Free Hostage Page 13

  She holds up the pouch, and it droops and dangles with the weight of the coins. “How are we going to just walk out of here with this thing? When he said red velvet pouch, I was imagining something small and easy to hide.”

  Yeah, well, he said a lot of things that didn’t quite prepare us for what we walked into.

  I twist my lips to the side and contemplate the pouch.

  “Tim, we have less than two minutes to get out of here!”

  I glance down at my attire. Welp, there’s only one solution to this problem. “Bring them here.” I hike up my dress and bunch it up around my waist. “You’ve got longer fingernails. Poke a hole through the top of my stockings and tie the strings through it.”

  For a second, she looks dubious, but then she glances at her watch, shrugs, and gets to it.

  When she’s done, she steps back and eyes the dangling pouch. “Um… I’m not sure that will hold up.”

  I let go of my dress so it falls over my knees again and say proudly, “These aren’t bargain pantyhose. Collin ordered them on a really expensive website.”

  “That’s a bag of gold coins, Tim,” she points out unnecessarily.

  “Do you have a better option?”

  She rolls her eyes, because she doesn’t. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  We exit a lot quicker than we came in, the pouch swinging like a pendulum between my thighs.

  “I guess this is what it feels like to have balls,” I murmur as we swipe through the grill in the hall.

  Melanie snorts. “Let’s just hope your balls don’t fall off before we’re out of this building.”

  We make it back to the desk with just a few seconds to spare. Miss Cutie Pie has a new customer at her desk, and Pimply Gangly isn’t back yet. Amazing how a few minutes can feel like a lifetime when you’re committing a crime.

  We keep up the act. I thank Melanie for her help with lots of teeth and a handshake, and I walk out, mindful of my gait lest the coins bang against my thighs and make jingling sounds.

  No one bats an eyelash at me. Including the security guard whose attention is still transfixed on the mounted telly across the room.

  I walk right out of the bank.

  Across the street, Jaxon is leaning against the Escalade, his feet crossed at the ankles, sinking his teeth into a juicy, red apple.

  Bastard.

  As I’m crossing the street, I feel rather than hear the pantyhose rip. I stop in middle of the street. A car honks at me. I take a tentative step, testing. Another car honks. The pouch is still hanging on, so I hurry across the street, jingling sounds and all, counting on the angry horn honks to drown it out.

  From my bosom, I retrieve the car key, press the fob, and toss it to Jaxon. He catches it with one hand. I climb in the back.

  Seconds later, his door opens, and he folds in. At once, his eyes pitch to the rearview mirror, watching me as he bites into his apple.

  He’s not going to ask if we succeeded. He’s that brand of annoying.

  Smug bastard.

  Holding his gaze in the mirror, I hike up my dress and begin to unknot the pouch from my ripped-to-shite stockings.

  He frowns. He can’t see what I’m doing from that angle. Curiosity eats him alive, and he twists around, gaze dipping to where my hands are.

  Pouch successfully removed, I hold it out to him.

  Automatically, he reaches out and takes it, but his eyes are not on the pouch.

  No shame.

  But I don’t pull down my dress.

  I look down to where his attention is lodged. “Well, I guess these are ruined. You owe me new hose.”

  At that, his eyes snap up to mine, and I’m startled by the unconcealed heat in them. Until it’s not. “I didn’t send you in there. I owe you nothing.”

  But if I hadn’t gone in, the whole mission would’ve been a cock-up. “Did you get the key card?” I ask this just for fun—and to rub it in—because I know the answer.

  One shoulder jerks up, and his lips curl to the side. “Sometimes we fail.”

  I snort. “The great Jaxon King failed at something as simple as swiping a key card from a clueless woman who was all over him like the pox?”

  Impassivity. “Never said I was great.”

  He’s far too casual about it. I don’t believe he failed. I believe he didn’t try to begin with.

  I look at him. He looks back at me, daring me to call him out.

  Abruptly, he stuffs the half-eaten apple between his teeth, and his hand shoots out to yank my dress down to cover my legs.

