She purred in need, moaning into his mouth as he began to play with her nipple. She clasped her hands on his sides and moved her knees up to press into his hips. Her legs stroked against his.
“You’re a bad man,” she managed between breaths against his lips.
He smiled, his fingers sliding down to flick the snap of her garters. His hand shook slightly as he did so, betraying that he was near to the edge of his control.
“I am,” he whispered back between kisses. “And about to do very bad things to you.” His hand smoothed over her legs, a knee between her thighs as he lifted himself over her. “You’re beautiful.” He stroked his hand up the inside of her thigh slowly enough that she could pull away if she wanted to.
She didn’t. She shivered in pleasure and anticipation. She even arched her back and lifted her h*ps off the bed to get closer to him.
“You’re special,” she whispered back, and as his fingers got closer and closer to their goal, she closed her eyes. “Please...”
***
Rollie woke up slowly. The pain from the hit to her head flared up, drowning her spinning world in a haze of red. She brought a hand to her forehead and winced from the tenderness of the bruise. That was going to leave a mark. She remembered now, and the pain and disorientation hit her even worse. She had been careless. Fear made her so, and the last thing she’d seen was the rifle butt.
When she’d gotten out of bed this morning, she hadn’t been expecting to achieve a significant scientific breakthrough, a feat that would change the world hopefully for the better. But neither had she expected to be kidnapped, dragged through the woods, shot at by goons, or to lose her best friend, the woman she considered to be the closest thing she had to a mother.
What had she done wrong? What had she done to deserve this? All she wanted was to help change the world, to save mankind by saving the planet. Ever since she had been old enough to understand that if she wanted to survive in this world she had to fend for herself, she had tried to live as normally as she possibly could.
It hadn’t been easy for a young girl, barely in her teens, who had to survive in the harsh reality of life on the streets. She had been tempted to follow the other street kids and live the life they did, but she didn’t think the same way. She knew she’d end up just like them, either dead in a ditch with two bullets in the head or, given her looks, living the rest of her life as a crack whore.
So she used her smarts. By day, she’d put herself through school and got past the system by faking a pair of parents who didn’t exist. She had left virtually no time for her social activities, focusing on maintaining her grades and working to achieve a scholarship. By night, she pretended to be a boy and worked odd jobs. When she was old enough she started working at the bars as a waitress then learned the trade, became a bartender. She graduated at the top of her class at Carnegie Mellon and, shortly after, everything was history.
But while she had succeeded in getting out of the gutter all by herself, she still envied the other kids at school. While they didn’t receive awards, they had parents, families, and significant others who shared their joy with them while the poor, smart girl had to make an excuse that her parents were in an archaeological dig somewhere and couldn’t make it.
Friends were all she had left. The ones she had made growing up were either dead, dying, or in jail. Some of her college friends now had successful careers of their own, while some had become enemies when pride settled in. Boys, and then men, had tried to claim her heart, but seemed more tempted with her body, and then her money and fame; all but shallow opportunists. In the end, there were only a handful of people that were truly there for her.
Marie had been the most steadfast. Rollie had wanted to believe she’d always be there for her, but now she, too, had been taken away. Just like everything and everyone else. She didn’t realize that tears were streaming down her cheeks, not until she felt a drop fall onto her hand. She finally broke down, the tears falling in earnest.
Day woke with a start. Eyes unfocused for a moment, he looked up at the tattered roof lining of the truck. Shit. It had been a dream. He closed his eyes again, hoping beyond hope to be able to slide back into it, but a soft sound in the truck stopped him, brought him back to full wakefulness. It was the sound of someone…crying?
Opening his eyes again, he turned his head to see Rollie curled up in a small ball in the passenger seat, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed. Deep, heart-rending sobs. Day moved without thinking, and in the next instant, she was in his arms, tucked under his chin and half across his lap as he stroked her back. “Hey… Hey, it’s okay. We got out.”
Day didn’t say anything as she literally tried to burrow into him like some small creature. A small, wounded creature. At a loss for anything else to do, he made soothing noises as she cried.
Just what had happened to her to cause this sort of reaction? He’d seen people after disasters, seen survivors of combat zones and civil wars. Hell, he’d even seen hostage victims before the medical crews got to them. So he was familiar with shock and all its stages.
This wasn’t shock. Not just shock anyway. This was something else as well.
Several moments went by, and her crying subsided into quiet tears and sniffles. But she didn’t let go of him. Not just yet. She turned her head to look up at him, her eyes misty from tears.
Her gaze settled on his mouth, she sat up straighter, wiping tears with the sleeves of her jacket. Settling both hands on his shoulders, she used them for support as she leaned in to press her lips softly on his.
