The room was dim, lit only by a single lamp on the dresser. Derek quickly took in every detail from the rumpled sheets on the twin bed to the IV pole and bag next to it. And no sign of Alyssa.
He whirled on the woman, grabbed a fistful of her scrubs, and slammed her up against the door. “Where the fuck is she?” He punctuated the question with another slam against the door. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her through the rage roaring through his brain. Strong hands gripped his arms, and he registered Ethan’s voice shouting his name.
“Derek! Derek! Calm down. I think she went out the window.”
He looked across the room as Ethan’s words registered. Jesus, he was fucked if he’d missed a big detail like a wide-open window with the cold autumn air blowing in.
He released the woman, who slid down the door in a daze, and sprinted to the window. He peered into the dusky light. His heart lodged somewhere in his throat as he made out the small crumpled figure several feet below. The house was built into a slope, and below the bedroom’s window, a small deck jutted out. Below that was another ten or so feet to the ground.
“Alyssa!” He called her name, thought he saw her stir, but couldn’t be sure. He swung his legs out the window and
jumped, careful not to land on top of her. The deck shook when he landed, and she flinched at the impact, crying out in fear, her arms and legs flailing as she tried to scramble away.
“Alyssa,” he said more softly and gathered her against him. Small hands shoved at his chest as she tried to twist away. “Alyssa, it’s Derek.” She was still out of it, her movements awkward and thick, but she finally registered his voice.
“Derek?” Her cold fingers came up to cup his face.
“Yeah. It’s me. I’m here.” He swallowed back his fear, his anger, everything. He could lose his shit later. Right now he had to get her out of there.
“What are you doing here?” she slurred as he pulled her tighter against him.
He winced as his arms came into contact with her icy limbs. She wore only a short-sleeved nightshirt, and her feet were bare. The temperature had dropped into the forties after the sun went down. He had no idea how long she’d been out there, but her legs and arms were like ice.
He unzipped his fleece jacket and wrapped it around her and then ran his hands over her cold body to check for any breaks. Other than the drugs, she seemed to be uninjured. He buried his face in her hair and took a long, bracing inhale.
“She okay?” Ethan called down.
“Yeah,” Derek said, his voice thick and strained as it pushed past the baseball in his throat. “Take care of Nurse Ratched, and let’s get Alyssa the fuck out of here.”
“Already taken care of. But someone’s trying to get her on the radio, so we need to get out of here before the two meatheads from the front come in to investigate.”
Derek hoisted Alyssa in his arms and carried her through the house and met up with Ethan at the side door. They backtracked to the car from the beach and through the woods, Ethan scouting ahead in case anyone showed up unexpectedly.
Derek swallowed back his regret that Blaylock and Abbassi were nowhere to be seen. He relished the chance to tear them both to pieces for what they had planned to do to Alyssa.
“You’ll have time for that later, man,” Ethan said, hearing Derek’s thoughts as clearly as his own. He squeezed Derek’s shoulder as he placed Alyssa in the backseat of the sedan. “You got her out. That’s the important thing.”
Derek nodded. Alyssa curled up in the corner of the backseat and fell asleep, and he couldn’t resist reaching out and smoothing her tangled hair back from her face. She was safe. That was all that mattered.
Abbassi’s and Blaylock’s faces flashed in his brain—Abbassi’s smug and slick, Blaylock’s bland and weak. He would get them. Soon. But first he needed to get Alyssa someplace safe and make sure she knew Derek would never, ever let anything happen to her again.
The plane was ready to go when they got to the airport. Alyssa roused when Derek lifted her out of the car and buckled her into one of the jet’s leather seats.
“I can’t believe you came for me,” she said, a wide, blurry smile on her face. “I didn’t think anyone cared.” Her words were slow, slurred, as the drugs worked their way out of her system. “You came for me,” she repeated.
His chest constricted, and his throat bubbled with crazy promises, but she fell asleep again before he could vow that he would always come for her; no matter what, he would never leave her alone. He leaned down and kissed her, ran his finger over the thick fringe of eyelashes resting on the high curve of her cheek.
