3. Fucking Terrified
3 FUCKING TERRIFIED
Lanie
As soon as I opened the door to my townhouse, I sprinted up the stairs to my bedroom, taking them two at a time, leaving Noah to rummage through the cabinets in search of food for our trip. I needed to get far away from him to clear my head, even if only for a few minutes.
Dancing with Noah at the wedding, being held in his strong arms, messed with my resolve. There was a reason I’d gone out of my way to avoid being in public with him for months. We had chemistry; the undeniable, tingling-in-the-lady-bits kind of chemistry between us, and my fragile heart wouldn’t survive a second rejection. It was much easier on my pride to deny the truth than face the reality I’d fallen for Noah Anderson. It was inconvenient and annoying as shit.
I’d been close to pushing him away when the DEA agents showed up. Their bit of news only complicated an already confusing situation. Then Hendricks suggested protective custody, and I wanted to rage against the injustice of it all. Hiding away went against every instinct I’d sharpened over the years as an FBI agent; however, I wasn’t conceited enough to think I was invincible. Being pissed off was one thing, risking the lives of my friends was something else altogether.
When Noah opened his big, sexy mouth and insisted on coming with me, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him no. Except that’s not what happened. For some crazy reason, he was the only person I wanted by my side, especially where we were going.
Between the dance, the Bratva, and the inevitable conversation Noah and I would be having, I was beyond distracted when I reached for the closet door. Had I not been, I would’ve noticed the light breeze coming from the open window I knew for a fact was closed. Shit. My hand was hovering over the knob when I heard it; the slight creak of the floorboard directly behind me. I wasn’t alone.
Bracing for a fight, I twisted around a second too late to avoid the large body barreling into my side. The momentum from the brutal impact sent me flying, and I cried out when my forehead collided with the corner of my bedside table. The asshole was on top of me an instant later, trapping my legs between thick thighs and wrapping glove-covered hands around my throat.
“Cyka,” a thickly accented, male voice spat while his grip tightened. I knew enough from my time undercover to not only recognize his accent as Russian, but to know he’d just called me a bitch.
Black spots dotted my vision and a trickle of what I assumed was blood slid down the side of my face, but I didn’t panic. In a move I’d practiced hundreds of times, I planted my feet on the ground, thrust my hips up, knocking him off-balance at the same time I locked my arms across his and rolled over, reversing our positions.
Scrambling to my feet, I scanned the room for a weapon since my gun was downstairs in my purse. There was nothing of use. Noah. I needed Noah, but I wasn’t sure if my abused throat was capable of a scream. Grabbing the lamp from the table, I swung it at the fucker’s head when he tried to get off the floor, knocking him out. Then I threw it against the closet doors, making enough ruckus to alert my partner downstairs.
“Lanie!”
Noah’s bellow was music to my ears and when my bedroom door flew open seconds later, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“What the fuck is going on?” Gun raised, his eyes came to me, then shifted behind me where they blazed with lethal intent as they landed on the unconscious man slumped on my floor. It would have been comical if there wasn’t a dull throb building in my head. “Motherfucker.”
“There was someone in my room.” My voice was scratchy when I spoke, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would.
“You’re bleeding.”
Noah ate up the space between us, keeping his Glock aimed behind me as he yanked me into his arms. Resting my head against the wide expanse of his chest, I was temporarily lulled by the sound of his rapidly beating heart. It grounded me; made me feel secure…safe.
“I’m okay.”
The lie fell easily from my lips. I’m not sure who I was trying to convince more; myself or Noah. Either way, I was the furthest from okay I’d ever been in my life. In the span of an hour, my world had been flipped upside down. Marked for death; forced to run from the same people I swore to put behind bars went against everything I stood for .
“You’re not, but you will be.” He kissed the top of my head. “We need to secure him. Do you have a set of cuffs up here?”
“There’s an extra set in the closet. Top shelf in the wooden box.”
