Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (9 page)

As I stitched his muscle back together, Phillip just stared at me.

"You're fucking gorgeous, d’you know that?" His words slurred together.

"Your pain meds are kicking in," I replied softly. "I'm going to take everything you say with a large grain of salt for the next six hours."

Phillip's arm jerked slightly. "No, no. I can't be out of it that long," he said. But he said it without much conviction.

"Too bad. Bed rest. Doctor’s orders. I just gave you a full dose of Vicodin. You're not driving anywhere." I set back to work, finishing up the first layer of stitching. "You doing okay?" I asked him.

He nodded. "I've literally never been better in my entire life. God, you're beautiful." Phillip reached out his good arm to stroke my cheek. He ran his thumb across my bottom lip. I felt myself losing focus rapidly. I brushed him away.

"Seriously, hang on." I got back to work on the next layer. It was surreal; like half of me was being inexorably pulled toward this gorgeous, enigmatic man next to me and the other half toward the love of my life: medicine. "So are you going to tell me how you got this wound?"

Phillip laughed. "Ex-girlfriend," he muttered. "She's a piece of work. She seduced me for the billionth time, because I'm a
sucker
," he said, giggling. It was strange to hear that noise come out of him. He was high as a kite now. "And I woke up tied to a chair with an eight-inch switchblade hanging out of my arm." His eyes grew distant as if he were being transported back to that place and time. "She took my money. She took my stash of meds. She took all of my underwear, too, but I think that was just meant to be a prank." He laughed darkly.

I shook my head. "That's quite a story," I replied, amused. “And the meds are having a stronger effect than I expect for someone of your height and weight.”

"I'm not actually a private investigator," Phillip said seriously, shaking his head. He leaned closer to me and whispered. "You can't tell
anyone
," he hissed. "But I'm an
international assassin
." He stared at me with the most serious face he'd pulled all night.

I nodded at him like he was a small child. "Of course you are," I said, pulling shut the last suture and snipping it easily with the tiny steel scissors. I couldn't keep it together any longer. I burst out laughing as I applied more antiseptic. "You don't get drunk or high often, do you? You're a fucking lightweight, Phillip."

I wrapped a thick layer of gauze around his arm, lifting the sinewy, muscle-bound limb into the air. His tattoos shimmered in the light, the geometric patterns crisscrossing like an intricate maze.

"Phillip!" he barked, laughing out loud. "
Phillip
. You said I didn't look like a Phillip. And you were right about
that one
, because that’s not my name." He turned to me and smiled again. "I've never, ever met a woman like you, Lily."

I snapped off my gloves and put them in the bowl I'd used to debride the wound. Phillip reached over and squeezed my hand. He stared at me with something like affection.

Something more than lust.

It was gratitude. And relief, like he hadn’t had someone give
him
something in a long, long time. "Thank you," he said. Then he pulled me into his arms, resting his chin on top of my head. His hands ran up and down my arms and back as he cradled me. "Lily," he sighed.

Then he drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TEN

CRUZ

I had a dreamless, deep sleep. When I woke up, I was smiling. I smelled something sweet. Coconuts. I rolled over on my side and a sharp, excruciating pain rocketed through my body. I screamed and jumped out of bed, landing on my feet in a defensive position.

I blinked rapidly and stared around the room, completely at a loss as to where I was.

Lily appeared in the doorway holding a tray of food and wearing a silky, short robe. I saw flashes of her from the night before; images of her standing next to me wearing a black bra and panties. The memories were foggy. 

She looked amused at my bewilderment. "Don't worry, I've got a sniper on the balcony waiting to shoot anyone who tries to kidnap you."

I dropped my jaw and then collected myself. "Why would you say that?"

Lily brought the tray over to the bed and placed it on the messy covers. "You said a lot of strange things last night." She waved me away. "It doesn't matter. It was the drugs. Now
sit
. You're going to pass out from standing up that fast."

