Slick as Ides (41 page)

“No one’s gonna get hurt, right?” I check with him again for the tenth time.

“Not a soul.” He leans in and kisses my temple, hugs me real quick and then let’s go.

He hands me back my phone, takes me inside and sets the weasel up by the drains, punches in the codes and takes my hand, dragging me out of our home so quick, all our belongings and furniture are a blur as we exit.

Moments later we’re on his motorcycle, wearing helmets and whipping down the road.

It isn’t until we hear a massive explosion down the block that he stops and pulls over.

“Holy shit! That was Rich’s place, wasn’t it?” I grip him tight around his leather jacket.

He rips out his buzzing phone from his pocket and then looks back up at the flames licking the sky and creating black angry twirls of smoke.

“No—it was Hillcourt Corporation—he lives a block away.”

“How can you tell?” I ask.

He passes me his phone, and on the screen there’s a picture of the building in flames and a text message from Jason—
Had no choice. I won’t go back.

That’s when Nick drives us back to our place as fast as we can go. And no matter how much I scream for him to stop and turn around, he won’t listen. The bike throttles harder, and it’s not Nick driving the bike anymore, it’s another man entirely.

The lawyer that can’t stand to allow a bad guy to get away and was tortured for years by being forced to do anything his dad told him to. Forced to be a criminal, rather than someone that creates magnificent inventions the world can marvel at.

Justice can be a bitch, even dirtier than I am—one that can’t be stopped no matter what. No matter how much I wish it would.

I hold him tight—since it’s all I can do.

Chapter 24

Nick

I stare but see only the black asphalt beneath the wheels of my bike.

Dena keeps screaming at me to stop, but I won’t. I can’t.

We’ve built a life together over the last few months in L.A. We knew there’d be moments we’d have to run, but this is too much. This seems too permanent. We came back home without fear because we were prepared. We have items we treasure.

We have memories.

We. Have. A. Life.
Here
!

I’ll be damned if I’ll let Rich Hillcourt take any of those things from me.

Not after what he did to my father and the woman he loved.

Each second that passes, I see my Dena’s face as she’s beaten and tortured, treated like shit until she doesn’t know who she is anymore.

I imagine being in Dad’s place.

Hell, it’s too easy to imagine, since her own father abused her years ago.

We’re similar as father and son. More than I ever knew—we’re the same to the core. We did it all for a woman we love beyond reason.

We did our best, and even used crooked means to help and save her—the woman of our dreams.

Libby was selfish, choosing money and someone with a higher station than Dad.

My Dena will never do that, and I love her all the more for her integrity.

I grip the handle bars tight and shout, “I won’t risk you.”

I pull over on the side of the road, hand her the gun from her backpack and tell her to wait here.

“No, Nick. You can’t do this. Who knows what that man will do to you when you see him? He might be more deranged than my father was. I mean, my dad never beat or tortured anyone.”

“Didn’t he? Isn’t that what he basically did to you but on a less noticeable scale? I know you don’t want to reminisce and share the details with me, but I know he hit you, and more than once. I can tell by the things you’ve said, the way you act sometimes. He terrorized you.” A fire rains in my brain, consuming all thoughts but one—justice.

She claps her hand on my wrist and encircles it with her slender little fingers. “Don’t do this. We can get another place—start over. We knew we might have to run again someday. It isn’t worth it.”

“If I let him go now, how long will we have to keep running? Will we ever be able to have kids?” I place my free hand on top of hers and squeeze it. Not to remove her grip, but to soothe her. “If I let him go, who’s to say he won’t go after my father and do unspeakable things to him?”

“Stephen Reid can handle himself. He has connections and people to help him. Why else do you think Jason did that? He had to be acting under your dad’s orders.” She cups my jaw with her other hand. “Listen to me, sweetheart—we need to walk away. We’re weakened. Our defenses are low. What’s the number one rule for hackers everywhere?”

“Don’t get caught and leave no trace,” I regurgitate, my vision going hazy as I allow my brain to numb.

“Exactly. If we go back there, or you do, or anyone else—Rich has us. We’ll have been sloppy and unprepared. It means he has the upper hand. We were already walking away from our place moments ago. Let’s do that now—together.” She leans in and kisses one cheek, then the other, followed by both my eyes and then my nose and lips. “Please, I’m begging you, sweetheart. Let’s live another day. Let’s be together and make love. Rich gets his car. He probably torches our place down. So what? We’ll have each other, and isn’t that what your dad was seeking with Libby? To be with her at all costs? To keep her safe?” Another gentle kiss to my lips. “I love you, and it doesn’t matter where I am as long as I’m with you—then I’m safe and happy.”

I clasp her to my chest and whimper, “I hate that he’s breathing!”

“I know, baby, I know.” She rocks me back and forth.

When she lets go, her eyes are filled with frustration as well, and creased at the corners with worry, but there’s also a glimmer of hope and love, and that’s what I hang onto as I drive us away into the unknown—into the black, scary night, where at least we’ll be together.

* * *

I wake drenched in sweat and pull Dena into my chest, then wrap my arms around her waist.

She continues to sleep. It never wakes her when I do this unless I purposefully jostle her awake.

I breathe into her hair, taste the skin of her neck and still, nothing can make this hole in my chest go away.

It’s all gone. All of it.

Two weeks ago our house burst into flames, somehow our security box was tampered with in the bank and someone took everything inside it. Our security measure we’d put in place, failed—even the temperamental virus that was supposed to infect everything we’d locked up, rendering them useless.

In my gut, I know . . . It’s not over.

We’ve hidden, we’ve run, and I have the shitty name of Aiden Barrows. What the fuck?

