Outside the Lines (26 page)

I lift my eyebrows at him and smile. “Nothing?”

He tips his head in a question.

I answer by skimming my hands over the taut skin of his chest and abs as I lower myself to my knees.

His throaty groan when I take him into my mouth answers my question. I suck him deep, then swirl my tongue around the head before I give him a squeeze of my hand. “Your turn.”

At first he just stands, his head tipped back, as I glide my mouth over him, but when I sheath my teeth with my lips and tighten down on him, he groans again and grasps fistfuls of my hair. I lay my hands on his hips and try to find the rhythm he wants. When I have it, I grasp him tighter and move him with me. He sucks in a sharp breath and starts rocking his hips as I move over him.

I never dreamed doing this to a man could make me so hot, but as I feel him thicken and begin to throb in my mouth, I know I always want to be the one who can do this for him. I want him always to want me.

His groans become deeper and more feral, and I move faster and harder over him. As his groan turns to a wolfish growl, he tries to back away. I hold him tight to my mouth. His release a second later is a warm blast of salt in my mouth. I swallow and look up at him. His honey eyes are dark, and in them, I see our truth.

He draws me to my feet and kisses me like I'm everything in this world that matters. But that's not what I saw in his gaze. Our truth waits outside this hotel. We have to go home, and he's going to protect his family at all costs. Even if it costs him me.

Rob

As much as it pains me, I leave my Ducati at the bus station in St. Louis. Heading toward Louisville would have been more direct, but this is as close to the center of the country that I can easily get. If anyone finds the bike, I want to leave them guessing.

What pains me more is what's going to happen when we get back to Port St. Mary. Adri is asleep in my arms in the last row of seats in the tired Greyhound bus. At every single stop along the way, it's taken every ounce of my will not to grab her and find a hotel where I can make love to her again—some backwoods town where we could just vanish.

But I can't ask her to leave her life behind. And I can't leave Lee in the lurch. Between running into Sophie and the goons I couldn't bring myself to kill back to Chicago, I've left too big of a trail. Now that I've likely exposed them, I have to do whatever it takes to protect my siblings.

I look at Adri. She seems so peaceful. She doesn't understand what it means to be a Delgado, and I don't want her to. She shouldn't have to live constantly looking over her shoulder. The thought of another man touching her is enough to bring me to my knees, but I want her to have a normal life and a family of her own. I can't give her that.

I turn to the window as the dusk sky turns dark and a cold knot tightens in my stomach again as I think about last night. Why couldn't I have kept my hands off her? My desperation made me stupid and irresponsible. We had unprotected sex, and I don't even want to think about the possible consequences.

And I told her everything. Even if my family leaves, that alone could put her in danger. If those goons track her there, even if she doesn't know where we went, she's dead. If I brought her with us, then what? She'd be no safer. I've put her in an impossible situation.

We get off the bus in Sarasota and take a cab to Spencer's, where I left my car the afternoon of Sophie's job. We're quiet on the drive back to Port St. Mary. She seems to understand what this is, and I'm glad.

“You can drop me here,” she says just before I make the turn onto her street.

I pull to the side of the road, but it's a minute before I can bring myself to look at her, because every time I do, I see the look on her face when she came with me inside her. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The memory makes me question everything.

“You'll be okay?” I ask.

“It's not me I'm worried about.”

Protectiveness flares inside me, hot and angry. “It should be. You are in real danger, Adri.”

She reaches for my face and melts my anger with a single touch. “You're leaving?”

I nod because my throat is too tight for words.

“When?”

I swallow. “Soon.”

She eases in slowly, as if she's afraid of scaring me away, and her lips brush over mine. As hard as I try to resist, I can't. I reach for her face and draw her deeper into our kiss. When I let her go, she looks up at me for a long moment. Everything I see in that gaze—love, pain, good-bye—nearly kills me.

I gently push her back. A tear leaks over her lashes as she looks at me. “Good-bye, Rob.”

She's stronger than me, because I can't make myself say that word to her. She steps out of the car and doesn't look back as she makes her way up the road toward her house. I watch her move under the streetlights until she's inside before I can make myself pull away.

I'm breathing in short pants, trying to keep the emotions at bay, but the road blurs in front of me as my eyes well.

I pull over, drop my head against the headrest.

The next second, I'm being ripped from the car. A beefy kid about my age, with a flattop, a shiny badge, and a crisp uniform throws me onto the hood of the Lumina, yanking my hands behind my back and cuffing me.

Blue lights flash in the night. I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn't even see them in my rearview.

“Robert Davidson, or whoever you are,” Adri's father says, “you are under arrest for kidnapping and false imprisonment. You have the right to remain—”

“I didn't kidnap her,” I interrupt.

He shoves the back of my head, smashing my face into the hood. “You have the right to remain silent, and I suggest you do that.”

He holds my face down and finishes with my rights while the kid frisks me. When he reaches the waistband of my jeans, I feel the tug as he frees me of my Glock.

