Hannah and the Hitman

Chapter 10

10

The day couldn’t get any weirder. I broke my favorite mug. I was going to a dreaded dinner. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw Jack park his ridiculously expensive SUV behind mine at the curb. It was definitely the car I’d seen across the street from the library the day before. He had been stalking me!

Shifting my gaze, I looked at myself.

“He drives a fancy car,” I said aloud. “Not fancy, it’s a fucking Maserati . He wears a suit. On a plane. In the library. He’s hot as fuck. And he wants to join a family dinner. WHY?”

I wasn’t date ready! With bent elbows, I flapped my arms like a bird, trying to air out my armpits.

Before we left the library and while Mrs. Metcalf had very happily kept him company, I’d dashed into the employee bathroom and touched up my makeup–which meant adding colored lip gloss and ensuring none of my mascara had flaked off since this morning .

My outfit was cute, but it in no way matched Jack in a suit. I was the dumpy small town girl and he was the urban Maserati driver.

Jack. JACK. OH MY GOD.

“The guy from the plane is parked behind me,” I said aloud. I squealed, trying not to panic. No one should take my blood pressure right about now. It was the guy from the plane. I still couldn’t believe he’d come up into the mountains from Denver to see me. ME. “WHY?”

I wasn’t exciting, at least not in the good way. Hell, this year had been pretty shitty. No guy wanted to take on my crazy baggage. Proof was Kevin, who bailed when the going got tough. He’d never once come to a family dinner even though he knew my mother through her work. Looking back, I was glad that he hadn’t. It would have been awful.

Tonight, might be awful, too. Jack was going to walk in my parents’ house, learn how bizarre my genes were and run right back to Denver.

A knock on my car window made me jump. There was Jack, squatting down and staring in. The corner of his mouth was tipped up as if my little pep talk amused him. I couldn’t help but stare because he was just that attractive. Dark hair that was cut short on the sides, longer on the top. Piercing gaze. Strong jaw with romance hero stubble. He was rugged, but the suit tamed him. Barely. The combination was… perfect.

And made my nipples hard. And my panties wet.

He was waiting for me.

I opened the door a few inches.

“Coming out?” he asked, his voice deep and rumbly .

I sighed, rolled my eyes. Nodded.

He stood, then backed up so I could open my door.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked in a rush when I was in front of him, adjusting my purse on my shoulder. It was better to come clean and give him the chance right now. No one inside expected him. I was doing him a favor. “I mean, I’m not sure what your family’s like, but mine is really weird. My best friend thinks I’m adopted.”

On the plane, we sat side-by-side. Now, he stood before me, and our height difference was noticeable. I came up to his nose. I wasn’t small. Hell, I was big boned. Or sturdy. Or, per Kevin, overweight. That was only accentuated by the fact that I wasn’t tall.

Jack was over six feet, broad shouldered, and he filled out a suit better than any man I’d ever seen. It was definitely custom made. He even smelled good.

“My dad bolted when I was a kid and my mom died a long time ago,” he told me.

“Oh. I’m… um, sorry to hear that.” Instinctively, I set my hand on his arm. A zap of static electricity had me pulling my hand back. Jack’s gaze dropped to where I touched him.

He tipped his head toward the house. “They can’t be that bad. I mean, it’s Coal Springs. People shit glitter here, right? I bet you have a pet unicorn in the backyard.”

My lips twitched because Coal Springs was nothing like Denver. Small, safe, quaint. “Yeah. Everyone here shits glitter. But no unicorn. Sorry.”

“Do you live here with your parents?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No way. I have my own apartment about a mile from here. ”

I didn’t move from the curb and wondered what his fresh eyes thought of the place. If his suits and car were any indication, he wasn’t hurting for money. My parents’ house was a two-story wood clapboard and stone house. White paint. Black front door. Huge blue spruce to the side of the driveway.

