Beneath the Burn (28 page)

He leaned back and looked into her eyes. “That’s where I’ll be,” he sang. “Don’t disappear on me.”

The tune reverberated through his closed lips. “Come to L.A. with me.” He ended with a sultry hum.

Her chest tightened. She wanted more of his sexy voice, wanted more of this beautiful man. “When did you write that?”

“Just now.”

Wow. Music had always had an effect on her but..”Your voice…I’ve never heard you sing live. It was…” Dark. Deep. Panty-soaking. “Profound.”

“You inspire me, Charlee.”

She kissed him and he answered it, led it. The thrusts of his tongue were as enthusiastic as the beat of his heart against her palm. The sensation was overwhelming. She was spinning, falling. She pulled back. “This is crazy. What is this between us?”

It was dreamlike, this moment, amidst of the chaos and dangers around them. On the heels of such a frightening and death-facing experience, they seemed to fall so easily into one another. Yet, wasn’t that what she’d done in the penthouse? In the threat of Roy’s presence, she’d focused on her memory of Jay, exploring it, growing it.

“I don’t know, but it feels incredible.” He squeezed her hand on his chest to punctuate his words.

A fist rapped on the bathroom door.

They broke apart. The moment was interrupted but not lost, if the promise in his eyes were anything to go by. They had opened a window, one they would never close again.

Nathan’s voice muffled through the door. “We have a problem.”

38

Nathan’s interruption kicked Jay off his Charlee cloud and into the dregs of reality. If his protective team wasn’t able to secure a safe evacuation route, the crowd must have swarmed out of control.

He clasped Charlee’s hand and followed Nathan out of the bathroom.

“You need to get rid of those clothes, Charlee.” Nathan glanced over his shoulder, his eyes flitting from the stain on her jeans to the smears on her shirt.

She lowered her chin and picked at a splatter of dried blood as if it were something she saw every day. She shrugged. “Yeah. Good call.”

What kind of shit had she seen in her life to be so nonchalant about wearing a dead man’s guts? Jay tucked the question in the back of his brain. He needed to focus on getting them out of there. Where was everyone? Other than his team leader, none of his guards were there. Not a good sign.

Tony didn’t say anything as she left her post by the door and strode toward him. The lines etching her frown spoke for her.

Had someone recognized him? Did they know he was there? Tingling invaded his body, accompanied by the usual feeling of a loss of control. Some of that was the lingering effect of the coke. The reminder of his drug use bubbled guilt through his gut.

But he had Charlee’s hand in his and her strength by his side. “How bad is the crowd?”

Tony was so exacting in her posture as she looked between Charlee and him, she could have been mistaken for a statue. “The crowd is gone. As is the body.”

The crowd was gone? They obviously didn’t know
he
was in the building. Wait. “What do you mean the body’s gone? How does a dead man disappear?”

Charlee sighed and released his hand to squat beside one of the duffle bags and rifle through it. “What about the sirens we heard? Did you uncover anything about the cops that arrived?” She tugged out a black footless stocking thing and climbed to her feet. “I guess I’m not surprised the Craigs cleaned up that fast.” She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down her thighs.

“No.” Nathan paced a circuit in front of the curtained windows. “Since the police aren’t banging down the door looking for a murder suspect, it’s safe to assume they work for Roy.”

The sight of her little red panties shot blood straight to Jay’s dick. Heavy warmth pulsed through his genitals and heated his face. What in the hell was she doing? “Craigs?” he croaked.

Nathan stepped in front of him and blocked his view. “She calls anyone loyal to Roy a Craig.”

Craning his neck, he could feel Nathan’s glare, but fuck, Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 Stratocaster wouldn’t have pulled his eyes away from the leggings sliding up her toned legs. “Why Craig?”

“The Viet Cong were Charlie. Roy’s adherents are Craig. That’s all you need to know.” Nathan cleared his throat in a useless effort to distract his eyes. “And the body disappeared in the time it took Colson to escort you up here, search the area for snipers, and return to the alley.”

She gripped the hem of her shirt. “So the Craig dispatched the crowd, the dead Craig, and the police? The latter would’ve been a phone call from Roy to an inside guy on the force. I’ve watched him do this too many times to count.” Her voice trailed off, quivering. “Now what? His thugs are out there waiting, without anyone to witness them attacking us when we come out?” She pulled off her shirt, unleashing waves of red hair tumbling down around her.

Sweet suffering Jesus
. The trembling in her fingers nullified him somewhat, but he could see her nipples shadowed behind the lace. Heat surged through his dick. He was mindless with the need to pull it out and stick it in her.

Nathan droned on about blah snipers and blah blah tampered police reports and who the fuck cared? Her tits overflowed their red laced prison as she dug through the luggage. Any moment they would spill out in perfect servings for the cups of his hands.

His dick hurt. Could he slip a hand beneath his leather pants and make an adjustment without being obvious?

She stood, fumbling for the neck hole in a drapey-shaped shirt. Her leggings hung low on her waist, highlighting her fuck-me curves. With all that sleek skin stretching over her flat stomach and the arches of her tits, yeah, the chubby in his pants required some realigning. He reached for it.

“Charlee.” Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please hurry. Your rock star’s about to rip through his thirteen-year-old-slut pants.”

What was wrong with his pants? Besides the painful nut-hugging?