I perched on the covers and looked at the tray. On it was a huge glass of water and two slices of pie. In a small ceramic bowl rested white pills. "What did you give me last night?" I asked, suddenly ravenous. I dug into the slice of pie and gulped down the entire glass of water.

"Narcotics and antibiotics," Lily replied.

"Jesus, this pie is incredible," I gushed. It was. It reminded me of the pies my grandma used to make.

She shrugged. "I was bored yesterday. Thought I would master pie baking in an afternoon. Glad you're eating it. I have no fucking clue what to do with the rest of them."

I held up the pills. "I don't want the pain pills. Just the antibiotics."

She gave me a pointed look.

"Seriously, I don't want to be knocked out again."

"But you feel great, right?"

I had to admit that I hadn't slept that well in years. My lifestyle required that I sleep as lightly as possible. "Yeah," I said. "But I just want the antibiotics."

"They’re the big ones," she said. "I'll give you the rest of the bottle.
Finish
the bottle. Please. We have enough super-bugs and that's a nasty fucking infection that you have there."

I nodded and polished off the second slice of pie.

"One of those was for me," Lily said indignantly, draping herself across the bed with a smile. Her full breasts were threatening to spill out of her loosely-tied robe.

“I owe you,” I replied. “Put it on my tab.” My eyes drifted to her chest. I needed to leave before my dick woke up any more than it already had. I stood up. "I really hate to eat and run, but I have work to do." I was trying not to panic. The fact that I'd lost another half a day to being incapacitated with Corina running around the same city three steps ahead of me...

I picked my clothes up off the floor and put them back on. "I'd really, really love to meet up with you again later," I said to Lily.

She shrugged. "So I'm just supposed to be okay with me saving your arm from eventual amputation, feeding you breakfast, and I get nothing in return?" She pulled open her bathrobe all the way to reveal her tits, her areolas the color of dark calla lilies.

I couldn't say no to that. This was reckless. It was irresponsible. It was exactly the opposite of how I usually behaved. I had things to do. There was a mission to complete. And there was an assassin who was most likely looking for me.

An assassin who was likely following our boss’ orders. They had probably already put a hit on me for not getting to my target first.

But then there was Lily, in front of me. Naked. I was consumed with desire. I pulled my pants back off along with my boxers and crawled on top of her, her body writhing underneath me as I thrusted against her.

The world was going to have to stop for this.

I would pay for the consequences later.

***

I left Lily napping in her bed, her obsidian skin tangled in the creamy, soft sheets of her bed. She looked so peaceful while she slept; I had to tear myself away from her body.

But even as I had rammed myself into her over and over and over again, a different masked face and a ten-inch scar had kept part of my attention.

The purpose of my coming home with Lily the night before had been two-fold: one, to fuck her brains out and two, to make sure that her apartment was clear. I wanted to make certain Corina hadn’t made it there first.

I hadn't budgeted for the possibility that Lily would insist on patching me up. To be honest, the adrenaline of getting my mission completed had distracted me from the pain in my arm last night. But you can’t outrun a fever.

Lily had been right; the infection was terrible. She saved me from a trip to the hospital and more nasty inquiries. I wondered vaguely what I might have told her while under the influence of drugs and a fever. Hopefully it was nothing incriminating.

I drove back to the penthouse, driving the rental SUV into the underground garage. I opened the trunk and lifted the carpet mat. I picked up the gun I’d stashed the night before and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

I hated using guns. They were brutal, they were clumsy; I was a professional. I didn't like messes.

But I didn't trust Corina any more than I trusted a rampaging elephant to not crush me in its path. That metaphor was generous: Corina stampeded with intent and clear purpose. An elephant couldn’t help itself.

I left the SUV and locked it with two echoing, digital beeps of the alarm.

I took the stairs instead of the elevator, climbing them two at a time, up, up, and up. I was lightly winded when I made it the seventy stories. I slipped quietly into my hallway. It was empty. I unlocked the door to my penthouse with one hand and pushed it open until it hit the wall with a thud.

