The Defiant Hero (46 page)
“There’s no Rene here, either,” came the reply in Spanish. “What are you doing with that cart? I just took that to the laundry room!”
Meg froze. Could it be . . . ? Was it possible . . . ? She didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to look at the man. Please don’t let it be John, she prayed as she reached to open the back door of her car. Please don’t let him be killed, too.
Necklace shook his head at the raincoats in warning, pulling the open front of his own coat closed, murmuring, “Let him go past.”
From the corner of her eyes, Meg saw that the maintenance man was paying them no attention at all. He was still pushing the cart, looking up at the maid, shouting angrily back to her. “I don’t have time to act as your secretary. Next time the phone rings, you take your big fat ass down the stairs and answer it yourself!”
The maid screeched with outrage, raining an eruption of Spanish down upon them.
Meg opened the back door just as the maintenance man pushed the laundry cart—hard—into the raincoats.
It happened so quickly. One second she was about to step into the back of her car, and the next she was being pushed inside, pressed down onto the floor.
“Nobody moves, nobody blinks or Razeen’s brains are on the back window!”
It was John.
Meg turned her head to see that somehow he’d taken one of those deadly assault weapons away from one of the raincoats. He held it with an easy familiarity, its barrel jammed right beneath Razeen’s chin.
No one moved.
“You okay?” he asked her quietly.
She nodded, unable to speak, trying not to shake. God damn it, she could have done this!
“You still have the car keys?”
She did. She’d slipped them back into her pocket. She managed another nod.
“Good. Get ready to use ’em,” he ordered. “When I tell you to, climb over the seat and get us the hell out of here. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.” Meg found her voice. He must have followed her here. How in God’s name had he managed to follow her here?
“Hands on top of your heads,” he commanded the raincoats in a voice that implied dire consequences should he be disobeyed. “Move slowly, keep ’em where I can see ’em. And step back, away from the car.”
Meg couldn’t see the raincoats. All she could see was John’s ear and the tense muscle jumping in his jaw as he waited to see if the GIK terrorists would follow his orders.
Or try to kill him without injuring Razeen.
Meg wanted to shout at him. To ask him why he’d followed her and put himself back into this danger. She wanted to hold him close and thank him, reverently, for coming to her rescue yet again, for making it so that she didn’t have to kill Razeen right here and now. She wanted to apologize again, to tell John she really was sorry. She shouldn’t have gotten him involved in any of this. She should have executed Razeen in the K-stani embassy men’s room, while she had the chance.
She kept her mouth shut, knowing that the last thing she should do was distract him while he was attempting the impossible—and managing their escape.
“Now!” he said to Meg.
Meg went. Out from under him, up and over the seat. But one glance in the rearview mirror reminded her that they were parked in by the cargo van—there was nowhere to go.
“Go, go, go!” John shouted.
She had the key in the ignition and the car in reverse and she braced herself and floored it—slamming them back into the van with a screech of bending metal, pushing it out of their way.
“Keep your head down!” John shouted, and she ducked just as the windshield shattered with a deafening roar.
Necklace was shooting at them.
Meg jammed the car into first and pulled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.
Still alive.
For now.
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Twenty
ALYSSA LOCKE WASN’T wearing any underwear.
Last night Sam had broken the front clasp and torn the strap off of her bra and damn near shredded her panties, and this morning she’d silently pulled on her jeans commando-style while he’d tried hard not to watch.
Tried and failed.
She’d taken her broken and torn underwear and tucked it carefully into the pocket of her jacket—no doubt to keep him from having a souvenir or material proof that last night had actually happened.
She’d put her T-shirt back on, too. It was wet, but she had no choice. It was that or nothing. It was extremely hard to put on a shirt with one hand cuffed to someone else.
Sam had found a tank top and cut the left shoulder strap, tying it together after he’d pulled it on.
They’d dressed in silence, combed their hair, took turns putting on their sneakers and tying their laces.
After Alyssa had gotten sick for the second time, after the fiasco in the shower where they’d had unprotected sex, neither of them had had much to say.
Sam stared out the window of the taxi that was taking them across town. He couldn’t believe they’d had sex without a condom. First time in his entire life he’d done that. He’d tried to stop her, but . . .
Inwardly he shook his head at himself. Like hell he’d tried to stop her.
He’d been so completely blown away by the fact that she wanted him again. And he knew that if he had stopped her to get a condom, she would have come to her senses.
So he hadn’t stopped her.
What followed was his fault entirely. He’d assumed he could handle it, handle her. He’d thought that he could give her what she wanted, that he’d have enough macho control to keep himself from losing it and getting her pregnant.
It was a stupid thing to think. Doubly stupid because he knew, he knew, that simply entering her without a condom put her at risk for pregnancy.
But, oh, sweet Jesus, the way she had felt around him . . .
He sneaked a look at her, sitting as far from him as possible, looking pointedly out the other window. One of his sweatshirts was draped over the handcuffs that still connected them, and she held her jacket up to her breasts—hiding the fact that with her T-shirt wet and nearly transparent, she looked like a contestant at some low-life frat bar party.
She could be pregnant.
It wasn’t as terrifying a thought as he’d expected it to be. In fact, the idea of his sperm inside of her right now, maybe connecting with her egg right this very moment, was an undeniable turn-on. A piece of him inside of her for nine whole months . . .
