Rock Star Romance: Dan (Contemporary New Adult Rockstar Bad Boy Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 4) (71 page)

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Chelsea was still
coming back to herself, basking in the hazy glow of pleasure, when she felt
Johan’s body tense underneath her. “What?” she asked, something about his
tension triggering an internal alarm.

“You need to get out
of bed quickly,” Johan said, his voice little more than a murmur. “And you need
to get dressed. Now.”

“What’s going on?”
Chelsea pulled herself up to look down at Johan. He lifted her off of him in a
quick, deft movement, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed and standing
up seemingly all at once, with a grace that Chelsea envied.

“I hear people
outside,” Johan told her. He picked up his clothes. “Quickly, Chelsea,” he
said, giving her a firm look to underscore the urgency. She scrambled out of
the bed, ignoring the twinge of pain from her bruised buttocks, and darted into
the living room area of the suite, quickly retrieving her panties, her bra, her
skirt. She pulled and tugged to get them on; in the living room, she could hear
the sound of movement in the hallway.

Johan came into the
room behind her, the keys to the car in his hand. “Take these,” he said. “If
it’s them, you’re better off making a getaway in the car on your own.”

“Where the hell am I
supposed to go?” Chelsea asked him, though she took the key chain
instinctively.

“There’s money in the
glove compartment,” Johan told her. He moved, and suddenly there was a gun in
his hand. He shifted again, his hand going down to a subtle bulge along his
hip, and produced a knife. “There’s also a spare phone in there. The only
number in it will connect to my phone.”

There was a loud,
shuddering boom at the door and Chelsea jumped back, yelping in surprise and alarm.
Johan put the knife into her hand, bringing both hands around the butt of his
pistol. “Get yourself out of here, get into the car, and drive like hell,”
Johan said sharply. “I’ll take care of everything else.” Four men poured
through the door into the room, and Chelsea staggered backward, gripping the
hilt of the knife tightly.

“Found you, Princess,”
one of the men said, sneering. The four were all dressed in nondescript
clothes: jeans, tee shirts, and work boots. Chelsea thought wildly that they
must have gotten into the hotel by pretending to be workers, part of the staff.
Their hair and faces looked greasy, and Chelsea thought fleetingly that the men
had obviously not had the benefit of luxury hotels in their pursuit.

Everything became a
blur, and Chelsea went almost deaf at the air-ripping report of the first shot
Johan fired. She glanced at him quickly and then rushed forward, even as
reinforcements came in behind the first four men. Pivoting on her heel, she
looked around frantically for an alternative exit; there was a balcony attached
to the suite, but the thought of the long drop down made her stop. “Go,
Chelsea!” She darted towards the door to the suite, ears ringing as another
shot from the pistol echoed through the room. One of the men went down. Chelsea
darted through the opening the hired man’s fall created, slashing with the
knife to attempt to fend off the grabs his comrades made for her. She made it
through the door, but one of the men was hot on her heels.

Before she could get
down the hallway, she felt a heavy weight collide with her back and she was
falling forward, holding her arm out to the side instinctively to avoid
stabbing herself as she hit the floor, covered by the heavy man. Chelsea
screamed, struggling and squirming, and stabbed blindly with the knife Johan
had given her. There was a sharp jolt of pain across her back, another against
her shoulders, and she could hear—dimly—shouts and shots coming from the room
behind her, thuds and thunder of the struggle. Chelsea thought wildly that they
had certainly racked up a huge bill for themselves. She shouted incoherently,
heart pounding in her chest, blood roaring in her ears, and stabbed down at the
lump of black, pink, and blue; once, twice, three times, until he went still,
groaning. She got to her feet and staggered towards the elevator, trying to
ignore the misgivings she felt at leaving Johan behind.

In minutes that felt
like an hour, Chelsea found herself in the parking lot, the blood-reddened
knife still in one hand, the keys to the car in the other. She ached all
over—sharper aches that told her she was injured indeed, though the adrenaline
of the fight made them seem like a minor consideration. She limped to the car,
shivering and shaking, and unlocked the door. She could only hope that she
would be able to get to wherever she needed to be, and be able to get in touch
with Johan when she did.

