10. Slider
10
SLIDER
A loud snore interrupted the silence like a machine gun. I glanced at the woman currently resting her head on my shoulder and sighed. Why couldn’t she have fallen asleep on Spencer’s shoulder? My eyes met Thumper’s in the rearview mirror and the smirk on his face made me wanted to punch him in the throat and then toss his ass out the window.
“This wasn’t exactly the way I saw this trip going,” IRIS sighed.
“At least it’s more entertaining than just having them at OPS with us.”
“In what way?” I grumbled. “Now we get to take them along for the ride and deal with their attitudes.”
“It’ll be a learning experience,” IRIS grinned.
“Did you hear what she said about kidnapping? Do you really think she would survive out there?”
“No, but isn’t that the point of us doing this?”
He might have a point, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. When another round of machine gun snoring started up, I pushed the woman off my shoulder, trying to get her to sit upright. Her head tilted back at what looked like an uncomfortable angle, but if anything, it made the snoring worse. Now she was doing the machine gun thing with a long, drawn-out snore at the end.
“Fuck, just shoot me now,” I sighed.
“We need gas. I’m gonna pull over up ahead,” Thumper chuckled. “You can take her to the bathroom and?—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I chuckled. “Why me?”
“Why not you?”
“Uh…because I don’t want to.”
Thumper quirked his eyebrow, then glanced over at IRIS.
“Look,” IRIS said, twisting in his seat to face me. “Here’s the thing. Thumper and I can’t look after her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s a celebrity.”
“And?”
“And she’s a woman.”
“No shit. This is what we do. I thought you knew that.”
“Yeah, but if I go home and tell Jane that I guarded Audrey Leigh, there are gonna be all these follow-up questions.”
“Like, was she really that pretty?” Thumper jumped in.
“Was she nice?”
“Is her ass really that curvy?”
“Do you think her breasts are real?” IRIS asked.
“Is she funny?”
They kept trading these questions back and forth, but I still didn’t get it.
“And here’s the big one,” IRIS said. “What’s she really like?”
“What’s your point of all this?”
“The point is there’s no good answer to any of those questions. They’re all trick questions, and anything we say will land us in the dog house.”
I couldn’t believe these guys thought so little of their wives. “Jane and Bree would never do that to you. They know you love them and would never cheat on them.”
“Do you remember when Miranda first came to stay with us?”
I frowned, trying to remember who Miranda was. “That chick that lived with Sarah? The one who Brock was always trying to fuck?”
Thumper nodded. “The same one. We were doing one of Zoe’s movies and Bree thought Miranda was hitting on me. Bree went crazy and beat the shit out of her.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“I watched the whole thing happen,” Thumper said as he pulled into the gas station. “She just went fucking crazy, and if you think it will be any different just because this woman is some action star and we’re only doing some kind of live-action thing, you’re wrong.”
“What he said,” IRIS nodded, pointing his finger at Thumper.
I rolled my eyes, finding the whole thing fucking ridiculous. “So, you’re saying you’re not man enough to take point on this one.”
“I’m saying I like my balls intact and my wife happy,” Thumper answered. “And since you’re decidedly single and happy to be, you can handle close protection. Besides, we’ll get to the safe house, find out who’s after her, and end this whole fucking thing.”
“Yeah, maybe they won’t even want to continue once they find out what happened,” IRIS smirked.
“Yeah, that’s my luck.”
“I said maybe,” IRIS chuckled, “not that it would happen. Oh, and we haven’t used the house in a while, so we’re probably low on supplies. We should probably run across the street to the grocery store. You know, so you can cook for us,” he added with a smirk.
He slammed the door and left me with the snore master and her friend, who still smelled like vomit. I glanced over at her and sighed.
“This is gonna suck.”
She jerked upright, her hair flying around her face as she wildly looked around. “Where are we? What are we doing?”
“We’re at the gas station.”
