The Distraction (7 page)

W
hen Trevor left the deli, my lungs deflated. I offered Alec an apologetic smile, and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. I wasn't shooting for porno tongue, but I'd seen more emotion between sixth-graders playing spin the bottle.

“Hi,” I said.

He sat across from me in the seat Trevor had just occupied, tapping his thumbs on his thighs. His expression may have been a perfect, blank mask, but he was pissed. I could feel it coming off of him in waves.

“Bobby's pleading guilty,” I blurted. “To all the charges. Terry thinks he made a deal with Maxim, but I don't know.” Once again I felt a surge of terror, as Bobby's incarceration was somehow bad news.

“Good to know,” he said.

The waitress dropped a plate. I jumped in my seat as it shattered on the floor. Alec didn't even flinch.

“And Maxim Stein's on house arrest. You shouldn't go anywhere near him. Not that he can leave anyway. I saw his house on the news. Media choppers overhead. Reporters and police outside. It's a circus.”

Alec's eye twitched.

“I'm not sure what's happening right now,” I said tentatively. The pressed sandwich was growing cold on my plate.

“Apparently I just got back from Seattle.” His eyes flickered with fire. He meant to punish me, and though the thought baffled me, I wanted him to. There was something definitively sexual about his anger; it was so pure and hot, I had to concentrate to stop myself from stoking the fire.

“I didn't think it was anyone's business where you were.”

“So you told him I was . . .”

“Working,” I said, glancing at my hands woven tightly in my lap. “In security.”

“Now that I know, I'll try to do a better job covering.” He tilted back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. His biceps flexed, and my stomach tightened, betraying my convictions to stay strong.

“You won't have to,” I said. “Amy and my dad are the only ones that knew where you were. I didn't tell anyone else anything.” The truth was, I'd thought Trevor had been hitting on me the first time he'd approached me at the gym, and I'd used Alec as an excuse to get out of a potentially awkward situation. Later that week he'd scheduled a session, and we'd been friends ever since.

At least, we
were
friends. When he came in for his scheduled session next week I was going to do some serious deep muscle work. The kind that involved elbows and knees and maybe a sharp wooden stick.

“It's fine,” said Alec, and for a second I glimpsed the hurt in his eyes before he carefully tucked it away. It just about ripped my heart out.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He shook his head, dropped his arms to his thighs again. “I was gone a long time. I didn't expect you to put your life on hold.”

My chin pulled in. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Alec looked as nonchalant as ever. “Exactly what it sounds like. You had to keep going. Take ballet. Volunteer with kids. Make
friends
.”

I didn't want to fight. I wanted to talk to him about what Terry Benitez had said about Bobby—about anything related to what had happened three months ago. I'd gone so long holding it in, it felt like it would burst out of me at any second, but I couldn't share it with just anyone. It had to be Alec. He'd been there. He knew what it was like. But he was stonewalling me.

“If you have something to say, just say it.” My insides were turning to water.

He looked straight into my eyes, straight through me, as if I was made of glass.

“Are you ashamed of me, Anna?”

It felt like the world was crashing down around us. He'd changed me in so many ways, opened my eyes and my heart, saved my
life
.

“How can you say that?” I said, my voice breaking. I wanted to throw my water cup at him and fall to my knees all at the same time. I wanted to punch him and kiss him and shake the stupid insecurities out of him. Instead, I did the one thing I was good at.

I got up and left.

I made it out the door and onto the sidewalk before I heard the waitress calling for me.

“Ma'am! You didn't pay for your sandwich!”

“Goddammit,” I muttered. I flung open my purse and searched blindly inside for my wallet. The tears were already stinging my eyes but I wasn't about to break down on the sidewalk and make even more of a scene.

“I've got it,” Alec told the waitress. When I heard his voice, I took off toward the crosswalk. Maybe my client was early. If so, they were about to get a hell of a massage. I had some tension of my own to work out.

“Anna, stop.”

It was like he'd thrown an invisible roadblock up right in front of me. My feet slammed on the brakes, leaving me gripping the side of the cigar factory for balance.

