Honey Moon (4 page)

Sam was nothing but a general do-gooder with a popular political blog, about to get his ass handed to him. A guy who couldn’t sleep at night thinking of the potential body count, and he was afraid to squeal before he had something more tangible than projection based on illegally-gotten statistical spreadsheets. Without the public behind him, it’d be simple to frame him as a nutjob, then make him disappear. Ergo, the need for a bride. The ruse of a guy who took advantage of a woman, dreams of status and power in her eyes and not a bit of love, but still an innocent, so he could get onto a shuttle and see without rose-tinted glasses what—if anything—was rotten.

Then the reply came. Samuel Cooper and Laree Gilson had a day to file the thousand dollar marriage certificate confirming their seats on shuttle 7877 leaving in one week.

The yippee and big kiss Laree gave him were delightful.

The huge black hole of insecurity rolling in his gut? Not so much.

* * * *

Two days later, Laree seized Sam’s wrist phone off the desk and read the mysterious text—
Congratulations. A wedding gift awaits. Wear a red rose. Be there tomorrow—3p.m.—or suffer a terrible consequence.
It included an address for what had to be a bar.

“Damn it, Laree. Don’t answer that. Leave it to me.” He grabbed it from her and slapped the band around his wrist. “You need to order my tux and email everyone we’ll be off the grid for a month. Six months or longer if we hit the jackpot with that home you want on Europa. Only the biggest and the best for my girl.”

I’m such a bastard
. If he was wrong or failed to show the world the truth, there was a slight possibility his bride would get a five-by-five cell, regardless of the vid-cam and un-posted blog he’d left hidden on his server, documenting that any subversive acts were his and his alone.

Laree arched her brows. “Whoever sent that text blocked their ID. I thought that was a crime?

Also, wanting to give a wedding gift in person at some tavern I’ve never heard of, instead of using the Net? It’s so creepy.”

And damn expensive. A black market wrist phone with ID blocked had to be incinerated within a time window he imagined to be less than a few hours or the user could be tracked.

“If you think I’m a sucker who’ll fall for a bachelor prank, why don’t you meet me there?”

She laughed. “You know what happens in old-fashioned bars?”

“People have a drink?”

“People are exposed as losers. Only lowlifes go to dumps that aren’t clubs.”

Right. Pay exorbitant cover charges for an overpriced, watered-down drink. Perhaps the sender had more concern for his wallet. The cryptic text gnawed at him.

The moment Laree sat at the desk, he typed on his wrist phone
—Terrible consequence if I turn down this wedding present? K. 2pm, not 3.

He’d find out if someone was onto him before Laree arrived, then he’d whine to her that no one had shown and waste another minute trying to coax her into at least letting him finish his cheap beer before she dragged him out the door with her nose held high.

* * * *

The next morning, he was back at the bedroom window and watching the sun climb the horizon against a cloudless backdrop, brightening the perpetual smog hazing the city. Millions of humans surrounded him in this metropolis alone, so why did he feel like the most isolated nutter on Earth?

He angled the blind, encouraging rays to penetrate the solitary window of their sixty-third floor abode. The light kissed Laree in the face, causing her to blink, and he slid back into bed. He eased his arm over to rest his hand on her hip.

She groaned. “Samuel, please. Get your hand off my ass, close that damn shade and be a dear. I need breakfast.”

Yeah, yeah.
He hopped out of bed.

The lonely jitterbugs prowling within him died painfully, stamped out by self-pity as he dumped cereal into a bowl and hunted unsuccessfully for milk. Not even a cuddle to start one of the last days he had left as a free man on this beautiful planet, then nothing to eat but multigrain flakes. Laree was obsessed with not leaving a crumb for a cockroach before hopping the cruise rocket heading to a gluttonous holiday on the moon and beyond.

He cracked open the carton of OJ, sniffed and waited. When he didn’t keel over dead from past expiration dated fumes, he poured juice over the cereal while walking from the kitchen into the partitioned bedroom slash office.

“Whaaat?” He set the bowl on the desk beside Laree’s elbow. She’d looked at his offering with a flinch. He shrugged and raised the orange juice carton. He drank, head tipped back, to hide from the annoyance gathering in her eyes.

