Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“I don’t have delusions. I won’t ever be like him.”
– Emerson Marlowe
Worst mistake ever. Gray knew it. Accepted the fact deep in his soul. Kissing Emerson was a mistake.
So why did it feel so good? Why did she feel so good? Emerson had grabbed his shirtfront. She’d yanked him toward her. Gray could have stopped the forward momentum. A simple enough task to do.
Only he hadn’t stopped it. He hadn’t pulled away. He’d leaned toward her.
Because he’d been dying to know how she would taste. Because his control was weak. Because he’d watched a savage bastard hold her in a brutal grip and shove a screwdriver beneath her chin, and Gray had thought about squeezing the trigger of his gun and taking another monster out of this world.
He kissed her because he was riding a wave of adrenaline. A wave of lust and dark need. He should have walked away from her. Should never have given her the option to be his partner or his lover…He should have kept the words to himself.
What the hell was I thinking?
But, the instant his lips touched hers, the instant he touched that soft, satiny mouth…
All rational thought fled. As if he’d ever been particularly rational where Emerson was concerned. Her lips parted for him. His tongue snaked inside her mouth, and he was just utterly done.
Lust exploded, even more powerfully than he’d anticipated.
Primal and basic. A consuming need that swallowed him up because her taste was even better than he’d imagined.
His hands locked around her hips, and he hauled her ever closer toward him.
Her breasts pressed against his chest. Her tight nipples were pebbled, and he wanted to rip away every barrier between them. Strip her. Taste her. Fuck her.
Her body was flush against his, but that wasn’t good enough. He lifted her up with his grip on her waist, and her legs wrapped around him. Her mouth opened even wider. Their tongues met. She kissed him with a raw, wild abandon.
Warned her. Told her that I’d want to fuck her right here, right now.
And he did. She had to feel the hard, swollen cock shoving against her.
A moan rose in her throat, and he greedily swallowed the sound. His heart raced in his chest, and he turned with her, took two steps…
A bed is close by. Don’t have to fuck her against the wall. Can take her in the bed.
The lust he felt was too strong. Part of him knew that. Adrenaline and danger were a dangerous brew that could rip apart anyone’s self-control. He needed to let her go. To step back.
Instead, they hit the bed. He tumbled down on top of her, making sure that he didn’t crush her much smaller body with his.
He kept kissing her. Her hands curled around his shoulders as she held him in a fierce grip.
She was as greedy as he was. As desperate.
Her hips arched toward him even as her legs remained locked around his hips.
His mouth tore from hers so that he could kiss a path down her neck.
Did he press too hard? Was he marking her? Was he?—
“Open the fucking door!”
Gray froze. His breath sawed in and out.
The shouted command was followed by a fierce pounding. At Emerson’s motel room door. Oh, the hell, no. He shoved up on his hands and stared down at her.
Lust still blazed in her eyes. So did confusion, though. She blinked those intense, unforgettable eyes of hers up at him even as a furrow crept between her brows.
“Guessing you’re not expecting company,” he said.
“ Open the door, bitch!” Another shout.
She shook her head.
Jaw locking, he reached for her legs. Slowly pulled them off his hips. Whoever the hell that was at the door—the jerk would pay. Both for interrupting at the wrong time and for calling Emerson a bitch. Gray eased from the bed.
She scrambled to her knees.
“Do not even think of answering the door,” he told her.
She blinked at him again. Licked her lips. “Gray?”
Finally, she’d called him by the shortened version of his name. But then again, he’d been dry humping the woman in bed, so calling him Gray damn well seemed appropriate.
He double-timed it to his room and grabbed his weapon.
In seconds, he was back in her room, and she was—thankfully—still in the bed.
She’d listened to him. Followed an order.
Impressive. Or maybe he’d just been really fast, and Emerson hadn’t gotten the opportunity to move, but, either way, he’d take it as a win.
Gray headed for the exterior door. He checked through the peephole in the too-thin door. The bastard on the other side was drawing back his fist to pound again.
Gray yanked the door open. “Can I fucking help you?” he snarled.
The man gaped at him, and then, in the next instant, raw rage filled his face. “You’re fucking the bitch? You’re fucking my girl?” He lunged toward Gray.
Gray brought up his gun. “I’m a federal agent, asshole. You need to calm the hell down. Right now.”
At the sight of the gun, the jerk scrambled back as his jaw dropped open.
“The only person staying in this room is my partner, and you damn well don’t call her a bitch.
” Gray filled the doorway. This prick was not getting past him.