Alec's hand on my arm spun me around.

“Don't run away.”

I hated it when he said that. I hated more that I gave him a reason to say it.

His grip loosened, and then he shoved his hands into his pockets as if to keep himself from touching me. We parted the people walking by like two stones in a river, but he didn't seem to notice. His dark eyes were set on mine, and he was waiting.

“I told Trevor you were in Seattle because I didn't know what else to say,” I confessed. “I couldn't talk to anyone about what happened. My dad was already freaked out, and if Amy knew the full extent of it she'd never let me out of her sight again.” I looked up, blinking rapidly to hold back the tears. “I took a job at the gym because I needed the cash, they needed someone who did sports massages, and I couldn't do home visits anymore because . . .”
of Maxim Stein
. “Because I couldn't. I took dance classes to keep busy because I missed you so much I was losing my mind, and I started volunteering as a court-appointed advocate because those kids remind me of you, but they remind me of me, too, and so I'm not sure I can actually go through with it because it's bringing up all this
stuff
.”

My hands were making frantic circles, and he grabbed them and pressed them against his chest. I was breathing so hard I thought I might hyperventilate. Welcome to the worst day of my life. Okay, maybe not the worst, but certainly not the best.

“Everything in my life comes back to you,” I said. “And if you think I give a damn about what anyone else thinks, you're wrong.”

His eyes, which had been carefully trained on mine, filled with pain. He pulled me close, held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “Jesus, Anna. I didn't know.”

I reached for his face and kissed him, needing more than just his words, but the confirmation from his body that we were okay. His lips answered with crushing force, taking my forgiveness and striking a match that sent flames licking through my veins. A slight tilt of his head, and his tongue forged into my mouth. I groaned, gripping the back of his neck as his hands tightened around my waist.

“Close your eyes, kids,” said a woman nearby, jolting me from the haze.

“Gross,” replied a young boy.

Alec stepped back, but the desire was still burning inside of him. I could feel it echoing in my racing heartbeat, my tingling skin, the warmth racing down my limbs.

We were in public. In the middle of the street. It took a second for that to sink in.

He took my hand and led me back to the corner, around the outside of the deli to a metal door. He pushed inside to a stairwell, and the sign that faced us said that the bar upstairs opened at five.

As soon as the door shut, he pushed me back against it and kissed me again. With more privacy, I let go of my inhibitions, scratching my nails through his scalp, moaning as his hungry mouth lowered down my neck. I hiked my knee up his side, and he slid his hand up the inside of my skirt, searing my skin with his touch.

“You were killing me out there,” he murmured, releasing my hair from the band so that he could weave his fingers through it. “I don't deserve you.”

My own hands rose beneath his shirt, sliding up his hard muscles and traveling around to his back. I felt the puckered scar he'd gotten in the metal shop in prison, and pressed my fingers just inside the winged tips of his shoulder blades. He held his stress there, and at my touch he kissed me again, faster, harder, biting my lower lip with just enough pressure to bring a staggering flash of heat between my legs.

He took my right breast in his hand, over the shirt, rubbing his thumb over my nipple until it strained against the thin white satin of my bra. He lowered his head and nipped at it, and somehow, even through my clothes, the sensation was enough to make me tremble.

I needed his touch. I couldn't wait for it. The door was cold and dirty against my back. I had no doubts it was marking up my white shirt, but I didn't care. Feeling him was more important than breathing.

I grabbed his hand, guided it between my legs. With a tight groan, he cupped my mound, hiking up the rest of my skirt with his other hand. As his fingers traced my slit, I bucked against him. He swallowed my cry, and then hurriedly pushed aside my wet panties so that two fingers could plunge inside. One rub against that deep, hidden place and I lost control of my legs. He pressed me harder against the door, and I gripped the back of his neck for support. I could hear the sounds of him working his fingers inside of me. I could smell my desire heavy in the air. He looked into my eyes, watching. Always watching.

“Put it in,” I said. “Hurry.”