“Wipe your mouth, go shave and get out of here, darling. Be sure you’re back in time.”

He dutifully wiped his mouth and offered her the carton. “Go where and back in time for what?”

She slammed the juice down onto the desk, blew a heavy sigh and he braced.

“We went over this yesterday. You need to return that tux. Make them lower the pant cuffs. I told them you were six foot four, but did they listen? Then run this list of errands before meeting me at that bar.”

Onward bachelor soldier, marching as to war…

* * * *

Sam left the tux at the tailor, jogged shoulder to shoulder with strangers in Central Park, sat on a concrete bench and people watched.

At 1 p.m. he boarded the automated train, got off a few blocks from a florist shop, then hopped onto the southbound train.

One forty-five p.m., carrying the requested rose instead of wearing the thing, Sam tromped down the block toward the establishment called Fill That Hole.
Mouth, heart, butt? Hmm, the bride will say the biggest hole is where my soul should be.

Nestled between a drugstore and an office building, the squat bar claimed a good-sized lot that included a filled parking area. His check on the Net had informed him the owners were fighting and losing against a city ordinance to tear down the historic building and clear space for another skyscraper. He enjoyed a brief feel of grass clinging to his boots, the rough crunch of gravel as he closed in to push open the door.

The gritty stench of illegal tobacco, mixed with legal weed, wafted from dark corners. About twenty people sat at the long bar. The quaint pool tables in the back had groups clustered around them as well.

Two cool mouthfuls of hops and barley later, a timid throat clearing had him swiveling the barstool.

Yowsa.
Bouncy reddish-brown curls, adorable splash of freckles across her cheeks and a rosebud mouth begging to be kissed, if only to ease away the nervous quiver. Soft scents of fresh lemon and crisp cinnamon. Mid-twenties. No makeup. Black skirt, buttoned blouse and honest-to-Christ sneakers, instead of stilettos. Not the usual trolling-for-cash get-up. Neither was she the clichéd version of a call girl. Skinny and too short—about perfect for a condemned groom.

“Samuel Cooper?”

She’s my gift? Please, please, please.
“Who’s asking?”

The woman glanced at the wilted rose lying beside his hand. “In private.” Blood as bright as the flower flooded her cheeks as she mumbled, “Follow me.”

Who’d have purchased an escort? One who seemed as naïve and uncomfortable as if she reeled in her first john?

The pretty lady dipped her chin, muttering, “If you want to live—come,” and walked away.

“Come? Seriously?” asked dick.

“We’re saying ‘I do’ in two days, numbnuts,” scolded brain. “Gotta be a trap.”

Ahh, hell.
He slugged down another mouthful of the beer, scanned his wrist phone for payment and went after a sweetly curved—
gulp
—into the washroom.

His fingers moved without thought to slide the deadbolt locking the door to the deserted room, while he scanned the area. Three stalls, each larger than his apartment. He knocked the swing door open to the last, closed it behind him and eyeballed the beauty staring at him with so much trepidation in her gaze that his dick slumped along with his heart. This woman wasn’t a hooker—not a doubt in his mind.

Chapter Three

One thing Jenna Jensen was sure of, no man should have eyes that green, a mop of thick, dark hair and such a lean, yet muscular, body that went up and up—over a foot taller. She suspected it’d only take a tap on top of her crazy head to bang her knees to the floor.

She swallowed hard, fumbled in the front pocket of her skirt and yanked out the miniature, but concentrated, weapon. “Pepper spray,” she squeaked, pointing the tiny vial at him.

Mister Too-damn-gorgeous-not-to-be-trouble, a.k.a. Samuel Cooper, raised his palms up and out. His forehead furrowed. “Ah, lady of the…afternoon, get real. You’re the one who lured me here.”

That I did
. Hypnotized by emerald eyes and the confident timbre of his voice, she swallowed hard and hesitantly shoved the spray back in her pocket.

“I won’t hurt you. I promise.” He lowered his hands and her attention went south with them. “What’s this all about?”

