Mr. Real (Code of Shadows #1) (41 page)

And he was taking the gun! She jammed a foot onto his stomach and pulled at the gun. Suddenly he let go. She fell backwards onto the couch.

And he had her big toe between his fingers.

It felt like a vice grip.

“Ow!” She hit his knee with the gun butt. It was like he didn’t feel anything.

“Catch a trashy tigress by the toe.” He tightened his grip, working his ankles now, loosening those bonds. She had to get away from him and cross out the stuff, but she couldn’t break free.

He had her toe at such a weird angle—the only way she could yank it with any force would be to twist it in a way that it didn’t go. He heart raced. She felt panicked. “Let go!”

“Give me the paper and you get your toe.”

“Like hell.”

“I’d imagine you could twist it free,” he said in a weirdly jolly way, “but that would require you to break it.”

Break it.

It would go that way if she broke it. Then she could run away from him and destroy the paper and keep him off somehow. She could run out the clock if she got away from him.

Did she have a choice?

She closed her eyes. What was Paul always saying?
The trick is to not mind that it hurts.
With a scream, she wrenched her toe and jerked it clear out of his grip. The pain exploded, shot all the way up to her knee.

“Ooh, you did it.” Hyko said. “That was hot.”

She grabbed his gun and hopped over to the desk and grabbed her computer, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She scrambled up the stairs with Lindy right behind her. She locked the basement door, hoping to slow him down. She felt blinded with pain as she threw his gun in the trash. Surely he wouldn’t find it there, but where would she go? She thought of the sledgehammer under her bed. She could smash her computer with it.

Noises below. He was coming.

All she needed was enough time to wreck her computer and cross out the stuff on the paper. Decided. She climbed the stairs and hopped to her bedroom, toe sizzling with pain, even from the jolts of hopping.

A noise below. Banging on the basement door.

She locked her bedroom door and fell to the floor, feverishly crossing out the numbers and squiggles on the paper. She even wrote new wrong numbers on top of them. She crossed them out so much that she ripped holes in the paper.

Footfalls on the stairs. Outside the door.

She crawled around to the far side of her bed and shoved the paper under, then felt for her sledgehammer, pushing away the old joke rifle to grab it. She put her computer on the floor next to the bed and brought the sledgehammer down hard on it, cracking the plastic case.

A thud against the door. Then another. She heard the door crash open and slam against the wall. She looked up to see Hyko coming around the bed.

The code was ruined and so was the computer, but he would be a threat to Sir Kendall on the other side. She stood and swung the sledgehammer at him. He ducked. She swung again, but he grabbed the thing and, with a jolt of force, he shoved her down to the floor.

“Where’s the paper?”

“Too late.”

“Get it now or I smash your skull and get it myself.”

“You want it?” She reached under the bed, crunched the paper in her fist, and flung it at his feet. “Read it and weep.”

He grabbed the paper and scowled at it. “Very evil of you,” he said.

She smiled.

Then, cool as a cucumber, he picked up her smashed laptop and opened it up. The screen lit.

She gasped. It still worked?!

“Girl needs to work on her sledgehammer skills, however. But to be fair, these things are actually designed to take a good deal of abuse.” He set the computer on her windowsill, flattened out the crumpled paper, and, using a tiny red pencil held awkwardly between his fingers, began to copy code off the screen. “Now you sit there nicely and don’t move, and I won’t kill you for this.”

She crouched on the floor next to her bed, glaring at him. She had to stop him. She got an idea—she shoved a hand under the bed behind her and fumbled for the joke rifle; when she located it, she felt for the knife part. Still in the protruding position. Good. Slowly, she slid it out from behind her.

Hyko scribbled furiously, not looking up.

She gripped the rifle in both her hands, and, with a scream, she lunged up and flew at him, aiming the point upwards from beneath his ribs. She felt it break through soft tissues and hit something bony. She let go. The gun stayed stuck into him.

He gasped and stood, dropping the pencil and paper, eyes wide on the appendage that was now hanging from his front.

She backed away.

He collapsed to his knees. The gun swayed pendulously from his chest. “What?” he gasped. He closed his fingers around it. Blood soaked his front and dripped onto the floor and onto the blue paper. His blood. He’d never be able to read it now.