“Oh.” She brushed her hair out of her face and yawned, her mouth opening wide for a good five seconds.
I cursed under my breath and flung the door open. Being her close protection was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. I walked around to the back and pressed my hand to my dick, willing it to get itself under control. I did not have time to get a hard on just because a woman yawned. People did that all the time. I didn’t get a woody every time someone decided they were tired.
“Everything under control back here?” Thumper asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.
“Yeah,” I muttered, clearing my throat.
He chuckled, his eyes going right to my dick. “Sure.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “She yawned,” I snapped defensively.
He clapped me on the shoulder, leaning in as he walked past me. “Yeah, I always get hard when people yawn, too. It’s perfectly normal.”
I knew he was fucking with me. And just for that, I shoved him over, making him fall on his ass. Unfortunately, all he did was laugh and roll over to stand up.
“What’s so funny?” Audrey asked as she climbed out of the back of the vehicle.
“Nothing,” I snapped.
Confused, she looked at Thumper on the ground. “It doesn’t look like that.”
“We were just talking about yawning,” he chuckled.
I cursed under my breath, about to take his leg off and smack him over the head with it when Audrey shook her head.
“Men. I’ll never understand their humor.”
I spun and grabbed her by the arm. “Let’s go.”
“Excuse me, but I can walk with Spencer.”
This woman and her mouth…No, not her mouth. The last thing I needed to think about was that large, very open hole waiting for me. Nope, not going there. I released her and took a step away.
“Bathroom. It’s now or never. You comin’, Spence?”
“It’s actually Spencer,” he corrected, stretching as he got out of the vehicle.
Spence. Spencer. I really didn’t give a shit. I wanted to take a piss and get this shit over with. The sooner we got back to the safe house, the sooner I could lock myself in a room and smother myself with a pillow and not think about Audrey yawning.
“You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?” Thumper whispered in my ear.
I slammed my elbow back into his stomach and took off across the parking lot toward the entrance with Audrey and Spencer on my heels. I quickly cleared the station, and when I didn’t see any threats, I nodded to the back where the restrooms were located.
“I go in first.”
Audrey’s large blue eyes shot up, and for the first time since I jumped into her vehicle, I finally allowed myself to look at her again. Like…really fucking look at her. And damn…she was every bit as tempting as she was in that fucking picture. And those eyes…I thought maybe they wouldn’t be as bright in person, but they were. If anything, it was worse. I felt like if I stared too long, I’d be drawn into some kind of hypnotic trance with no hope of escape.
“Well?” she asked, staring at me expectantly.
“Well, what?”
“You said you were going in first.”
Shit, I had said that. And instead, I was standing here staring at her. I probably looked like every other asshole who couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Right. Just stay here. I’ll only be a second.”
I shoved the door open and cleared both stalls before allowing her to enter. Then I did the same for the men’s restroom. I figured I had at least two minutes before she was done in the bathroom, so I took the opportunity to use the restroom. There wouldn’t be another stop until we reached the safe house, and there was no way I could wait until then.
Spencer nodded to me as we both stood at the sinks. “I don’t suppose you have another shirt I could wear.”
“Actually, I do.”
“I would be very grateful for a new one. The smell is only making my situation worse.”
I smirked at him. “I don’t doubt it. Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I stepped out of the bathroom and pushed the ladies’ restroom door open to check on Audrey, but it looked empty.
“Audrey?”
There was no answer. I quickly walked around the station, but there was no sign of her. She fucking walked out without me. I hustled back to the bathroom and shoved the door open. “Spencer! Let’s go.”
He didn’t ask any questions at my command. He hustled to the door and raced after me and out the front door. I scanned the whole parking lot in my rush to the vehicle, but didn’t see any sign of her. Logic dictated that she would already be inside the vehicle, but then Thumper would have messaged me.
“Thumper!”
His gaze jerked up and when he saw only Spencer with me, his jaw dropped. “Shit.”