Hot Pursuit (24 page)

“Well, what was your last job?”

He didn’t answer right away, and when she looked at him he appeared contemplative. “I guess you could say I did odd, jobs and ran errands for this guy who was self-employed,” he finally said; then before she could press him to clarify, he shifted the conversation to her. “What type of work do you want to do?”

“Work in an office, I think. I’m pretty good on a computer.”

“Good. Let’s go inside and see if we can line up some places to go see.”

Zoey liked the idea. She needed a plan of action. Hiding and waiting to be found didn’t appeal to her at all. She didn’t care where they went to apply for work. She had a taste of freedom, and she loved it. Not once in her life had she been able to simply take off and go. Her world had been continual orders and confinement. She hated thinking her freedom wouldn’t last long. Emilio Cortez could reach a long way, far beyond Zounds. He had connections. Until he found her, though, Zoey wanted to make the best of this life.

“I would love to make a day of it,” she said, holding Ben’s gaze and doing her best not to drown in those clear blue eyes. Good looks and a man with integrity. She definitely needed to keep her feelings under wraps and her heart closely protected.

As if he read her mind and decided to challenge it, Ben swooped down and scraped her lower lip with his teeth. Zoey gasped. He dove in for the full course. Wrapping his arms around her, Ben damn near bent her over backward. His tongue dipped into her mouth, tasting, then devouring.

Swept off her feet? She was floating a mile high! Zoey dug her fingers into his shoulders, holding on for dear life. And not just because he had her off balance. But because he was giving her a taste of perfection. Ben was teasing and torturing her. He was putting thoughts in her head of a life with such a wonderful man to savor, take long walks with, discuss day trips with, and more than likely experience the best orgasms she would ever have in her life.

When Ben let her up for air, the look he gave as he studied her suddenly didn’t sit well with her. Then she remembered the bruises down the side of her face. He had almost made her forget about them. Without thinking, her fingers fluttered up and brushed her sensitive cheekbone.

“You’re bruised,” he murmured. “I’m being a jerk.”

“Why are you being a jerk?”

“You’re hiding out. You need time to heal. I’m supposed to be this noble man here to take care of you, make sure that bastard of a father keeps his crooked paws off you, and all I want to do is get mine on you.”

“I want them on me,” she whispered, the words out before she could stop them.

“Are you sure?”

“Very.”

Ben didn’t hesitate. He moved in with a swiftness that stole her breath right along with any further rational thought. This time the kiss was slow, filled with passion, and intense enough that pressure rose from between her legs and filled her entire body within seconds.

“Ben,” she gasped in the brief moment their lips parted.

His answer was to kiss her again.

He adjusted their angle, wrapping his arm around her and turning her so his muscular body braced her when he bent her over and ravished her mouth. And it was a good thing he held on to her.

Dear Lord! The man could kiss. Her world toppled to the side. Everything in her head began swarming. How was she supposed to make sure she didn’t fall for him when he could turn her entire body to mush with a kiss? Already her body was screaming for more. Her brain wasn’t much help, especially when it was lost in a fog of intense sexual desire.

“Tell me, Zoey,” Ben whispered, nipping at her lips before moving to her earlobe. “Tell me,” he said again, torturing her ear with his breath.

“What?” Her head fell back. She was a lost cause.

“Tell me to stop.”

“What?” she asked again, not comprehending why he would think she would want to stop.

Stop? Hell no, she wanted more. Now! If she would tell him anything it would be that they go inside to the one bed in the cabin. Although she wasn’t opposed to the couch, the kitchen table, or damn, at this rate she probably wouldn’t stop him if he bent her over his motorcycle.

“You’re bruised. You’re here to get your life in order. What kind of ass would I be if I muddled up everything by falling for you?”

She jumped when his phone rang. Ben instinctively wrapped his arm tighter around her, pressing her against his virile chest as he dug his phone out of his pocket.

“It’s Wolf,” he muttered over her head, and answered the call.

Zoey barely heard what he said or the words he spoke when he took the call and spoke to Wolf on the other end of the line. Her brain was stuck on what Ben had said right before the phone call had interrupted them.