Noah didn’t waste any time procuring my cuffs. Stalking across the room, he grunted and muttered to himself while dragging the hit man by one foot to the cast-iron radiator bolted to the base of the wall next to the window. After winding the handcuffs between one of the slots, he snapped the metal bracelet around the man’s wrists then stormed past me, raising his gun on the way to the door.
“Stay here,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I’m gonna check the rest of the house to make sure there aren’t any other uninvited guests.”
Great job, Lanie.
Clearing the house was the first thing we should’ve done. It was a rookie mistake, one we couldn’t afford to make again, but in my defense, I’d had a shit day. With all the noise swirling around in my head, I was lucky I remembered to breathe.
For the five minutes Noah was gone, I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t. Numbness had infused itself throughout every pore of my body, which I suppose was better than the rapid crash of an adrenaline dump.
“We need to get the hell out of here.”
“We’ve gotta give a statement to the cops.”
“Fuck that,” he growled, threading his fingers through mine, pulling me toward the en suite bathroom. “We’re not waiting around to see if there are any more assholes waiting in the wings. We’ll call in our statements to Waverly once we’re on the road. ”
“Are we just going to leave him there?” I glanced over my shoulder.
“Since you knocked him out and the law is clear about me killing an unarmed man, yeah, he’s gonna stay right there until our people arrive to clean up this shitshow of a night.”
“All right, then why aren’t we leaving?”
“You’re bleeding.” He flipped the light on.
“You said that already.”
“I don’t like it.”
Sweeping me off my feet—bridal style—he sat me ever-so-gently on the counter next to the sink. Then he began feverishly searching through drawers and cabinets until he found my first aid kit.
Popping it open, he whispered, “I’m sorry,” before pressing a few pieces of gauze to my eyebrow to stem the flow of blood. I gritted my teeth, sucking in a sharp breath at the sudden sting. With his other hand, Noah dampened a washcloth and began wiping the blood from my face in carefully measured strokes.
“This is my fault,” he seethed, his jaw clenched tight. “They shouldn’t have been able to touch you.”
I batted his hand away when he moved in for another swipe. He glared at me, the little space between his eyes wrinkling out of frustration or confusion, maybe both. Nonetheless, I glared right back. Ignoring my ire, he lifted the gauze and started cleansing the wound with peroxide.
“Do you have precognitive abilities I’m not aware of?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You can’t see the future, Noah. How could you possibly think what happened tonight was on you?”
“I let my guard down?—”
“Because we’re in my goddamn house, Noah. Mine!” I shouted, shoving my thumb hard into my breastbone. “It’s not your sanctuary they breached, not your flesh they filleted open, and not your throat he wrapped his fucking hands around.”
My anger melted away as quickly as it had appeared. Suddenly, I felt exposed and vulnerable, a position I swore I’d never be in again after my best friend disappeared when we were in high school.
They’d searched for Beth for months while I stood on the sidelines praying for good news, which never came. When her body was discovered and the atrocities she suffered came to light, I turned to the FBI in order to protect others from becoming a statistic. My badge was meant to shield me from the ugliness in the world, instead it led that shit straight to my door.
“Wounds heal, Lanie,” he sighed as his fingers worked deftly, applying suture strips to close the cut next to my eyebrow. “It’s the scars they leave behind which have the greater impact.”
“Where are your scars, Noah?” I probed.
Sapphire blue eyes snapped to mine. “I’ll show you one day.”
Right as we drove away from my house, Noah called Waverly as promised.
“We left a gift for you at Lanie’s,” he said in lieu of a greeting.
“Oh yeah? What kind of gift?”
“The Russian kind.”
If I thought I’d heard every cuss word in the English language, she proved me wrong with the ones she fired off. It was highly impressive, to the point where I took note of the more creative ones for later use. Once she finished her tirade, she assured us everything would be handled.
