Chapter 15
Too Late To Run
My stomach does several very athletic flips at his statement.
He's driving with his left hand on the wheel, his right resting on his thigh.
I take his hand in mine and crush-grip it as a bolt of unadulterated need rampages through me.
I thunk my head back against the headrest and shove his hand between my thighs, squeezing as hard as I can.
"Dammit, Kills," I hiss. "I need that. I need you. "
"I almost wish I could raise those fuckers from the dead just so I can kill them again for cock-blocking me," Killian mutters. "Fucking assholes. They couldn't have waited a few minutes?"
I bite my lower lip, leveling a scorching, aroused stare at him. "Only a few minutes?" I ask. "You really think all you're gonna give me is a few minutes?" I reach for his zipper. "Killy, honey. I'm gonna need a few hours. At least."
His returned stare comes with a cocky smirk. "I was exaggerating for dramatic effect." He grabs my wrist and stops me before I can make contact with the promised land. "Don't. We have to focus. If you touch me, all bets are off."
"Fine, whatever. Be all right and stuff."
He laughs. "Sorry that I want to live long enough to be able to fuck you until your legs don't work."
I groan out loud, clamping my thighs around his hand all the tighter. "Killian Harris, you are not a nice man. You shouldn't tease me like that."
"Not a tease—a promise."
I force my thighs to unclench, focusing on letting my arousal ebb away through slow, controlled breaths.
Slowly, I manage to pull my attention away from my sexual and emotional desperation to make love with Killian and dial in on our situation.
"You said your drug dealer buddy was gonna be meeting us at the hostel at midnight. "
Killian threads his fingers through mine and rests them together on my lap. "That's what we agreed, yes. But the hostel is blown."
"So we ambush the next squad, find somewhere to hole up until midnight, and then intercept your friend outside the hostel.
Take the ferry to Rome. Do something about Enzo's kid.
Get a clean burner and contact our family.
Wrap up this bullshit." I lift our hands and kiss his knuckles.
"And then you take me somewhere and spend at least a week ruining me in all the best ways. "
"Only a week?" Killian murmurs. "Gonna need a lot longer than that."
"A month?"
"Try a lifetime."
My stomach lurches at this. "Killy," I breathe.
“Too much too soon?"
"Stop the car."
"Story—"
"Just stop the car for a second, Killian."
He yanks his hand free from mine and scans our surroundings for somewhere to stop; he makes a sharp, abrupt left into a narrow space between buildings—I'm uncertain whether it's a road, an alley, or just a liminal space created by an accident of the urban topography.
He brakes to a halt and puts it into park, twists in the seat to face me. "So what's—"
I knot my fingers in his shirtfront and yank him toward me, crash my mouth onto his with a soft breathy grunt.
He's shocked into momentary motionlessness at the suddenness and intensity of the kiss, and then his hands slide over my cheeks and ears and frame my face, and he's kissing me back with equal ferocity.
It's a war for supremacy, then, each of us leaning into the other, pushing and pulling, deepening the kiss and softening, teasing and demanding.
I pull away first, just enough to meet his eyes, my fingertips perched on his cheekbones. "A lifetime sounds perfect."
"Is it nuts?" he whispers. "To think I know that that's what I want? That I want it with you? That I know I'll never want it with anyone else?"
"Maybe," I whisper. "But we can be nuts together. Because same."
"Story, I—" he searches my face from a distance of inches. "God, I've loved you for so long."
I quest my lips against his again, my hands trailing down his cheeks and then curling into the hair at the base of his skull, and then I'm clasping the back of his head and cupping him closer, daring my tongue against his and leaning into him. "I'm about to climb over this damn console."
He glances into the rearview mirror and frowns. "We can't get a single fucking moment alone, it feels like."
A policeman patrolling on foot is standing in the alley-mouth, watching us.
"It'll be worth the wait," I tell him, giving him one last quick soft kiss before sinking back to my seat. "C'mon. Let's find a good place to ambush these goons. I'm getting irritated."
Killian snickers. "That sounds hazardous to their health."
"Very much so," I mutter.
He puts the car in reverse, and the patrolman continues on his way as we back out of the space that's barely wide enough for the car.