He could smell the alcohol pouring off the guy.
“You need to go somewhere and sleep off the booze. That’s a pro tip for you.
Otherwise, your ass is about to be in serious trouble. ”
The man—young, probably early twenties but with a hairline already receding and a chin that had gone weak—blinked blearily. “Room two?”
“This is room twelve, dumbass. Twelve.” He felt the change in the air behind him. A light shift. Emerson hadn’t made any sound to alert him, but he knew she was right behind him. Her scent teased him.
The prick at the door twisted his head as he eyed her. “You’re not Misty.”
“No,” Emerson’s flat voice. “I am not Misty.”
The drunk creep yanked a hand over his face. “Got to find Misty. Bitch won’t leave me.” He turned away. Almost fell. Managed to catch himself at the last moment as he staggered off…probably for room two.
Gray narrowed his eyes on the target.
“Gray?” Emerson touched his shoulder.
As always, her touch burned through him, but his focus was on the drunk man. A man who peered at the numbers above each door at the small motel. The weaving drunk was counting down, getting closer and closer to his target.
“He’s going to find Misty,” Emerson said, as if reading Gray’s mind. “I don’t think we should let that happen.”
Damn straight, he wasn’t going to let that happen. This whole scene…Gray surveyed the fading exterior of the motel. The pothole-filled lot. The flickering light near the VACANCY sign. An old ice maker humming nearby.
A place right out of my nightmares.
The drunk guy approached room two. Anger twisted his features.
Gray advanced.
“Gray?” Emerson’s soft voice.
He kept marching after the prick who’d called Emerson a bitch.
The bastard lifted his hand. Pounded on the door for room two. “ Open the fucking door!”
Ah, familiar words. Clearly, he liked to announce himself the same way each time he tried to break into a room.
Whoever was in room three immediately turned off their lights.
Room four did the same. The bright light in the window went dark in a blink.
The drunk guy pounded his fist into the wooden door. “Misty!” He lifted his foot and kicked at the doorknob. “Bitch, open up!”
“Did you miss the part where I told you that I was a federal agent?” Gray asked, voice curious.
Emerson had followed him. Of course, she had. He made sure that he moved his body and stood in front of her.
“What?” Drunk and Obnoxious spun toward him.
“FBI Agent Gray Stone.” Gray nodded. Then he reached back, caught Emerson’s hand, and shoved his gun into her palm.
“Do I look like I fucking care?” The drunk bobbed. Lifted his foot to plow it into the door again. And?—
Gray caught him by the shoulder. “You’re destroying private property. You’re not allowed to do that.”
“Get your damn hand off me!”
Gray removed his hand. “You’re destroying private property.”
“I’m getting my girl! Misty, open the fucking door! Open the door now or you will pay, I swear, you will, and so will that brat-ass kid of yours!”
The door to room number two flew open. A woman stood there. Was she even twenty-one? Big, dark eyes. The left one was lined by a purplish bruise that was clear to see even in the weak light from her room.
A black eye. And what looked like fingerprint bruises on her throat.
“Go away, Trevor,” Misty told him. “We’re done.”
Yep, they were.
Tears trailed down Misty’s cheeks.
And, behind her, a small boy—maybe two years old? Three?—held tightly to her leg. His eyes were an exact mirror of his mom’s as he stared up at Trevor with terror on his face.
Trevor surged for the young woman. But Gray jumped into his path. He faced off with the bastard. “The lady says you’re done. That means you need to stay the hell away from her.”
Trevor swung at him.
Emerson screamed.
Gray took the hit. The jerk drove his fist into Gray’s stomach. Not even a particularly impressive hit. Gray had taken way worse. Hell, when his buddy Kane threw a punch, it was like getting hit by a bus. This punch? More like having a basketball bounce off your stomach.
Mostly just annoying but…
Gray leapt into action. He grabbed the guy’s wrist, yanked it behind Trevor’s scrawny back, and had the jackass on his knees and howling in about three seconds.
“Gonna need my handcuffs,” he announced to Emerson.
An Emerson who had lunged forward and now had the gun aimed—a rock-steady aim, by the way—at Trevor.
“They are in my motel room. Will you get them for me, please?”
She lingered.
He glanced her way as Trevor snarled and twisted.
“You’re not going to do anything…reckless while I’m gone?” Suspicion laced Emerson’s voice.
Her lips were swollen. From his kiss. Her hair a bit disheveled. She held the gun and glared at the perp, and, damn, she was sexy.