He turned back to get settled in his seat for takeoff and caught Ethan’s knowing stare. “You are so fucked, dude,” Ethan said with a smirk and a shake of his head.
Derek didn’t even bother to argue as he buckled himself
in. “Not as fucked as Abbassi and Blaylock are going to be when I get my hands on them. When we get back, we need to find out everything on both of them and that whole fuckin’ family. I want to know what they’re hiding that’s so goddamn important it’s worth killing for.”
Andy grabbed another dress off a hanger and shoved it into the duffel bag. There was no way Alyssa’s size-two dress would ever fit Andy’s substantially larger frame, but Andy knew the dress, along with the other barely worn designer dresses and shoes in the suitcase, would make her a hefty chunk of change on eBay.
Though she already had a sizable sum in her online savings account, thanks to Richard’s bonuses, she knew she needed to get every dime she could. She didn’t have any doubt Derek Taggart would come after her if she didn’t get the hell out of town, and fast.
She grabbed another pair of shoes, shoving away the pinch of guilt when she thought of Alyssa. She hoped Derek was wrong. Richard wouldn’t really kill her, would he? She was uneasy not because she really cared about Alyssa—so the world would lose another brainless, useless celebrity who did nothing but take attention from people who really deserved it. No, Andy just didn’t want to take any of the blame when a celebrity turned up dead.
She shook off the fear. Even if Alyssa was in serious danger, Derek would get to her in time.
But just in case, she was taking Derek’s advice and getting the hell out of Dodge.
A door slammed somewhere in the house. Andy shoved the duffel into the corner of Alyssa’s walk-in closet and froze as she heard heavy footsteps echo down the hall. The housekeeper was gone, and Andy wasn’t expecting to hear from Richard until tomorrow.
She heard the murmur of low male voices, too low for her to make out the words. Uneasiness curled in her stomach and stung her throat with bile. Was it Derek?
Just remembering the hardness in his dark eyes was enough to make her heart pound with fear. He’d had murder in his eyes when he’d realized the truth about Alyssa. Thank God she’d been able to pull the information about the Tahoe house out of her ass, or she didn’t want to think about what he might have done to her.
Fear curdled her insides as she wondered if maybe the Tahoe house was bogus, and now Derek was back to get his revenge.
As quietly as she could, she crept from the closet, intent on making it to the phone on Alyssa’s dresser. Andy’s own phone was in the living room on the coffee table, useless.
She stepped out of the closet, intent on reaching the phone. The door burst open, and Andy had time only to register wide shoulders filling the doorway before a hand clamped in her hair and slammed her head into the wall.
Her ears rang, and a mewling sound broke from her throat. She struggled to focus, saw a full mouth framed by a pointed goatee, slicked-black hair, and dark eyes that radiated pure evil.
“Louis,” she gasped. “What—”
He slammed her head again, cutting her off. “You drugged her. I said she is not to be touched, but you drugged her.”
Oh, God. She’d known he had a thing for Alyssa but had no idea it was this bad. “Richard,” she gasped. “He told me to. He paid me.”
His thin lips curled in a sneer. “He will be dealt with. After I deal with you.”
His hand curled around her throat, and her eyes stretched wide in terror. “Please,” she whispered, frantic, her voice thready from the increasing pressure of his hand. “Don’t hurt me. I’ll do whatever you want.” She reached out her hand,
awkwardly stroking his stomach through his suit jacket. “Anything.” Anything to stay alive.
He laughed, an oily, snaky sound that sucked the hope from her soul. “I would not waste my time to fuck a cow like you.”
Pressure built in her face, throbbing, until her eyes popped from their sockets. Gasping, choking, her tongue spasming in her mouth. Darkness.
