Authors: Penny McCall
Jack snorted.
“He went away hungry,” Aubrey said. “I kept the pizza and beer, too.”
“And these are the people who run the country.”
“They work for the people who run the country.”
“Yeah, that makes it all better,” Jack said.
“At least there weren’t any second dates.”
“So you never dated any one guy for a length of time?”
“There was Tom Cavendish, but that was over a year ago and trust me, he’s harmless.”
But she said that without meeting his eyes, Jack noticed. “Tell me about Cavendish.”
“He’s a congressional aide, kind of full of himself, you know the type. Not the smartest guy you’ll ever meet, but he’s dependable and straightforward. Just your average nice guy.”
“Which is why you dumped him.”
That brought her head up. And her temper. “I didn’t dump him.”
“Sure you did. He isn’t one of those guys in your porn books, and he definitely isn’t exciting enough for you.”
“Why do you care?”
She had him there, but he passed it off with a shrug. “Tell me more about him. Where does he work?”
“He works for—”
The door slammed open and back against the wall. Or it would have if Jack’s face hadn’t gotten in the way.
“Where’s Jack?” Harley demanded.
He shoved the door back and stepped out from behind it, blood streaming from his nose.
Harley just shook her head and dropped a pile of stuff, seeming to consist mostly of black leather, on the bed. “The cops are here.”
“The usual kind,” she said.
“Uniforms or plainclothes?”
“Local boys in blue.” Harley began to sort through the heap on the bed, making two smaller piles. “You have to get out of here.”
“What makes you think they’re looking for us?”
“Because they said so. Tiny is downstairs holding them off.”
“Maybe we should let them catch us,” Aubrey said because it made perfect sense to her. Okay, she wanted to get a rise out of Jack, but it was her life, too, and she deserved a vote.
Jack popped out of the bathroom. Even with a tissue shoved up his left nostril he managed to get his opinion across.
“Fine, maybe we should let them catch me.”
Jack’s expression didn’t change.
“Don’t you want to know how they found us?”
“We know how they found us.”
“I was expecting hit men.”
“There are all kinds of hit men.”
“Do they usually travel in large groups?” Harley asked. “Because there are a lot of cops down there.”
“It only takes one,” Jack said, ducking back into the bathroom.
“But nothing’s going to happen while they’re all together, right?” Aubrey said. “If I go with the cops, I can ask them how they knew we were here.” More important, if she went with the cops, they’d take her back to Washington. “And then I can tell you how they’re tracking us.”
“My bet is you won’t last twenty-four hours,” Jack said, raising his voice to carry over the sound of running water, “but even if you do, they’ll hand you over to the Feds, you’ll go into protective custody, and you won’t be calling anyone.”
“I’m not going into protective custody.”
“The Feds don’t give people choices—”
“I’ve noticed.”
Jack came back into the bedroom, minus the tissue but still sporting a cranky expression. “If you make it back to Washington, you’ll be surrounded by agents.”
“They can’t all be as bad as you, Jack.”
“No, some of them are worse. And one them is the mole.”
Aubrey’s stomach didn’t like that idea. Neither did the rest of her, judging by the cold sweat, the pounding heart, and the fact that her brain was sending her feet frantic messages to run without giving any coherent direction. Thankfully Harley was there to supply a game plan.
“Put this stuff on.” She threw some clothing at Jack, and turned to Aubrey. “Strip,” she ordered.
Jack dropped the stuff he’d caught, his head whipping back up to stare at the two women. Aubrey was too busy doing a double take of her own, panic replaced by shock and outrage. “I will not.”
“Yeah, you will,” Harley said with a look in her eye that added, “just try me.”
Great, exactly what Jack would want, Aubrey thought, a cat-fight that was guaranteed to end in nudity, seeing as how that was the goal going in. And since Harley was sure to win, she might as well save herself the humiliation—and the maiming. She headed for the bathroom.
Harley stepped in front of her. “There’s no time for modesty. You can keep the shirt,” she added when Aubrey, after a brief hesitation, started to tug at the hem of her borrowed T-shirt. “Get rid of those pants; they don’t have belt loops and you’ll need them for these.”
Aubrey barely glanced at the black leather contraption Harley held up. Jack had already seen her bra, but he hadn’t seen what was under the khaki trousers she was wearing. She risked a glance over at him, shirt stripped off, jeans undone. She nearly swallowed her tongue—she definitely forgot her own dilemma. Until Harley reached over, unsnapping and unzipping her pants, and whipping them down around her ankles hard enough to cause rug burn on her thighs.