Her eyes flew to his hand on his dick and widened. Then she looked down at her bra and tensed as if just realizing she was baring her assets to everyone in the room.

She righted the shirt and shoved her head and arms through. The ivory tunic hugged her ass and hips and hung loosely off her shoulder and around her tits. She was a fucking knock-out, which did nothing to cool his erection.

Face red, she scooped up her plaid Doc Martens and strode toward the kitchen nook. The apologetic look on her face shriveled him right up. She hadn’t been teasing him on purpose. Something was wrong.

He side-stepped Nathan to follow, but the bastard blocked him again and leaned in.

“She was stripped of her modesty a long time ago,” he whispered, low and stern. “Two months without clothes. She’s immune to nudity.”

Slivers of what Nathan had shared that morning about her captivity pierced through him, stabbing his heart. A lesser person would’ve hidden her pain in shame, but she bared hers with a grace that outshone everyone. “She’s so fearless; it’s easy to forget.”

“I know.” Nathan let out a sharp huff, but a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t beat yourself up too badly. I’ve had three years to get used to it, and sometimes…” He glanced over his shoulder and watched her rummage through the refrigerator. “I’m still a man.”

That pissed him the fuck off, but the tension retreated when Nathan’s eyes strayed to Tony. It was a lingering look he hadn’t seen on the man before. Okay, Nathan wanted to fuck his bodyguard. That he could live with.

“What’s the plan?” Charlee asked around a spoonful of yogurt and leaned her butt against the counter. Her posture exuded a deliberate calmness, but the way her jaw stiffened around each bite exposed her fear.

He closed the distance and rested his palms on her hips, empting his face of his own fears. There could be men on the surrounding buildings with sniper rifles, hiding in dumpsters, riding by in passing cars. Hell, they could’ve been waiting in the apartment across the hall. If they couldn’t trust the police, they truly were on their own. “The protective team will be ready to move us soon.”

Charlee rubbed her temple. “How many bodyguards?”

“When we’re traveling, they’re a five-man team.” He had another five on reserve at home. Lot of good that did him. He pulled her against him and a quickening buzzed through his body, making him gasp. Maybe it was the stressful energy bouncing between them. Maybe it was just Charlee and the pulse of life itself.

“So there are three of us…we’re principals?” She glanced up at him, arms folded behind her. “That’s what your bodyguards call us?”

He nodded.

“Three principals and five bodyguards.” She unlocked a hand from her back to chew a fingernail. “That’s doable, right? I mean, there are four in your band with five bodyguards.”

He tugged her finger from her mouth. “Guarding the band means holding back energetic crowds and photographers, not snipers and kidnappers.” He thought back over the worst scenarios he’d been in. “I’ve had moments, trapped at the center of closely packed crowds, when I thought I would die, actually thought I would keel over and stop breathing, but my team always escorted me out unharmed.”

What a coward he was, buckling under something as benign as an enthusiastic mob. How many times had she held her shit together while looking in the eye of a rapist and murderer?

At that moment, he realized he could change their current situation by changing himself. There were no easy solutions. But there was an obvious one. “Tony, contact the paparazzi agencies and tell them where I’m at.”

Tony glared. She didn’t like it, but she would follow his orders.

He looked down and floated in the depths of Charlee’s huge eyes. “You’ve been hiding for a long time. You ready to start living?”

“When you have to hide to live, you’re ready for anything.” Her jaw set.

Damn, he loved her fire. “Good, because Roy Oxford knows where you are, and he’s going to watch you walk out of here on whatever camera shit his men have set—” He faltered when she closed her eyes. Fuck, he forgot about the cameras in the penthouse. He raised her chin and waited for her to look at him. “He’s going to watch you walk out of here and there’s not a damned thing he’ll be able to do about it.”

Her lips pinched in a line and the wheels spun behind her watchful eyes. Then she sucked in a breath. “The Craigs can’t nab me if we’re at the center of paparazzi attention.”

“That’s right.” He nodded to Tony.

She pulled out her phone and dialed. She’d called them before, giving them false locations so they could move around effortlessly. This time would be legit. He stood taller, lengthened his backbone.

A frown scrunched Charlee’s face. “You’ll be mobbed. Exactly the kind of thing you avoid.”

He knew she was thinking about his trigger. It was a valid concern, but she would be there to help him transform his stardom from oppressive to useful. “Avoiding isn’t living. I want to live, Charlee, and I want to do so deeply.” With her.

“You don’t have to battle the shit in my life to live yours.”

He pushed the hair from the side of her face, careful of her injuries, and settled his hands on her hips. “Won’t I be battling my own shit at the same time?”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you know what happens when you open up?”

She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. “It makes you strong.”

He kissed each lid and whispered against them, “Dare to be vulnerable with me?”

She opened her eyes, looked up into his, and smiled so brightly, he knew the glow from it would stay with him forever.

He decided to push his luck. “Come to L.A. with me.”

She rolled her eyes to Nathan, who was rubbing his jaw, watching her. His reaction was pivotal. Better be the right one. Jay didn’t want to beat the shit out of the man who had protected her for three years.

Nathan chewed on his lip, stared at his sneakers, glanced at Tony, and sighed. Then he raised his eyes to Charlee. “You might be free of your chain, sweetheart, but we both know you aren’t really free. Your life is yours to live your way. If Jay is offering you that freedom…” Nathan glared at him. “Under the protection of his security team…”