Whiplash: A Sports Romance (38 page)

“Fine,” she says, obviously too exhausted to argue. She rips the bandage off her face and tosses it into the trash can near her feet, flinching at the pain it brings her. My cheek tingles, reminded once again of the same scar I have on my own face.

Dani Roberts.
It’s finally sinking in. I’m in her presence again. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I feel that electrical charge radiating my nerves. I haven’t felt it since the last time I saw her. Blood pumps in my ears. My skin tickles. Saliva gathers beneath my tongue. She’s
here
. In my motel room.

She’s sitting on my bed.

I clear my throat and step towards the closet for my suitcase. “It’s not much,” I say, grabbing one of my white dress shirts and a pair of black boxers, “but they’ll fit until we can get you something else.”

Dani takes them from me and nods without speaking, nor does she show any telling emotions as to whether she’s appalled by the thought of wearing them. She reaches up and slides her fingers through her hair. It falls about her face and the damp, blonde locks stick to her cheeks until she pushes them behind her shoulders to bare her neck. Her tongue wets her cherry lips and my manhood strains against my slacks.

I turn to the door. “Stay here.”

“Where are you going?” She stands up to follow me and I hold out a hand to stop her.

“I just need to pick up a few things,” I explain. “Wait here. I’ll only be a few minutes. Put the deadbolt on until I get back.”

I don’t wait for a response. I close the door and lock it behind me, pausing for a few moments until I hear the metal clacking of the deadbolt sliding into place. It’s not much — and won’t slow Snake Eyes down more than a few seconds — but it’s all I have right now.

Dani’s a problem, in more ways than one. I have to get her out of the city. This is Los Angeles. Hollywood. Every person down to the street vendors knows who she is. If I were to check online right now, I’m sure I’d see someone’s post about Roxie Roberts entering a motel room with a mysterious man. If I plan on getting her out undetected, then I’ll have to improvise… and she isn’t going to like it.

But first…

I pull out my burner phone and quickly scan through Dani’s phone for his number while I head down the street towards the pharmacy a few blocks down. It rings for longer than necessary and I grit my teeth with impatience.

“Hello?” There’s a shake to his tone, like a man expecting a ransom call.

“Bennett, she’s fine.”

“You little piece of shit,” he seethes, raising his voice. “I knew you were behind this.”

“I’m not behind anything. Like I
told you
earlier, Snake Eyes attacked her. I saved her life tonight.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient for you? You get to swoop in and be the hero. You know what I think, kid? I think you made up a bogeyman to blame it on. How do I know you’re not the one that killed Lamb in the first place, eh? Buy any black masks lately?”

“It’s a good theory but you’d be wrong.”

“How much you want to bet the second Smith recovers, your name is the first thing to come out of his mouth?”

I pause. I shouldn’t implicate myself anymore. Hiding from Mercer is its own game completely. I don’t want to deal with the entirety of the L.A.P.D. tracking us down, too. “All you have to know is that she’s fine, she’s safe, and she will be as long as she stays with me.”

“And all
you
have to know is that if you so much as lay a finger on my daughter, I will kill you with my bare hands.”

As far as threats go, it’s about as menacing to me as a newborn baby wielding a plastic spork but I understand where he’s coming from. He’s her father. She’s his daughter. I’m the punk kid that kissed her. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say it and actually mean it.

“I’ll keep in touch.” I end the call and toss both phones into the nearest trash can.

I enter the pharmacy and buy a pair of scissors, a comb, and a box of black hair dye.

***

I turn the paper bag over and everything spills out on the bed beside her.

Dani stares at them for a moment with curiosity before her eyes go wide. “Oh, hell no…”

“Dani…”

“I am not chopping my hair off!”

Firm, defiant. It takes everything in me not to lean over and kiss her right now. Just looking at her wearing my shirt is hard enough as it is. “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Since we can’t go anywhere without someone recognizing you, we’re going to have to drastically change your appearance.”