I
T WAS PITCH dark when Derek pulled into the garage of the little two-bedroom house tucked off a winding road in the hills above Palo Alto. Up here there were no streetlights, no sidewalks, and the only light came from the half full moon streaming its light through the oak trees obscuring the little house from view. Once a summer retreat for a wealthy San Francisco family, the cottage had been retrofitted and remodeled to accommodate year-round living. Derek and his brothers had bought it a few years ago, partly as a real estate investment, but mostly to use as a safe house should any of their clients need a place to lie low. Ownership was through a dummy corporation that would be nearly impossible to trace back to the Taggarts, unless someone knew where to start.
He was banking on the fact that even when Blaylock and Abbassi found out Derek had Alyssa, they wouldn’t have a fucking clue where to start looking.
He would have taken Alyssa there even if he hadn’t gotten the alert from Gemini’s security network that someone had tried to break into his house. Because Danny was still in La Honda, Derek had asked Alex to check it out after they landed at the airport. “Doesn’t look like they touched much of anything,” Alex said, “but there was a guy parked in
front of your complex. I called my buddy at the Palo Alto PD and had him cited for loitering.”
Derek had given Ethan a heads-up that Abbassi and Blaylock were already onto them. “Tell Toni to be careful,” Derek said.
Ethan nodded. “I called Moreno before we left Reno and told him to go keep an eye on her. She’ll be fine.” Despite his brother’s casual tone, Derek could see the lines of tension carving deep grooves in his face.
“Sorry to drag you into all this,” Derek said.
Ethan gave him a tired half smile. “You did the same when Toni was in trouble. Now you go take care of your girl. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ethan’s words echoed in his head as he tucked Alyssa into the queen-size bed that dominated one of the small bedrooms. She seemed to need sleep more than anything as she came off of whatever they had given her. Whatever adrenaline rush had propelled her out of bed and out the window was long spent. She’d slept through the entire plane ride and drifted off in the car, and though she’d been with it enough to drink some water and get to the bathroom on her own, she hadn’t raised a finger when he’d carried her to the bed and tucked her between the sheets.
He left her to sleep and went to the living room to call Danny, who had called half a dozen times since Derek had lit out this morning.
“What’s the latest?” Derek asked his brother as soon as Danny answered.
“Why don’t you tell me? Somehow I think your day’s been a lot more eventful than mine.”
“So nothing, then?”
“Not since you left.”
Derek bit back a curse. Hurry up and wait. “How’s Dad doing?”
“Holding on like the rest of us, trying to be patient until
we know for sure. From the way he sounded when I called, he’s sharing an intimate evening with a bottle of Ketel One. Now, how ’bout you tell me what the fuck is going on. What’s Ethan doing flying your ass over to Reno, and who the fuck is trying to break into your apartment?”
Derek told him what little he knew.
“Why the hell would they want to kidnap and drug her?” Danny asked.
“Got me. All I know is she was being guarded by people who spoke French and mentioned Abbassi by name. And Andy admitted Blaylock paid her to slip Alyssa the drugs. Alyssa knows something, but right now she’s too out of it to tell me.”
“Yeah, well, call me when you find out what it is,” Danny said. He paused. “I hope she’s worth it.”
Derek thought of the woman asleep in the next room. Her long, light brown hair obscuring her small features. Dressed in the flimsy nightshirt, curled up in his fleece jacket big enough to wrap around her twice. A stabbing pain hit him in the chest, followed by a swelling sensation, like he was being squeezed tight from the inside until he almost couldn’t breathe. “Yeah, she is,” he managed to grind out before he hung up.
“Hey.” A small, hoarse voice croaked from the doorway, and he turned to see Alyssa. She looked ragged and disheveled like a little match girl he’d pulled off the street.
His heart tripped over itself as he took in her pale face and green eyes. Strange impulses surged through him: the need to comfort and console, to strip her down and examine every inch of skin to prove to himself she wasn’t hurt. He wanted to rush across the room, snatch her up in his lap, hold her tight, and promise her he’d take care of her and make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again.
But he sat there, paralyzed.
This was not him.
“How are you doing?” was all he managed to say.
