16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
HARLOW
It takes precisely thirty-seven seconds from the time I bring the dancing flame to the corner of one of Lynx’s fancy ties to the time the door flies open and he comes barreling into the bedroom with a hilariously panicked expression on his face.
He glances at me lounging casually in the oversized chair in the corner of the room by the window, mutters something under his breath, then grabs the steel trash can I took from the bathroom to contain the fire and disappears into the ensuite. I hear the water running a second later.
When he reappears, he’s utterly pissed.
And I’m having the time of my life.
“What in god’s name do you think you’re doing, woman?” he shouts at me.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
And don’t punch him in the throat for raising his voice at me.
“I told you I wanted my stuff.”
“And I told you we’d get it tomorrow. What the hell were you thinking? You could’ve burned the entire fucking house down!”
I roll my eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?! Jesus, Harlow. You’re off your goddamn rocker.”
He begins pacing. An air of satisfaction settles around me at how worked up he is.
“Take me to my apartment, or next time it’ll be your mattress.”
He comes to a screeching halt and glowers at me.
“Give me the lighter.” He holds his hand out. “Now, goddamn it.”
“Ask nicely.”
He drags a hand through his hair and exhales a ragged breath.
Then he lunges.
A shrill scream erupts from me as he hauls me to my feet, tosses me on the bed, and pins me down beneath him.
“Get off of me, you mammoth!”
He lowers his mouth to my ear, his breath fanning my neck when he growls smugly, “Ask nicely.”
“Fuck you,” I snap.
He meets my eyes. The blistering heat I find there leaves a devastating path of destruction all the way down to my throbbing clit.
I pinch my knees together and remind myself that this is a man who could snuff the life out of me like a harsh blow to a candle if he wanted.
There are moments I wish he would.
“Ask nicely, Harlow. Or I’ll strip you bare and keep you tied to this bed until you learn some manners.”
My chest tightens. A ripple of fear moves through me. A whole plethora of sick, twisted memories crop up from the darkest corners of my mind.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
“Please don’t,” I rush out, my throat clogged with anxiety as I resort to begging—something I vowed I’d never do again. “I’ll be good. I promise. My things can wait until tomorrow. Just please don’t tie me up, Lynx. Kill me if you want but please … don’t tie me up.”
His expression softens a fraction at my words, his eyes rounding slightly at the edges.
He releases my wrists and climbs off me, taking his warmth with him. Then he stands at the foot of the bed, staring at me with pity marring his stupidly handsome face.
“Fuck,” he mutters, dragging a hand through his hair the way he often does. “Fine. We’ll go tonight. But so help me god, if you try to pull anything like that again, I’ll handcuff you to my bed and leave you there. Do you understand?”
I sit upright and clutch at the throbbing organ behind my breastbone.
“Yes, I understand. Thank you.”
“Christ, woman. You’re going to give me an aneurysm.”
And then he’s gone.
I take a moment to compose myself before climbing off the bed and following him to the foyer where we came in through. He grabs his keys from the hook on the wall beside the door and turns to face me. His eyes dart south to my bare feet, and I wiggle my toes.
The only shoes I have here are my stripper heels. And I’m not about to strap those puppies on while wearing Lynx’s oversized sweatpants.
Just as I’m opening my mouth to tell him I’ll follow his lead out to the truck, he does the unexpected and scoops me up into his arms and carries me out the door.
“I can walk, you know.”
He groans. “The asphalt is cold and rough.”
“I wear seven-inch heels for eight-hour shifts at the club. I think I can handle a little asphalt.”
“Just shut up, Harlow, and let me do this one thing for you.”
I make a zipper gesture over my mouth and throw away the invisible key. Once I’m securely seated in the passenger seat of Lynx’s truck without ever having touched the mega-super-deadly-cold-rough asphalt, I buckle myself in and sit demurely as Lynx hops in behind the wheel.
The engine roars to life, and he expertly navigates the truck toward my apartment.
I keep my mouth shut the entire time, my mind reeling as I try desperately not to notice how his tattooed forearms flex. Or how one big hand is draped casually over the wheel while the other rests on the console between us. Or his scent.
It’s nearly impossible to ignore when the entire cab smells like him. Limes and cedarwood and that masculine smell that distinctly belongs to him.
