Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (5 page)

I laughed. “I’ll have to report back on that. Our date was a little bit interrupted by a guy nearly dropping dead in the restaurant.”

She ducked her head around the column to get another look at Phillip. “He is
really
hot. Like, movie star hot. Like – are you sure you don’t know him from somewhere?”

I squinted at her. “I’m sure. Do
you
think you know him from somewhere?”

Ally took another look. “He looks really, really familiar. It’s like…it’s right on the tip of my brain where I know him from.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s probably the sleep deprivation. Five kids, a husband, and two forty-hour shifts this week will do that to a woman.”

“He’s kind of a puzzle,” I said. “There’s something about him that’s a little
off.
Not like,
serial killer
off, but there’s something there. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

Ally shrugged. “Well, for one thing, he clearly hates hospitals. That’s obvious. The poor guy looks like he’s going to pass out.”

I lurked around the column to get another glimpse. He did look slightly ill. “He hates needles. Maybe he’s afraid someone’s going to pop out with a syringe.”

Ally laughed. “Go have your date before Wilson comes back and breathes fire your direction again.”

I gave her a quick hug and nearly jogged back to Phillip. He looked relieved to see me. “You didn’t leave,” I said, smirking.

Phillip looked uncomfortable. “It was close. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said. “Is…the guy going to be okay?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He looked pretty bad but he’s alive at least. This is a great hospital. He has good odds just based on that.”

Phillip gave me a look I couldn’t read. It was almost like disappointment. Then he walked out of the hospital before I could take a second to digest his reaction.

Once again I found myself running to keep up with him.

For someone who claimed to like consistency and no surprises, he sure was hard to keep up with. When I stepped outside, there was a black Lincoln town car waiting in the emergency lane. I walked up and rapped on the window. “You can’t park here,” I insisted.

Phillip grabbed my arm and pulled me to the back of it, opening the door. “I called for a car,” he explained. “Get in.”

“You sure are handsy, asshole,” I snapped at him. But secretly I loved it. I had no idea what was going to happen next. This, combined with the adrenaline rush of saving that man’s life?

Was better than sex.

Soon I’d get to test that hypothesis.

I slid into the car next to Phillip. The car pulled away to drive back to Phillip’s place. I opened my mouth to ask him about his reaction a few seconds ago. Before I could, he grabbed the side of my hips and pulled me closer to him, his hands in my hair, on my breasts, up and under my dress.

It was like being pulled into a vortex of muscle and Italian wool. His full lips met mine, his hot tongue tracing around the edges of my mouth. I felt my heart absolutely pounding. I had never wanted a man inside of me more than I did in that moment.

We careened through the streets of New York City, Phillip rubbing his hands all over me. I could feel his hardness against my leg and it sent chills through me.

“I’m not sure I can make it,” he whispered in my ear.

“You’re going to have to,” I replied, kissing him deeply.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking sexy,” he hissed, running his tongue down the side of my neck.

The car came to a stop. Phillip threw a wad of money at the driver and was outside of the car before I even knew he’d left me. I was breathing heavily. I looked through the back windshield and saw his face as he walked. He almost looked like he was going to smile.

Suddenly I flashed to the restaurant, to me bent over the man having the heart attack. Phillip’s face had been stony. Cold. Unfeeling. What had he said when I’d insisted I needed his help?

He looks pretty far gone
.

Fuck that.

Phillip opened my door and I looked up at him, not moving an inch toward getting out of the car.

He looked confused. “Are you not coming out?” he asked.

I nodded. “That’s right.”

His eyes flashed.

I could see his erection in his pants.

He cocked his lower jaw in anger. “Why the fuck not?”

I shrugged and raised my eyebrows, nodding toward his cock. “I don’t think you need my help to finish things off. You look pretty far gone.”

I grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. “Upper West Side,” I told the driver.

I took huge satisfaction in driving away from him. I still burned between my legs. But it was nothing that I couldn’t take care of myself.

He deserved it.