I’m sleeping next to Sarah Williams, not Dena Black.

My stomach knots as I consider how I can change this.

Today we up and move on somewhere else. Maybe a new state.

I hum into her shoulder and kiss it, and before I know what I’m doing, I seek her out for warmth and comfort and a place for my hard dick.

I grind my length into her ass.

Those skimpy red panties have a dry spot on them—didn’t do my job adequately last night.

“Shouldn’t be wearing those,” I murmur as I slip them down her legs.

She stirs, moans and is still limp.

“Please, sweetheart, I need you.” I reach up inside her tee shirt—
my
tee shirt she’s wearing—and I cup her breasts, then squeeze them.

“Mmm . . . Sleeping, Aiden.”

I flip her over. “What the fuck did you just call me?” I ask through a tight jaw and blurring vision.

“Sorry . . . Just trying to ingrain it into my brain so I don’t slip and call you Nick. I have to get used to it.”

“No, you fucking don’t. Not at
home
when we’re alone together,” I say, ripping her shirt off, and struggling to get it past her heavy, tired limbs.

Her eyes stay closed.

“Christ—we don’t even have a home anymore,” I say and my stomach drops. It’s sickening she has to deal with this shit. We can’t even go very far since we still have a company to run.

“What’s wrong?” She blinks in the low light and looks more edible than ever. “You haven’t called me a bitch in two weeks, ever since . . .”

“It’s not because of that.” I drop my shoulders and climb over her, then take her right nipple between my lips and flick my tongue over it.

Her fingers brush through my blond cropped hair.

“I don’t want you to dye your hair again,” I tell her between kisses, licks and nibbles. “No lighter than this, and I don’t want you messing with the length either.” I grip the back of her neck to bring her mouth to mine.

She moans as the kiss grows heavy and urgent.

When I release her, she sighs. “Tell me what’s going on with you. I’m worried. You’ve been really quiet lately.”

“You don’t deserve this—any of it. How am I any better than your father? I’ve got you running, hiding who you are, instead of being in your own sanctuary where you can create. You haven’t been able to touch any of your inventions since our place was destroyed. We can’t keep hopping from state to state. It needs to stop, so I contacted my dad yesterday.”

She sits up. “You what?” She grips my shoulders. “No! He’s dangerous!”

“I know he is, and that’s why we need him. I think he’s the one that broke into our safe deposit box and stole our shit. I figured he was going after Rich. He confirmed to me yesterday that I was right about all this.”

“How the hell did you get ahold of him?” She scrubs her eyes with the backs of her hands and then her arms flop at her side.

“Actually, it wasn’t too hard. I went to his house yesterday, and he left me an encoded message in my old bedroom with a phone number, so I called it.” I smile. “I’m not leaving L.A. again. We’re staying here. No more of this pansy-ass running away. I asked him if we could move into his place, and he said yes. It’s secure. I put in for a few upgrades, and they’re all happening today.”

“God, Nick. How are we supposed to stay hidden there? Rich will expect this.” She huffs with an exhausted, disgusted sound, then throws her legs over the edge of the bed. She gets up and moves to the bathroom.

“Think about it at least. I want you to be able to create, be an artist like you crave. Westin will help guard us whenever we go out, and we already know we can trust him, besides . . .”

She stops and turns back to look at me. At this angle, her tits look amazing, so I stroke my bare cock as I stare at her.

“Besides . . . ?” She arches a brow at me.

“Dad’s tracked down Jason. We think he’s played us all. He has to be working for Rich.”

She grips the door. Does she need support? “Why would he blow up Hillcourt Corporation and our home if he worked for Rich?”

“Because he’s trying to confuse the authorities and us. If he was with us, he wouldn’t have blown either of those up. He’s Rich’s inside man. How else was Hillcourt tracking us both so well? You’re not the only one that has had Hillcourt steal your inventions over the last year. They took a few of mine as well.”

She drops her head. “Such as?”

“What? You don’t know which of their inventions were actually mine?” I toss a hand over my heart but keep stroking with the other hand. “I’m hurt by that, Ides. You don’t know my handiwork when you see it?”

“I’m not playing this game with you right now—too tired to do the ‘guess which pervy invention is Vapor’s.’” She steps the rest of the way into the bathroom, shuts the door and does her business.

I lay back, stare at the ceiling and stroke it harder.

When she rejoins me a few minutes later, she’s rubbing sanitizer into her hands.

“Soap wasn’t enough for you?” I press my lips together and watch her every move.

“Not hotel soap—no. They use crappy ingredients, and it wreaks havoc on my nice skin. It dries me out, and I hate that.”

She moves right in front of me and keeps working it into her skin.

I take her hand and rub it in for her, pulling her down onto the bed in the process. “Oh, but your ingredients don’t dry your skin out?” I tease, smirking.

“I used the soap, so don’t act like I didn’t. And you know I put stuff in my sanitizer so my skin stays silky smooth just the way you like it.” She leans over and slumps into my chest. “What are we gonna do? This doesn’t seem like the right answer—to stay at your dad’s place.” She’s in a ball in my lap but her head is tipped back, searching my face. “It’s just so creepy there. It’s the place he intimidated me, in his office. I can’t work in there.”

“We’re gonna remodel, and for now, we’ll stay in my old room. Nothing creepy in there except some pervy ropes and cuffs.”

She snorts a laugh. “That’s very comforting since it sounds all too familiar.”

“If I call you bitch again will you try it out for a week? Give me that much.” I kiss the top of her head.

“No, I’ll do it because you think it’s the right thing to do, and I trust you. I think we need to move Riot and Stormy in there as well, though.”