When we pull up to my building, Lynx unlocks the passenger door from his side. I don’t bother waiting for him before hopping out and strutting up to the main entrance with him hot on my heels.
A big, rough hand snatches mine, and he pulls me to a stop, spinning me so I’m facing him.
Gazing down at me with dark eyes, he says lowly, “We make this quick. There are others looking for you.”
“Other hitmen?” He nods curtly. “How many?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Okay.”
I turn and march away, Lynx cursing under his breath from directly behind me.
“You said to make it quick, so that’s exactly what I’m doing,” I say over my shoulder.
Punching the code into the keypad, we enter the building through the secured entrance. But when we take the stairs up to my apartment and stop in front of my door, realization smacks into me.
“Shit. My keys are in my locker at the club.”
Lynx steps in front of me and pulls out some sort of fancy unlocking mechanism from his pocket. It takes him less than a minute to have my door unlocked and open.
He steps to the side and gestures for me to enter. I cock a questioning brow and move past him, recalling the time he broke in covered in Rhys’s blood and scared the living daylights out of me.
And more recently, how he mentioned he knows I’ve been eating stale oatmeal.
I’m already headed down the hall to my bedroom when I hear the door click shut behind us and the locks engage. Then I feel him at my back, practically breathing down my neck.
I stop and spin to face him, nearly colliding with his rock-hard body.
“May I have some privacy please?”
His response is a simple scowl.
“We’re on the fourth floor, Lynx. It’s not like I can jump out a window. I’ll be quick. Just want to grab a few personal things.” When his jaw ticks, I tack on, “Pretty please with a big, fat, juicy cherry on top.”
Little does he know there’s a fire exit with a ladder just off my bathroom window. Not that I plan to use it. I doubt I could climb down quick enough to reach the ground before Lynx notices I’m up to no good and comes after me.
When he reluctantly steps back, I take that as permission to proceed and scurry off to my bedroom.
Digging an old duffel bag out from the depths of my closet, I stuff it with a few of my go-to clothing items and some clean panties, along with my birth control pills from my nightstand and my mother’s rosary.
Then I head to the vent on the wall beside my bed, glance over my shoulder to make sure Lynx isn’t hovering in the doorway, and pop it open.
Grabbing the wads of rolled-up bills and my spare jackknife, I make quick work of tucking them in the bottom of my bag, replacing the vent cover, and heading to the bathroom for a few essential toiletries.
When I leave the bathroom and go in search of Lynx, I find him in my living room, pressed against the wall beside the bay window that overlooks the parking lot and secured entrance below.
He’s peeking through the closed curtains, one hand parting the fabric an inch or so as he scans the ground beneath us.
I clear my throat and he side-eyes me.
“Ready?” he asks.
“As I’ll ever be.”
I grip the strap of my duffel bag tight and ignore the unease rolling through me as Lynx moves past me and heads for the door. While he uses the peephole to check the hallway, I race to the window and peek down at the parking lot below, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
“All clear,” he tells me from the door.
I saunter over to him, slip into a pair of sneakers I keep at my entryway, and follow him out into the hall. I wait for him to magically relock my dead bolts with his fancy gadget and lead me back down to his truck.
On the drive back to his house, he checks the rearview mirror often. Too often.
“Is there something I should know, Lynx?” I ask.
He glances at me and shakes his head.
“Are we being followed?”
“No.”
“The way you’re gripping the steering wheel tells me otherwise,” I respond as calmly as I can muster, despite the fact my nerves are on fire.
“Everything’s fine.”
I take his word for it and turn to face the window beside me, staring out at where the sun is just barely peeking over the horizon. Besides the thin line of faint light rising behind the tree line, the sky is a dull, murky gray, devoid of all color and life, similar to how I’m feeling.
“I need to call Dom. Let him know Rosie is parked at the club so he doesn’t have her towed.”
“Dom is your boss at The Devil’s Den.”
“For now,” I say bitterly. “Doubt I’ll have a job after vanishing in the middle of my shift.”
“You can do better than that dump anyway.”
My face snaps to his. “That dump is the only reason I’m still alive.”
He all but scoffs. “It’s a strip club, Harlow. Not a fucking sanctuary.”