The kid yanks me up, shoving me toward the cop car parked behind me.

“First day?” I ask him.

“Move!” he shouts.

He tries to shove me inside the car. I shove back, then lower myself in.

Adri's father thinks he's saving her. He's not. Because all hell is about to rain down on Port St. Mary.

The police will dig into my family's past. They may find out who we are, or they may not. Either way, if my arrest gets onto the Internet, or into the news—if my picture goes out—someone is bound to recognize me. If my screwups with Sophie and the thugs in Chicago haven't already exposed my family, it won't be long now. They'll have to leave before that happens.

If I go to jail, I'm a dead man, and there
will
be collateral damage. A few redneck cops holding down the fort at their backwater jail aren't going to slow down whoever comes for me. It's as simple as that.

Adri

I checked my phone when we got on the bus this morning and found a message from Chuck. Dad came looking for me last night. I called Dad and told him not to worry, that I was on my way home. He had a thousand questions, but I told him we'd talk when I got here. I expected him to be standing vigil, ready to read Rob the riot act as soon as we showed up, which is why I had him drop me at the end of the street. This is between Dad and me. But the house is empty when I get there.

I go to my room and strip off my clothes, then look at myself in the mirror. I'm not the same person I was when I left here.

I glide my hands over my breasts and down to my hips, remembering Rob's hands doing the same in the shower this morning.

But he's leaving.

I hesitate before grabbing my robe and heading to the shower. If I'm never going to be with Rob again, I don't want to wash what little I still have of him away. I can still smell him on me. I don't want to let it go.

But I have to face my father, and if I smell of Rob and sex, it's not going to go well.

I shower and slip on a blouse and jeans then look at myself again. I have to come clean with Dad. Not about Rob. He can never know who Rob really is. But I have to tell him we were together. I can't keep hiding behind Chuck.

When Dad doesn't answer his cell, I call the station.

“Adri,” Doris, the night dispatcher says. She's worked for Dad since before I was born. “Where have you been, girl? It's been forever.”

“Hey, Doris. Is my dad in?”

“He's a little tied up at the moment. He just brought someone in. But I can leave him a message to call you back when he's got a sec.”

“I think I'll come down there. I really need to talk to him.”

“Well, the paperwork will keep him busy for a while, so he should be here.”

“Thanks, Doris.”

As I head to the T-Bird, it feels like my intestines are tying themselves in a bow around my stomach. When I get to the station five minutes later, I still don't have words.

Doris is behind the bulletproof glass up front when I step through the door.

“Hey,” I say. “He still here?”

She nods. “I'll buzz you back.”

I go to the door and she buzzes me through. I turn up the hall toward Dad's office, and when I push through the door, he's hunched over paperwork.

“Dad?”

He looks up at me and his face hardens. “I'm not letting him go, Adri.”

My eyes widen and a sick feeling rolls through my insides, because I don't have to ask to know who “him” is. “What did you do?”

“He took you off to God only knows where, and he was carrying a concealed weapon.”

“What did you do?” I repeat, louder.

“It's my job to protect you when I can. This is one of those times.”

Something cold tightens around my heart. “What does that mean?”

“It means I'm not going to let that lowlife near you again.”

“Dad, we can't keep doing this. I'm a grown woman, and you can't dictate who I see or how I spend my time.”

He stands, pressing his palms into the desk and leaning toward me. “He's a troublemaker and a criminal. He was carrying a gun, Adri. He's not someone you want anything to do with.”

Tears pool in my eyes. I can't form a coherent thought. I don't know how much Dad knows, so I don't dare ask anything for fear of saying the wrong thing.

“I'm going to protect you,” he says after a long pause. “I'm never going to let anything hurt you.”

I back toward the door, then turn and bolt past the exit to the holding cells. I peer through the gloom and see a shape in the one farthest from the door.

“Rob!” I yell, rushing toward him.

He stands, but before I reach him, Dad has me and is pulling me back from the bars.

“I need you to go home,” he barks.

I spin on him. “This is wrong!”

“Adrianna,” he warns. “Let me do my job.”

I'm not going to win this by standing here screaming. I need to think. I stop struggling and Dad lets me go. I look at Rob, then back at Dad.

Dad gives my ponytail a gentle tug. “Go home, punkin. Please,” he says, softer.

I give Rob a last glance, where he stands grasping the bars, then turn toward the door and walk away from both of them.

Rob

When Lee walks into the station in the morning to bail me out, she's a wreck. The look on her face says it all. She will never forgive me. She waits until we're in the car to lay into me.

“You son of a bitch,” she snarls. “You have no idea what you put us through.”

My head weighs a thousand pounds. I drop it into the headrest. “I'm sorry. I thought I could take care of it—get us back to Chicago.”

“Your girlfriend went to Chicago, Rob!” Her glare nearly cuts me in half. “Why the hell didn't you tell us about her?”

I close my eyes without answering.

“I didn't ask her,” Lee rants, “because just the question gives too much away, but how much does she know?”