By now, we've been aimlessly perusing the streets of Olbia for almost an hour, and we spend nearly that long again making our way to the outskirts, and then he cuts through the center directly again to the docks; I know Olbia almost as well as Minneapolis, by now.
He finds a parking spot near the docks, and we stroll the waterfront area, ending up at the Olbia archeological museum, a large concrete structure on a mini-island nestled between a longer and a shorter section of pier.
We spend some time there, browsing the artifacts, and then we find a restaurant within walking distance and take a long, leisurely meal.
We talk about nothing in particular and spend a lot of time simply sitting together in companionable silence.
We spend more time strolling hand in hand as if we're merely tourists.
We don't have much of a plan, to be honest—we've parked the car in an obvious, open place, away from other cars and with no obvious cover right nearby—it's just a big, open parking lot.
As two hours turn to three, I can tell Killian is starting to question the plan, such as it is, to lure in and ambush the goons.
By the time four hours have passed since the last batch of killers appeared at the hostel, the late afternoon has turned to evening, and we’ve had dinner, espresso, and cannolis, and have walked what feels like several miles at a slow, seemingly aimless strolling pace.
Killian turns my wrist so he can check the time. "We should get into position where we can see the car."
We've discussed the plan ad nauseam while walking, and the best course of action so far as we can discern is to get them as they swarm the car itself.
The pier—or dock, I don't really know the difference, if I'm being honest—is nearly a mile long, a widening rectangular wedge of concrete with rows and rows of semi-trailers parked in serried ranks; it's a large enough area with enough industrial traffic to warrant a traffic circle, of sorts.
The port authority office is a rectangular stack of concrete blocks and windows, and clustered directly nearby is the maritime station—a series of circular structures.
Above all of this rise the superstructures of two cruise ships.
Even from the distance of nearly a mile, the cruise ships are so massive as to defy my brain's ability to accept the scale.
"You don't realize how big those things are until you see them in person," I remark, as we approach the car so we can collect our things from it—we couldn't exactly carry a backpack full of guns and two compact assault rifles around Olbia.
Killian snorts. "Story, the freighter we were on was bigger. Well, longer, at least."
“Yeah, but I didn’t really see the damn thing, did I?
” I say. “I sat in the dark, and then I was frog-marched the length of it and shoved into a rubber dingy in the middle of a freaking hurricane.
I only have a vague impression of falling a long way, hitting the water, and then feeling like I was on a very wet rollercoaster. "
Killian blinks. "Oh. I mean, when you put it like that, yeah, I guess you're right—I'm only going based on what I already know about freighters.
Having lived in the Caribbean my whole life and growing up within paddleboard distance of a major shipping lane, I've been around freighters and cruise ships since I could swim.
Let me tell you, you can get some serious air jumping a jet ski over a freighter's wake. "
"Isn't that…dangerous?" I ask.
He shrugs. "I mean, you don't want to zip around right behind them, no. But even a thousand feet behind one of those monsters, the wakes will still legit fuckin' send you."
"Was that Cal's idea?" I ask, smirking.
He rolls his eyes. "Believe it or not, I have had some bad ideas of my own."
We reach the car and remove the backpack, body armor, and long guns—we decided, for the sake of appearances, to forgo the armor while killing time.
It was a gamble that the next set of bloodthirsty mercenaries wouldn't show up early, but Sardinia in the summer is hot; we passed a bank with a digital sign flashing the time, the date in European—and far more logical—day-month-year order, and the local temperature. Which, when we passed it around four this afternoon, was reading 34 degrees Celsius; for the Americans out there, that’s almost ninety-five Fahrenheit.
Wandering around in body armor is a good way to get heat stroke, in temps like that.
We carry our gear away from the car, heading for the nearby lot full of tractor-trailers. A subcompact cruises past us, an older model Peugeot with a yellow flashing light on top—port security. Panic creeps in at the edges of my mind, making my pulse race and my pace increase.
"Easy," Killian murmurs, surreptitiously holding me back. "What did you tell me earlier? Drive it as if you stole it, and they'll think you did. Same goes here. Act like you're supposed to be here. Don't look, don’t react, just keep on walking like you know exactly where you're going."
I give a short, tight nod and do as he says, trying to focus on walking with controlled purpose toward the ranks of trailers. The security vehicle slows as it draws even behind us.