Checkmate (2 page)

Nikki’s stomach plummeted and she sped up to try and get away.

The Jeep took another hit from behind. Her head snapped forward, sending a bolt of pain down her spine. She automatically grabbed the back of her neck with her right hand and tried to steer with the other, her fingers grasping the wheel with a death grip. The tires slipped off the paved road and onto the loose gravel shoulder. Panicked, Nikki yelped and jerked the steering wheel back to the left, swinging wildly across both lanes of highway.

She screamed when the front driver’s side made contact with the guardrail protecting cars coming too fast from the other direction around this particular curve. She knew a ditch ran along the other side, the side she should be on. Red-hot sparks jumped off the front fender, showering the windshield as a screeching, ear-piercing grind split the already turbulent night air.

“Please God, no one come around the curve, please God,” she chanted.

With sweaty palms, she yanked the leather-wrapped wheel in the other direction.

She was going to die.

The ghost car smashed into the rear passenger’s side as she overcorrected. She spun out of control like a tilt-a-whirl and slammed both feet on the brake. The wheels locked up and screamed as they flew across the blacktop. Her stomach bottomed out before reversing direction and threatening to spew. Nikki’s strength was nothing compared to these few tons of metal.

When the driver’s side left the pavement again, she was facing the wrong direction and the car rocked precariously on its side. She held her breath and prayed for any miracle but knew it was too late.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. A pair of headlights lit up, blinding her for a second time, and the Jeep pitched to the left. For a split second, Nikki felt weightless. The blood rushed to her head a moment before her skull slammed into the side window. Glass rained on her face, the droplets hot in their attack.

After that she felt nothing but a dizzying tumble, like she was in a dryer.

She opened her eyes and the world spun. It took long seconds to realize she wasn’t still moving. All her weight was slumped toward the passenger side, so something had stopped them from turning over further.

Nikki blinked. Her eyelashes were sticky so she let them flutter closed. It was easier than holding them open while she took stock of all her parts. Her fingers were still locked around the steering wheel which seemed to be much closer to her than when she’d gotten into the car earlier. Her foot was trapped somehow and felt weird. Thankfully her seat belt had held and now dug into her collarbone, hip and belly with the crushing force of all her weight.

Her head got heavier and heavier. Something dripped in a steady cadence on the bare skin of her right arm. She struggled to open her eyes and see what it was.

Dark and glistening in the blitz of lights from the dashboard. Blood. It ran in a river off her chin, pooling in a crease of her shirt next to her elbow. Where was it coming from? Her head didn’t hurt. Then again, neither did her foot or any other part of her body.

She lifted her head a fraction. Facing the highway, she could see the other vehicle sitting idly, mocking her with its twin beams filtering through the smoke and steam escaping from the Jeep’s engine. It wasn’t a car, but something bigger, like a truck. Or a
van
.

She blinked, or thought she did, because when she opened her eyes again, the vehicle was gone. Her neck failed to support her head any longer. She dropped her chin awkwardly to her chest. The interior lights flashed ominously. White noise filled her ears as the blackness surrounded her.

I love you, Eli.

* * *

It didn’t look possible that she’d make it. Not with the severity of her injuries. At the very least she was looking at a long recovery. The woman by her side was another matter altogether.

She moved from his line of vision and he cursed his location. The supply closet gave him a perfect hidey-hole to spy on her but he could only see out the slim crack the slightly open door afforded him. One hand on the light switch, ready to flick it on should he need to in case someone walked in and wondered what he was doing, he kicked the mop bucket out of the way. If he leaned a tiny bit this way…opened it a millimeter more… Aah, there she was. Her ample breasts stretched the fabric of her T-shirt and she had more than enough hips to bring any man to his knees.

Any man except him. No woman would ever make a pussy out of him.

She lifted the injured woman’s hand. Tears streamed down her face. His cock stirred, signaling him.

She’d just made his list. He stroked his growing erection through his pants and sighed. There were three before her. He’d never deviated from his plans, he wasn’t about to start now.