“Jesus,” Jack said on a guttural wheeze of air. His eyes dipped to her ankles, rose slowly up her bare legs and stalled out for a few humming seconds on the pink lace thong before settling, finally, on her face and holding there.
Aubrey forgot all about what she was wearing and noticed what Jack was, namely bulging muscles and an expression that should have made her want to run screaming from the room but did just the opposite. And then his hands dropped to the waistband of his pants and she forgot about his expression and his bulges. At least the ones above his waist.
“You’re not a damn mannequin,” Harley snapped. “Give me a hand here.”
Aubrey obediently stepped out of the pants, her eyes on Jack, until a pair of jeans slapped her in the face.
“Put those on,” Harley snapped. “Christ, you two are like horny teenagers. Just do it and get it over with already.”
Jack turned away, which, Aubrey was sorry to admit, was what she needed to get things back in perspective. “Jack’s not attracted to me.”
Harley snorted. “Jack would be attracted to a picket fence with a convenient knothole.”
“That’s actually not a bad description for her,” Jack said, hooking a thumb in Aubrey’s direction.
“With all that flattery flying around you wonder why I haven’t ‘done it’ with him?”
“Sex is sex.” Harley threaded the belt of what turned out to be black leather chaps through the loops of the jeans Aubrey had put on, buckling it at the small of her back. “Jack’s pretty good at it, as I recall.”
Aubrey looked up and found him smirking at her, which did nothing to sidetrack her when he bent over to pull on a pair of biker boots, giving her a really good shot of his backside.
She’d known from the first that Jack was an impressive specimen of the male sex; not too smart, but sometimes the intelligence thing was overrated . . . And that was just the kind of thing Jack would say to justify himself into bed with her. “There’s more to a relationship than sex.”
“Not if you do it right,” Jack said.
“If you don’t get your ass moving,” Harley said, “you’ll be having a relationship with the cops.”
“If it’s anything like the my last experience, no thanks.”
“You were in jail?” Harley bent to buckle the chaps behind her thighs and calves. “Didn’t enjoy it, huh?”
“I wasn’t there that long.” Aubrey pulled on a pair of black boots that were too big, and took the fringed black leather jacket Harley held out, scrambling to catch up as she left the room and headed up a flight of stairs at the end of the hallway.
“She picked the lock and broke out,” Jack said from the dimness behind her.
Harley glanced at her. Aubrey thought she saw a bit of respect in her eyes, before the light in the stairwell went out. She heard the screech of metal on metal, and the dead end at the top of the stairs turned to a lighter shade of black. Either Harley had opened some kind of door or somebody had turned a fan on because there was suddenly a breeze, too. A moist breeze.
She peeked over Harley’s shoulder and all she saw was empty space and the top of a metal ladder riveted to the side of the building. “I’m not going out there.”
Jack took her backpack and eased out, climbing down until all that showed above the sill of the doorway was his head. “C’mon.”
“No.”
“Do you ever say anything but no?” Harley asked.
“Not to Jack.”
Harley laughed. “This couldn’t be more fun if I was paying for it.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“If you two are done bonding,” Jack grumbled.
Aubrey forced herself to breathe slowly, in and out, until her head stopped spinning. “Isn’t there another way?”
“No,” Harley said. “The cops are at the alley entrance. This brings you out on the street side and another building over.”
“But—”
“I don’t have time for this.” Jack exchanged a look with Harley and the next thing Aubrey knew she was being crowded toward Jack until she had no choice but to climb out or fall out.
She barely found her footing on the ladder when the door slammed shut, leaving her no way but down. The good thing was she didn’t seem to be nearly as afraid of heights as she ought to be. The bad thing was her lack of fear had something to do with her blood alcohol level. And her blood alcohol level had a lot to do with her ability to navigate ladders.
“We’ll take it slow,” Jack was saying. “The roof next door is only about twenty feet down. Just tell me when you’re ready—”
“I’m ready,” Aubrey said, feeling around with her booted foot. When she didn’t immediately find the next rung she remembered why she hated heights. Gravity.