  A second later, the door opens, and Mel climbs in. She immediately turns on Jaxon, mad as a hornet. “Are you sure a security video download happened at the time you said it would? And whose safe deposit box was that? How do you have a key to it?”

  “Hold your hand out.”

  She holds her hand out.

  He drops the half-eaten apple onto her palm.

  “Seriously?” She hisses like a cat and jerks back. The apple falls from her hand to her lap, and then to the floor.

  Ignoring her, he tugs the strings of the pouch and peers inside. He dips a hand in and feels around. He’s searching for something specific. When he finds it, he holds it up between two fingers and examines it closely.

  “Single 9,” I murmur.

  “What?” Melanie asks.

  At that, he shoots me a glance in the rearview mirror and instantly drops the coin back inside the pouch. He starts the car.

  “South Africa’s only unique coin,” I explain to Melanie. “Most valuable because of its flaw, its rejection, and because it was the first one-pound coin made during the Anglo-Boer War. It was decided in 1899 to over-stamp the 1898 coins with a 99 below Kruger’s bust, to mark the war. Once the first coin was stamped, however, it was obvious that the 9 was too big, a slight overlapping of the design, intruding on the bust of President Kruger. Thus, only one such coin was made, and subsequent coins were punched with smaller nines, now known as Double 99 over-stamps. The Single 9 and the Double 99s are exceptionally rare. The Single 9 alone is worth about four million dollars. A bloody good steal, I’d say.”

  As Jaxon eases into traffic, his gaze keeps flicking to me in the mirror, annoyed. Good. Because I’m damned annoyed with him, too. I’m annoyed because he’s obviously playing some kind of game, and I’m unable to figure it out. The guy’s a rock disguised as a nut, and I’m the hopeless squirrel banging it to no avail.

  “Really? Can I see it?” Melanie reaches for the pouch, but he jerks it out of reach and drops it to the space between his thighs on the seat.

  I bite my lip out of jealousy of that pouch.

  Crossing her arms, Melanie openly glowers. “I don’t think I like working with you. You’re bossy, unreliable, and have no concept of teamwork.”

  He gives a humorless chuckle. “Cute that you think we’re working together. Incidentally, you failed today. I gave you a task. Not you and your sidekick.”

  Gob-smacked, Mel gapes at him. “You must be out of your bloody damn mind.” She twists around to look at me. “Tim, tell me this bloke is bonkers.”

  “I already told him so this morning.”

  “Even if you did get to swipe that woman’s key card, do you have any idea what you sent me into?” Melanie half-shouts at him. “Completely unprepared?”

  When he just keeps on driving and continues to ignore her, it pisses her off even further, and she begins yelling, telling him about the grill in the hall and the vault door, and how a simple key card couldn’t have done squat.

  Only twice does he interject—once to ask how we got through the grill and again to ask how we broke into the vault.

  Both times I try to get Melanie’s attention to tell her not to tell him how we got in, but she’s so livid she just rattles off and dances right into his trap with her tirade. He just keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror. Oddly, with something that resembles reluctant respect.

  Sometime later, he parks outside a fancy-looking It
alian restaurant. Reaching under his seat, he comes up with an old leather satchel into which he drops the stolen pouch of Krugerrands. He then says pointedly, “Stay in the car. Be back in a sec.”

  Before either of us can argue, he’s out of the car and into the restaurant.

  “You shouldn’t have lost it like that,” I chide Melanie.

  She twists and hurls me a scowl. “Why? Because you have the hots for him? His taciturn tyranny irritates the crap out of me, Tim.”

  “I don’t have the hots for him!” I lie through my teeth. “And even if I did, that’s not the reason. You said Markus told you he’s the best at what he does, right? Yet, we’re to believe he couldn’t swipe a simple key card? Second, he knew down to the number of seconds the camera download would take, yet we’re to believe he didn’t know about the grill and the vault?”

  A pensive haze of anger clouds her features.