Do not. Do not stop to ogle at Pleasure Island.
She jerked her gaze past his waist to his feet. “An anonymous friend of yours…um…paid for…this.”

His black, buffed boots stayed rooted to the floor and relief swelled her lungs. So far intelligent confusion seemed to control his Id, instead of opportunistic caveman. Once she got past the stammering dolt stage, perhaps she’d survive this encounter unscathed.

“Huh,” his low voice rasped. “Then I’m damn grateful to someone. Is there a limit on what
this
involves?”

She didn’t dare raise her chin. “I’m to do whatever you want, but I’m really here to warn—I mean, I should explain some facts. Privacy laws aren’t always enforced. That’s common knowledge, so a man about to get married must be careful. I get extra if we don’t cause any undue attention. Please try to understand. I don’t want anything at all to happen, no contact… That is, not above a whisper.”
In other words, beating me bloody or screwing me in any way is out of the question.

“So I’m clear, you’ve been hired to…service me—quietly?”

“Yes.”
Get to it. Mumble onward.
“Low voices mean surveillance videos won’t be activated.”

GI—Governments, Inc.—monitored and recorded everything worldwide, making ‘this’ a problem if she needed to spell it out further. Certainly even the average bloke knew that rough voices, cries of passion or pain, and—
shiver—
conspirators plotting too loudly, got routed to monitors being manned by bored agents. They’d have a look and a listen, and decide if they should boost the feed to pick up every whisper within a mile radius of her rapidly-beating heart.

Those big boots shifted uneasily, but stayed in place. “You’re saying I can do whatever in the privacy of this stall,” Cooper said, “including my hand covering your mouth, as long as there’s no audible screaming. Does the afternoon delight include multiples—or is it wham-bam?”

“What?”
Wait, hand over mouth? God no, not again.
She cringed and slapped her hand on her pocket, feeling the pepper spray.

“Is there a time limit?” he asked in a dry voice.

Perhaps he too was nervous. Was it odd she found that slightly comforting, but still couldn’t seem to face him? “Of course. Fifteen… Ten minutes and counting.”

Dark blue, two-by-two square tiles, white grout. At least the floor she may soon be pressed against looked as well-polished as it did the last time—no sign of blood, spit or other fluids.

“Then I’ll unwrap such a beautiful gift quickly.”

His voice had hardened. A glob of fear slid down her throat as he continued. “My preference includes a demand. If you can’t look me in the eye, see me for the man that I am, then don’t speak any further.”

See him for who he is? Like I should recognize him?
She lifted her chin. Her eyes widened at the lack of aggression and flash of empathy in his expression. Any thought she might already know him scattered, as she tumbled into flecks of hazel becoming darker and darker shades of green.

She flinched back as he leaned for her ear without touching her.

“Stop that,” he muttered “and leave the damn spray alone. Nervous isn’t good when posing as a professional. I suspect there’s two cams, the door and behind you. Make sure you whisper when I allow and sorry, but it’s also common knowledge an escort isn’t paid to use their mouth for chit-chat. Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” She gulped, staring at his chest. “Listen. There’s something… Another gift that you won—”

“Never mind,” he snapped. “I told you to either look at me or shut up. I’ll help with that.” He grasped her by the throat, jerked her head back and his lips took hers.

Lack of aggression? I’m so wrong. He’s a wolf. Help! Stop! No, don’t. Wow…yessss.

His firm lips pressed, molded and shaped hers, and her legs turned to mush as he gave her little choice—either submit or risk the hand slipping beneath her hair to gently clasp the back of her head, then twisting to crack her skull against the wall.

He grew more insistent
. What’s wrong with me?
Her lips parted, his tongue shot in and she gasped at the instant current racing along her spine. He swallowed her moan and without pause, his kiss galloped past fairytale, beyond sweet romance, heading toward erotic sci-fi bestseller.

Why am I so attracted to this stranger?
Yin to yang. Iron to magnet. Double hydrogen to oxygen…
Who the hell is he?
She found her arms clutching his waist, gluing herself to him as if he was the key to a gaping hole within her
. Who the hell am I?