A SEAL's Fantasy (11 page)

So she did the only thing she could.

She ran.

Ten minutes later, Lara shifted her duffel strap more securely on her shoulder as she swayed with the moving bus, her eyes watching but not taking in passing streets.

She’d had to move fast, considering he was one of those military guys who probably showered in three minutes. The moment the bathroom door shut, she’d grabbed her bag, her laptop and backup drive. She didn’t slow down to dress, instead yanking on her jeans and boots in the elevator and hiding her sleep shirt under her jacket.

The bus ground to a stop, pulling Lara from her sex-induced stupor. Shouldering her way through the people, down the steps, she gave a cursory look left and right for big goons.

Goon-free.

She rolled her eyes over Castillo’s over-the-top warnings and stormed across the street. What a drama queen. King? There was definitely nothing feminine about him. His huge, um, muscles balanced out the dimples and kept him firmly on the manly side of life.

Get over it,
she mentally ranted.
Quit thinking about him.
Obsessing over naked mistakes never helped.

Of course, she’d never made such a huge naked mistake before. So maybe a little obsessing was, like, an obligation.

Stopping at the top of her stairwell, Lara laid her head against the wall, barely resisting the urge to bounce it a few times. Who knew? Maybe she could shake a little sense back into her brain.

Since her body was still carrying Castillo’s fingerprints, she decided to hold off beating herself up any more, at least until she’d showered. Then, if instead of heading to a friend’s to crash, she was still fighting the urge to hop on a bus, ride back across town and beg him for another round? Well, there was a nice cement wall outside. She’d whack her head against that instead.

Wait. She frowned as she stomped down the empty hallway. Why was she freaking so much? Who said those guys who’d trashed her place were anything more than sloppy burglars? Castillo had probably played off the incident to get her into that hotel room. The guy was buddies with Phillip. Yet another rich frat boy out to get lucky.

Just because the fraternity was paid by the government to off bad guys didn’t mean they were any different, she sniffed.

Ready to start pretending the past twelve hours hadn’t happened, Lara tugged the crime scene tape off and pushed her broken door open. She’d be irritated that the super hadn’t fixed it, but she wasn’t sure whom the ambulance had taken away the day before.

She pulled it shut the best she could and looked around.

Her stomach slid into her toes.

She had to close her eyes, then open them again to see if maybe part of her brain had fried from sexual overload.

Nope.

It was totally trashed.

She frowned as she dropped her duffel bag next to the door then settled her fists on her hips.

It hadn’t been this bad before, had it?

Had dirtbags—or her neighbors—sifted through the mess looking for valuables? Or any single item still intact?

She kicked her way to the kitchen, figuring maybe she’d open a window and let some of the ugly out. She grabbed the mail off the table, trying to remember if it had been there before.

With a drunken creak, her door swung back open.

She glanced over her shoulder, hoping it was the super with some duct tape.

Oh, shit.

No super.

No duct tape.

Lara’s stomach dropped, tension slamming through her so hard she was lucky she didn’t land on her ass. Her breath knotted in her chest, hurting as she tried to make her lungs work.

Looming in her doorway, looking as though he was on death’s payroll, was one of the goons.

A very big, very ugly, very mean-looking goon.

“Been looking for you,” he said in a heavily accented guttural growl.

Okay, so maybe Frat Boy hadn’t been exaggerating about the danger thing.

She could handle this. It was broad daylight—her door didn’t even shut. Her fingers shook on her hips and she felt like throwing up. But the only thing in her stomach was a grease slick of fear, so she swallowed it down and tried her only option.

Bullshit.

“You must be looking for Lara,” she said, adding a strained laugh and big wide eyes. “Sorry. She’s not here right now.”

Mean and Ugly just stared.

Then, not even glancing around as if he might be concerned with witnesses, he stepped farther into the room.

Uh-oh.

Lara would have stepped back, but her feet were frozen to the floor.

“I’m her neighbor. She, you know, called and asked me to check her mail.” She waved the envelopes as if they were covered in truth dust to verify her claim.

