Chapter 12David
12
David
“ Y ou need to get out of the house,” I say, entering the kitchen.
Hazel is sitting at the table with her laptop open, fingers clicking away at the keys. She eyes me with a guarded expression, all the lust and glamour of our earlier sex-session evaporated from her face and her demeanor.
“What are you working on?” I ask.
She frowns and returns her gaze to the laptop screen. “Oh, just some research.”
“Well, we need to get out for a little while,” I say, but I have an ulterior motive. I need to check on the equipment at the warehouse and make sure it’s operating smoothly.
“Where?” Her brows furrow.
“To the warehouse I own,” I tell her.
This statement gets her eyes to light up. “Really? You want to take me with you?”
“You’re a journalist, aren’t you? Don’t you need some field research? Don’t you want to succeed in your career? What can you possibly get out of sitting here at my kitchen table?” I stand inches from her.
Immediately, the enthusiasm on her face dissolves and she leans away from me, shifting her eyes out the window, but she can’t hide the wounded expression as well as she thinks she is.
I pull out a chair and the legs scrape across the marble. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
She looks at me with a flat expression and I know she’s put her walls back up. “It would be great if you wouldn’t tell me how to do my own job.”
“I’m not telling you how to do it. I’m suggesting you find your research with me out in the field, instead of on the internet,” I say. “I’m right here, trying to help you.”
She scoffs. “You will only let me go so far in the research.”
“Something is better than nothing,” I remind her with a growl, trying not to get frustrated.
I keep offending her. I reign in my emotions, so I won’t screw this up any further.
“Fine,” she says, her lips stretching into a straight line. “I’ll go get ready.”
She starts to stand but I take her arm, and she stays where she is, her eyes searching mine, trying to figure out a way that I might hurt her.
“About earlier, outside…” I begin.
She cuts me off, her voice frosty. “It was a mistake. It can’t happen again.”
I smile, because I can see the lie written all over her face, and hear it in the way her voice wobbles over the words. “If that’s the way you want it, I can respect that, but I hope it will happen again.”
She shakes her head, a laugh with zero amusement escaping her lips. “You mob men always think you rule the world, and everyone just bows to you. I hate to tell you, but I’m only in your orbit for the story.” She makes a point of meeting my gaze when she says, “and that’s all.”
I run my fingertips down her arm. She stiffens but doesn’t pull away. She knows I’m testing her strength when it comes to resisting me.
So far, she’s holding her own, but I see the vulnerability crinkling in her eyes and know she wants to be tempted.
If she wasn’t attracted to danger, she wouldn’t have agreed to any of this. She wouldn’t be sitting in my kitchen working as if she belongs in this crazy environment.
She makes herself comfortable in my hideout condo, which is what I want, but I also want her. Fucking her once only makes me want to do it again. In my bed, with her legs on my shoulders. Everywhere, in every position.
Hazel glances down at my hand still on her arm and I pull it away. She stands up and starts walking away toward the bedroom.
I watch her, then decide to follow her.
She’s standing in front of the full-length mirror when I enter the room, fanning her fingers through her hair and applying a dab of perfume to her neck and wrists.
“Are you trying to make yourself irresistible to me?” I breathe out as I approach her.
I stand behind her and clasp my hands with hers. We stare at each other in the reflection of the mirror. Hazel’s eyes are conflicted with longing and wariness.
“You can’t do things like this in public,” she whispers.
“Like what?” I brush my fingers up and down her arms. I lean in and graze my lips against her neck and her lashes flutter as her eyes close. She breaths out a heavy sigh.
“Like that ,” she says. “What you’re doing now.”
“Why not?” I kiss her neck again and her body relaxes against me.
“Because it’s not appropriate,” she says in a shaky voice.
“That’s what makes it so fun,” I counter.
The veil over Hazel’s expression vanishes and she shakes her head, backing away from me. She clears her throat. “That’s not fair to either of us and you know it.”
My heart is pounding. Her face is pink. She grabs her purse off the dresser and gives me a look of resolve, distancing herself by another several inches. “So, what will we be doing at your warehouse?”
I grin at her. “I’ll show you how the money counterfeiting operation works.”
Her eyes shoot sky high. “Really?”
I bridge the gap between us, gazing down at her. This time I don’t touch her, but I’m invading her personal space, making her blush. “Why not? Until you give me a reason not to trust you, I’m willing to bring you along for the process.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. “You can trust me.”
I start strutting from the room, glancing at her over my shoulder with a satisfied smirk. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
I step around the car while Hazel takes her seatbelt off. Before she can grab her purse and exit, I’m there, opening the door for her.
She arches a cynical eyebrow. “Behaving like a gentleman in front of your crew?”
My jaw twitches. “I will treat a woman with respect in public and in private. I should hope you’ve gathered as much by now.”
Her face softens when she realizes her words touched a nerve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Let’s just go,” I grumble, pushing the button to lock the car doors. “I have a lot to go over tonight in here.”
She nods, clutching her purse tight over her shoulder, following on my heels.
I eye her over my shoulder. I’m walking with deliberation and purpose. When I pick up my pace, she does too. Her eyes dart in every direction. I halt in my tracks, turn and face her.
She topples into my arms. I take her by the waist and wait a beat before removing my hands. She takes a deep breath.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” I promise her. “I’ll protect you.”