Holy hell, she was going to be the death of him. Still not fully recovered from that highly charged, erotic dream, his defenses were at absolute zero. He’d been trying so hard as well, trying to keep the reaction of his body to a minimum as she cried in his arms. It really was crass to get a hard-on when she was in pieces like that.
He hadn’t expected her to kiss him. And not like that, so sweet and innocent. He closed his eyes, head resting back against the seat and his hands light on her h*ps as she explored his mouth. Letting her lead the way, set the pace.
She went slowly, letting him savor the hot, wet kisses, innocent but slowly brimming with need. Her hands moved on to caress his beard-roughened face as she explored his mouth. She took all that he was giving her, while she gave everything she had in those kisses. Full of promise. Intense with passion. Sweet with their hint of innocence and honesty.
Day all but drowned in pleasure, in sensation. He wasn’t an innocent by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, he hadn’t been innocent since early in his teens. But there was something about the way she kissed him, the sweetness of her manner, that warned him to be careful. Most of his sexual encounters were brief and to the point. They usually involved a fair amount of alcohol, and he never remembered their names.
But there was something about this woman. She wasn’t the love ‘em and leave ‘em type. She shouldn’t be doing this, not with him. Not with a guy who had so much blood on his hands it would probably take three reincarnations just to get them clean. Carefully, calling himself all kinds of idiot, he slowed the kiss down and broke away.
“Rollie, we…you shouldn’t be doing this,” he rumbled softly as his instincts, the ones that wanted to play this game to its conclusion, raged at him. They knew as well as he did that conclusion would be the two of them nak*d and getting sweaty together.
She kept trying to kiss his evasive lips at first, not quite herself as she was desperate for affection. She felt as if she could stay like this forever, kissing him, and never grow tired of it. Greedy for more of the momentary show of emotion he had given her. She’d always played it safe and gone for cute but physically unintimidating scientist types Which in the end led nowhere. So she’d never had access to a body like his before, and she reveled at the privilege granted to her. But Day was more than just a hunk of steel encased in warm flesh. She felt attached to him. This went beyond than just physical for her. For her, it was something more.
He truly was handsome but not just that, his face shone with integrity and decency. Deep down, despite his occupation, she knew he wasn’t one of the bad guys. Perhaps it was why she had treated him with sass instead of her usual disdain. He would never hurt her. Would he?
And then her logical brain kicked in, and she slowed down to an eventual halt. He was right. This wasn’t the time or place. People intent on killing them were chasing them. And she felt guilty. She was taking advantage of him, despite how unusual it sounded considering that an hour ago she had been his captive.
“I’m...I’m sorry,” she said as she moved away from him and quickly composed herself. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
He stopped her movement with a hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean like that.” His voice was soft. Softer than even she had imagined it could be. “I meant…me and you.” He paused and exhaled a long sigh while running his hands through his hair. Finally, he looked at her, his light eyes piercing all the way through to her soul.
“I would like nothing more than to strip those clothes off you and spend hours making you scream with pleasure, sweetheart.” Regret clouded his eyes. Regret, and a hell of a lot of desire. “But…I’m not a nice man. A woman like you…you deserve someone nice. Not me.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “You are a nice man. One would go out of his way to save someone he could have just left behind to save himself. Someone who would stop a woman from making love to him because he thought it was wrong. A good and decent man would do what you did when you thought you hurt my feelings.
“You’re not as bad as you think you are,” she said sincerely. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be doing this, but not for the reasons you want to believe. I’m not buying it, and neither are you.”
He shrugged, obviously not convinced by that argument, and turned the key to start the engine.
“You’re sweet, Rollie, but I’d eat you for breakfast and walk away without looking back.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Can you handle that? No, I thought not.”
She was quiet for a moment. She was convinced he was putting on a show for her benefit. She’d love nothing more than to take up his challenge. But they needed to get somewhere safe before she proved him wrong. The sod actually thought she wasn’t woman enough for him. Fat chance at that. Her feminine pride was at stake here as well, and she wasn’t about to let him get away with issuing that challenge and not getting a proper response. She swallowed her pride and zipped up her jacket. “Where exactly are we?”
He drove across the parking lot and pulled out onto the highway before he answered. “About sixty miles outside Crowsford,” he said. “We’ll take a break there, switch vehicles.”
Crowsford. Great, they were stuck in some hick town. If this was about what she thought it was, she was going to need help to end this. And if they took too long, this entire ordeal would end with their violent deaths.
She didn’t say anything else during the drive, just looked out the window. Day kept sliding glances at her, but she tried to ignore him. Finally, they reached the small town. It was a bit above a one-horse town, but not by much. He pulled into the motel and parked in front of the office. “I’ll get us a room. We need sleep before we move on.”