She walked over on shaky legs. “Okay, I think. I’m still a little out of it.”
She sat down on the couch next to him, and he immediately sprang to his feet. “Are you thirsty? Hungry? The fridge isn’t really stocked, but I think I could rustle up a can of soup.”
She nodded, watching him with still glazed eyes as he banged around the kitchen. She gulped down the glass of water he gave her and held it out for a refill.
“Where are we?” she asked as they waited for the can of soup to heat on the stovetop. She gave a soft little laugh. “For that matter, where were we?”
He tried for a reassuring smile, even as the thought of where she’d been and what could have happened made his blood bubble with murderous rage. “They took you to the family compound on Lake Tahoe. They had you hooked to an IV.”
“Right, right.” She nodded as if shaking the memories back in place. “I pulled the IV out sometime earlier.”
He poured the soup into an oversize mug, and she accepted it with a grateful smile.
“That was smart, especially considering how messed up you were.”
“They were going to kill me,” she said softly. “Not right away, but I heard them talking about it. I knew I had to get out of there.”
He wanted to ask her more about what she’d heard, why they’d taken her in the first place, but she’d turned her attention fully to the steaming mug. She spooned in a mouthful of the soup and then another and another in quick succession until the cup was drained. “Chicken and stars,” she said, smiling in lazy satisfaction. “My favorite. It’s been a while since I ate.”
He nodded and refilled her mug. She was starving, exhausted, overwhelmed, and still working everything out of
her system. Tomorrow would be soon enough to press her for answers.
She drained her second mug of soup as quickly as the first and then sat back in her chair and opened her mouth in a jaw-cracking yawn. “I couldn’t figure out why I was so tired and out of it all the time,” she said, almost as though to herself. “Now I know why the coffee Andy brought me never perked me up,” she added with a little laugh.
Derek tried to muster up a smile of his own but couldn’t. As much as he admired her humor in the face of such a messed-up situation, he didn’t find anything funny about an innocent woman being drugged without her knowledge.
Especially a woman he’d realized he was ready to kill or die for to keep her safe.
He shoved the thought aside. He didn’t have the energy to go head to head with the crazy, swirling mess of emotions Alyssa conjured inside him. “There’s shampoo and stuff in the bathroom, if you want to take a shower,” he said.
She nodded and wrinkled her nose. “Probably not a bad idea, I’ve been sweating and shivering in this gown for the past twenty-four hours.”
Alyssa pushed back from the table, her movements slow and careful, but much, much steadier. Derek felt his tension ease a notch at the evidence of the drugs wearing off. He followed her down the short hallway and retrieved a couple towels from the linen closet. Then he rummaged through the dresser in the bedroom and pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of sweats from the stash of extras they kept in the house.
She took them with a little smile and started for the bathroom. He caught her wrist before she could close the door. “Call me if you need any help.”
Her smile broadened, and a knowing glint appeared in her now clear eyes. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything I can’t reach.”
The words went straight to his dick as she shut the door in his face. Now that she was safe and well on her way back to normal, fear had loosened its grip on his libido. The driving desire and sexual heat that dogged him whenever he got within a few feet of her released in a flood. He heard the shower turn on and tortured himself with images of her naked under the hot spray, soap-slicked hands running over her sleek curves.
His fingers curled around the doorknob as he struggled not to bust in, tear his own clothes off, and join her in the tiny shower stall. His cock throbbed insistently behind the fly of his cargo pants. Now that she was safe, he wanted nothing so much as to run his hands and mouth over every square inch of her, drive himself inside her, lose himself in her incredible heat.
He forced his fingers to let go of the doorknob. After what she’d been through, the last thing she needed was for him to go after her like the Neanderthal she’d once called him. And after the way he’d treated her last time…The lump in his throat was joined by one in the pit of his stomach at the memory of his harsh words and harsher actions.
Sure, she was grateful to him for coming after her. But gratitude went only so far, and there was no way in hell she’d ever let him near her again.