Lindy barked.

“What?” Hyko stared at Alix in shock. “A fucking bayonet? Is this a joke?” He swayed, seemingly unable to focus. Was he about to lose consciousness? “A
bayonet
?” As though he barely understood the concept.

“It’s no joke, Hyko.”

And just like that, he vanished.

The gun clattered to the floor, as though it had never been stuck in him. Even the blood was gone.

It was 7:46.

She collapsed against the bed, heart racing. The room seemed to hum, or was that just her ears? Was this a kind of shock? She needed to get up—Paul was still out in the cage! Was he all right? And what about Sir Kendall? She stayed very still, not entirely trusting that Hyko wouldn’t pop back.
Do something,
she thought to herself.

Lindy licked her hand. The sloppy, wet warmth of the dog’s tongue brought her back. Life. She was okay. She’d done it. She put a hand on the bed and pulled herself up.

She hobbled out the room and headed down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out onto the gravel drive as quickly as she could with her broken toe, still in her bare feet. She sucked in a breath when she reached the back of the carriage house.

The cage stood empty.

No! In a panic, she wandered into it and fell to her knees, touching the ground. Gone.

Had Paul left, too? Blinked out with the rest of the stuff?

Technically, she’d ordered him the day she’d ordered Sir Kendall and Hyko. But not really. And he was from her world. He was real.

And she loved him.

He
couldn’t
be gone. She wouldn’t allow it. She got back up and hop-ran all the way around the house to the front. His monster truck was still there. But of course it would be—it wasn’t due to blink out for two days.

She burst up the porch, panting, feeling so wild. And just before she reached it, the front door opened. There he was, standing inside the door.

Paul.

He was free of all the ropes and bindings. Even the poison muscle immobilization whatever was out of him—she could tell from his clear, beautiful eyes. And he was still in his boxers.

“Oh, god, Paul.” She barreled right in, unable to contain her need for him.

“You’re okay.”

“Yes, it’s all okay.” She wrapped her arms around him, pressed him to the wall, right next to the coat hooks, and kissed him. She never wanted to let him go. She loved this man! What had she been thinking, that she had to give him up? That’s what a loser did.

“Alix. You feel so good.” He pulled her to him, kissing her back, the hungry kind of kiss that was so quintessentially Paul. He closed her hair in his fist.

She pulled away. “Sir Kendall! Is he okay?”

“He made it,” Paul said, pulling her back, kissing her more.

Again she pulled away. “Hyko will never read the blue paper. But he escaped from the ropes.” Breathlessly, she told Paul what had happened. “I didn’t want to kill him, but I needed to stop him, and he seemed so unstoppable.”

“They have amazing doctors over there,” Paul said. “I bet they save him. And you know what? It means you put them on equal footing. Think about it—they both blinked back totally messed up. They’ll keep doing what they do over there. They’ll live out their lives in their spy versus criminal thing.
Without
the code, thanks to you.” He smiled. “You did it. I can’t believe how amazing you are. I knew you’d come through.”

Happiness shivered through her. He’s known she’d come through. And deep down, she’d known, too. She was enough. She’d just had to fix her mind to it. “I couldn’t let him win.”

“You fight for the people you care about.”

“And the people I love,” she said.

A smile spread across his beautiful, beaten-up face, the face that would take weeks to heal.

Because he was real.

The look he gave her now heated her belly. And suddenly she felt nervous. Here she was with this man whom she’d dreamed about for so long. They were alone, and there was nothing separating them now. She’d always been good at doing big, bold things, but she’d never had this, a man who loved her, a man she loved back. And now she was in this new responsible mode. She needed to not mess this up.

He came to her.

“Wait.” She put her hands on his chest, bracelets jingling. “There’re some last things we need to do.”

“What?”

“Come on.” She turned and limped away from him, up the stairs.

“What happened to your foot?”

“Just my toe,” she said. “Come on.” She led Paul into her room. Her laptop lay on the floor where Hyko had dropped it, screen still lit. She grabbed the sledgehammer and smashed it, again and again, pulverizing it. “Now it for
sure
won’t work.” She turned to him. “The basement. We have to finish destroying all the computers. Nobody else can ever get hold of that code.”