Falling for her? Had Ben said he was falling for her?

“Two flat tires?” Ben asked incredulously. “How the hell did you manage two flat tires?”

She slowly emerged out of the thick cloud of lust. Her body still zinged from their foreplay, and she wanted more—no, needed more. But when Ben stiffened, in spite of not being able to hear everything Wolf said on the other end of the line she picked up on one word.

“Gunshot.”

Zoey pulled away and looked up at Ben’s face. He didn’t look down at her but stared over her head, straight ahead. She might not know him that well yet, and in her mind, regardless of everything else going on in her life, something told her it was definitely a
yet
, Zoey knew how a man looked when he was suddenly enraged.

Her heart sunk. It would have been nice to have a few days with Ben before her father managed to destroy their time together. Zoey knew it would happen. Her father wouldn’t simply shrug off the fact that she’d left and not come back home. It wouldn’t slip his mind that his daughter, the tool he’d planned on using to merge his dynasty with another and increase his millions, had disappeared.

Emilio Cortez wouldn’t say,
Oh well,
and move on to plan B.

Damn her father to hell anyway. Why couldn’t he let her lead her own life?

“What is it?” she asked, already feeling the trepidation ooze down her spine.

Ben answered by tightening his grip on her. Zoey loved how her body melded with his. The way he had her pressed against his chest, his arm of steel holding her there as if he would never let her go, made her feel more wanted than she had ever felt in her life.

He didn’t answer but grunted when Wolf continued talking. Zoey listened, trying to pick up on the words coming from the deep baritone through Ben’s cell. Whatever Wolf was telling Ben, he was speaking very fast, and quietly. Even pressed against Ben, with his phone just above her head, Zoey just got pieces. That’s when she heard a familiar name.

“Maggie?” she whispered, barely speaking, and looked up at Ben. They weren’t talking about her friend, were they?

Zoey shivered in spite of herself. She hadn’t considered that her father would go after her friends. Wolf wasn’t her friend. She didn’t know the man. But he was connected to Ben. If her father couldn’t find her, she should have thought it through that he’d go after everyone she knew. Was her freedom worth everyone she knew suffering dearly for it?

Ben hung up his cell and slid it into his pocket. “Looks like you’re getting your wish,” he said dryly.

He was pissed. Zoey took a step back and hugged herself. Her own anger soared as well.

“What happened?”

Ben ran his hand down her back as he escorted her around the cabin to the front door. “Change into something warmer. I’m going to look online for a place to rent a car.”

“Why? What’s going on?” She turned to face him the moment they were inside the cabin. “Ben, I need to know,” she added, her voice cracking.

He stepped around her and headed to his laptop he already had set up at the small, round kitchen table. Ben had been so excited to learn the cabin had Internet access. Although miserably slow, he had been able to boot up and get online using his laptop. Zoey was surprised that Ben traveled with a computer. He didn’t appear to have an ounce of geek blood in him. She hadn’t questioned why he had it, but Zoey guessed possibly to look for work.

“My friend has a flat tire on the other side of Zounds,” he explained. “We can’t go get him in Angel’s car. It could be noticed. We’re going to take the bike and rent a car, then drive out to meet him. Later, when I know it’s safe, we’ll return Angel’s car to her.”

*   *   *

A couple hours later, Zoey pulled up at the cabin behind Ben as he parked his bike. She got out, but only long enough to hand over the keys and climb back in on the passenger side. After their heated kisses behind the cabin, then her being pressed against his backside as they drove down the coast to the next town, just a brush of their fingers as she handed over car keys sent her body perilously close to teetering over the edge.

“Is something else wrong?” she asked, noting his scowl when he ended a phone call before getting in the new dark blue Ford Taurus he’d rented.

Apparently, kissing her hadn’t left Ben as frazzled. He was all business when he pulled away from the curb and caused the tires to skid on the highway when he took off.

“Wolf isn’t where he was when he got the flats. He had his SUV towed and is now in Hummer Hill.”

“But Hummer Hill is the other direction,” Zoey said, trying to point, but was slammed back in her seat when he accelerated so quickly.