PART THREE

Chelsea pulled into an
empty parking spot at a rest stop in what seemed—to her—like the middle of
nowhere, exhausted. She hadn’t seen Johan in twenty-four hours; the only sleep
she had gotten was a brief nap at a hospital. An hour into her panicked flight
away from the hotel, the adrenaline had begun to ebb out of her system, and
Chelsea had slowly realized that she was bleeding in a few places, with pain
throbbing in many more. Thoughts of Johan—worries about whether or not he was
still alive, concerns about where he was, if he
was
alive, and how she
would get in contact with him once more—distracted her enough to keep going
until she saw a sign on the highway with the H indicating there was a hospital
nearby.

She had decided that
two hours away was far enough, if Johan had indeed taken out their assailants.
Chelsea had finally checked the glove compartment to find the phone and the
money; much, much more of it than she would have guessed that Johan would have
felt comfortable just leaving in the car. Her fingers had trembled as she
attempted to count the contents of the envelope, but there was at least a
thousand dollars in it. Chelsea had stuffed the envelope into her purse,
slipped the phone in her pocket, and limped into the hospital.

After waiting for what
seemed like an eternity—but was, she found out later, only an hour and a
half—Chelsea had been called back. In addition to the cash, she’d found a note
in the card to submit any bills to a particular agent, and had provided that
person’s contact information to the hospital; they must have called and
confirmed it, because they were more than happy to x-ray seemingly every inch
of her body, run a full panel of blood tests, and examine each injury in minute
detail. Chelsea had a badly sprained ankle, a partially torn ligament in her
knee, a bullet graze on the back of her shoulder, and bruised ribs, all of
which she had struggled to explain with as little detail as possible.

Against medical
advice, she had simply let them put an air cast on her sprained ankle, a brace
on her injured knee, and a bandage on her bullet graze. There was not much they
could do about the bruised ribs, but the hospital had prescribed her pain
medication, which the on-site pharmacy had filled. Chelsea had stuffed that
into her purse and went on her way, in spite of the encouragement of the
attending doctor to stay for a few hours of observation, and warnings that she
might injure herself more if she was too active.

She had managed to
stay on the road in spite of the gnawing pains that seemed to come from all
over her body, stopping every so often to get coffee. Chelsea hadn’t even
wanted to find a hotel to stay at; she had no idea where Johan was, had no idea
where she should be going, no idea if the people after her were on her trail
once more. She also knew that if she stayed alone in a hotel, she wouldn’t be
able to get decent sleep anyway. She would toss and turn, likely sending
twinges of pain through her legs and torso every time she moved, worrying about
the lack of contact with Johan, wondering what she would do with herself if she
found out that Johan was dead.

Chelsea had called as
many times as she had dared, using the odd phone with its singular number in
the address book. Each time, for the first twelve hours of her flight from the
hotel, she received a message that the person she was attempting to call was
unavailable; that they had not established a voice mail, and she should call
back later. Chelsea reasoned to herself that if Johan had been killed, most
likely the people who’d attacked them would have gotten the phone; they would
have tried to convince her to meet them somewhere. She refused to think that it
was just as likely that Johan was dead, the phone left behind, nothing for her
to do and no one for her to reach. Eventually, Johan would call her back.

After they had been
separated for almost twenty hours, Chelsea had begun to lose hope. She made one
final call to Johan as a Hail Mary, and was shocked enough to nearly trip over
the hose to the gas pump as she walked back and forth as the call connected.
“Where are you?” Johan had asked immediately.

“I have no idea,”
Chelsea had said wryly. “I’ve been driving steadily for…I don’t even really
know how long anymore. Ten hours at least.” She heard Johan sigh.

“You didn’t even stop
to sleep?”

“Coffee and fear, they
do a pretty good job of keeping a person awake.” Chelsea wanted—almost needed—to
ask Johan how he was, if he was injured, if he had slept.

“The longer you go
without sleep the more likely you are to do those assholes’ work for them by
crashing into a pylon,” Johan said sharply. “Are you at a gas station or
something?” Chelsea started to ask how he had guessed, but realized it was one
of the few sensible places for her to be, if she was sticking to the road; she
wouldn’t be calling him if she was driving on the highway at the maximum legal
speed. She admitted she was. “Is anyone there with you?” Chelsea had glanced
around. There was one other person, two pumps down. “Ask them what city you’re
in.”

