Chapter 3
The sharp edges of fear that Kylie had just managed to smooth into submission burst back through her at warp speed. Her boots slapped the pavement, her body unable to move fast enough to obey the primal demand pumping down from her brain
Run.
The running lights on the sleek black muscle car in front of her glowed a dusky gold, the engine growling to life as she hurtled closer.
A loud pop-pop-pop registered in her ears, the sound not making any sense until she saw Devon swing around with a gun in his hand to fire off a round, then two in return.
Oh, my God, they were going to die.
“We’re not going to die,” Devon said, making Kylie realize she’d spoken the words out loud. “Just get in the car and keep your head down.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She yanked the door handle hard enough to make her fingers sting, throwing herself into the passenger side of the car, hunching down against the seat, and curling her arms over her head.
Devon was right beside her, yanking his door shut as he threw the car into gear and tore out of the back lot.
“Are we safe?” Confusion filtered past the slam of Kylie’s heartbeat. She poked her head up in an effort to at least try to see what was going on, but Devon’s steely stare pinned her into place, mid-move.
“No.” He leaned into the accelerator even harder, making the engine roar. “Stay down. And put your seatbelt on.”
Three tries later, she finally got the stupid thing clicked into place over her chest. “I’m sorry. I did everything Kellan said. I don’t know how Xavier found me—”
“Whoever this Fagan guy is, he’s not here for amateur night. When you started working at this bar, you filled out paperwork, right?”
“Yeah,” Kylie said. “It was just the usual. Job application, tax stuff…” Oh, God. “And a copy of my driver’s license.”
Devon cursed under his breath, as if he didn’t want her to hear it. “Then chances are, he’s got a lock on your identity. Do you have any local family? Friends? A boyfriend? Roommate? Anyone at all?”
Her head shook, along with the rest of her. “No.”
“Good.” He blew past the on-ramp to the highway, making a rough turn down a narrow side street.
Although Devon’s stare was lasered in on the rearview mirror, he maneuvered the car forward with ease, finally pulling into a makeshift parking lot behind a scrap metal yard.
He backed into a spot by a rickety shed, scanning their surroundings one last time before killing both the lights and the engine.
“We’re going to stop?” Kylie’s jaw fell open. She sat upright to protest some more, but Devon’s hand landed on her shoulder, keeping her scrunched down in the passenger seat.
“We got a pretty decent jump on Fagan, although I have no doubt he tried to follow us.” Devon unbuckled his seat belt, methodically checking the clip on the big black gun he’d had in his grasp ever since they’d taken the holy shit route out of the motel parking lot.
“Chances are, he’ll assume we hit the highway to try and outrun him. ”
“And we didn’t do that why, exactly?” Outrunning that maniac sounded freaking fantastic to her.
“Because that’s what he thinks we’ll do. Probably,” he tacked on.
“Probably,” Kylie repeated, her heart pounding so hard surely Devon could feel it where his fingers still splayed over her shoulder and neck.
He shifted his weight against the driver’s seat, swiveling his gaze through the shadows being cast by the lone dingy bulb at the opposite end of the scrap yard. “You told your brother Fagan has connections with some bad police. Did you call nine-one-one tonight? Even for a second?”
“Oh.” Kylie blinked, trying like hell to keep her mind on the question and not the fact that they might get discovered, brutally shot, and left for dead.
In that order. “Um, Xavier bragged that he has half the police force in his back pocket, all the way up to the Feds. I was scared that if I called nine-one-one, he’d know where I was, so, no. I didn’t even try.”
Devon tipped his head in a nonverbal smart move.
“If Fagan’s got cops on his payroll, it explains how he found us.
He probably pulled your registration from the DMV database.
A red Mustang with California plates doesn’t exactly blend in.
After that, it was just a matter of looking for places you might try to hide. ”
Kylie cursed her stupidity for staying put.
“I knew I should’ve kept driving.” Her pulse picked up the pace, and she cut a glance in the direction of the road beside them.
Not that she could see anything other than the shadow-lined interior of Devon’s car with how she was slumped way down in her seat.
“Don’t you think he’ll find us again? I mean, we’re only what? Five miles from the motel?”