He undid his pants and his huge cock sprang free. I braced myself against his shoulders, waiting for him to lift me, but he didn't yet. His hand left my body, and he stroked himself with my juices, leaving a thin sheen of my arousal on his skin.

“Oh God,” I said. “Why is that so hot?”

“Is this okay?” he asked.

Was he kidding?

“Yes,” I said quickly.

He moved closer, pressed aside my panties again and positioned the broad head of his penis at my entrance.

He didn't push in.

“Last night in the shower, you were so fucking beautiful.”

I looked up at him, lost in the emotions swirling deep in his eyes.

“I didn't mean to make you feel dirty.” He gritted his teeth. His thumb began to circle my clit. But still he didn't give me what I needed.

“Alec . . .”

“You're perfect to me.”

My heart clenched, just as the springs deep in my belly coiled tighter.

“I saw it when you touched me. How much you needed to. It was . . . overwhelming.”

He slid in an inch and my back arched, my body trying to take more of him.

“It's how I feel every time I'm with you.”

Another inch.

“It's how I feel right now.”

I began to pant.

“You're never wrong when we're together. You're perfect. Fucking perfect.”

He bent his knees and then, in one hard thrust, we were joined. I didn't have time to catch my breath. He hoisted me up, and my legs wrapped around his hips, but only for a second before I climaxed. He rode it out, shafting me slowly, and as deeply as I could take. Then, when he couldn't stand to wait anymore, he let go. He fucked me in an urgent, primal way, spreading me wide for his rigid cock and bouncing me on his hips as he used the door as leverage.

I squeezed my inner muscles and his knees nearly gave way.

“Do it again,” he commanded, breathing harshly.

I did, and he groaned, going at me with everything he had. And as the block of hurt I'd been dragging around all day cracked into a thousand pieces, he shuddered hard and started to come, ramming into me over and over until he was finally spent.

L
ucky for me, I had extra clothes in my car. Since I no longer lived down the street, I'd started bringing my gym bag on the nights I went to exercise right after work. After a quick, heads-down dash to the car, I put up the sun visor and changed in the passenger seat. Alec folded himself behind the wheel while I shimmied into a tank top and a little wrap sweater. It didn't exactly go with the pencil skirt; it was a good thing I worked in dim lighting.

“What kind of ballet class is this?” he asked, pulling the spandex yoga shorts out of my gym bag. They didn't leave much to the imagination.

I snatched them away with a smile, and threw them into the backseat.

“It's heavy on the cardio,” I said. And when he gave me a suspicious look, I added, “The windows are blacked out so naughty boys like you can't watch.”

Unconvinced, no doubt thanks to Trevor, he sifted through the extra pepper spray, pens, and scissors I kept in my center console. Maybe it was a little excessive, but I wasn't about to be caught without something to defend myself with in case I got in trouble again. Without commenting on what he'd found, he asked for my keys.

“You need a car wash. I'll bring it back before your shift's up.” He scoffed at my confused look, and tried for the third time to roll the seat back another notch to accommodate his long legs. “Believe me, I'm not taking it for any longer than I have to.”

“Don't you have more important things to do than get my car washed?”

“Nothing in the world is more important to me than the cleanliness of your car,” he said seriously. “It's all I could think about while I was locked up.”

I handed over my keys with a snort. “Well I wouldn't want to disappoint you.”

“You couldn't if you tried.”

Cue butterflies. They fluttered around my stomach like I'd just chugged a gallon of coffee.

“I get off at eight,” I said, suddenly not sure how this went. “If you want me to stop by . . .”

He brought my hand to his lips, and scraped his teeth along my knuckles in a way that made me really contemplate calling in sick for the rest of the day.

“Try something for me.”

“What's that?”

“Say, ‘I'll be home after eight.'”

He might as well have asked me to the senior prom. My smile stretched a mile wide.

“I'll be home after eight,” I said.