CHAPTER SIX

CRUZ

I had to give her some credit: she used my exact words against me as she drove away.

She was quick.

She was everything I didn’t know that I’d needed. I collapsed into bed with the worst case of blue balls I’d ever had in my entire life. I was absolutely certain no woman had ever turned down sex with me. It hadn’t been in the plan for tonight, but once I’d seen Lily, I knew that I had to have her.

More pressingly, the target was in all likelihood still alive. And now he recognized my face.

“FUCK!” I screamed, slapping my hand on the mattress.

I sat upright and grabbed my iPhone. In the absence of a plan, all I could do now was
make one
. I hated when things went tits up like this.

Lily had thrown a wrench into all of my plans.

Lily…

I went into the kitchen and looked in the cupboards. It had been sparsely stocked for the two days I was supposed to be here. I always had a need for something crunchy and cold this late at night. I poured myself a bowl of shredded wheat and doused it liberally in milk. Chewing always helped me think.

I couldn’t go into the hospital. They would recognize me.

I couldn’t actually be sure that I hadn’t been recognized
already
. When we’d pulled into Western Methodist I’d nearly had a heart attack. I thought I saw a blonde doctor talking to Lily; and I was pretty sure it was the blonde doctor who had nearly walked in on me a week before. I finished off my cereal and decided to do pushups.

Any time my blood was pumping I felt like I could breathe again. I wondered for an instant what kind of breathing I could accomplish with Lily getting my blood pumping.

I had less than 48 hours to figure out if the target was still alive or not. If he was dead – I was finished. I’d completed the job.

If he was still alive, well. I couldn’t think about that.

He needed to be fucking dead.

***

An hour later I was standing next to a dumpster in an alleyway. A sickly-greenish light was shining from a buzzing lightbulb overhead. I swatted the swarming flies away from my face with a flick of my hand. It smelled like death back here.

I kicked my pristine white Chuck Taylor shoes against the metal door to the basement three times. It occurred to me that if the interior of Flea’s apartment were half as filthy as the alleyway that led to it that I’d need to toss these shoes out.

Thumping music was coming through the door, but it stopped as soon as I kicked. I heard a tinkling of glass and hushed voices. The door was wrenched open by a skinny, young guy with a pale face and glasses. His brown, spiky hair was askew.

He looked at me like I was the Grim Reaper.

Those were good instincts.

“How’d you find this place?” Flea asked unceremoniously, shoving his glasses up his slightly oily face. “How’d you find
me
?” I couldn’t tell if he was panicked or annoyed. Maybe it was a little of both.

“Hello to you too,” I replied. “Let me in.” I reached out to open the door for him, but he slammed his hand against it. A giggle came from somewhere behind him. “You have company?” I asked.

Flea looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, dude, I do,” he replied.

I pushed the door open all the way and walked inside. I was surprised to see this place was pristine; it might have even been nicer than the penthouse I was staying in. The floors were a polished white marble; the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room was made of an enormous fish tank that must have been eight feet tall and ten feet wide. “Nice place you have here. Never would have guessed it from the neighborhood.”

Flea sighed. “That’s sort of the idea. I don’t really feel like drawing attention to myself if I can help it.”

I nodded toward the bedroom. The door was halfway open, the bed covers tousled. “Tell your guest to leave,” I said.

“Jesus, dude, seriously?”

I gave him a threatening look and flexed my muscles in his direction. Flea flinched and held up his hands.

“Give me a damn second, dude,” he said, shuffling into the bedroom. I heard the muffled sound of voices and a moment later, two young, gorgeous blonde women in various stages of undress came piling out of the bedroom. I raised my eyebrows.

One of them looked back at Flea. “Are you sure he’s not here to join in the fun?” she asked suggestively.

Flea groaned. “Seriously, get dressed and go around the corner to the bar. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

The women pulled on their clothes quickly as they walked, and Flea let them go through the door with a look of longing and a sigh.

“They can come back when I’m finished,” I pointed out.

