Running Wilde (7 page)

Sober, he would have had a difficult time turning her down. Drunk, he hadn’t stood a chance, and as he’d dropped his mouth to hers, he’d realized he wasn’t the only one who had gotten a little sloppy tonight. She had tasted like champagne, sweet and crisp, with just a kick of the tart at the end. He had liked it, drank it in, and got lust-drunk off it as she’d hiked up the skirt of her sinful blue dress and straddled his hips…

He learned later it wasn’t just champagne but the natural taste of her. He’d gotten a sip back at the truck stop but not enough to slake the lust that seeing her again had reawakened in him.

She’d given him a blowjob right there on the beach, and the orgasm had been spectacular. The kind that rocked worlds and shifted foundations. Then, knowing Cam would be with Eva, he’d taken her up to his room, hung the Do Not Disturb sign, and returned the orgasmic favor.

Several times, in many creative positions.

Remembering it, and all the nights they’d spent together in the weeks after that first time, hardened him to the point of pain. He shifted in his seat to lessen the pressure and did his damnedest to forget the way she’d used her soft mouth to wring every drop of pleasure out of him.

The air inside the car had grown charged in the last several minutes of silence, heated with the memories. And he didn’t think they were just his memories because her breathing had quickened enough to tell him their minds were on the exact same track.

He didn’t know who moved first, or if they moved at the same time. He shoved his seat back. She crawled over the center console and straddled his hips much like she had that night on the beach. There was an edge of desperation in the way she took his mouth and more than a bite of anger.

And he was okay with that, because hell if he wasn’t pissed off, too. She shouldn’t still crank his engine after everything, and he hated that she did, hated more that he didn’t have the willpower or the good sense to throw on the brakes.

She yanked at his shirt, her hands cool as they slid up his stomach. He cupped her breasts through her shirt and wished they had the time and space to both get naked. She had the most magnificent breasts, round and heavy, with little pink nipples, soft as flower petals even when his mouth coaxed them out to stand at attention. He missed her breasts. Wanted to see them, put his mouth on them again. He traced one hand down the front of her until he found the edge of her shirt and nudged it up. She caught his wrist and instead guided his hand down between her legs.

Okay, he got the hint. No indulgent foreplay allowed. This was going to be a fast fuck to pop the cork on the tension that had been bubbling between them. Nothing more.

He pushed down her leggings, dipped his fingers inside, and found her wet. She moaned and threw her head back. Rocked her hips and rode his fingers like he wanted her to ride him. He fumbled at his own pants with his free hand. Wanting—no, goddammit,
needing
to bury himself inside her with an intensity that would have scared the shit out of him had he been thinking clearly.

“Condom,” she demanded.

“In my bag.”

She reached over him and found the bag in the backseat. A second later, she had a condom out and was rolling it on him. There was no foreplay. She positioned the head of his cock at her entrance and took him all the way inside. He groaned and tried to hold her still to savor the connection, but she started moving. It was hot, hard sex, all slapping bodies and clawing nails and nipping teeth. She grabbed a handful of his hair, yanked his head back, and all but attacked his mouth.

“Fuck,” he ground out between his teeth when she broke the kiss. He was so close to coming, his balls ached with the need to release, but a thirty second bang-and-come wasn’t what he wanted from her. Not after all this time. Not after all he’d gone through to find her again.

He dug his fingers into her hips. “Fuck, vixen, slow down.”

“No.” She shoved his hands away and shifted positions, sliding her feet against the seat on either side of his hips. The move put more space between them while simultaneously giving her leverage to ride him harder. The car rocked on its wheels underneath them.

His entire body tensed, and it took every ounce of will for him to hold back.

Jesus Christ, she was killing him. No way was he going to last at this pace. Not with her hot little body clasped so tightly around his, creating all kinds of friction every time she arched back.

She moaned, her inner muscles clamping down on him, and he lost all control, pounding into her from underneath, seeking his release while she quaked through hers. The orgasm hit him hard and fast and was almost painful in its intensity.

She didn’t collapse on him when it was over. Instead she leaned farther away, back against the steering wheel, and stared down at him as their breathing settled from choppy gasps into more normal patterns.

Without a word, she crawled over into the passenger seat and pulled up her pants.

Vaughn dealt with the condom while his brain scrambled to catch up with what the hell had just happened. This wasn’t how it had been between them before. It had always been intense, yeah, but now she fucked like her life depended on an orgasm. Or like she was using sex to escape whatever demons were nipping at her heels.

He zipped up, then shifted to face her. “Wanna tell me what that was? Because it wasn’t sex. I’ve been in life or death battles that were easier.”

She never got the chance to answer. Headlights splashed through the car, and they both froze.

Shit. He’d made a mistake—seemed to do that a lot when she was involved—and had lost situational awareness.

