Omega (Alpha #3) (35 page)

I almost missed it. One second I was ruminating on the novelty of being a man’s woman, lying on the floor between the bed and the wall—and then Harris was in motion, pistol rising, bucking and flashing and barking quietly, once, twice…three times, four. Still loud, but not the deafening report of an un-silenced pistol. Harris was around the door now, moving in that sort-of crouch all soldiers, policemen, and other combat-trained people all use—Harris just did it in the buff. Still sexy.

He returned after a moment, yanked the sheet off the bed and vanished back into the living room to cover the bodies, his phone to his ear, updating Thresh.
 

He ended the call as he entered the bedroom, ejecting the clip of his pistol and replacing it.“Okay, we’re clear for now. We gotta move. Hit the shower, if you want. But be quick. I want to be gone in twenty minutes.”
 

“But you still have a hard-on, Nick. Want me to help you out with that?” I took a step toward him.

“It’ll go away. We don’t have time.”

“Does it make me sick that I get horny after situations like this are over?” I asked.

“No. Adrenaline does that to you. It’s a documented fact.” He hefted the bag of weapons onto the bed, found a box of bullets, and was thumbing rounds into the clip. “I told you, babe. We don’t have time. I’ll be fine. You can make it up to me later. We have to move.”
 

“I can make it quick. I promise.” I sank to my knees anyway.

“Layla—” He lifted me to my feet, brushed his thumb over my lips, and then kissed me. “You suck at listening.”
 

“I’m a bad girl, what can I say? And, obviously, listening isn’t all I suck at.” I licked my lips.
 

He laughed. “You’re impossible. And amazing.” He turned me around and shoved me toward the bathroom, giving my ass a hard, loud spank. “Go. Shower. Before I decide I’m hungry. And we really don’t have time for that.”
 

“You sure?” I ran my finger up my seam.
 

He growled. “Jesus, Layla.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Those two were just the first. They shouldn’t have found this place, but somehow they did. Which means there will be more out there somewhere. What I need from you right now is to do what I’m telling you, so I can keep us both alive long enough to get you alone on a beach somewhere far from any of this.”

“And once we’re alone on the beach?”
 

His eyes narrowed, green gone fiery. “When I’ve got you alone…baby, I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk straight. I’ll make you come so many times you’ll beg me to let you rest.”
 

“That will never happen. I’m pretty sure I don’t have an orgasm threshold of any kind whatsoever.”
 

He swayed toward me. “Layla? I swear to god I will spank your ass red and raw if you don’t get in the fucking shower right
goddamned
now.”
 

“That’s not a threat to me, Harris, that’s a temptation.”
 

He grabbed my hair and pulled me down for a kiss. “And I will, someday, I promise. Now…for the last fucking time. Go shower.”

His eyes were serious, and I realized if this was going to work between us, I really would have to know when to obey him—no bullshit about it, this was about knowing when Harris needed me to just listen and do what I was told.
 

I’m terrible at doing what I’m told, but if I could listen to anyone on the planet, it was Harris.
 

I got my ass in the shower, and was out in three minutes. I didn’t have any of the products I needed to really do my hair properly—which was extensive, as I had pretty difficult-to-manage hair—so I settled for six small braids, which I then braided together into a single thick column. By that time, Harris had laid my clothes out on the bed: a pair of stretchy capri pants, a baby blue thong and matching bra, and a striped V-neck T-shirt. The pants had LOVE PINK written across the butt, which I suspect wasn’t an accident on Harris’s part.
 

“You picked the clothes?” I asked, hooking my bra in front and then rotating it around my body to stuff my tits into it.
 

He watched as I did this, halted in the act of repacking the weapons into the bag. “Yeah. Why?”

I tugged the thong on. “You picked a matching set of lingerie. And this is lingerie, by the way, not exactly practical underwear.”

He shrugged, and went back to repacking the assault rifles into the bag. “How the hell do I know the difference? Panties are panties, a bra is a bra. And besides, that color is sexy as fucking sin on you.”

It kind of was. Baby blue looked killer against my dark skin. “And the pants with the writing across the butt?”