That conversation had taken place four days ago. We’d been on the road ever since, taking the scenic route to a destination I still hadn’t disclosed. Each morning, I plugged a new location into the GPS, and Noah drove us there without so much as a hint of irritation. It was very un-Noah-like. He thrived on control, though not in a bad way. Every move he made—both professional and personal—was calculated and well thought out. Maybe it was the reason I was still keeping him in the dark. Part of me wanted to see how the unflappable Agent Anderson would handle the culture shock he was about to experience.
By the next night, I was getting antsy. The time had come to stop screwing around. Instead of taking the anticipated seven days, we’d be arriving at our hideout the next afternoon. Truthfully, we could’ve made it there today, but I was being selfish. I wanted a little more time with just the two of us before all hell broke loose.
“I got you a mushroom cheeseburger and fries,” Noah announced as he pushed through the door of our latest hotel room.
“Thanks.”
There were two queen-sized beds taking up the majority of the space. I was sitting crisscross in the middle of the one farthest from the door and windows when he handed me the nondescript white paper bag. The smell of grease and grilled meat permeated the air, making my stomach grumble.
Tearing open the bag, I shoveled a handful of hot, potato yumminess into my mouth. Food had never tasted so good, considering my appetite went south around the same time I’d been attacked in my own damn home. Even though the cut on my head was mostly healed, the lingering twinge of pain was a constant reminder of the fact I’d let someone get the jump on me. I was still salty over it and probably would be for a while.
The mattress dipped beside me, halting my self-deprecating thoughts. What was he doing? There was a perfectly good bed right next to this one he could stretch out on. His bed, to be more precise. Well, whatever. He’d paid for the room, so if he chose to eat his dinner in the bathtub, I wouldn’t stop him.
Ignoring Noah—who was a little too close for comfort—I chewed and swallowed until I’d devoured every last bit of my meal. When we were both finished, he gathered our trash, tossing it in the nearby can before returning to his previous position.
“I’ve given you five days, now it’s time for us to clear the air.”
I stiffened, my pulse skyrocketing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Our kiss wasn’t the mistake, Lanie.” He shifted, using two fingers to tilt my chin up so we were eye to eye. “The fact we’d both had way too much to drink was. I didn’t want there to be any doubts when it came to my feelings for you. Looking back, my choice of words could’ve been better.”
“Ya think?” I choked out a nervous laugh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t exactly give me the opportunity.”
He had me there. I’d immediately shut down that night, assuming he was rejecting me, rejecting us. How could I have been so wrong? Hindsight was a nasty bitch.
“You’ve had days to bring this up. Why now? Why the urgency? ”
He frowned, twin lines forming between his gorgeous blue eyes. “I was afraid of losing every step we’d gained during this trip.”
Again, he was right. The last few days had been incredible, minus the assassination attempt, of course. Being alone with him had forced me to look past the hurt, to see beyond my own mortification. It was very enlightening. Who knew there was a whole side of Noah he’d masterfully kept locked away from the world…from me. For example, he sang off-key to country songs, yet when it was a rock song, he was perfectly in tune. It was little things like that which made our time together more personal—more intimate.
“And you’re not afraid anymore?” I whispered, hope blooming in my chest.
“Oh, I’m fucking terrified. But I refuse to go back to the way things have been for the last six months.”
Slowly, he leaned in, brushing his mouth against mine. It was nothing like the recklessness of our first time. This kiss was soft, almost tentative, like he was giving me a chance to protest. When I didn’t pull away, his fingers slid along the curve of my jaw, cradling my face. He licked across the seam of my lips once…twice.
When I opened, his tongue surged inside, stealing my breath and demolishing whatever was left of the barrier I’d built around my heart. Closing my eyes, I became lost in his taste, consumed by the possibility of a future I never thought we’d have.
The room swayed as Noah lowered us to the mattress without breaking our connection—me on my back with him pressed close to my side. Winding my arms around his neck, my fingernails lightly scraped across the exposed skin at the top of his T-shirt .
“You’ll be the death of me,” he groaned against my lips before angling his head to deepen the kiss.
