Protect Me (12 page)

She
towed a stumbling Rick along behind her at double speed while Rick yanked
half-heartedly at her grip.

“Wait,
wait,” he said, “this is bad, look, no, you need to come with me, you’re coming
with me, right? Because I can’t just leave you to - you know, I can’t just
leave you out here. You have to come with me.”

Hope
couldn’t lie - the thought was tempting. She could hunker down with Rick in his
hidden lab and fulfill every obligation she was bound to. Rick would be
protected, and both of them would be as safe as possible. They could sit next
to each other, talking and forgetting the last time they’d been in the lab.
She’d call the cops and wait.

She
sighed and swiftly unlocked Rick’s door; shoved him inside.

“I
can’t,” she said, fear and regret mingling. The fear she was used to; it
happened in her line of work - the regret, not so much. “Your guests are still
here. I have to find the threat before he does anything stupid, like take a
hostage. Or shoot someone.”

She
tried to shut the door. Rick shoved his shoulder in as a wedge and refused to
budge, though he winced when she pushed at it.

“No,”
he said emphatically. “They’ll be fine. The people who are after me only want
me. If they can’t find me none of this will matter, come on, I need - I want
you to be safe too. Please, come with me.”

Fingers
circled her wrist and Hope glanced down. The warm pressure on her skin
threatened to light off sparks inside her but this
really wasn’t the time.

“Rick,”
she said, struggling to remain calm and not just bash him over the head and
drag him bodily into his secret tunnel, “you said these people are after you,
right? You and your invention.”

A
guilty look crossed his face and Hope knew she had him.

“I
don’t really understand what you’ve got down there, but I know it’s important.
It’s something you can’t let anyone else have, right? It could turn into a
weapon, right?”

“Right,”
Rick said softly, almost sadly. His head bowed enough that his hair fell into
his eyes, shadowing his face. Hope took a last fond look, gently pulled her
wrist out of his grasp, and gave him a little shove.

“So
go,” she said, and smiled. An honest smile, even. “Guard it. You do your job
and I’ll do mine. I’ll find you when I’m done.”

He
raised his head again and his brown eyes found hers, looking deep and black as
wells.

“Hope…”
he began, and she couldn’t hold back a furtive glance over her shoulder. The
hallway was empty, but she suspected it wouldn’t be for long.

Before
she could think the better of it, Hope reached out and laid her fingers against
the curve of Rick’s jaw. His eyes widened and the slight movement bristled his
five o’clock shadow against the pads of her fingers.

“Do you
trust me?” she asked.

They stared
at each other and Hope found herself willing Rick to tell her yes. Not just
because she needed him to move, but because… well, for other reasons.

Rick’s
sharply angled face softened improbably as she watched. Hope tracked his hand
as he raised it and cupped her cheek with it, mirroring her position.

“I
trust you,” he said heavily. “And you won’t be led. Be careful.”

So
quickly that even her reflexes didn’t have time to react - or maybe they did,
maybe she did, maybe she just didn’t want to - Rick lunged forward and kissed
her, not soft at all but hard, unyielding, and white-hot against her lips. It
felt like forever, a million feelings clamoring for attention in her mind but
nothing able to struggle past the thought of
oh my God
, though it was
probably only a fraction of a second.

Then
Rick was pulling back. Before she could do more than catch a glimpse of his
eyes, automatically Hope reached out to shove the door shut and lock it. She
turned on pure muscle memory and started to jog down the hall of the mansion.

And
this is why you don’t get involved, some detached part of her thought ruefully.
Complicated was an understatement.

Fortunately
Hope had gotten good at compartmentalizing a long time ago. When you were on a
security detail you had good days and bad days and days where somebody died,
and if you couldn’t put that away then you couldn’t last. There had been far
more real danger from Rick’s lingering in the doorway than there was from the
kiss that still lingered against her lips.

She ran
near silently along the corridor around to the corner and paused. Hope dropped
all the way to the floor and peered cautiously around the corner.

The
baddie in the ninja suit was standing outside the balcony bedroom, looking from
side to side, clearly trying to decide which way to go. A tiny smile curved at
the corners of Hope’s mouth. Amateur. If he’d put three seconds into recon, he
wouldn’t have needed to wonder which way to turn.

As she
watched, Ninja Wannabe made an irritated noise, seemed to make a decision, and
stalked off decidedly in one direction. Her direction. Of course.

Hope
got to her feet just as he rounded the corner.

“Nice
to see you,” Hope said brightly, and took a step in close.

Ninja
Wannabe jumped about a foot in the air. She didn’t watch his legs or his face,
but his arms - and sure enough, the man gave the odd little elbow twitch that
was a telltale sign he was carrying.

And he
was a leftie. Excellent.

Before
the man had time to react, Hope lunged forward even closer and snaked her arm
under the guy’s jacket. It didn’t always work but on this night she got lucky;
her fingers closed around body-warmed metal and when she yanked hard, something
gave. She jumped back with the gun in her hand.

The guy
let loose an inarticulate snarl of rage and leapt at her with one hand. The
other hand went under his jacket at the other side. She knew he had to be going
for a knife, and the only thing more dangerous than a gun was a knife.

Her
eyes stayed on that arm. Ninja was still grabbing at the thing under his
jacket, and when he jumped at Hope, she was too slow. His hand came up for the
gun. Rather than letting him have it, Hope made her fingers go loose and the
gun fell to the floor with a clatter. Hope made a split-second executive
decision and kicked it out of the way, counting on her superior speed if push
came to shove.

Ninja
obviously thought he had the upper hand now; he bared his teeth in a smile.
Hope leapt back out of his grip and away from the reach of his knife. But not
too far.