But damn he itched to. He gripped the door handle until his knuckles hurt. Temptation threatened to smother him.

“Fuck.” No. Straying now could spell disaster. He would stick to the way he’d always done things. Soon. She’d come up soon enough. For now he’d settle for finding out her name. The hunt was half the fun anyway.

He smiled and gave his cock one last tug. Tonight he’d give it more of the attention it deserved. And her face would be the one he jacked off to.

Sweet victory would be his.

Chapter Two

Eight Months Later

Nikki muttered a curse for letting her stupid phobia get the better of her and punched 9-1-1 into her cell phone. She would simply hold her thumb over the send button and walk quickly. Or look like the chicken shit she’d become and run.

The parking lot was dark due to the storm earlier in the evening knocking out power. The convenience store was running on a backup generator, but was otherwise open for business.

“Lots of cars, lots of places to hide.”

She shivered, despite the heat and humidity being forced upon the St. Louis area. Another line of thunderstorms was bearing down on them from the west and the weatherman had forecast a real doozy of a night.

Nikki clenched the bag of goodies until her knuckles turned white.
It
had happened on a night just like this.

The insane fear gripped her mind in a punishing hold, keeping her frozen in her spot.

If her brother Derek hadn’t had to back out on her at the last second, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. Of course, if she could grow up and get over it, she wouldn’t be in this predicament, either.

You’d think eight months would be long enough to get over the incident. Unconsciously, she reached up to the right side of her face and touched the thin, smooth scar that zigzagged from the corner of her eye to the bottom of her earlobe. Two plastic surgeries hadn’t been able to completely get rid of it.

“Excuse me.”

Nikki jumped at the terse female voice coming from behind and spun around, her heart pounding and her plastic grocery sack swinging in a wide arc.

“Sorry.” She winced. The lady had to practically dive out of the way before Nikki’s bag, filled with a two liter of Sprite and a box of Ho Hos, could take her legs out.

Follow her, be with somebody
. Except, the lady was going in the opposite direction. And if her horrified gasp when she’d seen Nikki’s face was anything to go by, she probably couldn’t wait to get away from the crazy, maimed woman glued to her spot in the doorway.

Would she ever get used to people looking at her like she was a monster?

Nikki’s shoulders drooped in resignation. Get it over with, go, go. She slid the plastic bag’s handles onto her wrist and held the phone in that hand, her thumb at the ready. In the other hand she clutched the small can of pepper spray attached to her key chain.

She set a world-record pace and made it to her car without incident, shutting herself in and slamming her fist down on the automatic lock button. No more manually locked cars for her. Her lungs heaved with each breath, seizing up and threatening to shut off completely. A problem she’d dealt with since waking up in the hospital two days after her car had flipped.

With shaky fingers, she inserted the key and turned it.

Nothing.

“Fuck.” The blood drained from her head, and her stomach dropped. “No, no, no. Damn it.” Tears trickled down her face and her throat burned as the middle stages of a panic attack set in. “Please God,
please
, don’t do this to me.” A streak of lightning lit up the dark lot, followed instantaneously by a clap of thunder close enough that the hair on her arms and cheeks stood up. “Jesus!” She wiped at her running nose with a tissue from the console.

They were out there, watching. Waiting for her to drive, to be alone on an isolated road again. She could feel their hands closing over her mouth, moving down her body, pulling at the waistband of her shorts, a hardness digging into her thigh as they taunted her. It hadn’t mattered that she’d gotten away, they’d jumped in their car and chased her down. Literally. Sometimes she swore she’d heard maniacal laughter as they sat there on the highway watching her life drain away.

“No!” Nikki ground the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. When would this end? Would she ever feel safe? Even when it had happened and she’d moved back home with her mom and dad, she hadn’t felt safe. Their security and love hadn’t been enough.