Another shrug. “They looked like they’d be comfortable. I didn’t pick them for the writing.”
 

I slid them on, and then donned the shirt. “Sure. But the writing is a bonus, right? Makes my butt look even bigger, all those letters stretched across all this real estate.” I palmed my ass and gave it a smack.
 

He smirked. “A lot of seriously juicy real estate. It
is
a nice bonus.” He gestured at the shoes, a pair of plain, worn black and white Chucks. “Practical shoes, though.”
 

He was already dressed, clean black BDU pants tucked into his calf-high lace-up combat boots, a black T-shirt, and the same hat I’d seen his guys wearing that night on the beach, A1S in scarlet letters on a patch sewn onto a black military-style ball cap.
 

“What’s A-One-S?” I asked, tying my shoes.

“My company. After I got Kyrie back and I sent her and Roth out on the
Eliza
, I realized I’d need a lot of backup if I was going to keep them safe. So I started Alpha One Security. Technically, I’m a private security contractor hired by Roth, rather than working exclusively for him. The effect is the same, though, because right now I only work for him.”

“Alpha One Security?” I chuckled. “That’s…both clever and entirely unoriginal at the same time. A-One Security, basically, right?”

He zipped the bag and shoved two pistols into holsters on an elaborate system strapped to his torso. I counted two small pistols on his shoulders, another bigger one at his right hip, four knives, and six extra clips of varying sizes. He was loaded for bear.
 

“Yeah,” he said. “That was the idea. I was in a hurry to get it off the ground. I wasn’t real concerned with what the company was called, I just needed the LLC up and running ASAP so I could hire my guys. Originality was the least of my concerns.”
 

“Makes sense.” I stood up. “I’m ready. Now what?”
 

There was an assault rifle on the bed, and a pistol with a spare clip. He gestured at the smaller weapon. “Take that. Don’t use it unless I tell you to. We get in the Rover and drive to Rio as fast as we can. We should be there already, but we got…sidetracked.” A grin, eyes sweeping over my body and back up to my eyes. “I can’t say I regret the delay, but we’re gonna have to haul ass to make it up.”

He preceded me outside, rifle at his shoulder, barrel sweeping side to side, covering me as I got into the ancient SUV. He tossed the heavy bag of gear into the back seat where we could both get at it, apparently now more concerned with access to it rather than hiding it. He was in the driver’s seat within seconds and was backing up, the gate already opened.
 

We were twenty minutes away when I realized I’d stepped over the three dead bodies without even glancing at them, not so much as a flinch or twist of the stomach. I was getting used to it, it seemed.
 

I wasn’t sure if I was okay with that or not.
 

* * *

The drive to Rio de Janeiro was utterly uneventful. Could have been just another road trip with my boyfriend, except for the fact that we were in Brazil, and that my boyfriend was loaded down with enough guns to take on an army.
 

And that I had an actual, factual
boyfriend.

Other than that, it was just any old road trip.

 
I was about to say something to that effect, but I never got the chance. The windshield exploded in a shower of glass, the front tire popped, and a hail of bullets riddled the body of the SUV. I ducked, covering my face, and Harris twisted the vehicle to the right. He gunned the engine, rounding a corner, the tail end sliding with a squeal of tires, the body swaying. I heard the chatter of machine guns, heard bullets
thunk
into the body. Harris cursed under his breath and hauled the vehicle around another corner. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, ducked down beneath the window, staying out of sight. He was completely focused, driving with one hand, jerking the shifter back with the other, glancing in the mirror. We were in the middle of downtown Rio, on a road that ran parallel to the beach. The sea was on our right, the city on our left, not a cloud in the sky. Another tire-squealing turn, and we were darting between the maze of buildings, flat tire flopping and the rim grinding.
 

I dared a peek behind us, and saw a small black sedan following behind us, and as I watched a dark head popped up from the sunroof, leveling a huge machine gun at us. “Shit!” I ducked back down, just in time.

The back window shattered and rounds thudded into the seats behind us.
 