There
was a moment where the guy obviously almost paused, his gaze raking over her
body like it had a right to be there. Hope gritted her teeth and tensed her
muscles.

“Slut,”
the guy said, an expectant kind of sneer on his face.

Hope
rolled her eyes. “I’m as pure as the driven snow,” she told him.

Bless
him, the baddie actually looked surprised as he blinked and asked, “Are you?”

Well,
he started to ask it - in the middle of his distraction Hope kicked out a foot,
hooked his leg, and threw him off his feet. His head hit the edge of the floor
right where the carpet ended.

“Like
it matters,” she told his unconscious body. The stone floor was probably not
doctor recommended for craniums. She couldn’t hold back a tiny grin. Morons
always thought that commenting on her sexual experience, or lack thereof, would
distract her. And somehow it almost always worked the other way around.

She
tugged a zip-tie out of her back pocket and handcuffed the guy’s hands behind
his back after doing a quick frisk for any other weapons or identification.
None, of course, and Hope blew out a frustrated sigh before straightening up
and pulling her still irritatingly tiny cell phone out of another pocket.

She
dialed a number that still wasn’t familiar to her yet in this country and put
the phone to her ear.

“Hello,
police?”

Hope
dropped into the dark tunnel and jogged down its length, making sure her
footsteps echoed loudly.

“It’s
me,” she called before she stepped into the light. “So no shooting or lasering
or whatever else you have stashed down here.”

As soon
as she took that step forward and blinked against the sudden brightness, Rick
was there, all tightly restrained energy and big hands running down her arms
and concerned eyes so close to her own.

“Are
you okay?” he asked, sounding bewilderingly worried. About her? Hope almost
laughed, not mocking, just unsure of what to say.

“Of
course,” she nodded and took a step back, feeling more unsure in this moment
than she had been in the midst of the fight. “Everything’s fine, the threat is
taken care of, but we need to get you upstairs before the police come. Unless
you want them to find this place…”

Rick
didn’t stop touching her, but those words did seem to make him pause and
consider. He took a cursory look around the lab and nodded sharply. His hand
settled into a hold around her wrist again. Hope found that she didn’t really
mind.

“Fair
enough,” he said, though the words were tense. “Lead on.”

It was
right then that Rick Stone seemed perfect to her - not on his million dollar
yacht, but here, where he was uncertain and upset and probably angry, but still
listening to her. Still quick and competent even under pressure. Hope couldn’t
hold back a single brilliant smile at him before she dove forward into the
tunnel, using his own grip around her wrist to pull him along in her wake.

“Holy
Christ,” Rick said, sounding somewhere between amazed and amused. “You’re
enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Hope
hmm-ed and made him go up the ladder first.

“Not
this, precisely. Just - I like knowing what I’m supposed to do, and then doing
it. When your means meet your needs. It’s - good.” She almost laughed and shook
her head at herself. Rick’s poetic streak was rubbing off, clearly.

Rick
knelt down on his haunches and watched her emerge through the top of the
trapdoor. His expression was considering.

“I see
what you mean,” he said finally, as Hope turned to shut the trapdoor. “You’re
beautiful like this.”

Hope
paused for a fraction of a second before her arm followed through on its swing
and the trapdoor fell into place. She gave Rick a tiny incredulous look and
then hurried for the door, her face hot.

The
door gave a tiny pressure-rattle and she fell back instantly, her shoulders
blocking Rick’s torso and her hand going for the knife hidden in the inside
pocket of her jacket.

There
was a thud of boots outside. A gruff voice yelled, “Police!” and the door swung
open. Hope didn’t relax until two officers filed inside with guns drawn and all
the right equipment on their backs, their eyes the appropriate shade of
cautious that she’d seen on every cop making a visit like this.

“Is the
perimeter clear?” she asked straight off.

The cop
in front made the slightly surprised
she speaks our language
face that
she was also quite used to seeing. After a tiny pause he nodded. Hope watched
him almost fondly. Cops as a rule were much quicker to trust than people in her
professional - but then, cops dealt with the masses and, as Hope tried to
remind herself, the masses were usually fairly decent.

“The
man handcuffed in the hall – you did that?” the cop asked. Hope was impressed.
This guy was perceptive.

She
stepped forward and they shook hands. “Hope Lasser. I have experience in the
executive protection industry,” she told him, and hoped he wouldn’t ask any
other questions.

“Tim
Calloway, and this is my partner Gabe.” He gestured to a short man with an
impressive mustache, who nodded. “We have a few more men securing the
perimeter, but everything seems to be in order. I think it was just one guy
looking to party.”

Hope
and Tim grinned knowingly at each other for a moment. Rick coughed.

“Thank
you, gentlemen,” he said, stepping forward to shake their hands as well. The
cops’ eyes went wide in recognition and Hope had to bite back a smile. Rick
clapped them on the shoulder and charmed them right out the door and down the
corridor.

“…
You’re probably not off duty until later, but hey, I’m having another party - a
bigger one - in a couple days, and you boys are welcome to come to that. Hell,
bring your whole department, there’s plenty of room…”

Smart
, Hope
thought admiringly, with a disbelieving shake of her head. Rick could think on
his feet all right. Having the whole damn police department at a party
certainly couldn’t hurt.

And
then she really did have to clench her jaw to hold back on a laugh when Rick
glanced over his shoulder (each arm slung around one of the cops) and wholesale
winked at her.

When
Hope’s alarm went off the next morning she was more tempted to hit snooze than
she had been in quite a while. It had been a long night, and her mind had still
been running a mile a minute when she dropped into bed. The adrenaline crash
had hit hard and sent her tumbling into sleep, but sharp-colored dreams had whirled
around her mind all night and kept her from feeling rested.