She couldn’t tell if Mean and Ugly believed her or not. He just kept staring with those dead shark eyes.

“So, um, I can give her a message if you want.”

Still nothing.

She winced, glancing past his shoulder. Was he waiting for his buddy? Didn’t goons travel in pairs?

The idea of another one sent a wave of terror washing over her. Lara tried to swallow the slippery, hot fear clawing its way up her throat. She’d be okay. She was street smart; she’d handled bad before. She could handle this.

Somehow.

He moved closer.

She wanted to run. To scream. To jump up and down yelling,
no fair, dammit.

But she couldn’t move.

Lara’s fingers clenched, the mail crumpling loudly. The sound snapped her out of the foggy terror. She frantically looked around for a weapon. Keys, a big stick. A stiletto.

Nothing.

She had a handful of mail.

Her bills were heavy, but she didn’t figure this was gonna do more than offer up a few paper cuts.

“Look, buddy—”

Before she could finish, before she could even figure out if she was going to threaten or plead, he grabbed her arm.

Unlike when Castillo had made that very same move the night before, she didn’t feel irritated with a disturbing undercurrent of turned on.

She was straight-up terrified and the only undercurrents were the kind that made her want to cry.

“Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go.” Leaning back with all her weight—which wasn’t insubstantial considering her height—she dug her heels into the carpet, the nappy fibers catching on her spiked boots. “I don’t know what you want, I don’t care who you are. Let go of me and get out of here or you’re gonna be sorry.”

Not even rolling his eyes or bothering to laugh at her empty threat, he started dragging her toward the door.

Lara didn’t make it easy.

She struggled, kicking at his legs, trying to get close enough to scratch his face. She briefly considered biting, but didn’t figure he’d had his rabies shot.

Nothing worked.

She screamed. So loud and hard it felt as if the scream scoured her throat raw.

When nobody appeared, she screamed again.

And kicked him, driving the pointy toe of her boot into the fleshy part of his calf.

He didn’t even slow.

Holy shit.

Terror grabbed tight, her heart racing so fast the blood almost burst out of her ears, Lara tried to catch her breath. Tried to restart her brain.

Nothing.

He was a foot from the door.

No.

No way in hell this ugly guy was hauling her off.

Fueled by the hideous images of what he might do, Lara launched herself at the guy. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his side so her heels dug into his arm. Clinging to him like a sideways burr, she ignored the disease potential and chomped her teeth into his shoulder with a vicious growl.

He grunted.

And let go of her arm.

Lara had just enough forethought to know if she let go, he would win. Instead, she hitched herself onto his back, beating his ear with one hand and yanking his greasy hair with the other.

“You’re gonna want to release her now.”

Lara heard the warning over the goon’s cussing and her own pants. She quit struggling, her body sagging on the goon’s back as her gaze flew to the doorway.

Castillo.

Her hero.

Tears filled her eyes, her breath coming in gasps as she tried to take it in.

She was safe.

No matter what happened now, she was safe.

Castillo would take care of her.

“Lara.” That’s all he said. Her name, in that unemotional I’m-a-military-machine voice.

She’d never heard anything so wonderful.

Knowing what he wanted as if he were holding up cue cards, she let go, then jumped rather than slid off the goon’s back. And promptly landed on her ass at the rapid descent. She winced, both at the jarring impact and at the humiliatingly lame move.

“I’m here for the woman. You can go.”

“Yeah?” Castillo’s military mask cracked enough for his grin to escape. Then he shook his head. “And if I don’t want to go?”

Lara didn’t want to hear the guy’s response. At least, not while she was flat on her ass on the floor. She shifted, trying to stay out of the goon’s line of sight as she got to her feet.

Apparently he had eyes in the back of his head, because he didn’t even look around as he swung his hand.

She moved fast, so instead of sending her back to the floor the blow only grazed her face.

“Lara!” Castillo snapped.

She ran toward him at the same time he launched himself into the air, bending at the waist so his feet slammed into the guy’s chest.

Lara gaped.