Suppressing the
embarrassing feeling that she would definitely come across as a complete idiot,
Chelsea followed the instruction. The woman at the other pump told her that she
was in a town called Green Tree. When Chelsea passed that information to Johan,
she heard him cluck his tongue against his teeth, considering. “Hold on,” he
said, and Chelsea heard the sound of something rustling, movement on the other
end of the line. A few moments later, Johan spoke again. “You’re about two
hours west of me, unless you’ve really made good time and are in a totally
different Green Tree,” she could hear him smiling. “Turn around, come east,
we’ll meet at a rest stop and I’ll get you to a hotel.”

“What rest stop?”
Chelsea thought longingly of the pain pills in her purse; but while she had to
drive, she couldn’t let herself take the risk of having one, or even half of
one. Johan gave her a highway exit number and told Chelsea to call him when she
arrived; he would probably already be there, but he wanted her to confirm it
before she got out of the car.

Now, finally arrived,
Chelsea picked the phone up from the passenger seat, unlocked the screen, and
found the only number in the contact list. She yawned as she held the phone to
her ear, listening to it ring once, twice, and then stop—the call connecting.
“Are you here?” Chelsea nodded before realizing that obviously Johan couldn’t
see her over the phone.

“Yeah, I’m here. I
think. Exit 96B, right?”

“I’ll come to the
car.”

Chelsea tilted her
head back against the headrest, letting the phone slip from her fingers. She
couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted in her life. Her ankle, her knee, her
ribs, almost her whole body, it seemed, throbbed with pain. Chelsea wanted
nothing more than to soak in a hot bath for about an hour and sleep for ten
hours following that. Preferably under the influence of hospital-grade opiates.

She almost fell into a
doze, and jumped when she heard the soft tapping at the window. Looking out,
Chelsea saw Johan—unmistakably it was him—standing at the driver’s side door,
peering in with the faintest trace of a smile curving his lips. She summoned up
the strength to unlock the door and Johan opened it, quickly reaching across
her to unbuckle her seatbelt before pulling her out of the seat with only a
small show of effort. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her eagerly on the
lips, his hands tightening on her. As he brushed against her bruised rib,
Chelsea yelped, clenching her teeth as she broke the kiss. “How badly are you
hurt?” Johan asked her, concern in his bright eyes.

“Bruised rib, torn
ACL, sprained ankle. There’s a bullet graze somewhere that they bandaged up for
me, and I accidentally cut myself while I was stabbing one of those guys to
death—at least I hope he’s dead.” Chelsea sighed, smiling wryly. “What about
you?” Johan shrugged.

“Bullet graze on my
shoulder, a few bruises here and there, one of them got me with a knife across
the leg, but it’s stitched so it’ll heal.” He kissed her lightly on the lips.
“I take it you stopped at a hospital somewhere?” Chelsea nodded slowly.

“I gave them the
contact for the billing, so they subjected me to every test they could justify,”
she said with a sigh. Johan laughed.

“Yeah, I’d expect
that.” He hugged her gently. “Come on, get everything you want out of this car.
We’re abandoning it.” Chelsea was too tired to question it; with Johan’s help
she got her purse and the few possessions she still had in the car with her
when she’d fled the hotel. “I got your luggage out of the hotel in one piece,”
Johan informed her as he led her towards yet another anonymous—yet subtly
luxurious-looking—car.

“Oh, that’s great,”
Chelsea said, only then realizing how much she had left behind. “Probably a
huge bill.” Johan shrugged, wincing slightly.

“It’s paid for.”
Chelsea nodded again, too tired and in too much pain to argue or even press the
question that had been plaguing her from the beginning of their flight from her
home town. “Do you want me to carry you?” Johan looked at Chelsea as she
limped.

“You’re injured too,”
she pointed out tartly. “I’m hurting, I’m not half-dead.”

“I hope they gave you
good pain pills.”

“They did. The best. I
think.” Chelsea shook her head slightly to clear it. “I haven’t been able to
take them because I’ve been driving, but I want to say it’s Vicodin. I’m really
thrilled.” Johan chuckled.

“I’ve got a hotel for
us. In about thirty minutes you’ll be able to take one of those magical pills
and drift away for a while.” Chelsea nodded, too exhausted to speak. Johan
opened the passenger side door and collected everything but her purse from her,
stowing it in the back seat as Chelsea gingerly climbed in and fastened her
seat belt. Within a few minutes, they were driving out of the rest stop and
towards their destination.