Jack grabbed her ankle and brought it into contact with the ladder, but it slipped off and left her hanging by her hands, armpits screaming, legs scrabbling for purchase on the rain-slicked rungs, heart trying to pound out of her chest. One of her feet finally found a toehold. On top of Jack’s hand.
He cussed, dragging it free. Aubrey lost her footing again, they both grappled around for a second, fighting gravity and each other, ending up with Jack plastered over her. Aubrey shoved him off before the adrenaline rush got the better of her cold sweat and she had a chance to notice if there was anything hard about Jack besides his breathing.
“Are you going down?” she asked.
Jack was eye level with her backside, clad in tight denim, black leather, and that damned pink thong. If there’d been any blood going to his muscles he’d have answered that question in the most direct way possible.
“Well?” she demanded, looking over her shoulder.
Their eyes met, her breath kind of wheezed out, and she turned back. “Just get moving.”
Jack started down and to hell with her. It was all he could do to keep his mind on the ladder without looking up at her skinny—but oddly desirable—ass. And anyway, he could feel the vibration of the ladder as she scrambled down after him.
By the time they reached a flat surface, he had himself under control again.
“Oh goody,” Aubrey said when they’d reached the edge of the roof next door, “another ladder.” But she went down it without complaint. “Now what?” she asked when she hit pavement.
The answer to her question came in the form of a throaty rumble that had her looking at the sky and Jack rolling his eyes. “It’s not thunder.”
A pack of motorcycles in all shapes and sizes roared around the corner, pulling up around them. Harley got off one, Jack got on and looked pointedly at Aubrey. He could have saved himself the trouble of working up a glare because she got on without any urging whatsoever. Judging by her smile, she probably would have demanded to drive if circumstances had been different.
Jack squashed the mental image of her sitting between his thighs. The physical effect it had on him was harder to control. He waited until she’d pulled on a helmet, took a deep breath when she slipped her hands around his waist, and gave a thumbs-up. He swung in behind the lead pair of bikes and, surrounded by a pack of middle-aged Hells Angels, they rode out of Charlotte, North Carolina, for parts unknown.
He didn’t know who was in the lead, but Tiny wouldn’t have sent them off with someone he didn’t trust. And the direction didn’t really matter anyway. It had been four days since he’d walked into the Library of Congress with a plan, and walked out with an albatross around his neck. It felt like a year. And he was no closer to the information he needed to make himself righteous with the bureau again.
It would be easy to blame Aubrey for his predicament, but Jack had to admit, grudgingly, that she was telling the truth when she insisted she had no idea why Corona wanted her dead. She thought she was skilled at hiding her feelings, but she was as transparent as glass. She was also a walking jinx.
If he could only get a few hours of sleep and some time to pick her freakish brain, maybe he’d have a clue what to do next. Because at the moment he had no idea.
Aubrey had read about this sort of thing in her romance novels, but no words, she discovered, were adequate to describe the scent of warm leather, the thrill of having her arms and legs wrapped around a strong, hard body . . .
Actually, she decided, it was the bike. She’d always wanted to ride a motorcycle, the wind in her face, the danger of the road rushing by, the vibration between her thighs, not to mention Jack’s backside . . .
Okay, the whole thing was driving her crazy—crazy enough to want to jump him. She slipped her hands to the sides of his waist, just in case the wine and vibration gave her any wild ideas. Jack brought them back around, and for a second she thought he was going to bypass his belly for parts south, but he settled them around his waist again.
The escort bikes started to peel off in ones, twos, and threes until there was only one other bike with two riders left. Aubrey curved against Jack, resting her cheek on his back and trying not to think about how long it had been since she’d had sex and if she’d go insane by the time they got wherever they were going. After a while, exhaustion got the better of her and she managed to fall into a fitful sleep punctuated with erotic dreams, some of them romance-inspired, others more up Jack’s alley—lots of naked flesh and moaning, no plotlines. All of them were centered around him and that damned motorcycle.
When she surfaced completely again the sun was still below the horizon, probably trying to decide between fighting through yesterday’s residual cloud cover or staying put over Spain. Aubrey would have chosen Spain. It had to be better than Atlanta, which was where the signs said they were. This section of the city, with its stoop sitters, junk-filled vacant lots, and abandoned buildings wasn’t exactly on the tourist maps. Jack steered the motorcycle through a dive of a restaurant that was drive-thru only and considered bulletproof plastic a necessary decorating accessory, then pulled up a dark street and turned off the bike.