A vehicle slowed and rolled to a stop behind them. Vaughn righted his seat and reached for the ignition, prepared to step on the gas as soon as he had the car in gear, but stopped when flashers winked on from the roof of the other car.

Beside him, Sage seemed to shrink in her seat. “Oh God. It’s a cop.”

He glanced over at her. Wasn’t a cop better than the person riding their bumper on the highway? She didn’t appear to think so and stared back at him with her eyes owlishly large in her pale face.

He hit the window button and waited with both hands on the wheel in plain view.

“Evenin’,” the officer said and shone his flashlight first on Vaughn’s face, then shifted it to Sage. “What are you folks doin’ parked out here this time a night?”

“We’re on our way home to DC,” Vaughn said, keeping his tone pleasant, casual. “I started getting tired and pulled off the highway to catch some shut eye.”

The officer’s flashlight returned to Vaughn. “Well, y’all shouldn’t be parked here. Folks come up over this hill with no attention to speed. If you need to sleep, I suggest you go check in at the motel in town.” He pointed up the road in front of them. “’Bout five miles thatta way. They usually have vacancies.”

“Thank you. We’ll do that.”

The officer lingered a second longer, then finally stepped back. “Y’all have a nice night and don’t forget your seat belts.”

They both dutifully clicked the belts into place, and the cop tipped his hat. “Safe travels.”

Vaughn didn’t exhale again until the officer pulled a uey and took off toward the highway. Then he turned on the car and guided it back onto the road, heading in the opposite direction, toward the motel. “All right. We’re good.” He felt eyes on him and turned to find Sage staring. “What?”

Her mouth opened, then closed again, and she glanced away.

“What?” he said again.

“Why didn’t you turn me over to him?”

Now it was his turn to imitate a fish as he tried to come up with a response. Honestly, the thought hadn’t occurred to him. But if it had, he knew he still wouldn’t have turned her over. Because she was his.

Er, no. That wasn’t what he meant to think. She wasn’t his. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even know her real name.

“That backwater cop wouldn’t know what to do with you,” he finally said and was proud of himself for keeping his voice calm, cool, even. “Handing you over to his underfunded department would be like handing you a get out of jail free card. Not a chance in hell, vixen.”

Chapter Eight

Oh, of course.

Sage refused to let her shoulders slump. It had been stupid to hope something had changed between them in the last half hour, that maybe he was someone she could trust. But no. He still wanted to see her punished for her crimes, though she was beginning to realize his
desire came from a more personal place than some altruistic need for justice. This was his revenge for lying to him. Hadn’t he told her as much?

Sage released a soft sigh. She’d never learn. Trusting men only led to trouble and heartache and more trouble. Adding sex to the mix made it even worse. A quickie in the front seat of a car wasn’t going to change Vaughn’s mind about her, and she hated herself for wishing it had.

She noticed he hadn’t turned around. He’d pointed the car away from the Interstate and was headed in the direction the cop had indicated. “Wait, we’re actually going to the motel?”

“Yeah,” Vaughn said stiffly. “We’ll hole up there for a few hours, then avoid the Interstate as much as possible until we’re closer to DC. It will add some time to the trip, but if it keeps people off our tail, I can live with that.”

She stared over at him, but it was too dark to read his expression. Was he…protecting her? In his own twisted way, it sure seemed like it. But why? If he wanted her punished for all of her misdeeds, why not hand her over to the cop? Or, for that matter, the people she’d spent the last several years running from? He wasn’t part of this. He didn’t have to put himself in danger and could so easily tell her good riddance and wash his hands of her, but he didn’t seem the least bit inclined to do so.

He made no sense.

Up ahead, a car waited at a stop sign for them to pass. A police car. The same police car?

Sage’s muscles twitched with the need to run. “Vaughn…”

“Yeah. I see him.”

They passed the intersection, and she spun in her seat to watch out the back window. The cop car sat there for a second longer than necessary, then turned in the opposite direction, again heading back toward the Interstate. Maybe he was just doing his rounds or driving in circles to kill time, but the hair standing up on her arms was telling her otherwise. Something wasn’t right.

“I don’t think we should go to the motel,” she said.

“Read my mind, vixen.” He fumbled in the center console for his phone and handed it to her. “Figure out where we are and find us a way back to the highway.”

She swiped her finger over the screen to unlock it and found he had an unread text message from Marcus.

I know who she is. Call me ASAP.

A dark, yawning pit opened up in the bottom of her stomach, and she slid a glance toward Vaughn. He still had an eye on the rearview mirror and wasn’t paying attention to her. With her heart pounding so hard she was surprised he didn’t hear the percussion of it against her ribs, she quickly deleted the message. It wouldn’t stop him from finding out, but it’d buy her some time at least.