He forced himself from his post at the door and retreated to the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets, grunting in satisfaction when he found what he needed. Tequila wasn’t his drink of choice, but it was the only hard liquor in the place, and Derek damn well needed something to take the edge off.
He slugged down two fingers and went to pour himself another drink, pausing when he heard the bathroom door open and close. Alyssa padded into the kitchen in bare feet, the rest of her swallowed up by the T-shirt and sweatpants. Her long hair spilled down her back, leaving dark wet spots on the shoulders and neckline of the green T-shirt. She should
have looked ridiculous, clownlike. But all Derek could think about was all that warm, silky skin hidden under the sizes-too-big clothes.
He tossed back the second shot. “You should go get some rest.”
She nodded, her eyes big and somber. “I just wanted to say thank you,” she said softly and then gave a little laugh. “God, that’s so inadequate for what you did—”
“It was no big deal,” he started.
She marched over to him and smacked him across the chest. He flinched more out of surprise than pain. “Don’t say that!” Her eyes went wet. “No one was coming for me! No one. I was set up by people I trusted. No one believed I was in trouble. And no one was going to come for me.” Her hand reached out, shaking a little, and covered his. The warmth of her fingers penetrated his skin, sent a shot of heat straight through him. “You came for me.” She strained up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Thank you.”
He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms. “I’ll always come for you.”
Alyssa sniffed a little and slid her lips across his chin until they covered his mouth. It was a sweet kiss, a soft brush of her lips, given in gratitude, but Derek’s body reacted like she’d shoved her tongue down his throat. He opened his lips over hers and swept his tongue inside her mouth, feeling something break open at the first taste.
He lifted her onto the kitchen counter so he could have better access to her lips, cheeks, throat. All the emotions she whipped up in him roared free and went pulsing through his blood. All the desire, the tenderness, the gut-deep need to hold her, taste her, take her, twisted and churned, and he couldn’t have bottled them back up even if he’d wanted to.
He settled his hips between her legs, kissing her over and over, and he knew he was toast. He, the big tough warrior who thought nothing of blowing a man’s head off if it was
what the mission required, had his ass handed to him by a sweet little slip of a woman who couldn’t have weighed more than a buck ten.
As her lips parted under his, her tongue making greedy forays into his mouth, he couldn’t have cared less. With her arms wrapped around his shoulders and the peachy-sweet taste of her filling his mouth, he willingly released the reins on his control and admitted total defeat.
He dragged the T-shirt up over her head, sucking in his breath at the sight of her perfect little tits with their berry-red nipples pulled into hard peaks.
“I will never get tired of seeing you naked,” he murmured before bending his head to suck one hard tip into his mouth. “You are so fucking beautiful you make me insane.”
He pulled back to look at her and felt his insides ice over when he saw the finger-shaped bruises on her right breast. “Who did this?”
She looked down, startled by his harsh tone. “Louis,” she choked out.
A thousand horrifying possibilities raced through his head. “Did he—” He couldn’t force the word past his lips.
She shook her head. “He didn’t rape me.”
The breath he didn’t realize he was holding whooshed out of his chest. “I’m going to kill him,” he said, his voice icy with rage.
“I don’t want to think about him right now,” she murmured and leaned forward to kiss his neck. She tugged at his shirt and ran her hands up his torso. “I’m safe with you now. That’s what matters.”
She slid her hands under his shirt, and the hot glow of her touch made him shake with the force of his mingled rage and need.
“He’ll never come near you again, I swear,” he murmured against her cheek as he tugged his shirt over his
head. He pulled her close, a shudder of pure bliss running through him at the sensation of silky warm skin meeting hair-roughened muscles. For several seconds he just held her there, reveling in her soft heat and the rapid beat of her heart against his.
He took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. He was raging, his cock rock hard with the need to sink inside Alyssa’s body, but he forced himself to pull back, slow down.
She deserved better than a fast, hard screw on the kitchen counter. He wanted to give her more than that, needed to show her how much he wanted her, cared for her.