She nods and licks her lips. “Okay.” She looks like she actually believes me for once.
We walk inside and I flip the light switch on, bathing the room in bright florescent light. Hazel blinks as her eyes adjust. She moves about with curiosity, taking everything in.
She spins and gives me a confused head tilt, her hip jutting out. She doesn’t even realize how sexy she is, just by simply existing. “Where is everyone?”
“No one here but us right now, sweetheart,” I say in a low voice.
“Is anyone else expected?” she asks, “or did you plan it like this to get me by myself?”
I consider my words carefully. I want to keep my crew in the dark as much as I can about her because I don’t know how they’ll take it if they know I agreed to give her a story.
Even if names are kept out of it, they might not want her to be able to connect their faces with any organized crime going on. Miroslav is the only one of my crew she’s met, but he’s signed NDA’s not to expose her or what I’m doing with her. To be fair, I’m not even really sure what my true intentions are with her yet.
“Nobody will be here while we are,” I finally say. For now, the vaguer, the better, keeps the complication out of things.
She turns back around, not pressing the matter for now. I release a long breath.
“Can I record this conversation?” she asks. “Also, can I take pictures?”
“No pictures. No recordings,” I grunt.
She shrugs as if she expects me to say this and she’s prepared for the rejection of it. “Fair enough, I guess. I’ll just take notes.”
“Good, the old-fashioned way,” I say.
“What’s this?” Her hands run over a machine in the corner by the back wall.
I come up behind her, resisting the urge to plant my hands on her hips and tug up her dress. “This one makes one-hundred dollar super notes.”
She glances at me. “What’s a super note?”
I pull one out of the machine and hold it out to her. “This.”
She seems reluctant to take it from me.
“Relax,” I tell her. “All this money is brushed for fingerprints before it’s used.”
She adjusts her weight. “How do you make it? It looks so real.”
I give her a smug smile. “Yes, that’s the whole point.”
“So, these will be used out there, like in the real world?”
I put the bill back after brushing it clean. “Something like that.” I begin telling her a bit about the process of making watermarks, using glue and bleach to make it look authentic to a genuine printing, then I let her inspect the printer itself.
I watch her slender fingers typing out notes on her phone. I take a deep breath as her full lips pucker in concentration, as her tongue slides over her top teeth.
I knead my fingers into the back of my neck and blurt out, “I need to go get some air.”
Her head shoots up and she looks at me through wide, gorgeous eyes. “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Should I come with you?” She sounds hesitant.
“You can stay here and look at the equipment. There’s no way in or out other than the way we came. You’ll be safe in here.”
She holds out her phone. “Do you want to take this?”
I shake my head and give her a firm glance. “Like I said before. I will trust you until you give me a reason not to.”
She almost smiles at that statement, nodding her head.
“I’ll be right back,” I mutter and begin dragging my feet toward the door.
Once I’m outside I lean against the door and light a cigar, inhaling the sweet smoke into my mouth before releasing it in a satisfied puff up toward the sky. I instantly start to relax.
Being around Hazel after claiming her is proving harder than I thought. I need to get myself under control, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands off her.
The mixed signals are killing me. I know on some level she must feel that burning, intense attraction too.
I see it in her eyes when she looks at me. She’s holding herself back. I need to find a way to break her walls, but at the same time, getting involved with her is like putting my hand in a fire and watching it torch.
I take another drag of the cigar when I hear a car engine rumbling closer. I straighten when I hear car doors slamming and muffled voices coming from around the corner of the building.
My heart is in my throat as I start walking in that direction, craning my neck to glance around the side.
Oleg and a few men I don’t recognize are standing around a G-Wagon SUV. The liftgate is up and they are huddled behind it, unloading things out of it and moving around like hornets swarming a nest.
The air in my lungs freezes when I realize they’re wielding machine guns. One of them spots me and whistles to alert the others. I’m temporarily immobilized by fear and shock. There’s no way I can take these guys by myself.
Instead of shooting at them, I turn around and bolt back to the warehouse doors, Hazel’s safety is the only thing I care about right now.
I storm inside the building, my pulse hammering in my ears. “We have to go, now .”
Hazel spins around, alarm spreading across her face. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that we’re no longer alone here,” I explain in a rush of movement. “Come on. Every second is going to count if we want to get out of here alive.”
I grab her arm and yank her forward, sprinting toward the exit. I’m calculating the time in my head that it will take us to leave this building and make it back to my car without being ambushed.
“David, what’s going on?” Hazel is moving fast to keep up and her voice is shaking with fear. My hand cuffs around her wrist, encouraging her forward with hard tugs that I hope she knows I would only use in a life-or-death situation. “Are we going to die?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” I growl through clenched teeth, bolting through the door as we’re swarmed.
Bullets fly. I shove Hazel in front of me and pin my body to hers, my back as a shield in case any of those bullet’s fire in her direction.
We jump into the car as bullets slam into the windshield. The engine cranks. I throw the clutch in reverse, the tires spinning and squealing.
Men scatter to get out of the way behind me. I spin the wheel, and we peel out of the parking lot in a cloud of burning rubber smoke.
Another spray of bullets hail down on the top of the car. Hazel is screaming, and my white-knuckle grip tears us through the streets as I dig my foot harder into the gas pedal.