A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

I was still stewing in his truck three hours later as we were parked down in an alley.

He said Detective Laila Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Was wasn’t his girlfriend, but I saw her. I saw how she looked at him, how she stood next to him, how she touched him.

Not his girlfriend, my ass. She wanted to be.

But he said she left for Europe on a family trip, and we needed a neutral place for us to hunker down for a bit. That’s right, Miss Laila Who Wants My Man. We. As in me and Jake. We needed a neutral place to hide out in.

He added, “We’re running out of options for places to stay. I can’t go to my apartment or my brother’s. Because of the meet we gotta take, I can’t use any of Ashton or Trace’s buildings either. Your aunts are a different matter, but you and me, we’re on our own essentially.”

I didn’t understand any of what he was saying except that he hadn’t closed up his brother’s place. The one that died?

Also, when was the not-girlfriend coming back? Laila. That was her name.

What kind of name was Laila? According to Google, it had Arabic and Finnish roots, but I didn’t like it. Lay-la. Lay-Me-Please-Jake-La.

Maybe my stewing wasn’t altogether being productive. I needed to chill. She tried to help his cousin, but I didn’t like her. I didn’t need to like her to stay in her place.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Jake pulled me out of my ruminating thoughts, leaning over me to open the dashboard compartment. He pulled out two handguns.

I hissed, “How many guns do you need?”

He smirked at me, shoving one in his side holster, which was covered by a plaid flannel. When he’d left his not-girlfriend’s place, I’d been drooling. I couldn’t help myself. Jeans that were snug and worn and fitted over him exactly perfectly, that hung low on his lean hips, with a T-shirt underneath his flannel. He looked good. Add in the tats I was aware of now, how he’d shaved a little but not enough so he still had a good scruff on his face, and the guns on him, I was a walking, throbbing mess.

Christ.

Jake was like my sex-nip. One look, one whiff, and I wanted to jump on his dick and scratch away, rubbing all over him.

His eyes grew lidded as he was watching me watch him. “We got one night. When this is done, I’m going to fuck you all over one of my places.”

I almost flooded at that promise, sending a shiver up my spine. Then my eyes bugged out. “One of your places? How many do you have?”

He just continued to grin at me, staring for another moment before groaning, ripping his gaze away. “You need to follow my lead in there. Don’t fight me on anything. I say do something, you do it.” He hesitated. “This meet is . . . It’s going to be a little tricky.”

Tricky? That didn’t sound good. I asked, “Do you want me to have a gun too?”

He’d started to reach for his door, but paused and raised an eyebrow. “You know how to shoot a gun?”

“I’m from a small town in Montana. Gun safety is like a rite of passage for some.”

His head angled back a little, reassessing me. “Are you comfortable with a gun?”

I hesitated. “Not quite. I never learned for hunting. My dad wanted me to learn for safety reasons.”

“What are you saying?”

I thrust out my hand. “I’m saying I don’t have a permit to carry. I don’t know the specific rules here, but I also don’t care. Getting arrested for that is the least of our problems.”

“Sawyer,” he warned, growing impatient.

“Give me a fucking gun, Jake.”

Surprise flared before a wariness edged it out as he pulled one of the guns off him and held it to me, handle first. He was studying me intently when I took it, checking the safety was on.

I stuffed it in my purse. “Ready.”

He didn’t move, taking me in before demanding, “Take it out.”

I froze. “Why?”

“Take out the gun. I want to see how you handle it. Check the chamber. Check the safety.”

I glared at him, but fine. Whatever. I huffed as I did what he said. The chamber was checked, falling down, and I put it back in place. The bullets were there. I took the safety off before turning it back on. I flipped the gun around a little, showing him that I knew a bit more than how to aim and pull the trigger.

“Good enough? You don’t trust me?”

He palmed the back of my head and pulled me to him. He pressed a swift kiss to my forehead. “Trust has nothing to do with it. I just need to know you’ll be safe with your own weapon.”

We were so close. A few inches separated us. His eyes tracked over my face, falling to my mouth, staying, before his hold on me gentled. His hand slid down to my arm and around to my back, urging me even closer. “You don’t pull that out unless I’m unconscious and you’re about to be killed. Okay? If someone has you and I have the shot, I’ll take the shot. I’m good at this shit. I was trained for this before I became a cop. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

He was trained for this before he became a cop?

What did he mean by that? Trained for what?

New shivers seared me. Fear and arousal.

I eyed him back and finally said, “If you’re not going to fuck me or kiss me, let’s get this over with so you can.”

He gave me a rakish grin before his hand grabbed the back of my neck. He yanked me to him again, his mouth fused with mine. A thrill went through me, sending my pulse speeding. He added pressure, his lips demanding me to open for him, and as I did, lust swept through me. The inferno was switched on once again.

The kiss was over too quickly.

He pulled back, giving me a last heated look before opening his door. “Let’s go.”noveldrama

Whoa.

Okay.

Let me just steady my knees and then I’ll be ready for a potential shoot-out.