Hot Contract (18 page)

Jen pulled him down beside her. “You cut
yourself.”

Keegan rolled over, hand pressed to his
thigh. “Until we know better, we have to assume the truck is full
of your aunt’s crazies. Get your ass down and pull some grass in
over you, that dress is a dead giveaway.”

She dropped down next to him, flat on her
belly. “Take your jacket off. Give me your knife too.”

He handed it to her, hilt first. She pulled
at his jacket and Keegan stripped it off, staring up into the sky,
flat on his back. She’d pulled enough grass down over them to form
a burrow. Unless something happened to direct attention their way,
they were safe.

Her face was so pale it looked like she was
going to faint, but she sawed through the flannel lining, making
wide, ragged strips.

“Jen?” He caught her hand.

“I can’t concentrate when you talk. You know
I don’t like blood.” She folded what was left of the lining into a
makeshift pad and pressed it down over his thigh. “This is totally
grossing me out.” She made a face. “It’s more of a scrape than
anything serious, but I imagine it hurts.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” he gritted
out, pushing her away.

She dug in her heels. “Stop fighting me.”

“Anything to get in my pants, huh, Jen?”

She stayed put and sent him a level look. “I
don’t understand how sometimes you can be so...nice. And at other
times you’re such a jerk.”

Nice, him? “Honey, I’m not nice.”

Fallon had never been in a police trailer
before, but it turned out to be no different from a police station.
Same puke smell, same crappy metal chairs. Apparently the Volcano
substation was in the process of being built, or rebuilt, or what
the hell—he didn’t much care. He had a phobia, although phobia was
a small word for stranglehold on his throat.

He’d spent months chained to a wall. The
physical scars were faded, but sometimes he still woke to find his
arms stretched out overhead. He shrugged to take some of the
pressure from his back and shoulders, and tried to get his legs
into a comfortable position. Corlis gave him a long, narrow-eyed
look and returned her attention to the tiny window centering the
door. Like the flex-cuffs around his wrists, the holding cell was a
joke. Flimsy walls covered in some kind of fake wooden veneer, a
piece of it curled up near the floor, and wall to wall carpet in
flattened down beige.

Obviously the biggest problem Volcano PD
faced was felony snoring. The two drunks sharing the floor of their
holding cell were ball-shakers.

The wall jumped. The Aina were one cell over,
and pissed off mad. One of them demanded his lawyer while the
others took turns calling for Daddy and threatening vile bodily
harm on the assholes that’d locked them up.

Jail was too good for them. Fallon closed his
eyes. They needed something smaller. Like a hamster cage. Corlis
brushed past him. Even after stripping her of weapons, they’d
treated her like a Southern peach, taking the ties off her long
before the plastic had a chance to bruise her delicate skin.

He heard the quick slide of window glass, and
the sharper rattle of steel mesh. It wasn’t coming out. The room
was a joke, but the bars and locks were serious business. The only
exit was through the door, and escape wasn’t a viable option.
Corlis stuck out like a sore thumb.

Her hip pressed against his. He moved over to
make room for her and she nodded. She didn’t look upset or
uncomfortable, didn’t look like much of anything, as if she’d
turned off everything but the autopilot. She pulled off her shoe
and picked at the lining.

“I never told you about prison. About being
chained up,” he said, softly, so they couldn’t hear him out in the
squad room.

She stopped working her shoe.

He risked a quick look at her before turning
away again. Her mouth was tight, like he’d said something wrong.
Hell, he always said the wrong thing, nothing new there. When it
came to her, he was the king of fucked-up.

“Nick gave me pictures,” she said.

Fallon struggled to say something that
wouldn’t start another war between them. Please don’t let him start
another war. “You shouldn’t have looked,” he blurted out.

“Why?”

Fallon shook his head. The words stuck in his
throat, all jumbled and clotted.

Corlis pulled a thin gutting knife from under
her insole, grabbed him by the arm and pushed him forward. A brief
pressure and his arms came free.

“There’s a lawyer up at the front desk,” she
said, all business now. “Gray suit, red tie. He’s got Kate with
him. She’s posting bond for the Aina, and I’ll give you odds the
first place they’ll go is back to the Project.”