And Eli…well, she’d had to beg her parents and her brother Derek not to tell him. Not then, and not now. She’d loved him for too long, even if he didn’t know it, and there was no way she wanted him to know about what those men had almost done to her.

What they
had
done to her face. Somehow she’d have to hide in plain sight when he came home in a few days because the pity she knew she would find lurking behind the golden brown depths of Eli’s eyes would kill her. She didn’t want his pity. He was a busy man, staying away from him might not be too hard.

And she lived in a delusional world.

Just thinking about him made her pussy tingle with heated desire. Unbelievable, considering the circumstances. Right after the attack happened, she believed she would never be able to stomach another man’s touch. Instead, as the months went by she found more and more of her nights filled with erotic dreams. Of Eli. Dreams which were slowly taking the place of the nightmares, yet left her unsatisfied and wondering what it would be like if Eli ever touched her for real.

And there were still the rumors. Talk that he and his family were werewolves. Derek had never quite confirmed the possibility whenever she asked. That alone made her wonder if the rumors were really true. What she needed was a flat-out, laugh-in-her-face, “what the hell made you think that”, type of solid, absolute “no” answer.

Instead, the one time she’d straight out asked her brother, he’d given her an exasperated sigh and turned his back on her like a recalcitrant child. Something about the calm, even tone of his voice when he said, “You seen your psychiatrist lately?” had put her senses on high alert. She’d been on the lookout for some kind of sign for the last few years, but nothing, nada. You’d think after all the years she’d known Eli, she would sense if he were somehow different from her.

Nikki snorted thinking about her psychiatrist. Lately even a few days were too long for her to wait between visits. Every miniscule noise seemed to freak her out. Maybe her increased anxiety had something to do with Eli returning home later this week.

She sniffed and wiped at the tears soaking her cheeks. A fat drop of rain splattered on her windshield. How appropriate.

She was late. Her friends were already at Lou’s house, girls’ night out party central, and were probably getting concerned. About thirty minutes ago, she’d called Lou to let her know she was running a few minutes behind. When no one answered, she’d shrugged it off. They were home, she knew, having already talked to them earlier in the day to find out what kind of chips they wanted.

No way would she call again. Lou didn’t need to know that Nikki had been too afraid to walk through a dark parking lot. She wanted to have fun tonight, relieve a little tension and not give her friends another reason to walk on eggshells around her.

She reached for the key again and the engine roared to life. A bark of laughter burst out of her mouth at her overwrought behavior. The four- door Civic zipped out of the parking spot when she stomped on the gas. With one more glance around her, Nikki put the car in drive and left the lot, only to come to a stop when the light at the next intersection turned red. A few more drops of rain fell heavily on her windshield and she tapped her fingers in agitation on the steering wheel, wondering if she would ever get over the feeling she was being watched.

The street wasn’t busy. Most people were inside, out of the storm’s path, but she had to grit her teeth against the eerie feeling worming its way through her body. Her tires squealed the second the light turned green.

Five minutes later she pulled up to the homey two-story house where Lou lived. Thank God the man Lou had been dating the last several months was gone on a business trip for the weekend. According to Amy and Kelly, he was kind of weird. Nikki didn’t even know the guy’s name. Jerry, Jim, Jake. Something starting with a “J”. Of course, Nikki’s attack made her opinion biased against most men so this guy would be no exception. If there had been even a hint he might show up tonight, she wouldn’t have come in the first place since to this day, coming within ten feet of any man other than Derek or her father made her heart race. The mere thought of meeting a stranger tonight did not appeal.

Still, if she hadn’t had the accident, Lou and this guy would never have met. It had been during one of the times Lou had visited Nikki at the hospital that they’d discovered each other and gotten close. Nikki didn’t remember much from the weeks following the crash and Lou had seen enough of Nikki to know better than to introduce them. Hadn’t stopped Lou from excitedly mentioning the man she was quickly falling in love with. She’d talked a few times about him. Nikki couldn’t repeat much of what she’d heard because at the time, she’d pretty much blocked out any conversations involving men.