Devon lifted a bulky shoulder, his leather jacket shushing in the dark. “We just have to lie low and wait to find out. Speaking of which, slide down lower in your seat so you’re completely out of sight. You can move it back a little farther if you need room for your legs.”
She did what he asked even though logic warred with her instinct to trust him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this make us sitting ducks?”
“No. It makes us tactically smart. Fagan is probably tearing up the highway right now with his hair on fire trying to find us in a place that we’re not.
We have a clear path to the on-ramp as an exit strategy on the off chance he didn’t bite.
I know I can outrun that Escalade he’s in.
” Devon flicked a glance through the windshield at the hood of the muscle car. “But I don’t want to unless I have to.”
“Oh.” Way to offer up the dumbest response in the galaxy, girl. Devon’s plan made sense, she guessed. At least, it would have, if sitting still wasn’t going to give her the mother of all panic attacks.
Kylie’s heart began to race, threatening to burst free from her already-too-tight chest. No, no, no.
She wasn’t going to freak out. She wasn’t.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to focus on something that wasn’t the possibility of Fagan finding them in short order.
Her eyes landed on Devon, and she took a minute to really check him out.
He looked so different than the quiet, easy-to-smile guy she remembered from five years ago, to the point that she hadn’t recognized him in the parking lot even though he’d spent a whole day with Kellan, hanging out at the beachside restaurant where she used to work.
Now that her vision had adjusted to the scant light and the shadows in the car, Kylie could make out his harder features in detail—the sharp blade of his nose, strong cheekbones, firm mouth.
His hair was dark blond, but really, that was half a guess since it was short enough to make her unsure.
His light brown stare pierced right through her every time it landed on hers, settling right in her center like an arrow.
Although he’d lifted his hand from her shoulder in order to take a low, defensive position in the driver’s seat, Devon was still within less than arm’s reach, his body coiled with controlled tension.
Kylie’s pulse raced faster, but for a totally different reason now.
Devon’s body was a rough, tough work of fucking art.
Even through his jeans and leather jacket, she’d been able to discern right away that he was bigger and more imposing than he’d been five years ago, one hundred percent muscle and probably just as lethal.
Hell, he’d been pressed against her hard enough in the parking lot to prove it.
But Devon wasn’t just bulk, clumsy force with no follow-through.
His body was dangerous and graceful all at once, as if he was spring-loaded, just waiting to unleash that intensity onto something. Someone. Her.
O-kay, it was hell-hot in this car.
“Devon, I—”
“Shh!” His demeanor changed in an instant. A ripple in the shadows on the dashboard at eye level told Kylie headlights had appeared at the top of the side road leading back to the highway, and oh, God. She knew—she knew Xavier was too smart and too mean not to find them.
“Devon. Oh, my God, if that’s Fagan, what do we do?” Panic lanced through her chest, spreading out to seize all four of her limbs in less than a breath.
With a lightning-fast turn of his wrist, Devon had his weapon at the ready, his frame dropping low across the front seat.
The move flattened his back across her chest and belly, and even though his legs remained on the driver’s side of the car, considering the size of his six-foot-plus frame?
He couldn’t be comfortable draped halfway over her, blocking her body with his yet angling his shoulders to give himself a good line of sight on everything in the front of the car, including her.
“Shh. Easy.” The sound arrived on less than a whisper, Devon’s whiskey-brown eyes flashing up to hers as the headlights drew closer. He gripped his gun with his right hand, holding it carefully at his side, but no way could they just sit here and wait to get blasted.
“Devon.” She pushed the word out as calmly as possible, but his body tensed all the same.
His free hand lifted to her mouth, his forefinger and middle finger applying just enough pressure to keep her from adding to the convo.
Kylie noticed then that he’d moved so his mouth was only an inch or two from hers, his breath slow and warm between them, and she scraped for an inhale despite the cold shards of fear spiking all the way through her.
We’re not going to die. Devon’s voice echoed in her head. His stare penetrated the changing shadows, calculating, watching, taking in every shift and nuance. The headlights approached at a steady pace, ratcheting Kylie’s heartbeat faster and faster as the interior of the car grew brighter.
Devon’s fingers curled against her lips just a fraction harder as if to say, steady…steady…