  “He’s playing a game, Mel. With you—or with both of us. I just can’t figure out to what end. This is no trial. He deliberately sent you in there blind and unprepared. And expects us to trust his word about the cameras being down.”

  She chews on her lip in thought.

  He walks out of the restaurant with a backpack. An older woman swans out behind him. She’s tall. Almost as tall as he is. Like an Amazon. Straight, brown hair parted down the middle, long and flowing, not a strand out of place. A beige, form-fitting dress ends below her knees, with high, brown boots that meet the hem. Pearl earrings and pearl necklace.

  Money is spelled out in the letters of her posture. In the laughing-at-the-world curve to her lips. In the I’m-better-than-you glint in her eyes.

  She reaches out to touch Jaxon on his shoulder, stopping him. They engage in a controlled conversation. One where both are mindful of their body language so they can’t be read. And from that alone, I know this woman is the same as him. Quite possibly, this is the “her” he ran off to see yesterday.

  “Listen, Mel,” I say, talking quickly before he gets back, “I’ll come with you on all your trial tasks, whether he wants me to or not. We now know that if he tells us A, we should expect Z. We’ll complete the task if possible, but we won’t tell him our methods or complain about his deliberate omission of truths. That might throw him. And we can save our energy to determine what the hell he’s up to. And to find the music box.”

  As she nods, her gaze shifts out the windshield, following as he approaches the car. “I still think you have the hots for him. He’s odious. And now you’re sleeping in his bed. It won’t be long before he cons you out of your virginity.”

  My breath catches with another denial, but before I can get it out, the car door opens, and he folds in, drops the backpack on the floor between his legs, and peels into traffic. Without a word.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re back at the flat.

  Still pissed as shite at Jaxon, Melanie jumps out of the vehicle and flounces off, ripping off the pumps and scarf as she goes.

  As I climb out of the backseat, slam the door, and am about to walk past the driver’s side, the driver’s door opens and Jaxon steps out. Right into me. I’m knocked off balance as I collide with him. He catches me by my upper arms and steadies me.

  I move back a step. Wait, did he just do that on purpose? Time it so he could step right out into my path?

  “Hey,” he says.

  Um… “Hey?” The word is tentative, because, well, we just spent the past two hours together. Why is he saying, “Hey,” as if seeing me for the first time today?

  He shifts on his feet. “There’s something we need to do. You mind waiting here for a bit?”

  My eyebrows jump. “There’s something we need to do? As in, me and you?”

  Like what? Kiss? If so, I agree. Totally agree. We do need to do that. We should do that. Are we going to do that right now?

  “Yeah. Us.” He reaches into the vehicle with one hand, his gaze still on me, and brings out the backpack. “Just give me a few minutes. Be right back.”

  “I—”

  But he’s already retreating with long, hasty strides.

  Did he just say “us”? There’s an “us”? Since when? Does sleeping in his bed automatically make us an us? Or did that us became official when I flashed him in the car while he openly ogled what I was showing? What’s going on with “us”?

  Damn it! Why is he so freaking confusing? Does he like me, or does he just enjoy toying with me? How deep should I let myself go to get this stupid music box? Do I truly believe I can con someone like him? Because, so far, it feels like I’m the one who’s being conned into being in lust with him.

  Five minutes later he returns, his fingers combing back through his hair. I’m still planted at the driver’s side of the Escalade like a buffoon, but he goes straight to the passenger side and holds the door open. “Come around.”

  At the command, my feet move, and I round the vehicle and climb in. He leans in to buckle my seat belt. As he’s pulling back, he stops, his face inches from mine, and he just…watches me.

  Tongues of fire lick me from the inside, blood pumps harder through my veins, and knots of desire twist and curl in my stomach. God, I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much I want to kiss Jaxon King.

  He moves, his long fingers lifting to tame my wild bangs, and I shiver on the inside, struggling to appear unaffected on the outside.

  After backing out again, he closes the door and rounds to the driver’s side.