“Where are we, Sage? I need directions.”

“Uh…” She opened the GPS app and saw it had already calculated a new route that took them to Atlanta on backroads. “It says twelve miles straight on this road, then turn left and take the ramp onto a state highway. The next biggest city is Atlanta, and we should be reaching the outskirts in just under two hours.”

“All right. We’ll go as far as Atlanta and find a place to stay until—”

The SUV came out of nowhere, slamming into their back bumper. They both jolted forward hard against their seat belts. Vaughn swore as the car started to swerve and fought for control of the wheel, but the SUV rammed them again. The car slid into a spin, the outside world whipping by in a smear of trees, too-bright headlights, and yawning darkness.

“Hang on!” Vaughn shouted.

She braced herself for impact, but it still tore the air out of her lungs when the car nose-dived into a short ravine beside the road and came to an abrupt halt, nose down, body wedged in a small cluster of trees. Her seatbelt tightened painfully, jerking her back when she would have flown through the windshield. Beside her, Vaughn grunted in pain, then went frighteningly silent.

She sat there, glued in place by an overwhelming fear, and tried to catch her breath as the car creaked and groaned around her. The beam of a flashlight played over the dashboard, and she thought she heard voices from the road overhead.

They were looking for her.

She couldn’t let them find her.

Panic sizzled away the fear. She had to go. Had to run, but her door was jammed shut.

Still dazed, she unhooked her belt, and gravity pulled her out of the seat and toward the dashboard. She propped herself against the dash and used her feet to break through the large crack snaking across the windshield. It took a few tries, but the whole thing finally exploded outward.

She climbed out onto the soft, leaf-covered earth and only then did she notice how much farther they could have fallen. It wasn’t a small ravine at all, but a long, steeply sloped hill into a fast-moving river, and the only thing keeping the car from crashing down there was the two sturdy pine trees it had lodged between.

A second flashlight joined the first. Two men stood by the road, staring at the wreck. Their voices floated down, but she couldn’t make out any distinct words, just a general tone of annoyance from one and apology from the other. Neither of the men seemed inclined to climb down and check for survivors, and she didn’t think they saw her, hidden in front of the car as she was. She could easily continue unnoticed down the slope to the edge of the river and then follow that to town. She started sliding downhill, slowly, quietly. She could disappear again. Now was her chance to escape and—

What about Vaughn?

She stopped moving and gazed up at the car. Maybe she should check and make sure…

No. Hell no. What was she thinking? Going back for him was a bad idea. He wanted to throw her in jail. Marcus knew her real identity, so it was only a matter of time before Vaughn did, too. If she valued her life—and she did, as sucky as it was—then she needed to keep moving and not look back.

He’d be fine. He was the big, badass SEAL. Besides, she still had his phone, so it wasn’t like she had to leave him completely without help. She could call 911 for him as soon as she was safely hidden.

Right. That was exactly what she’d do.

Sage continued another few steps down the hill, but one thought stopped her: Vaughn hadn’t turned her over to the cop. A golden opportunity to complete his mission, and he passed it up like the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. And if she called 911, that cop—who had obviously lead their attackers right to them—would be the first responder. Would he hurt Vaughn? Or worse, kill him to get rid of the witness?

Dammit.

She crouched behind a fallen log and waited until the flashlights disappeared and the voices faded. She’d been right—they had no interest in checking the car. She gave it another minute, let the forest settle around her into the usual rhythm of the night, then tiptoed toward the driver’s side. His door wasn’t jammed like hers had been, but when she opened it, the car slipped downhill a few inches. She jumped back, held her breath.

Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall.

The car groaned to a halt and she crept forward again. Vaughn was unconscious, held in place by his seatbelt. A nasty gash on his forehead dripped blood down his face. She had no idea how she was going to pull the big guy out of that seat without hurting him more, but the car wasn’t secure.

She had to try.

…

Vaughn woke to a pounding headache and the taste of powder and warm copper in his mouth. There was a bar across his chest, restricting his breathing, and something was tugging on his arm as insistently as a dog with a rope toy. It hurt. Actually, his whole fucking body hurt.

Had he been blown up again?

Felt that way but, ser
iously, how unlucky could a guy get to be blown up twice in one lifetime?

He blinked open gritty eyes and squinted into the darkness, made out the shape of a steering wheel and dashboard. He was in a vehicle, but he wasn’t on a road. The car was tilted nose down, the headlights illuminating nothing but dirt and dead leaves and a steep drop. What he thought was a bar across his chest was in fact the strap of his seatbelt holding him in.

In a rush, memories flooded back. The strange reappearance of the cop, then the SUV materializing like fucking magic and ramming them. Losing control of the wheel, spinning off the road into the ravine…

Sage.