Flea rolled his eyes and walked into the stainless steel kitchen, opening the fridge to withdraw two beers. “Right, dude. Like those two women are going to
return
to this place after going back to the bar.” He popped the tops off with an opener.

“I don’t drink,” I declared.

Flea laughed. “
Both
of these are for me, dude. Like I’m going to be able to sleep tonight knowing that an international assassin knows where I fucking live.” He knocked back a third of the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So what can I do you for, Cruz?”

This was good. I felt like I’d wasted enough time already. “I need info on a target.”

Flea looked confused. “Why are you coming to me for that? Shouldn’t you have received info already?”

I sighed. “I got my one text, yeah. But there were…complications. And I need some assistance rectifying that.”

Flea guffawed. “Dude, you
lost contact
?” He whistled. “You’ve never done that before! What the hell happened?”

“Not relevant. What
is
relevant is that I have about forty hours to figure out if he’s dead or not or I miss my window.”

Flea raised his eyebrows and wandered around the countertop and out of the room. “Damn, how do you not
know
if the guy you were supposed to kill is dead or not?”

I ignored him and followed him into his bedroom, stepping over several pink, glass bongs. “I see I interrupted quite the party.”

Flea reached into a bedside table and pulled out a remote keypad that resembled a calculator. He hid it from my view and punched in a code that I couldn’t see. The wall to the left of the bed opened. “You have no idea, dude,” he said, pushing past me and into the room. “Samantha, lights.”

The lights came on at once, revealing a twelve by twelve room with all white walls and floors. Six different high-resolution displays lined the wall above a shiny white desk that was eight feet long. On it was a keyboard and a mouse. Flea typed a few keystrokes and the monitors flickered to life.

“Who’s Samantha?” I asked, strolling around the room and running my finger along the wires that were elegantly tacked to the wall in perfect, parallel lines. It felt like being inside of a circuit board.

Flea jumped up like he was going to slap my hand but recoiled at the look on my face. “Sorry, but dude; don’t touch my shit.” He wiggled his shoulders like he was trying to get the memory of nearly hitting me out of his mind. “Samantha’s my computer. She’s an automated system. She does shit for me. Simple shit, but shit nonetheless.” Flea went back to typing. “She’s my lifeline if shit hits the fan, too.” He chewed on his lip while he typed. “
Danger! Will Robinson! Danger!
Shit like that.” He looked at me with a smile. I just shook my head, clueless to the references he was throwing out. “Dude, watch a fucking TV show.”

The lights flickered and Samantha’s voice came back. “Evacuation procedure enabled?”

Flea snapped at her. “No, don’t enable.” He sighed as he was typing. “She doesn’t get sarcasm and tone, though, which is a shame.” I paced the room, examining the walls and ceiling. After a few minutes, Flea spoke again. “You know if I do this for you and hack into the dossier system that there’s a twenty-percent chance the boss will come and have me killed, right?” He said this with sardonic nonchalance.

“And if you
don’t
do it there’s a one hundred percent chance that
I
will kill you right here,” I retorted, strolling the length of the room.

Flea nodded resignedly. “Yeah, I know, dude, calm down.” He pounded away at the keyboard. “Any idea what the guy’s name is?”

“No,” I replied sharply. “And I don’t want to know.”

Flea glanced at me out of the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything right away. He kept typing green text on a black background, flicking through endless commands on the terminal. “If I had to murder someone I wouldn’t want to know their name either.” He shifted in his seat and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. “Almost in. You have any details about him?”

“Just that he’s moved about a ton of cocaine into the country. That’s about it,” I replied. “Responsible for the deaths of about a four dozen dealers and fuck knows how many people he’s got addicted to this shit.”

Flea murmured, clearly not listening. “Okay, I’ve got a name.” He rubbed his hands together and turned in his chair. “Now what?”

I put my hands behind my back and stared at him. “I need you to call Western Methodist to figure out if he’s alive or not. That’s where he was as of about four hours ago.”