I met every thrust of his tongue with a swirl of my own and soon, our slow, leisurely pace vanished, replaced with a raging wildfire of need I had no hope of containing. We were spiraling out of control, yet somehow I’d never felt more grounded.
Without warning, Noah broke away. Snaking an arm around my waist, he flipped me on my side and drew me back into his chest. He was the big spoon to my little, but there was nothing little about the hard bulge pressed against my ass. It was good to know his suffering rivaled mine.
Pressing a kiss behind my ear, he quietly spoke, “I’m not fucking you until you’re ready to give all of yourself to me.”
“What if I said I was ready?”
“You’re not.”
“Says the man whose dick is trying to bust through his jeans,” I muttered under my breath.
“Ignore it. I haven’t come in my pants since Celia Evans flashed her tits at me when I was twelve.”
“Easier said than done.”
Rubbing my thighs together, I tried to prove my point while also seeking relief from the ache growing between them. He stilled my desperate movements with a hand to my hip and a firm squeeze.
“Enough. Just relax.”
Long minutes of silence passed before the truth escaped my mouth on a deep exhale. “I’m scared too.”
His hand, which had remained on my hip, flexed, then slid to my waist, dipping just beneath my shirt to rest against my bare skin.
“I’d be worried if you weren’t.” The deep timbre of his response resonated up my spine, eliciting a shiver. He hauled me closer, warming me more with what he said next rather than the heat from his body. “You’re my best friend, Lanie. You’re the only person on earth who makes my days better simply by existing.”
“Ditto, Noah.” Gathering a sliver of courage, I asked, “So where do we go from here?”
“Forward. No more ducking and dodging when shit gets too real. We let each other in and enjoy the ride.”
“What if this goes south? I don’t want to lose you.” I yawned, exhaustion slamming into me.
“You’ll never lose me, Lanie.” He nuzzled my hair. “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. Now, hop up so we can get ready for bed.”
“M’kay,” I agreed, but didn’t move.
“Or not.”
“I just want to stay in our bubble a little longer. Tomorrow may change everything.”
“Why would you think that?” He kissed the side of my head.
“Because I’m taking you home.”
Noah
Colorado. The state made famous by its beautiful landscape, plentiful ski resorts, and relaxing hot springs. That was where she called home. It was also not a six-day drive from Huntington, which meant she’d been stalling for some reason or another.
We’d driven through Denver an hour ago, with Lanie behind the wheel, headed west toward the Rocky Mountains looming in the distance. The closer we came to the base of the mountains, the faster her fingers drummed against the leather steering wheel .
Reaching over, I squeezed her knee. “It’ll be okay.”
“You say that now,” she scoffed. “But you have no idea the kind of crazy I’m about to throw you into. There’s more than one reason I left home and never looked back.”
Lanie’s childhood was a bit of a mystery. During a previous investigation, we learned her best friend disappeared when they were in high school. The discovery of her body in a mass grave, with other victims of human trafficking, became the driving force which led to Lanie’s career as a federal agent. Other than that, I knew both her parents and brother were still alive, but I didn’t have an inkling why she only spoke to them on rare occasions.
Alaina Biggs was a puzzle I was compelled to solve.
“Tell me why.”
“My family isn’t like most, Noah. They—” She paused.
“They what?”
Her shoulders drooped as she exhaled loudly. “Maybe it’s best if you see for yourself.”
Being thrust into a situation where I didn’t have all the information was unsettling. Without the control, the power that came with knowledge, there was no way for me to know where to draw the lines. And I was the type of man who needed those boundaries, otherwise I’d get lost in the gray. I’d been there once, after my sister was nearly killed, and I swore I’d never allow myself to be thrown off the deep end again.
Eventually, we turned off the main highway onto a bumpy-as-shit dirt road. Hell, I wasn’t even sure you could call it a road, seeing as it wasn’t even mapped out on the GPS. There was barely enough room for my SUV to pass between the trees lining either side, but Lanie maneuvered the vehicle through like a pro.