Fallon could see the guy through the window,
a flash of white hair and expensive wool. He stood, reached down to
help her up and she let him.

She put her shoe back on and straightened,
already moving away from him. “The cops aren’t going to stop Kate.
And Keegan’s still out there.”

“Babe, I ain’t going nowhere without my
Glock.”

Her grin played over her face like summer
lightning. A retina-flash. He’d come back for that smile, all the
way from Hell. Her hand flickered.
Follow?

Fallon nodded.
Follow.

****

The truck rattled by and Jen left, walking
away toward the center of the hill with a serious case of attitude.
Keegan grunted to his feet and followed her. It wasn’t much of a
hill, just a mound of heaped up dirt and shattered rocks studded
with a few wind-bent trees. The air looked warm and golden, but he
could already feel a bite to the growing breeze. He shoved through
the branches, and followed Jen to where she sat in a small
clearing, hunched over on a slab of weathered black lava with her
arms tucked around her knees. She gave him a hostile look and said
something—probably nasty—under her breath. Her ladylike demeanor
was chipping and he liked the quirky, sarcastic woman underneath.
Maybe too much. He reached out to touch her hair and she flinched
back.

“Leave me alone,” she said, flipping her
tangled hair back over her shoulders, away from him.

“I don’t get paid to take chances with your
life.”

“And that applies to your messed up comments,
how?”

He sat on the rock beside her and awkwardly
straightened his knee. “I’m a guy, sometimes I make stupid
comments.”

She kept her face turned from him. What was
she thinking? Keegan pressed his knuckles down into his thigh.
“Talk to me, Jen.”

He tried again. More professional now that he
knew she didn’t want to hear him. “When we don’t show up, someone
will come looking.” He had to force himself to smile. It didn’t
look like she was going to return the favor. “It’ll be warmer if we
share body heat.”

“Please respect my feelings and leave me
alone.”

“I can’t! We’re running out of time and
I...can’t. Seeing you over there fucking kills me. I’ve never
wanted anyone the way I want you...and yeah, I freaked." He rubbed
a hand over his friend, scrubbing away his growing frown.
"Commitment scares me.”

Jen stuck her fingers in her ears.

Keegan felt the last of his hopes drop down
through his stomach. He stumbled to his feet and turned away. “I’ll
let you know when it’s safe to leave.”

****

The sun beat down on the back of Jen's head,
pounding her into a crumpled mess. Keegan hadn't left, but she
missed him already. He’d come back to save her and it’d be so easy
to slip into the trap of thinking he cared, but everyone had
ulterior motives. Everyone wanted something. And he needed her to
collect. Protect her. Identify the threat. Eliminate it if they
could. Corlis had spelled it out for her.

Jen had no doubt DalCon was under orders to
call for backup if they couldn't contain the situation. Anything
too big for Keegan was probably too big to contain. Her fingers
curled under, digging at her palms. Red-black crescents stood out
under her nails—Makena's blood, solid proof that he cared.

A blaze of purple edged the ground, outlining
the rocks and grass with sharp-edged shadows. She turned in the
direction Keegan had gone, hands rubbing up and down her arms.
She’d trusted her father once. Could she trust him again? Keegan
was the man her father believed could save her. It all came back to
that contract. One Guinevere. Neatly wrapped. There was no way she
was going back to StallingCo. The world kept expanding, and to her
surprise, she kept expanding right along with it. She’d tasted
freedom and had the chance to make her own choices.

She followed the crushed grass to where
Keegan sat in a tiny patch of sunlight. The incipient breeze had
died away and tiny motes of dust drifted on the still air. Her
breath formed a cloud in the rapidly cooling air. Big as he was, it
had to be worse for Keegan. Even his hair looked tired. Her family
was hell on strangers.

She lifted her chin up as high as she could
and told him, “I’m fat. I can’t cook. I’ve been disinherited, and I
smell really bad right now. Is it a wonder I don’t believe
you?”