I'm not ready for my siblings to know I told Adri our secret. “She didn't know anything.”

She rubs her forehead before throwing the car in gear and pulling away from the station. “She knew
something
, Rob.”

“I needed her to understand why we couldn't be together, so I told her I'd killed someone, but nothing else.”

Her expression is scathing. “You're not
together
? Really? Because it's not every day that someone who's nothing more to you than your little brother's teacher is willing to get on a plane and risk her life to save your butt.”

I take a deep breath, blow it out slowly. “I don't know what we are.”

“Unless you're a total moron, which considering your latest move is altogether possible, you have to know she's in love with you.”

I can't breathe, so I don't answer.

She cuts me another quick look as she makes the turn in the middle of town. “You were going after the Savocas, weren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Oliver?” she asks, the word catching in her throat as if it cuts on its way up.

“That was where I planned to start.” I don't tell her I had my chance and let it go. “I talked to Pop. He said it was Savoca who contracted the hit. Oliver's guys tried to take me out.”

There's a long silence. When I look at her, her hands are tight on the wheel and there are tears streaking her face as she stares out at the road ahead. “I thought they were going to kill you.”

“I'm sorry, Lee.” I tip my head back, drag in a deep breath. “I know you've been obsessing over getting revenge on them as much as I have. I thought I had to do this on my own.”

“You're a selfish bastard,” she grinds out. “I was an inch from calling the Feds, but if I did that, they'd move us and drop you from the program, and we'd never see you again.”

“If we could find a way, do you still want to go back?”

Her eyes flash to me. I see all the uncertainty I'm feeling reflected back at me in her gaze. “I don't know. All I know for sure is we have to stick together.”

“What if we can never go back, Lee? What if this is really our life now? Always running.”

She sniffles back tears, swallows. “Then we'll deal. As long as we're together, we'll be okay.”

I turn and stare out the windshield as she pulls up the sand road to our house. Crash comes tearing down the driveway, barks his head off as he chases us back up it. When we step out of the car, he's all over Lee. I'm shocked speechless when she crouches down and scoops the squirming pup into her arms. She doesn't look back at me as she carries him into the house.

“Who let the dog out where he could get hit?” she yells as she steps through the door.

Ulie stumbles out to the driveway, a paint roller covered with bloodred paint in her hand and spatters all over the outfit she's wearing—the one with the snakeskin straps and leather fringe on the shoulders that I made her take off.

Her face is almost as red as she glares at me. “When did you turn stupid, Rob?”

I nod at the roller in her hand. “Tell me that's not my bedroom.”

She launches herself into my arms. The roller whacks me in the back of the head. “If you get yourself killed, I swear to God I will kill you, you stupid jerk.”

I grimace as I hug her back. Out of all of us, I expected Ulie to be the most anxious to get home. I didn't figure she'd mind so much if it was over my dead body.

Grant steps onto the porch and watches us.

When Ulie's done strangling me and painting the back of my head, she peels herself off and pushes past him into the house.

I move toward the porch.

“You went home?” Grant asks.

“Not exactly.” I'm not really sure where home is anymore. I climb the stairs and stop in front of him. “I don't think we're going to be able to go back. Not for a while, anyway.”

I expect him to rant against me, or maybe throw a punch. Instead, he just looks at me, and I'm surprised that what I see in his eyes is more relief than hate.

He hasn't cut his hair since we got here. It's halfway to his shoulders now. But that's not the only change. There's something wiser in his face, understanding that was never there before. He scoops his helmet off the love seat, brushes past me on his way to his bike. “Welcome home.”

He straddles the bike, guns the engine, leaves a plume of blue smoke behind as he rumbles down the driveway.

I'm pretty sure I know my brother, but that guy, I've never met before. I've been gone five days and it's like my whole family did some brain switch.

I know that's true when I look at the door and see Sherm half-tucked behind the frame, peering out at me.

“Hey,” I say without stepping closer.

He steps out from behind the doorframe, but doesn't say anything.

“You held down the fort?” I ask with a vague wave of my hand at the house.

He nods.

With just that gesture, my heart implodes.

He watches me a second longer, then turns and disappears upstairs.

I follow him up and close my bedroom door. The bed is just how I left it. I drop my duffel and pull down the sheets. Adri's blood is still there.

She went to Chicago to find me. That is just about the stupidest and most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me. She put herself in danger to save my sorry ass, which makes me love her so much more. But it also makes me see what a fool I was. She's over her head in shark-infested water and she doesn't even know it. I've put everyone I love in danger. It was spectacularly selfish of me to think getting involved with Adri wouldn't do the same thing to her.

My arraignment is on Monday. Provided Adri's father doesn't want to take this to the press before then, which I'm banking he won't to shield Adri from the publicity, that's how long I have before my face goes into the system. That's how long I have to get my family out of here. After that, it will be too late. Anyone near me is likely to be collateral damage.

If anything happened to Adri because of me, I wouldn't survive it. Because I'd take down anyone and everyone responsible, which would ultimately include me.