still don’t know why. I thought maybe you’d tipped him off by calling your mother. But if you’re telling the truth, then he couldn’t have found out that way. There must be a leak. Or maybe you’re not telling the truth. How should I know? Seems to me you don’t trust me with a damn thing, let alone the truth.”

His words hurt, mostly because she couldn’t refute any of them. She could feel his eyes searching hers; they made her feel vulnerable and bare when she didn’t want to feel either. Slowly she raised her hand and began to work on his cheek. She saw him flinch from her first touch, and that hurt, as well.

“I didn’t want you to know,” she said at last, the words soft and emotionless as she dabbed at the blood. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

He looked at her with frustrated eyes. Her hand was so gentle on his cheek. He didn’t know whether he wanted to walk away from her in frustration or pull her into his arms and hold her so tight, the last of the dread would leave them both.

Once more he became aware of their surroundings, the stench of urine and sweat and dirt. He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Slowly her brown eyes swept over to meet his, and he thought he saw his own soul in her gaze. His right hand came to her waist, his body suddenly tight with need.

“I want you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want you naked and under me. I want to hear you cry my name, I want to watch the satisfaction darken your eyes, see the way you bite your lower lip as I plunge into you. I want your nails digging into my back, your teeth biting my shoulder. I want one hundred percent of you, all of you writhing and clinging and wanting me.”

Her breath quickened, the pulse on her throat pounding rapidly as her eyes darkened. One part of her understood the words. She’d hurt him, and he needed to reclaim her. He needed to feel that she trusted him in the most elemental way, since she denied him that trust in every other.

The other part of her didn’t care about logic or understanding at all. The other part of her could already taste him on her lips, feel him thrusting into her. The other part of her wanted him to reclaim her, because he could make the emptiness go away. In his arms she wasn’t Mary Morgan or Jessica Govern/Gavornée or Jess McMoran. In his arms she was simply a woman, needy and passionate and sensual.

He made her feel like no one else ever had.

Her gaze swept down to his lips, her tongue darting out unconsciously. She could feel the cold porcelain of the sink pressed against her hip, and it contrasted dramatically with the thick heat radiating from his body. She leaned slightly closer.

Mitch saw the movement, and the surge of satisfaction that shot through him was purely male. The heat in his loins became unbearable, and he forgot about the pain in his face and arm.

She wanted him, too, and that was all that mattered.

His left hand reached out, the tightening of his jaw the only sign of the pain. He could feel her gasping intake of breath, and it fueled the fire. He took her lips with his own.

It wasn’t gentle or beguiling or sweet. It was hot and angry and needful. His tongue plunged into her mouth without preamble, and she welcomed it without regret. His hands jerked her forward until every soft curve of her was pressed against every powerful muscle of him. She could feel his hard length, rigid and demanding against her own dampening need, and she pressed closer. But even that wasn’t enough. He brought her left leg up and around his waist, pressing himself intimately against her until she moaned at the contact. His tongue plunged in once more while his right hand found her breast and the rigid nipple there.

She moaned again, the intensity of the passion sudden and consuming. Never had she wanted anyone like she wanted him right now; never had she needed anyone like she needed him. The need should have scared her, but there was no time for fear. His hand on her breast was demanding, his tongue skillful and the rhythm of his hips compelling. She wanted him inside her, hot and slick and strong. She wanted to rake his back with her fingernails, bite his shoulder with passion.

She wanted all of him, now.

The knock on the door threatened to kill them both. Mitch swore, low and vehement and not even a fraction of what he truly felt. He felt Jess go rigid in his arms, the sound crashing them back to reality while his raging hormones protested the trip. For one last moment, he clutched her to him, burying his groan of frustration in the thick beauty of her hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “Oh, sweet Jess, I’m sorry.”

He felt her press against him in response, and if he could have seen her face at that moment, he would have seen tears.

The knock sounded again, loud and insistent. Mitch was half sure he would murder the bastard.

“Occupied,” he managed to call out, his voice so hoarse, he barely recognized it. It took one more moment to collect himself, and even then his body felt pain.

“We have to go,” he whispered to Jess, her body still pressed against his own.

She nodded her reply against his shirt, not trusting herself to speak. The frustration tangled with the pain and emptiness of earlier today, until she felt raw and vulnerable and totally exposed. She couldn’t bear to meet his eyes, couldn’t bear to see her own shattered face reflected there.

Slowly she drew in a deep breath, searching for the control that had been her mainstay. But the Ice Angel was growing tired, and the control was hard to find. At last she managed a low, shuddering sigh. She pulled away, patting his shirt and the faint dampness from her tears.

She still couldn’t meet his eyes.

The truck driver was more than a little surprised when the door opened and a good-looking woman walked out, followed closely by a man. He might have said something, but the dark look on Mitch’s face promised it would be the last words he ever said, and the truck driver had no desire to die young. He took the offered key, and hastened to his business.

Mitch paused long enough to ask the gas attendant a quick question about where they were and where they might go, then hoisted himself up into the truck. Jess was pressed far against the passenger side, her head resting against the door, her eyelids already shut. She looked exhausted and amazingly vulnerable to him.

He felt a pang cross his stomach, and once more that unbearable tightness in his chest. When he looked at her now, her pain and loneliness staggered him. There were so many things about her he still didn’t know. Such as, why was her mom in prison? Why hadn’t she told him about her? Did she have a father, too, then? Perhaps a brother or sister?

So many questions, and looking at her now, he wondered how painful the answers would be.

He started the engine as quietly as possible.

Darkness was beginning to fall as he drove. A light mist turned to rain, and the rhythm of the windshield wipers filled the cab. He looked over at Jess and saw that she was now completely asleep, slumped like a child against the window. She most likely needed the rest.

He reached for the radio, finding the tail end of a country-western song. He sat back again, satisfied with the choice. But what came on next made his spine snap to rigid attention, his knuckles whitening with the force of his grip on the wheel.

[u93]“In a surprising announcement earlier this morning, Mafia boss Les Capruccio’s trial was ruled a mistrial. The federal court of appeals concurred that the jury had possibly been biased by the media surrounding the event. A new trial date has not yet been declared. In the meantime, Capruccio has been released on a million dollars bail.”[ql

Damn fast mistrial ruling, Mitch found himself thinking darkly. And how many palms had been crossed to accomplish this? He spared a swift glance over at Jess, but she slept on, peaceful and oblivious against the door. He reached over a hand to wake her, then realized there was little point. All that the information would do would be to add to her tension, and in fact, neither of them could do anything about Capruccio’s release. It merely added one more dimension to a puzzle already far too complicated.

Mitch’s gaze grew dark and hard in the rainy night. He’d been in tough spots before, but none quite like this one, he thought grimly. He was willing to bet right about now a good several hundred people were looking for him and the woman sleeping beside him. Les’s men were probably flooding the area, coupled by any low-life street scum interested in the five-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on Jessica Gavornée’s head.

The FBI had most likely also tried to find them. Surely, by now, they knew something had gone wrong at the retreat. No doubt they were also aware of Les’s sudden release.

All these bodies trying to find them, some definitely for bad, some ostensibly for good, and he had no clear way of telling the difference. Jess said she didn’t call her mother from the retreat, which meant there had to be a leak somewhere.

Once more his gaze slid to the sleeping woman beside him. He’d told her he would keep her safe. Mostly because it was his job. And now, because looking down at her vulnerable features, soft with sleep, he knew he’d kill the man who tried to hurt her.

He eased his grip slightly on the wheel, concentrating on maneuvering through the dark, slick night. The soft sounds of Mary Chapin Carpenter filled the cab with stories of love and heartbreak. He drove on.