He went to her, touched her cheek. “Right now?” He drew his hand down her neck, breath ragged.

She closed her eyes, softening to his heat, his nearness. “I have to be responsible about this whole thing.” Didn’t he get it? “We destroy the computers once and for all.”

He gave her a look. “Okay, Alix.”

Together they went down to the basement.

“Let me,” he said when the got down there. “You sit.”

She handed him the sledgehammer and sat on the couch. He went at the equipment, smashing the old machines, muscles shiny and glowy in the dim light. Things sparked and smoked. Metal panels crashed onto the floor. The table with the monitors and the pizza box went over.

When he finished, he turned to her, all sweaty and hot. She shook her head and pointed to a still intact panel.

He swung the sledgehammer at it. Sparks flew.

He turned back to her. “It’s done.”

She pointed to another one of the machines. He rolled his eyes and smashed it into even more pieces—
smash-smash-smash
—reducing it to debris and wires. Sweat glistened on his back and darkened the band of his boxers. He looked madly sexy, smashing things.

He turned back to her. “Now?”

She smiled and pointed at the fan in the wall. But it was a little bit of a joke.

He threw the sledgehammer aside and went to her, pulled her up with sweaty, calloused hands. He seemed to be shaking, vibrating with energy.

Her heart raced.

“What is it, Alix? Tell me what you want.” He kissed her forehead, breath warm on her nose.

It had never been real before. But how to say that?

“Tell me what you want.”

“
You
—I want you,” she whispered. Such a simple answer, a simple word, but it was a big, true thing that she wanted him—not as an emotional Band-aid or solace or takeout—she just wanted him. She felt naked saying that.

Paul seemed to still, and his eyes shone, as though what she’d said had moved him greatly, and then he kissed her tenderly. She wanted to give him everything.

The air whooshed out of her as he pushed her against the wall and covered her with a passionate kiss. She dug her fingernails into his sweaty shoulders, drinking in his heaviness, loving the feel of him mashing into her, dominating her.

She felt so open to him, as though she was giving him something she’d never given anybody before: herself.

His cock pressed against the V of her legs, through seemingly endless layers of fabric. She soaked up his heat, enjoying the rough slide of his whiskers on her cheek. She pressed her hands to his shoulders, exploring the lush curves of his muscles.

He tugged at her top. “Off,” he said.

She pulled off her top. With shaking hands, she undid her jeans, bracelets jingling. He came to her, to kiss her and cover her as she did it, but she pushed him away.

“Let me.” She’d always hidden—behind jokes, behind the chaotic frenzy that was her life, behind the pawing of male hands. She wouldn’t hide from Paul. She wanted him to see her, to actually see her. She would rise to meet him. And just like that, she was naked in every way.

He came to her, looked into her eyes, and brushed back her hair. “You are beautiful and perfect, don’t you know?”

“Paul—”

“I see you. And I love you, Alix. I love you.” He slanted his lips over hers and slid his hands up her arms, not covering her, just touching her.

But then he pulled back and gave her a stern look. His cock strained under the fabric of his boxers. “Though there is a problem here, actually.”

“What?”

He lowered his eyes to her wrist.

“What?”

He said nothing, simply moved to the side and pointed to the table, stabbing his finger into the tabletop.

The bracelets? Her pulse raced.
The bracelets?

“Now,” he said raggedly, seeming to vibrate with need. It was so crazy, how that one command made everything easy and crazy and fun again. She’d felt frightened to be responsible for everything, like she was alone in it. But here was Paul. They got each other. They loved each other. She wasn’t alone.

She schooled her features, but really, she felt like smiling a thousand smiles. She went over, pulled them off, and smashed the bracelets onto the little table.

“God, I love you,” he said.

She grinned wide. “I love you, too, Hardass Paul.”

He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back against the wall, kissing her, then kissing handfuls of her hair, and then kissing her cheek. “I love your hair, and your outfits, and the way you look when you’re about to laugh, and your earlobe, too.” He took her earlobe into his mouth and sucked. Plain old happiness thrummed through her as she pushed her fingers down his slick spine and under the elastic band of his boxers. “And your fierceness and loyalty. And how hot you are.” He pressed a hand between her legs and cupped her there, sending undulations of pleasure clear though her.