“We going in?” He tipped his chin up. Sniffed the air. “Is that burgers I smell? I admit, I haven’t had a home cooked meal in… forever.”

I grabbed his elbow, ignoring his question about burgers, even though his nose was right. I was having second and third thoughts. Freaking out that he was here. Here. “Jack. This is crazy. I can’t believe you showed up at the library after seeing the bar code sticker.”

“If my eyesight was good enough to read about Colin and Mia doing anal for the first time, I could see the name of the library on the front.”

I felt my cheeks heat. He brought up anal and the fact that we read a scene with it together . Could I disappear if my eyes were closed? I cleared my throat. “It’s not that.”

“What?”

He looked at me with those dark eyes. Perplexed. He wanted to see me and came to Coal Springs to do so. He made it seem so simple. But it wasn’t.

“I get that you wouldn’t drive all the way up here from Denver if you wanted to chain a woman in your basement as your sex slave or turn her skin into a suit. You’d find someone much closer to home. Say the real reason is that you do want to go out with me. Just… why me?” I cocked my head and squinted, the sun slightly behind his head.

His eyes narrowed. “I do want you as my sex slave, but I’d use one of my ties to keep you in my bed because it would be much more comfortable for both of us. Also, I live in an apartment. No basement.”

I had to laugh and felt a little heated. Him tying me to his bed? “Jack.”

Two boys on bikes whizzed by along the sidewalk, one of them flicking a bell as they went.

“What? I have a lot of ties.” He shrugged, then raked his gaze down my body. “I also have a lot of suits and your skin is perfect right where it is.”

“I saw your car yesterday.” I glanced back at it, the expensive SUV at the curb that cost more than I made in a year. Probably twice as much. “Across the street from the library.”

He looked away and I could have sworn he blushed beneath his five o’clock shadow. Raised his hand to rub the back of his neck.

“That was your car.” I prodded an answer from him even though I was pretty sure of the answer. A Maserati wasn’t subtle.

He nodded.

“You are a stalker.” I wasn’t sure if I should climb back in my car and lock the doors, my family having to fend for themselves, or hug him because he’d come to Coal Springs for me not once, but twice.

“I’m your stalker,” he clarified, tipping his head down so he was closer. The air was heavy and charged around us. “You should meet my friend Dax. You two would get along great with calling what I’m doing here a stalker thing. As to why I want to go out with you?” His eyes left mine and raked down my body in a very blatant review. “You’re sexy and fun. Cute and you have this whole innocent look about you, but I know for a fact you’re dying to get railed over the back of your couch. A good girl and a bad girl.”

My face flamed hotter than the grill in the backyard. “Oh my God,” I whispered, glancing around to make sure no one in my family was in earshot. Or any of the neighbors.

He leaned in even more. “I want to be the one who rails you.”

I was all for him doing the railing. ALL. But… “If you only want sex–”

“If I only wanted sex, do you think I’d invite myself to a woman’s parents’ house for dinner?”

He had a point. I could picture having sex with him–I’d pictured it a lot over the past week–but the chances of it happening after this dinner were slim to none. It was going to be that bad. Not the sex, the dinner.

“Why me?” I asked again.

He met my gaze, held it. “You, Hannah, intrigue me and I haven’t been intrigued in a long time.”

That made no sense, but I had to admit, I was intrigued by him, too. He was totally out of my league, but he was standing here.

I believed him.

I took a fortifying breath. “Fine. But I should tell you some things about my family before we go inside.”

“They can’t be that bad,” he countered, swiping his hand through the air as if what was to come was no big deal. “I think I can handle your family.”

We were already halfway up the walk so I couldn’t ask him if he was being cocky or clueless .

All of a sudden, Jack froze. Stared at the roof of the house. Blinked.

“Um… I think I saw a woman fly.” He pointed. “There.”

I looked up. Nothing. Then a woman rose up high in the air, then dropped and disappeared.

“Oh, that’s my sister, Briana. She does trampolining.”