Sprawled on the floor, the goon glared as he reached into the pocket of his jacket. Before he could bring his hand out, Castillo rolled from the floor into a crouch and waved his fingers in a bring-it-on motion.

The guy slowly lowered his hand.

“I told you you’d be sorry,” she taunted, wiping the blood from her lip with the back of her wrist.

It was a lot easier to sound cocky here, standing behind her very own SEAL.

Castillo shook his head at her, then jerked his head to indicate she should move to the door.

Lara bent down to grab her duffel. Before she could straighten, the goon gave a roar. He surged to his feet, grabbing a chair—the only intact piece of furniture in the room—and swung it at Castillo’s head.

Castillo didn’t even flinch as the wood splintered over the arm he’d raised to protect his skull. Instead, he reached out and grabbed the guy by the neck, then lifted him off his feet.

In a blink the guy had a knife in his hand.

Screaming, Lara swung her duffel at the guy at the same time Castillo grabbed the guy’s hand. He might have planned a few other moves, but Lara kept swinging her duffel and getting in the way. She didn’t care. Fury filled her like nothing she’d ever felt in her life.

Castillo had saved her and this creepy guy wanted to cut him? No way. No way in hell.

“Lara.” Castillo growled her name a third time.

Panting, her hair poking her in the eyes and her lip throbbing, Lara clutched the duffel in her arms for a second, then ran to the door.

Her back was only turned to the men for maybe two seconds. But when she reached the door and looked back, the goon was lying on the floor.

“Is he dead?” she gasped.

He looked dead.

“Move.”

Lara nodded, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the crumpled body on the floor.

“Now.”

Lara blinked, swallowing hard against the nasty taste in her mouth. She wet her lips, looked at the man, then at Castillo.

He wasn’t even winded.

If he’d had more than a half an inch of hair, she didn’t think it’d be out of place. Nope, he looked totally—what was that term he liked?

Copacetic.

He didn’t even hurry out the door. He just sort of sauntered, grabbing her around the waist as he went and hauling her along.

Lara wanted to run, but Castillo kept their pace mellow. Through the hall, down the stairs, out of the building. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, scanning the street.

Lara followed his gaze, her body feeling like a rubber band stretched too tight. She knew she’d snap at any second and hoped like hell the goon didn’t have friends out here. She wasn’t sure she could take more.

The coast must have been clear, though, because Castillo headed for the Harley parked in front of the building.

He didn’t let go of her until they reached it, then after giving her a look that warned against trying to run, he unlocked the saddlebag and pulled out a helmet. Without a word, he handed it to her.

He grabbed another one off the handlebar. How it hadn’t been stolen was a mystery to Lara. Maybe he had some kind of badass force field around the motorcycle.

“I’m sorry,” Lara murmured, looking at the bruises on his face. She twined her fingers around the helmet strap to keep them from reaching up to touch, soothe the skin over his cheekbone. That was her fault. She wasn’t the one who’d broken the chair over his face, but it was still her fault.

From the chilly look in his blue eyes, Castillo would agree. Not wanting to hear that look put into words, Lara awkwardly tucked her duffel under her arm, then bent to pull the helmet on. It didn’t have a visor, so the view of Castillo’s stare was clear and bright.

Lovely.

“How am I supposed to hold on to my stuff?” She held out the duffel she’d clung to like a teddy bear, showing him the broken straps.

His eyes narrowed and for a second she thought he’d tell her where she could put her stuff. Then he lifted her duffel by the edge, both straps dangling loose. With one hand, he flipped open the leather saddlebag again. He glanced at the duffel, then at the size of his bag. It wasn’t going to fit.

She chewed on her thumbnail, waiting to see what he was going to do.

His sigh was a work of art. The kind of sound that said a million long-suffering things meant to inspire all sorts of guilt. It worked. She was ready to tell him she didn’t need all of it, just her laptop, when he snapped the duffel open with a tug of his hands.

She cringed.

He dumped the contents into the saddlebag, reaching over the bike to stuff her laptop into the one on the other side with his clothes. Then he tossed the ripped bag into a nearby trash can. Not once did he meet her eyes.