Was she okay?

Wincing, he turned his head to search for her. The passenger seat was empty, and the windshield was broken. She had probably seen he was unconscious and taken advantage of the situation. At least, he hoped she had. He much preferred to think she’d pulled another Houdini rather than imagine her thrown through the windshield, lying somewhere downhill, broken and bleeding. Or dead.

Jesus, no.

She was alive and okay. She’d just rabbited again, and he had to go catch her… as soon as he figured out how to pull his busted ass out of this car.

And what the hell was with the insistent tugging?

He shifted his arm away from the annoyance, and finally, it stopped. A soft hand patted his cheek.

“Vaughn? Are you awake?” The patting turned into a light smack. “C’mon, you asshole! Wake the fuck up! If this car goes into the river, I’m not jumping in after you.”

Sage.

His heart did some incredible acrobatics behind his ribs, and he peeled his eyes open. She was perched precariously on a steep downhill slope, one hand on the car door to keep from sliding. Mud streaked her clothes and face and leaves were stuck in her hair, but she appeared to be in one piece.

And she was still here. She hadn’t run.

She. Hadn’t. Run.

“You’re here.” His voice sounded like gravel, but he couldn’t clear the roughness out of it. “You’re still here.”

She released an explosive sigh. “Thank God. The car’s not stable. Every time I try to reach in and unbuckle you, it slides farther downhill. You need to get out of there.”

His brain wasn’t working at full speed, and it took him several seconds to process what she was saying.

“Vaughn!” She tugged on his arm again. “C’mon! The car is going to crash into the river. You need to move!”

As if to prove her point, the car slid a few feet, and she jumped back with a yelp, landing in the mud on her butt. “Vaughn! Move!”

Yeah. Moving was a good plan. Now if he could just get his body to cooperate…

Slowly, he reached down and found the buckle, but it took several precious moments to find the button. When he did and the belt released, he poured out of the seat like two hundred pounds of half-melted Jell-O. The car slid forward again, and he banged his chest against the steering wheel.

Damn. She wasn’t kidding about the car crashing into the river. It was going down, just a matter of when.

He batted the deflated airbag out of his way. No wonder his head was thundering in beat with his heart—it had probably gotten an up close and personal meeting with the bag. Which, granted, was better than the windshield, so he really couldn’t complain.

Sage appeared at the door again and gripped his hand, helping him out of the wreck with a surprising amount of strength. She was no weak, wilting flower. She was strong and capable, and there was zero chance he’d ever break her.

That was sexy as hell.

He landed in the mud beside her, and for a long moment, neither of them moved. The car slid another few feet, and he finally sat up, though it was a chore.

“My bag.” He shoved himself upright, staggered. “We’ll need it. Supplies—”

Sage gripped his arm. “No, you’re injured. You don’t have to play Superman. I’ll get it.”

He sank back down, partially relieved, but mostly annoyed that she was right. He was more injured than he wanted to admit. His body was still healing from the bomb blast, and he’d put it through hell since getting the cast off his leg a few weeks ago, trying to prove…he didn’t know what. His masculinity? His badassness? His immortality? But all he’d proven was his stupidity, and he was paying for it now.

Oh Christ, he hurt.

He’d had a lot of internal injuries after the bomb, and it’d be just his luck if the car accident had screwed up his insides again. He should probably haul his ass to a hospital and make sure he wasn’t bleeding out.

Except if he suggested the hospital, Sage would run again. He’d been pretty doped up on pain medication the last time they were in a hospital together, but he distinctly recalled how twitchy it had made her.

All right. No hospital.

He was fairly certain he wasn’t seriously injured, just really fucking bruised and battered. He’d live. And with that thought, he gathered his strength and shoved himself to his feet again as Sage returned to his side.

“Now what?” she asked, shouldering the bag.

Vaughn glanced around, orienting himself to their surroundings. “The SUV’s gone?”

“Yeah, they took off. Didn’t even bother to check to see if we were dead.”

“They didn’t want us dead. There are easier ways to kill a person.”

In the glow of the headlights, he saw her go pale.

She gripped the strap of the bag tighter. “So they were…what? Sending a message?”

“I think so.” He nodded and immediately regretted it as pain sliced through his temple. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “We need a place to lay low. The motel in town is our best option.”

Sage eyed him up and down. “But it’s probably still a good three-mile walk. Can you do it?”

It irked that she had to ask. Irked more that, yes, in his current state, a three-mile hike was going to be a struggle. “We’ll go up to the road. It’ll be smoother, faster.”

“What if we see the cop again?”

“We’ll see him before he sees us. If he shows up again, we’ll duck into the trees. C’mon.” He turned and looked up the embankment at the road overhead and tried not to groan. “Let’s move.”