“I’ll wear a hat then.” She kicks the box of dye away with her toes. “Do you have any idea how long it took for me to grow my hair out like this?”

“Dani.” I take a deep breath to stay calm. After all these years, I’d forgotten how stubborn she can be. It still doesn’t stop my dick from throbbing. “You can either have long, pretty hair, or you can be dead.”

“I choose death.”

“If you don’t do it yourself,
I will
.”

She stares up at me, believing every word. “I thought the army was supposed to teach you patience.”

“I’m not in the army anymore. I was discharged.”

“Honorably?”

“For the most part.”

She crinkles her nose. “What does that even mean?”

“It means…” I lean down, “go cut your damn hair off or I’ll tie you down and do it myself.”

“No!” She stands up off the bed, challenging me. “If you want me to do
this
, then you have to tell me what the hell is going on.”

I hesitate. “It’s a really long story, Dani. We don’t have time.”

“Start with the current events then.” She crosses her arms, practically swimming inside the thick arms of my shirt. “You broke into my apartment today, didn’t you?”

Shit.
“I didn’t—”

“Tell me the truth, Fox, because I sure as hell didn’t open those blinds.”

I sigh. “Yes. I did.” She opens her mouth to shout, but I talk over her. “I had to make sure I could watch you from across the street, so I broke in and opened your blinds after I left the house earlier.”

She frowns. “How long
exactly
were you watching me from across the street?”

“Since the moment you came home.”

“Even when I was—?”

“No.”
My eyes fall to the floor but I pick them back up quick. “I looked away while you were…
undressing.”

“You little pervert!”

“Dani, come on. I looked away. Your bodyguard was picking his teeth and playing Candy Crushers.”

“Oh,
please
.” She rolls her eyes at me. “
Smith
was playing Candy Crushers?”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I’m not lying to you, Dani.” I hold her eyes, hoping that she’ll believe me. If I can’t get her to believe me about this then she’ll never trust me at all.

Finally, she sighs. “Who are these Snake Eyes people?”

“They’re an elite group of highly-trained agents,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Snipers, soldiers, hackers, you name it — pretty much the best there is, making them the most deadly people on the planet. They work in squads, each agent performing a different task to plan and finish a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“Assassinations.”

She shakes her head. “That’s ridiculous. People would know if something like that existed.”

“No. There’s only a handful of people in the whole world that know about it and they’re all powerful enough to keep it quiet. The President included.”

“Then how do
you
know about it?”

It’s the question I’ve dreaded since I set foot in Los Angeles again. I knew I’d have to tell her about Snake Eyes but I debated how much truth to include in that. No matter what I came up with, it meant lying to cover up a piece of the truth and now, looking into her perfect blue eyes, I know I can’t lie to her. Not about this.

I reach for the top of my shirt and I flick the buttons free all the way down.

Dani gasps and holds up a hand to block her view.
“Fox, what are you—”

I raise my undershirt and wait for her to look again. It only takes a moment for her curiosity to peak and her eyes fall on my chest. She steps forward, drawn to me with bewilderment on her face, and reaches out to touch the black ink traveling up my abdomen. My entire body reacts to her touch, spiking several degrees in less than a second. Her fingertips glide up the cobra’s tail, starting at the bottom near my navel and curling upward until they reach its head tattooed between my pecks.

“Because I used to be one of them,” I say.

“Fox…” Her whisper buzzes the hairs on the back of my neck. “You…”

I drop my shirt back down and her hand falls to her side. I step back and lean against the waist-high dresser across from the bed. She takes my lead and sits down on the mattress, her little eyes flickering in the dim lamplight. The lull between us is loud, almost deafening, but her thoughts tumble out of her eyes. She’s scared and confused, but she has every right to be.

I move across the dresser and reach down to pull open the mini-fridge by the floor. Several tiny bottles of alcohol line the bottom shelf. I grab two random ones and look back to see her holding out a hand. I smirk and grab two more to pass off to her.