The thin line of his mouth compressed until
she thought his face would break. She put her hand on his shoulder
and he jackknifed away.

“You want me to respect your boundaries?” he
snarled. “Back off and respect mine.”

She glared at him. “Don’t do that, damn it!
You’re bigger than me, and I’m tired.” She sat down beside him and
leaned her head against his knee.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said after
a long, drawn out second.

Jen felt her mouth move. It wasn’t much of a
smile, but it was all she had to give. “My cousin, Tris, says all
Stallings are born with issues. Mine are small compared to his. At
least my father doesn’t want me dead.”

“I don’t know who my father is,” said Keegan,
surprising her. “Sometimes I remember a guy with eyes like
Connor.”

His hand touched hers, and she laid her
fingers across his palm.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not looking at
him.

“Water under the bridge, princess.”

“Do you really want me?”

His hand closed. “Yes,” he breathed.

“I...like touching you.” She risked a
sidelong look.

His eyes were dark and shuttered. “You’re
touching me now.”

“Yes. I am.” Her gaze met his.

She pushed him over and he fell back, eyes on
hers, pulling her down after him. Her hair slipped over her
shoulders to puddle on his chest, but when she brushed her fingers
over the line of his throat, he swallowed and turned his face
away.

She put a hand down in the grass on the other
side of him and looked down at his lips. “Are you...uncomfortable?”
she asked.

“No,” he whispered.

“Look at me?”

“I can’t,” he said, fists clenched down at
his sides.

She brushed her lips over his, and traced the
line of his mouth with her tongue. His eyes closed. Her tongue
probed to find his teeth were also clenched against her.

“You can...touch me back,” she said, a little
uncertainly.

“I can’t!” He took her hand and placed it
right there on him. “Jesus, Jen! Feel what you do to me. I can’t
touch you without losing all control. I don’t want to scare
you.”

She explored him through the stiff material
of his jeans. “Very scary.”

Jen’s eyes were wide open and shining with,
if not love, at least something recognizably close. Keegan pulled
her down over him, one hand cupped at the nape of her neck and
moved to kiss her, but she was already there, arms around his neck,
mouth against his.

He didn’t want to move too fast, but it was
over the minute his tongue touched hers. Instant meltdown. They
were joined so tight he’d need a pry-bar to separate them.

“You get off on torturing me,” he said.

“Mutual torture?” she whispered. “I can work
with it.” They both looked down to where she was rubbing her
breasts against his bare chest and her grin turned into a
full-fledged smirk.

She reached up, undid the little pearl
buttons on her sleeves, and yanked her still soggy dress over her
head. Her nipples were hard and easy to see through the satiny
fabric of her bra.

It could have been the cold, but she smiled
and he knew it wasn’t.

He flipped her over on her back and dumped
her out of her panties. She squealed and laughed, grabbing for the
tiny scrap of lingerie. He held it just out of reach. The glitter
in her eyes should have warned him. She reached down, undid his top
button and damned if he wasn’t doing the Happy Peeper. Right. Two
could play that game. He stroked his palms up the delicate skin of
her outer thighs and reached down to cup her ass. She was breathing
hard, not as nonchalant as she seemed. Her thighs fell open. And
all of a sudden her grin was gone.

“Keegan? Maybe this isn’t such a good
idea.”

Her curls were soft and dark, and she
glistened like pink jade. “You’re wet for me,” he growled
softly.

“I want an egg. Would you like an egg? I need
to lose weight, this is so—”

Keegan parted her curls with his thumbs and
gave her a long, probing lick. Jen screamed into her cupped hands,
eyes wide. He was so startled, he dropped her.

“Don’t do that again! You stuck your
tongue...” her face went splotchy, “...there. God, I don’t need
your pity!”

“It’s not pity.”

“You tongued me! Did your...you know, thing,
go down?”

She pushed him over to inspect his crotch. No
help there, princess. His thing was hard enough to hammer
nails.

He caught her hands. “Stop that. I’ve touched
you before. What happened?”

“That is so none of your business.”

He released her. “Don’t judge me on the basis
of the last guy you were with.”

“I’m so messed up,” she moaned.