*   *   *

The planets were all aligning in my favor it seemed. My after-lunch client was stuck in traffic and twenty minutes late, and Derrick had taken off early for personal business. Everything lagged a little behind, but I hardly minded. My day had done a one-eighty thanks to Alec, and I was looking forward to ripping his clothes off as a thank-you as soon as I got home.

Home.
Because that was where we lived. Together. Not his place where I stayed, but our place. Maybe I was overthinking it, maybe—well, probably—we were moving too fast, but I couldn't shake the feeling that for the first time in three months I felt really good.

But that didn't mean I was ready to get rid of my apartment. The most amazing things could end in an instant. The day I'd turned eight years old my birth mother woke up and announced that we were going swimming. I'd never been to a pool before, so she got me a suit, took me to the YMCA, and taught me everything from floating to how to do a cannonball off the diving board. She'd called me a “natural” and signed me up for weekly lessons. It was the best birthday I'd ever had.

The next day she OD'd in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant.

I wanted things to work out with Alec, but that didn't mean I shouldn't be careful.

While I was cleaning up after my last client, Amy appeared in the doorway of the massage room. She held my key ring on one finger, a wary look in her eyes.

“Alec brought these by for you.”

I took them and tucked them in my cleavage so I could keep folding laundry.

“Thanks.”

“He's looking . . . fit.”

I couldn't help but smirk, despite her concerned tone. Best friends didn't forget things like your boyfriend's affiliation with white-collar criminals and attempted murderers, despite how much you tried to convince them he was a good guy.

“Hot, you mean.”

She waved her hand. “If you like that whole action-movie-star-slash-male-model thing.”

“Which you don't,” I inferred.

She made a noncommittal noise and jumped up to sit on the counter beside the oils while I finished.

“You're here late,” I said, changing the subject. “Who's got Paisley?”

“Miss Iris,” she said, referring to the elderly black woman in the apartment upstairs. “She has her granddaughter on Thursday nights. Paisley's BFF.”

It warmed me to hear Paisley was doing normal kid things. She'd been so quiet after Amy's ex-husband had left.

“What are you guys doing tonight?” Amy examined her nails.

I put down the laundry and leaned beside her on the counter.

“Probably just working out the details for our next bank heist.”

“Ha,” she said. “You're
so
funny.”

I turned to face her and put my hand on her knees. “He's okay, Amy. I'm okay. All that trouble from before is over.”

Amy crossed her arms over her flat chest. “He's on parole. He's about to testify in one of the biggest trials in the country. What makes you think your trouble isn't just getting started?”

I took a step back, feeling sharp defensive edges rise up inside of me.

“Thanks for the support.”

She tilted her head back and sighed. “I'm not trying to be a bitch. He's crazy about you, you can see it all over his perfect, high-cheekboned, sexy-mouthed face.”

“He does have a sexy mouth,” I said.

“Some people just can't shake their demons,” she continued. “No matter how fast they run. I know, trust me.”

“You don't know,” I argued. “If you'd just spend some time with him, you'd see.”

“Well forgive me if I'm not jumping at the opportunity,” she snapped. “I don't need to get hit by a bus to know it hurts.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means open your eyes!” She slid to the floor, her anger buzzing like a live wire. “In the month that you were together, you were lied to, beaten up, kidnapped, and nearly killed. He was only seeing you in the first place because his boss told him to!”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. I wanted to laugh at how crazy she sounded, but I couldn't, because everything she was saying was true. All those things had happened. And nothing I could counter with would convince her they wouldn't happen again.

“You don't know him,” I said quietly.

“But I know scared when I see it. And I've seen it all over you since he came into the picture.”

I turned, and hastily gathered the laundry in my arms.

“That glowy feeling you have right now? They call it the honeymoon phase for a reason,” she said as I stalked out of the room. “Don't wait until it's too late to leave.”

I wished I had something nasty to toss back at her, but I was so mad I couldn't think straight. Amy had a point—in my short time with Alec I
had
experienced some crazy things—but those weren't all his fault. She was completely missing the other side of it. She didn't know how good he was, or how much he cared about me. She hadn't been there when he pulled Bobby from the car after he'd followed us for miles, wondering if I'd been hurt. She didn't know the way he took care of his father, or how he held me when I woke from a nightmare, or the way he looked at me when we made love. All the reasons I stayed with Alec outweighed what had happened since I met him, but she was too damn shortsighted to see it.