“Thanks,” she says. She twists the cap off one and swallows a large gulp of it without even looking at the label first. Her face contorts and a quiver shakes her entire body, but she takes a second sip. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

“I trained as a sniper in the army.”

“Before you were discharged?”

I nod. “I showed a talent for it pretty early on. Infiltration, stealth, recon. Whenever they located a possible enemy base, they sent me in first to gather intel. Gained a pretty good rep for it.” I open one of the bottles and take a swig. Vodka.
Strong
vodka. “That went on for about three years overseas until one day my C.O. called me in to tell me I’d been
dismissed.
”

She squints her eyes. “But you’ve been gone for
five
years…”

“They put me on a plane and dropped me off somewhere in France with
no
explanation. I sat down at some cafe in Paris and a few minutes later, this guy sat down with me.” I pause to take another shot of vodka that burns down my throat. “He said that he’d been watching me for a while and he could use a man with my talents.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to piss off,” I answer. “But then he told me that he’s the one that had me discharged and it’s up to me whether or not my record says honorable or dishonorable.”

“They can’t do that…” she says. “Can they?”

“It didn’t take long for to me find out that there’s not a whole lot Snake Eyes
can’t
do, Dani.”

She looks down. “What did you do?”

“The only thing I could do. I joined him.”

“Why didn’t you just take the dishonorable discharge and come home?” she asks, desperation clouding her tone.

“Because to him,
dishonorable discharge
meant two bullets through my eyes,” I explain. “I didn’t really feel like dying that day.”

“What did
honorable
discharge
mean then?”

“Killed in action.”
She nods softly but says nothing. I scratch an itch in my beard before continuing. “Then he introduced himself. Mercer Black.”

Dani finishes off her tiny bottle and her face twitches again. “So that’s where you’ve been this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you’ve…?” She can’t even bring herself to finish the question.

“Killed people?”

She flinches, but just barely. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” I confirm.

“Innocent people?” Her eyes swell up, dreading the answer she already knows.

I twist the cap off another bottle and bring it to my nose. It smells fruity, like cheap wine. “I don’t know.”

“What, like you didn’t ask?”

“It wasn’t my job to ask questions.”

She scoffs. “I never pegged you as a
just following orders
kind of guy, Fox.”

“It was kill or be killed, Dani,” I whisper. “I don’t expect you to understand it.” I swallow a mouthful of crap wine, hating every drop of it. “It sure as hell wasn’t what I enlisted for but they didn’t give me much choice. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Why
did
you enlist?” she asks. “You could have stayed home.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” I bite my inner cheek, curbing the rush of words just aching to fall off my tongue. I’ve never said them out loud before. I promised I never would, but… “Because your father told me to leave and never come back.”

She blinks and the color drains from her face. “He
what
?”

I lose myself in the memory. “He saw us kiss, Dani.” Her eyes wince with embarrassment. “The next morning, he told me to get out. Being a nineteen-year-old, C-average jock, I went to the one place I knew would take me.”

“
That’s
why you left?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you
enlisted
?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why…” She pauses, the truth clouding her eyes. “That’s why you never said goodbye to me.”

“I wanted to,” I say slowly. “But I knew I wouldn’t be able to go if I had and your dad was pretty serious about having me gone, so… I left.”

“Does your mother know about this?”

“No and I don’t want her to know, so please keep this to yourself.”

She nods. “Why would he do that to you?”

I run a finger along the edge of my beard and I feel the warmth billowing off my face. “You were the next big thing,” I recall. “He knew a scandal would kill your career before it ever began and he was right about that.”

She shakes her head. “No, he wasn’t.”

“Beautiful actresses don’t have illicit affairs with their stepbrothers, Dani. No, he was right.”

“No.” She slides her feet to the floor and stands up off the bed. “He’s been wrong about everything.”