White-hot fury rips through me. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s judgmental people. I hadn’t pegged Lynx as one of them, but clearly I was wrong.
Folding my arms across my chest, I glare at him and say, “For me, it was. Dom gave me a shot when nobody else would. He offered me a warm place to sleep until I could afford an apartment, decent food when I had nothing to eat, and a steady income that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.
How many business owners do you know that would take in a rebellious teenager off the street? ”
His jaw ticks in the dim blue light of his dash. “I know a few.”
“Oh yeah? Name one.”
“My uncle. He took me and my younger sister in when my father died.”
A small sliver of empathy embeds itself beneath my sternum. I knew his mother was gone, but I didn’t know his father was also dead. Or that he has a younger sister.
Still … he’s an asshole for judging Dom and the place that saved my life.
“Family doesn’t count.”
“Sure it does. Besides, there are a million other places willing to hire beautiful, smart young women. Don’t pretend—“
I cut him off. “Nowhere that pays cold, hard, untraceable cash.”
He glances at me, a curious glimmer in his eye. “So you are hiding from something.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course I am. Or were you under the impression someone hired you to kill me for shits and giggles?”
His lip twitches. “I don’t know. Maybe. So far, I’m having an absolute blast.”
“You know what I just realized?”
“What?”
“That you’re an ass.”
He clutches his chest and feigns being offended. “Ouch.”
“Ha. That’s what you’ll be saying when I plunge a knife into your heart.”
His chuckle is dark and sends a chill down my spine. “You’re not going to kill me, pretty girl.”
“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”
“Because killing a person is not for the faint of heart. It’s a lot bigger pill to swallow than you might think.”
I bristle at a memory that filters in.
“I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
He looks me up and down and licks his lips.
I hate when he does that. It’s unnerving.
“I never said you weren’t.”
Minutes tick by where I replay our conversation. After a while, curiosity begins pricking at my insides.
“You have a younger sister.”
“Yes. Lily.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-two. Three years younger than me.”
“You’re thirty-five? Jeez, grandpa.”
“Age is just a number.”
“Pfft. That’s something only old people say.”
“No. It’s something smart people say.” His mouth hooks into a playful smirk.
I hate when he does that too.
“You said your uncle is a business owner. What kind of business?”
He shoots me a look.
“A family murder business. How fun. And Lily? Is she a hitman too? Er … hitwoman?”
“No. Lily is a therapist. A damn good one that specializes in PTSD. Does a lot of work with soldiers and war veterans.”
“A therapist and a hitman. Charming. Sounds like your sister inherited all the brains in the family.”
He smirks. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Why would you think otherwise?”
“Because she recently decided to have a baby alone and move home from California.”
My brows raise to my hairline. “Who in their right mind would want to leave California?”
“A woman who’s about to raise a child without a father.”
“Where’s the father?”
His sigh is long and drawn out. “She used a donor.”
“A sperm bank.” He winces at the term. Obviously, I hit a sore spot. “A strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man. I like her already. She sounds way cooler than you.”
“I’m sure she’d agree.”
We ride the rest of the way in tense silence, my mind reeling with questions about Lynx and his family.
But when we arrive back at his house and I seat myself at the island while he rummages around in his kitchen for something to eat, all those questions fade into the background and the sickening memories I worked hard to suppress long ago begin to weave their way up through the cracks like pesky weeds.
Thumbing the scar on the inside of my wrist, I glance over at the assassin hired to kill me. He seems more relaxed now. I’m not sure if it’s because whatever threat he thought was approaching has disappeared. Or if it’s because I’m not running my mouth.
Regardless, I find comfort in his presence even when I shouldn’t.
Give your head a shake!
He’s a murderer for Christ’s sake.
A murderer who has yet to lay an angry hand on me.
A murderer with tattooed, cannon-like forearms and oceanic eyes that I want to dive into and swim around in.
A murderer who not only saved Trinity and killed Rhys Anderson, but also two other contractors who attacked me in the street.
A murderer who, despite being the most irritating man I’ve ever met, also somehow makes me feel safe.
But all of that is simply a facade. A cheaply manufactured veneer that will inevitably break down and reveal the rot within.
After all, he still has a job to do. Pretty soon, he’ll be forced to end my miserable existence.
I only hope he makes it quick when he does.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.