We’d gone approximately three miles into the woods before the road widened enough that another car would have been able to pass us on the left. All the while, Lanie’s fidgeting increased the farther we drove. I abhorred watching her struggle with her emotions, but I also wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do or say to fix it. She wasn’t at the point yet where she fully trusted her heart or me.
Another mile or so in, the woods opened up, revealing a small town of sorts. At least that’s what it looked like, but again, it wasn’t on the map. Row after perfectly-straight row of identical houses were situated on the left side of the street, while the right side held numerous pole barns in various sizes. Beyond those were several greenhouses and a few fields which looked to have been recently plowed.
Lanie parked in front of the first house and turned my way. “I am so very sorry for whatever they put you through.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, she climbed out of the SUV. I followed and was immediately assaulted by the most horrendous odor. Slapping a hand over my mouth and nose, I joined her at the back of the vehicle and asked, “What the hell is that smell?”
“Shit,” Lanie answered with a wicked smirk on her beautiful face.
“Yeah, it smells like shit, but what is it?”
“Literally shit, Noah. More specifically, pig shit. It’s good fertilizer for the pot.” She chuckled, then grabbed her bag, motioning for me to follow, which I did without question.
Pot? What the fuck?
Stepping onto the porch of the little house, she knocked and once again I noticed her shoulders were slumped. I didn’t have time to question her reaction because when the door opened, my mind went blank. Not only was I hit in the face by a puff of marijuana smoke, I was completely mesmerized—or traumatized—by what I was seeing. One thing was for certain.
I’d landed in Hell.
Correction. I’d landed in pot-growing, pig-farming, live off the land…H.E.L.L.
Where the fuck had she brought me?
And why the fuck were these people naked?
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad.”
Oh boy.
“Alaina!” The woman—I now knew to be her mother—squealed, launching herself into Lanie’s arms. “What are you doing here?”
Her father leaned against the doorjamb, lifting a tightly rolled joint to his mouth to take another drag, eyeing me suspiciously.
“You a cop?”
“Federal agent,” I responded, holding out my hand. “Noah Anderson.”
He made no move to shake it, instead he threw me for a loop. “What are your intentions with my daughter?”
Stunned, I attempted to come up with a response that didn’t make me look like a territorial asshole. When that didn’t work, I opted for the truth.
“She’s mine.”
“We’ll see.” He hiked a brow.
“Mom. Dad. This is Noah Anderson.” Lanie returned to my side, curling her fingers around mine as she made introductions. “Noah, my parents, Percy and Iris Biggs.”
“Nice to meet you.” Iris grinned.
“You as well.” I dipped my chin.
“How about the two of you get dressed so we can explain why we’re here? ”
“Don’t need clothes to have a conversation.” Her father shifted his steely gaze from our hands to his daughter.
“Oh hush, Percy.” His wife smacked his forearm lightly.
“What? It’s my house,” he grumbled.
“Welcome to Juniper Springs,” Iris rushed out, grunting with the effort it took to pull her husband back inside the house, then shut the door behind them.
“You look like you could use a hit or two from Dad’s joint.”
“Did that really happen?” I muttered, shaking my head.
Stumbling off the porch, I tilted my head to the sky, blinking rapidly as if it would somehow erase the images of the last three minutes from my brain. Sadly, it didn’t work.
“Yeah, sorry. They’re a bit much.”
“A bit much?” I huffed out a laugh. “Lanie, I just saw more of your parents than I’ve seen of you.”
She winced. “Point taken.”
Percival and Iris referred to themselves as minimalists, though I suspected they’d incorporated a variety of different lifestyles into the one they’d created for themselves. After working in corporate America for most of their lives, they reached their boiling point around the time Lanie turned nine. Not wanting to be ruled by money and greed, they—along with a number of their closest friends—quit their high-paying jobs in order to live off the land and off the grid. They sold most of their possessions, moving to the Rockies to build this small community from the ground up.