It just didn’t happen to be the piece of him he wanted inside of her for nine whole months.
And of course, after nine months, there’d be a friggin’ baby—that was pretty terrifying.
But not as completely mind numbing as he’d thought.
Marry me.
He looked at the smooth line of her cheek, at the way she’d pulled her hair back from her face in an attempt to control it, to look professional and cool.
All that ice was just a cover for the volcano that burned inside of Alyssa Locke.
He’d always thought that a night with her would cure him of his obsession.
He’d been dead wrong. After last night, he wanted her more than ever. He wanted her forever.
Marry me.
He could say the words right now. He didn’t have to wait to find out if she was pregnant. Marry me and I’ll fuck you every night for the rest of our lives.
Sam laughed out loud. Yeah, that would go over really well. Women wanted romance. They wanted love. Even women who pretended to be ice cubes like Alyssa Locke.
But Alyssa didn’t love him. Hell, she’d made it more than clear she didn’t even like him despite the fact that she more than liked having sex with him.
She glanced at him, shooting him her disapproval. There was nothing about this situation that she found funny. His laughter was only making things worse.
The taxi pulled up outside the parking garage, saving his sorry ass. He let Alyssa pay for half of the cab fare with a five-dollar bill she had in the pocket of her jeans. No way was he going to start an argument over that.
“Can you wait?” she asked the driver. “He’ll be right back—he’ll need a ride back to the hotel.”
The he she was referring to was him.
She wasn’t going to drive Sam back. They were going to the exact same place, she had a car, but she wasn’t going to give him a lift. She hated him that much.
She must have seen something in his face because she said, “I’ll pay for the cab,” as they started for the stairs that would take them to the level where her car was parked.
“I can pay for my own cab,” he told her, careful to leave out the adjectives he was thinking, trying not to sound as pissed off as he felt. Getting into a fight with her now, mere seconds before they unlocked these handcuffs, wasn’t going to help.
Although help what, he wasn’t sure. What did he want from this?
To sleep with her again tonight.
Okay, King of Wishful Thinking, that wasn’t likely to happen. Try again, this time keeping it realistic.
He wanted her to be comfortable enough with him so that she’d let him know if she’d gotten pregnant from what they’d done this morning.
Yeah, that was about all he could hope for.
Sam cleared his throat as they climbed the last of the stairs. “If this ends—you know, the situation with Osman Razeen and Meg Moore—in the next few days, I’ll, um, call you in about a week, to, um . . .”
“I’ve got your email address,” she cut in. “I’ll send you a an email when I know for sure I’m not pregnant.”
He could see her car now. Right where they’d left it yesterday. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “And if you are?” he asked quietly.
She wouldn’t look at him. “I’m not.”
“If you are, please talk to me before you make any decisions,” he said. “I deserve at least, you know, to know.”
Her face was devoid of all expression, all the light and life of the woman he’d laughed with and made love to last night completely suppressed.
“All right,” she conceded. “If I don’t email you, I’ll call you. But I’m not going to have to call you.”
She was, however, going to have to follow him, today and the next day and the next . . . Because she thought he knew where Nils was.
And Sam knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Having Alyssa continue to follow him for the next few days was going to drive him completely mad. He didn’t want to have to see her, to think about her.
To ache for her.
“I don’t know where Nils is,” he told her as she unlocked the trunk of her car. “Really.”
And there was her fanny pack. Aqua. As he watched, she unzipped it and pulled out a heavy ring of keys.
And then, with a click, they were free.
She pulled on her jacket despite the heat of the day.
“I did know for a while, right after he left,” Sam contin-ued. “You were right about that.” He told her about WildCard’s tracking device. “I’m positive Nils caught up with Meg within twelve hours of her being gone. But he hasn’t called—at least not me. I seriously doubt Meg killed him, so I’ve been going on the assumption that they’re still together. In fact, I’ve been expecting Nils to turn up with Meg in tow any minute now, ready to surrender Razeen to the FBI.”
Alyssa was silent, just listening to him.
“Nils has a real thing for this woman,” he explained awkwardly. “I think he, you know, maybe even loves her. He’ll bring her in. Just give him a little more time.”
She nodded, rubbing her wrist. “Will you call me if he contacts you?”
“Yes, I will.” Was he lying? He didn’t really know. Had she been lying when she’d told him she’d call him if she were pregnant? Probably. God damn it. He wanted to cry. There was nothing left to do but walk away from her now. “So now you can stop following me, all right? I think it would be best for both of us if you didn’t follow me anymore.”
She nodded again and got into her car.
That was it. No good-bye. No thanks, it was fun. No see you later.
Because she didn’t want to see him later. She didn’t want to see him ever again. Not even if she were carrying his baby.
Sam watched her pull out of the parking spot, watched her drive toward the exit.
He savagely kicked one of the enormous concrete pillars that held up the parking garage, but even the pain in his foot didn’t take away the pain that was in his heart.
“Damn it!” Meg said. “Damn you for following me!”
“Pull in here,” Nils ordered her, and she took a hard right turn into the massive parking lot of a resort hotel near Disney World.
The van hadn’t followed them.
Meg had hit it so hard, the front axle had broken. Nils had looked back to see the front left wheel listing at an odd angle. Those assholes weren’t going anywhere—not in that van. And being amateurs, they hadn’t brought a backup vehicle.
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