“We aren’t going to Hummer Hill.”

“Where are we going? And wait a minute, flats?”

“Huh?” Ben only glanced at her as he tore down the highway, slowing only when he entered Zounds.

Zoey’s stomach instantly twisted as she searched both sides of the street. Her father’s goons might be anywhere, exploiting anyone. If they glanced her and Ben’s way, her life would once again be over. The moment it dawned on her to slide down in her seat they were already out of Zounds and accelerating on a two-lane highway heading north. Within seconds tall redwoods lined either side of the narrow road.

“Oh, sorry,” Ben said when she sighed audibly. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Zoey shot him a look, confused why he wouldn’t be thinking about how terrible it would be for her to enter Zounds right now. “Where are we going?” she stressed.

“To where Wolf was—” He broke off, not finishing his thought. “Where Wolf got his flats.”

“He got more than one flat?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are we going to where he got flat tires?”

“Because I need to find someone.”

*   *   *

Angel stared at the brown paper bag as she breathed in the aroma of the cheeseburger inside.

“Since when did your father start delivering?”

Petey, who was somewhere around twelve if Angel remembered correctly, stared at her from the other side of the counter. He always looked undernourished, dirty, and with freckles too big for his face. Petey was well fed, though, and according to his father simply had an incredibly high metabolism and burned food off the moment he swallowed it. As for “dirty,” Angel also knew little Petey was a dirt magnet. On rare occasions she had seen Petey with his younger brother and sister heading off to school. Petey started his days off clean and properly dressed.

“He doesn’t.” Petey grinned and showed off two gaps on either side of his mouth where baby teeth were gone and adult teeth hadn’t quite grown in yet. “He made an exception for you.”

Angel reached into her wallet, still confused, although her stomach already greedily growled for the burger. “This is for you.” She handed Petey a dollar. “And this is for your father.”

“Why does Dad get a five and I get a one?”

“Because your father agreed to have it delivered,” she said, giving the young boy her stern look. “Where is the ticket?” she asked, opening the bag and breathing in the wonderful combination of burger, bun, onion, and ketchup. Just the way she liked her burgers.

“It’s paid for.” Petey shrugged.

“It’s paid for?”

Wolf had left over an hour ago, and she had begun to think that he’d forgotten about getting her lunch and decided to do something else. She’d been telling herself that she had no grounds to be mad since she had no claim on the man and didn’t intend to lay claim when Petey had entered her store.

“Yeah. My dad probably won’t want this five,” Petey said, looking down when he shoved both bills into his jeans pocket. When he did, the jeans slid down his slender frame and showed off his boxers. “He wanted me to ask you a question, though.”

Angel politely looked away when Petey tugged his pants back up into place. She made a mental note to ask Ernie if his son gave him the five when she next saw the boy’s father.

“What’s the question?”

“Some man called the restaurant and ordered this for you. He agreed to pay three times the price of the burger and charged it to his credit card, which Dad said went through, so it’s good money. The man then said to give you a message when we delivered it.”

“He did? What’s the message?”

Petey dug deep into his other pocket, once again sending his pants sinking down his hips, and pulled out several items. He placed a very shiny rock, an iPod, and headphones back into the pocket. Then, thrusting out his hand, he held a crumpled note, palm up, as he grinned the most mischievous grin Angel had ever seen on a young boy.

“What’s this?” she asked warily as she uncrumpled what appeared to be a form used for taking orders. It had been ripped from a pad, leaving the top part of it slightly torn. Turning it over, she saw a note written in pencil.

“It’s the message.”

Angel read:
I’m sorry I couldn’t bring back your burger. Had to go to work. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Enjoy your lunch, but leave room for me.

Angel blushed, crumpling the piece of paper the moment she finished reading it. Wolf had not left such a suggestive message for the store owner down the street to deliver to her!

“Dad wants to know if you have a new boyfriend and, if so, who is he and when do we get to meet him?”

Apparently, Wolf
had
left such a suggestive message. She was going to kill him.

Angel let out a silent sigh. Petey was young but sharp as a tack and seldom missed anything going on around him. She smiled at the boy as she tossed the note in her trash can.