He’d been shot and she was alone here with at least one or maybe two men with guns coming for her.
She shifted her body so she was out from under the weight of him and reached for his gun. She hadn’t had more than training at the range, though she’d put in enough hours there to know how to handle the weapon.
But she’d sure as hell never fired a gun at another human being. Still she’d be damned if she was going to sit and wait to die.
Or watch them kill this man who’d saved her, who had put his life on the line for her security. The man she’d once loved with all her heart.
She lifted the weapon and trained her aim on the window while she tried shaking Heath awake with her other hand. She needed him. They were in a seedy part of town in a city she’d only ever driven through as a passenger before. She didn’t have a clue where to go from here. She had no idea how to reach his team. She didn’t know where to go if she got them off this fire escape.
And that was a huge if. How the hell did she think she was going to be able to lift this man? She couldn’t. And she sure as hell couldn’t climb down a ladder with him.
Sirens sounded in the distance and she was reminded of the sirens she’d heard at the airport. They were too far away to help her now, just as they had been then.
And something told her this time, there would be no shouts from a Delta team coming in the nick of time to save her. She took a steadying breath, resisting the urge to try to wake up Heath. She needed to be ready when their attackers came through that window.
The window filled with the dark shape of a man and time seemed to slow as she saw the weapon in his hand. Saw him raise it and point it at her and she was frozen in fear for the briefest second. She only hoped that wasn’t enough to cost her. To cost Heath.
She squeezed the trigger, aiming for center body mass as she’d been taught during all those sessions her stepdad had paid for when she joined the foreign service.
The gun was a lot bigger than she was used to so it was no surprise when it sent her body jerking back. She didn’t stop firing, though. Two, three, four times. Until the man slumped over the window.
Her heart beat a wild rhythm in her chest and she didn’t let herself think about the fact she probably just killed this man. She couldn’t face that right now. Not on top of everything else.
Heath groaned and shifted and she shook him again.
“Heath! Open your eyes, Heath! Please!”
He groaned once more and then he was sitting, taking in the scene around them and assessing things as though he wasn’t bleeding from the head and arm. That’s apparently what special forces training would do for you.
He pulled another gun from somewhere on his body and crouched in front of her, waiting. His response when the next man came to the window was so fast, she didn’t see him move. He fired off two shots and the man fell, disappearing beneath the window.
“Let’s go,” Heath said, taking both guns and pushing her in front of him again, toward the ladder that led to the ground.
And then they were moving through alleys and in and out of buildings. Eleanor thought he was being overly cautious. She’d seen four men come into the apartment and all of those men were dead now. There were sirens telling her the police were coming in response to the gunfire. Surely, no one else would come after them now.
She was wrong. She heard the shouts of two men behind them and looked back to see them at the end of the busy street. They were clearly looking for someone and she had a feeling it was Heath and her.
Heath took them through a market and into a small internet café where no one even bothered to look up from their screens when they entered. No one seemed to care when they slipped out the back door either. He kept them moving, not looking back.
By the time he pulled her into a dark bar, Eleanor’s head was spinning. It took her a minute to realize they were in some kind of strip club. The women weren’t as scantily clad as they might be in a US club but there were two women dancing in the center of the room and she saw women seated in men’s laps here and there, grinding in the darkened corners.
He led her to a table in a corner near the back of the space. She realized then that he’d been talking for the last few minutes and could only guess he was talking to his team on some kind of comm system.
Heath sank into a seat at the table and Eleanor got her first good look at him. He was struggling. His eyes were glassy and he was breathing heavy. He looked up at her and pressed one of his guns into her hand under the table.
“Eleanor. My guys are going to come get you.” He tipped his head toward a hallway. “You go down this hall and wait just inside the back door. They’ll come down the alley and grab you.”
She shook her head.
His eyes went hard and dark and she guessed she was supposed to be afraid. “I’m staying here to cover you if these guys come in here. Now, go!”
Eleanor shook her head. No way in hell was he leaving him here.
“I’ll be right behind you Eleanor, I promise. I’ll cover you from here and then I’m right behind you.”
It was bullshit and she knew it. Hell, they both knew it. His left arm was hanging by his side and he looked like he might pass out again at any minute.
The front door opened. Eleanor didn’t look to see if it was their pursuers. She grabbed a scarf someone had left sitting over the back of a chair and put it over her head. Then she straddled Heath in the chair and bent her head to kiss him, keeping her hands twined in the scarf as she wrapped her arms around him, so that anyone looking at them in the darkened corner would only see two people who should be renting a room instead of two people running from hired killers.
Heath groaned and gripped her hips and she thought for a minute he would push her off of him and force her to go out the back without her.
Fat chance in hell of that happening. He was only there because of her—in more ways than one. If she got him killed, she’d never forgive herself.
Then he was kissing her back and it was her turn to groan as need and hunger flooded her. God, this man had made her melt and forget all reason when they were in high school. He’d always been able to have her aroused and losing her mind with nothing more than his hands and mouth.
Now, though—now was a whole other story. His hands gripped her tight and pulled her hips to his. She felt all the strength of his hard body heating her own to the core. His mouth slanted over hers and he took control of the kiss, delving into her mouth and feasting on her with a passion that stole her breath.
She pressed her breasts to his chest as a slow sweet ache spread through her. She shouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t be doing this. It was all sorts of wrong, but damn if it didn’t feel right.
She moaned against his lips, wanting nothing more than to stay in his arms.
Heath broke the kiss and she felt his glare on her for a second before he looked over her shoulder.
“They’re gone.”
Eleanor’s cheeks heated as she realized he hadn’t been affected by the kiss at all. He was still on, still working, making sure they were safe.
While she’d been acting like they were teenagers again in the back of his dad’s BMW.
“You have to listen to me if I’m going to keep you safe, Eleanor.”
She scrambled off his lap and stood. “I’m not going out the back without you so you need to find a way to stand up and move.”