One corner clear
, I thought to myself. I'd left the blackout curtains completely closed. The nighttime mood lights that came on automatically had, for some reason, stayed in place despite the fact that it was past noon.

I glanced at the keypad on the wall and saw it had been pulled away from the wall by millimeters. I moved it with my finger. The wires had been cut.

Probably to disable the alarm system.

The only lights left on in the penthouse were set at low intensity and in entirely impractical places; a few over the mini-bar, one over the fireplace; the blue LED light strip of the refrigerator glowed in the near-darkness. The lights over the king bed were on fifty-percent intensity.

Just enough for me to see the slinky, long silhouette of a beautiful woman.

A woman who I was more familiar with than any other. I cocked my gun as her voice called out in the room.

"Oh, Cruz. So glad you came prepared this time." Her arm moved and I pointed my gun at her. "I'm unarmed," she said. "I'm just turning on the light." A second later, she'd flipped the switch next to the bed and the whole room lit up.

She had a smile on her face that looked something like satisfaction. "You look good, Cruz," she said. "I'm guessing you've had some time to rest since you couldn't quite manage to get your target taken care of in time." She pursed her lips in a smirk that I was all-too familiar with. It was the
I told you so
smirk.

"How did you find my target?" I asked, still holding the gun in the air. It was more out of self-preservation than anything. The last time I'd let my guard down around her she'd tied me to a chair and - a flash of Lily in her underwear stitching up my arm came into my head.
Had I told her that? Last night?

"You can put the gun down, Cruz," Corina said to me, crossing her ankles. She was wearing all-black; tight black leggings and a long black shirt that hugged her thin body. On her feet were leather, spiky-heeled, thigh-high boots.

I cringed thinking about how she was going to leave scuff marks on the pristine white duvet. I knew the mess wouldn't be mine to clean up because the maids would take care of it, but I've always hated messes.

Always.

"I'll lower the gun if you tell me how you made it to the club last night,” I said firmly.

Corina sighed and crossed her wrists in her lap, her long, amber-colored hair falling in curtains down her face. "The boss offered me six figures to clean up your mess," she said easily. "I needed that much to blow that old guy." She shuddered at the memory. "Honestly, he was so fragile I barely needed the syringe. He almost had a heart attack while I was mouth-fucking him. I should probably give you part of my commission for making my job easier."

I lowered the gun. "Did you recognize me last night?"

Corina smiled. "Would I be here if I hadn’t?"

A chill went through my body and I raised the gun again. "You saw me before you were in that room, didn't you? You saw me in the main part of the club?” My stomach flipped over. That meant she’d seen me with a thankfully masked Lily.

She shrugged. "A good assassin never gives away her secrets." She pulled her knees up to her chin, leaving a trail of black dirt where the heels scraped the duvet.

I suppressed a shudder. I knew she was doing it on purpose. "Why are you here, Corina?"

She laughed at me and swung her legs over to the ground. "I missed you."

"You stole my money. And my med kit. And my underwear."

"Well the last one was just a prank, honestly," she shrugged. "I thought it was funny." She walked closer and closer to me. I still had the gun pointed at her.

"Get out," I said.

Corina walked past me and grabbed an apple off of the sideboard. She tossed it in the air and caught it with the other hand, taking a sharp bite of it. She was almost to the door when she turned around. "You should ask your girlfriend why she was put on a leave of absence from the hospital," she said, giving me a steely look. She eyed me up and down. "See you around, Cruz."

She left the apartment, closing the door with a
snap
.

At that moment, my cell phone rang. It was Flea. “Talk fast,” I snapped.

“I have that info you were looking for on Lily.” He cleared his throat nervously. “I suggest you walk while I talk. What I found is not good.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LILY

"I'm going to need you to back up and tell me that again," Ally said, sipping a milkshake. I'd ordered in burger delivery and invited her over. It was her day off. I was bursting. I needed to tell someone what was going on. "You met a man on Pyre. He's a private investigator. Following an old guy in a wheelchair. And you ended up at a sex club where you fucked in a private room."