“Shoot back, Layla. The driver, the shooter, the engine, doesn’t matter. Just return fire.”
 

I swallowed hard and grabbed my pistol off the seat between us, twisted in place and took aim over the top of the seatback. I aimed at the windshield, held my breath, and squeezed the trigger. The windshield spiderwebbed but didn’t shatter, so I fired twice more, and finally it broke with a spray of white glass shards. I saw a face, then, dark skin and a goatee. I ducked again as bullets hit the seat, passed through, and smashed into the dashboard. I popped up, fired twice, and ducked back down.
 

Harris glanced at me, a smile on his face.
 

“What?” I demanded. “What the hell is there to smile about?”

He jerked us around a corner, jammed on the brakes, and then floored the gas and spun the wheel to swerve around a slow-moving truck. Another glance at me. “You. You’re sexy, shooting my gun. Ducking down behind the bench like it’s going to stop a bullet. You’re just hot as fuck. A woman with a gun in her hands is kind of a turn-on for me, I guess.”

All I caught was the part about the bench not stopping a bullet. “So I shouldn’t duck, is what you’re saying?”
 

He shook his head. “Do you intentionally ignore the best parts of what I say to you?”
 

“Me not getting shot is pretty important, I’d think!”
 

“True, true. But ducking behind that bench isn’t going to do anything. Their shots have already gone through.” He reached to the side and fingered a ragged hole in the aged leather.
 

I sat up, realizing he was right. I took aim at the driver and fired, and this time I hit him. He grabbed his arm, and I saw red spray on the window beside him, and his car swerved. That was all it took. He lost control just long enough to slam into the back of a service van, the front accordioning and crunching under the rear bumper. I heard shouts and screams, and then we were around the corner and out of sight.

“I hit him! I got him!” I shouldn’t have been elated, but I was. “I’m a badass!”
 

Harris laughed. “You sure are, baby. Good shot.”
 

“Am I bad person for not even feeling bad?”
 

He shrugged. “I’m not really the best person to ask, I don’t think. My perspective is kind of skewed.”
 

“I guess you’re right.” I glanced at him. “So when you say a woman with a gun in her hands is a turn-on, do you mean that literally, or…?”

Harris shot me a look as I posed for him, holding the weapon in both hands out in front of me, arms straight, hair blowing in the wind. “Baby, if we weren’t running for our lives, I’d stop and show you how literally I mean it.”

“So do you have any fantasies regarding me and guns?”

He shifted on the seat. “Um.” A glance in the mirrors. “Yeah, actually. But I’m going to save that one for when we’re out of this.”
 

“Come on, Nick! Just tell me what it is.”
 

He blew out a breath. “Let’s just say it involves you wearing nothing but a bandolier of shells, with my M4 in your hands.”

“I can see how that would be sexy. It’d have to be a big bandolier, though.” I smirked at him.

He pulled out his phone. “The point, Layla, is that the bandolier
isn’t
big enough to cover everything.” He handed it to me. “Call Thresh. He’s in the contacts under his name, obviously. Tell him we’re coming in hot.”
 

I found the contact entry, touched it, and held the phone to my ear. It rang twice. “What’cha got, boss?”

“It’s Layla, actually. I’m with Harris and he says to tell you we’re coming in hot. Whatever that means.”
 

“How hot?”

“I don’t know what that means. I mean, I know
I’m
pretty hot, both literally and metaphorically—”

“It means you’ve got pursuit,” he interrupted, sounding both irritated and amused at my rambling. “Bad guys after you. In danger.”

“Oh. Yeah. There was one car behind us, but I shot the driver and they’re dead now. Or probably dead. I don’t see anyone else right now, but they have a tendency to show up when you least expect it.”
 

“
You
shot the driver?”
 

“Yep!” I sounded proud of myself, because I was.

“From a moving vehicle?”

“Well, it wasn’t a headshot or anything. I just winged him, as Harris would say. He crashed.”
 

“Nice. Okay, well, tell Harris that I’m on the runway, engines idling, ready to go. I’ll be in the cargo hold, ready to cover your approach. Got it?”