  “Where—” I stop to clear my throat. “Where are we going?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The thing we needed to do as an “us”?

  Shopping for a TV.

  “How big do you want it?” Jaxon asks, once we’re inside the home electronics store.

  The question breaks my haze of bewilderment, my unfocused focus on our joined hands.

  Our joined hands.

  Jaxon is holding my hand.

  He has been holding my hand since he pulled into the parking lot and helped me out of the Escalade. And I’ve been staring at our hands ever since.

  “Pardon?”

  I’ve no recollection of putting one foot in front of the other, so it addles me to find myself standing in front of a wall of tellys. And that Jaxon is still holding my hand.

  His free hand gestures to the wall of flat screens. “The TV. How big do you want it?”

  I look up at him. Then down at our hands. Then at the tellys. And then back at him. In a low, conspiratorial voice, I ask, “Is someone watching you?”

  A barely there frown appears. “What?”

  “Is someone watching you?” I repeat, peeking over his shoulder, and then over mine.

  A full frown ensues. “I don’t understand.” Regardless of his supposed confusion, he doesn’t glance around nervously like I do. His gaze sticks to me.

  I point out the obvious. “You’re holding my hand.”

  “So?”

  “So… Because someone is watching you? Am I to play along? Like in Paris?”

  His chest rises with a breath then falls, but no words emerge. He studies me at length, and the creases from his frown slowly smooth out.

  His eyes shift over my shoulder, and to the side. He steps into me and trails his knuckles down my cheek. “So smart, Timber,” he whispers. “Yeah, someone’s watching. And we need to make them believe I’m in…infatuated with you.”

  With that, his head dips, and I watch his lips as they descend, closer and closer, until they’re just a breath from mine. He exhales sex. I inhale lust. He brushes his nose against my nose, his lips against my mine. “You saved me in Paris, Timber. Save me here, too.” His hand cups the back of my neck. And he kisses me.

  Except, it’s not a kiss.

  It’s a storm.

  Right in the middle of the home electronics store. The world spins around us in a whirl of thunder and lightning and wicked winds.

  I know nothing—I care about nothing but the soul-sweltering feel of his lips on mine, and his ex
perienced tongue exploring my mouth, teaching mine how to dance.

  It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s today, and it’s tomorrow. It’s the world, and it’s eternity. It’s everything I never dreamed of.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, he breaks the kiss and pulls back. The pad of his thumb sweeps across my bottom lip. His eyes, aflame with desire, follow his thumb on my lip.

  For him, this is a game, this is nothing, an act. But for me, this is life. This is oxygen and heartbeat. This is promises and granted wishes.

  “That should do it,” I croak.

  “It should.” He swallows. “Impossible for anyone to think this is fake, right?”

  My gaze falls to his neck. “Right.”

  “Because it isn’t.”

  “Right.”

  Even as he takes two steps backward, his hand is still holding mine.

  I focus on controlling my breathing. I can’t look at him. Not yet. Not until I have some control over my heart and mind and senses. He just kissed the facts out of me. Kissed out the caution and common sense. All that’s left behind are the feels. And the craving for more.

  More.

  “Right?”

  I look up at him before I’m ready and get burned by the flames. “What?”

  For several vein pulses he stares down at me. Then he sighs, turns, and gestures to the tellys. “How big do you want it?”

  I jerk my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I’m blessed with a half smile. Holy water crackers, a half smile. “Size doesn’t matter to you?”

  “Well…” I trail off on a frown, wondering if we’re still talking about the telly…or something else.

  “It should matter,” he tells me. “It should always matter. So, a fifty inch?”

  “Uh…” I glance down to the section of fifty-inchers, though I’m not really seeing anything. I’m on autopilot right now as turmoil rages inside me. “Yeah, that’s a good size.”

  “You want it up against the wall, or—”

  My head snaps up. “What?”

  He appears stoic, but his eyes look as if they’re laughing at me. “The TV. Do you prefer it mounted on the wall, or should we get a stand for it?”