I left the salon feeling like my blood was made of lead. Amy and I had fought before, but this seemed so much worse. I wanted her to be happy for me. I wanted her to like Alec. But I had a feeling neither was going to happen.

My car was parked on the street in front of the salon, not particularly hard to recognize even in the dark due to the bright blue color. It didn't look any cleaner than before; maybe Alec had been busier than he'd anticipated.

Amy had already been gone by the time I'd finished the laundry. Part of me wanted to call her, even if I had nothing to say. Even if all I
could
say was hurtful. Yelling at each other was a hundred times better than silence.

But she'd never been this wrong about something before.

I opened the car door and slumped into the passenger seat. I tossed my purse onto the passenger seat but paused before starting the engine when my eye caught a glint of metal on the center console.

A small license plate—one of the little aluminum souvenirs they sold at gift shops. It said ANNA in turquoise letters. Stuck to the back was a note that said “Happy Birthday,” in Alec's handwriting.

And suddenly I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

I called him immediately, sliding my thumb over the flimsy metal.

“Hey,” he answered, a smile in his voice.

“You're ridiculous. You know that, right?”

He chuckled. “I've been called worse.”

“I love it.”
I love you.
“It's just what I always wanted.”

“Only the best for you, baby.”

He was teasing me, but I liked the tenderness in his voice.

“This almost guarantees that you're going to get laid tonight,” I told him.

“Damn,” he said. “If I'd known that, I would've stopped there.”

I felt my brows pull inward and automatically looked down to the center console where I'd picked up the license plate. I hadn't noticed beneath it was another sticky note. This one said, “Open Me.”

I squeezed the plastic handle behind the cupholders and the armrest between the two seats popped open. Where my collection of pens, scissors, and pepper spray had been was a sealed metal box about the size of a bag of an ice cream sandwich. On one side was a green button, currently lit. On the other was a dim red button.

“Alec?” I said. “Why does it look like there's a bomb in my car?”

He adjusted the phone against his cheek. It sounded like he was walking into another room.

“It's a kill switch,” he said.

“That doesn't sound much better.”

“Start your car.”

I turned the key in the ignition and the engine hummed to life. It didn't sound much different than it normally did—like a high-powered sewing machine.

“Now reach below the cupholder. There's a switch, do you feel it?”

I tucked the phone on my shoulder and inched my fingers along the rigid plastic, finally finding the small raised metal knob, hidden to anyone who wasn't looking for it. Curiosity took ahold of me. Sometimes I forgot that Alec had a degree in engineering.

“Yes.”

“Hit it.”

I did what he said, and the internal lights died, right along with the engine. In the center console, the green light switched to red.

“The car shut off,” I told him.

“It stops the flow of electricity to the battery,” he said. “If you leave the switch in the off position, you can't turn on the car. If you're already in motion, you can shut it down.”

I closed my eyes, leaned forward until my forehead pressed against the steering wheel. If this had been in place before when I'd been taken, things would have turned out differently. It might not have stopped Bobby, but it would have slowed him down, given Alec and the cops a chance to get to me faster.

He cleared his throat. “There's a way to wire it to automatically dial the police but I'll need to order those parts.”

Amy had been wrong. This was no honeymoon phase. This was a good man protecting a woman he cared about.

“Anna?”

“Yeah,” I said, voice thick. “I'm here.”

“My middle name's Thomas,” he said. “After my dad.”

I took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don't mention it.”

He adjusted the phone again, and I longed to touch my fingers to his jaw, and to see the look in his eyes right now.

“I'm at my dad's,” he said. “I might be a while longer.”

“Okay.”

We sat on the phone a minute longer, not saying anything, just being together. There was no way I could tell him how much his work on my car meant to me, but I think he knew. I could hear it in his voice when he finally said good-bye.