“It’s a way of life,” Iris explained. “By minimizing our distractions, we’re able to concentrate on what’s most important. ”
The four of us were lounging in the living room, Lanie and I next to each other on a love seat, while Iris and Percy sat on a long sofa. Thankfully, they were fully clothed for our impromptu chat, though the way Percy glared in my direction made me feel both naked and afraid.
Now that I wasn’t avoiding eye contact, the resemblance between the three of them was clear. Lanie was a picture-perfect mixture of both her parents. She and her mother shared the same sandy-blond hair, while her hazel eyes were exact replicas of her dad’s.
Their home was simple; an open concept floor plan where every bit of space had a purpose. The furniture matched the paint on the light gray walls, which were bare and not littered with pictures or memorabilia like most. There were also numerous windows, which flooded the room with a significant amount of natural light. All in all, it was basic, yet beautiful.
“Family means more to us than anything in the world,” Percy concluded.
Lanie bristled beside me. I could feel the hostility vibrating through her entire body just before she sprang to her feet and began pacing back and forth. Ever since we knocked on their door, there’d been a hint of discord in the air. Initially, I’d chalked it up to nervous energy, but this was something else entirely.
“Unless you want to become a cop,” she spat, whirling around to level her parents with a glare, which had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. “Then family doesn’t mean shit, right?”
After the warm reception we received, I never would’ve guessed their falling out was because of Lanie’s career choice. Her pacing resumed and I suppressed the urge—just barely— to go to her, to pull her in my arms, knowing right then she’d be more apt to punch me in the face rather than accept a hug. And my girl had a nasty right hook. Lanie was a firecracker when she was pissed, so the only way to survive unscathed was to stand clear of the sparks.
Iris went to her, halting Lanie’s steps with a gentle hand on her forearm. “That’s not true at all.”
“Really?” My girl cocked her head to the side. “Because the way I remember it, you gave me an ultimatum. Choose between a life here with you or my hopes and dreams.”
“Let’s sit back down so your father and I can explain. This conversation should’ve happened years ago.”
Hesitantly, Lanie returned to my side while her mother resumed her position next to Percy. As soon as her ass hit the cushion, I laced our fingers together, placing them on my thigh. From the looks passing back and forth between her parents, whatever they were about to say wasn’t going to go over well.
“After Beth’s body was found, you were floundering. You’d completely withdrawn from life and disappeared inside yourself. A few weeks later, you came to us talking about going into law enforcement.” Iris inhaled deeply, blowing out the breath before she continued, “When you spoke about making a difference in the world, there was a light in your eyes we hadn’t seen in a long time, but you also looked conflicted.”
“I was,” Lanie confessed. “I didn’t want to leave home.”
Percy wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and picked up where she left off. “You were meant to do great things, Alaina, and you never would’ve accomplished them by staying here. In order for you to spread your wings, to soar above the clouds, we did the only thing we could think of. We gave you a nudge. ”
She tensed. “A nudge? Are you fucking serious right now?”
Squeezing her hand, I yanked her attention away from the rapidly escalating situation. When those gorgeous eyes snapped to mine, my heart skidded to a halt over the amount of pain swirling within them. My fierce, take-no-prisoners Lanie was nearing the edge, but I wouldn’t let her fall.
“Take a beat before you say something you’ll regret,” I instructed.
She closed her eyes, taking more than a beat, allowing the seconds to stretch into awkward minutes. Finally, the tension left her body.
“All this time I thought I wasn’t welcome here. That's why I never came back…until now.”
“I’m sorry we made you feel that way. It was never our intention,” Iris sniffled.
“What changed?” her father questioned. “I mean, it really doesn’t matter. We’re just so happy to have you here again, even if it’s only for a short time.”
“I needed to know we’d be safe.”
“Safe?” Another male voice entered the fray. Obviously, we were far too distracted to hear the back door open and close. “What the hell is going on?”
The newcomer was as tall as Percy, maybe six two, with the same blond hair and mossy green eyes.
“LeeLee,” Lanie sighed, smiling for the first time since we arrived.
“Little Bit?”
Who the fuck was this guy?