Puck Page 3

  "They popped a tire!" I shouted. "Hold on!"

  I fought for control, jamming the brakes and trying to wrestle the huge vehicle back into the correct lane before oncoming traffic smashed into us.

  "Swing around!" Puck shouted. "Pop a U-turn--wheel it over hard and floor it!"

  I didn't follow orders well, never had and never would. But for some reason, when Puck barked that order at me, I listened without thinking twice. I let off the brakes, hauled the wheel hand-over-hand all the way to the right and floored it. The bus slewed around awkwardly, tipping dangerously, the diesel engine roaring in protest. The front tires hopped the curb, and I had to let off the accelerator momentarily to avoid plowing into a tree. The instant the nose of the bus was clear, I floored it again and heard the cracking chatter of Puck's AK-47, drowning out the screams and crying of the other women. Layla was bracing herself in the door opening again, feet against the doorframe, one hand on the handle, the other hand extending the pistol. The lead SUV in pursuit swept past us, tires screeching as it tried to pull off one of those cool-looking brake turns. It didn't quite manage the maneuver, though, spinning around too far--which provided Layla a perfect opportunity to crack off a trio of fast shots. Her aim was damn near perfect, it looked like, holes peppering the passenger side window and turning the driver's side opposite red--the SUV bolted forward, out of control, and smashed into a wall surrounding a construction site.

  "Goddamn, Layla!" Puck crowed. "That there was some good shootin', Tex!"

  Layla threw herself backward into the bus and put her back to the side of my chair, reaching up with one hand to push forward the lever that closed the door. Another burst of firing from Puck--I checked the mirror and saw that the last SUV had been incapacitated, the engine smoking, the windows along the entire length of the vehicle riddled with holes, gore visible on the opposite side of the interior.

  The flat tire was flapping, the rim scraping and grinding, pulling at our momentum and making the steering wheel wobble and shudder.

  "Can't keep this thing on the road much longer," I said, as Puck moved back toward the front.

  "No shit." He scratched his scalp with a fingertip as he searched the road ahead. I heard sirens, somewhere in the distance. "We gotta make ourselves scarce."

  "Sounds like the police are on their way." I glanced at him. "Couldn't we just pull over and wait for them?"

  Puck stared at me like I was crazy. "Number one, these guys probably own the cops. Number two, even if the cops were honest, we just killed a bunch of people, and even if was in self-defense, that's still a bunch of questions I don't have any easy answers for, and number three, we're in a foreign country which we entered illegally with no documentation, and number four, I don't speak fucking Russian."

  "Well, yeah, that much is obvious. The driver was talking about you right before he pulled over. They figured out that you'd tried to replace some guy named Anton."

  Puck eyed me. "You speak Russian?"

  I shrugged. "Yeah. And Mandarin."

  From the other side of Puck, Layla piped up. "Her name is Colbie Danvers."

  "Because I can't introduce myself," I remarked, shooting her a glare.

  Layla just shrugged. "Just introducing my friends to each other."

  Puck looked from Layla to me. "Wait, you two know each other?"

  "Nope, we just met," Layla said. "But we're kindred spirits."

  I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, that's us, Anne Shirley and Diana Berry." When both Puck and Layla just stared at me, I shook my head in disgust. "Anne of Green Gables?"

  I was still driving, trying to keep the bus mostly straight as I searched our surroundings for somewhere to pull over.

  "Never read it," Puck said. "Not really my thing."

  "What, reading?" I snorted. "Color me shocked."

  "Actually, Puck has a PhD," Layla said. "Pull in there." She pointed at a road that was somewhere between a side street and an alley--a narrow, crumbling lane between rows of buildings.

  I filed away that little tidbit about Puck as I pulled into the alley, passing what looked like an auto garage on one side and an abandoned warehouse on the other. Beyond the abandoned warehouse was a rickety, toppling wooden fence separating the alley from a row of dilapidated houses. I drove slowly down the alley, the flat tire flap--flap--flapping, and the rim grating against the ground. A bit farther down, the wooden fence gave way to an abandoned lot, overgrown with shrubs and trees, the ground covered in the ruins of a building long since torn down, now nothing but crumbled cinder blocks and rusted rebar, the lot now used as a local dumping ground, overflowing with trash. Opposite was another fence, this one green metal and shoulder height, topped with coils of barbed wire, tin roofing visible above it. After about a hundred yards, the alley dead-ended at a flat, gray metal gate.

  I halted the bus a dozen feet from the gate and glanced at Puck. "Now what?"

  Puck opened the door and exited the bus, letting out a sigh. "No fuckin' idea. This whole running from bad guys thing ain't exactly my area of expertise--usually it's the other away around."

  He trotted off, the AK-47 slung around behind his back, pistol in one hand.

  Layla went out after him, and so I followed--a few seconds later the other women who seemed to be part of this particular group joined us.

  Two of the other women were blondes and the third was a woman with dark skin and black hair--she could have been a sister to Layla, based on looks alone.

  Layla pointed at the first blonde woman. "This is my best friend, Kyrie St. Claire. The other gorgeous blonde lady you might recognize . . . she's Temple Kennedy. The one with the curly black hair and killer body is Lola Reed. Everybody, this is Colbie Danvers."

  I said hi to everyone, my mind racing. Kyrie St. Claire . . . the name rang a bell. There'd been a recent article in People or one of those celebrity gossip magazines about the reclusive billionaire playboy, Valentine Roth--apparently he'd gotten married and had a baby . . . the woman in the photographs had been named Kyrie St. Claire. Then there was Temple Kennedy, star of a reality TV show and the daughter of a famous actress and equally famous rock star.

  "How do you ladies all know each other?" I asked.

  Layla answered. "Well, Kyrie and I have been friends for years. She's married to Valentine Roth, and I'm married to Roth's head of security, Nick Harris. Lola and Temple are both involved with employees of my husband, which makes them kind of like sisters to Kyrie and me."

  "Welcome to the Alpha One Security Sisterhood, Colbie," Kyrie added.

  Kyrie was on the short side but stunning all the same. Her hair was golden, her eyes blue, and her voice soft and unassuming; she didn't seem any more fazed by recent events than Layla did . . . none of these women did, for that matter.

  "The what?" I blinked at Kyrie as I tried to process her words.

  Kyrie gestured at Puck, who was standing beside me. "You and Puck . . . it seemed like you guys were--"

  I held up my hands palms out. "Um . . . no."

  Puck returned then. "So this is a good spot to hide out for a couple minutes," he said. "Away from the freeway and other main roads, trees and abandoned buildings for cover. Should give us a chance to figure out a plan." He eyed me and then Layla. "Did I miss something?"

  Layla smirked. "I was just welcoming Colbie to the Alpha One Security fam, since she and you seem to hit it off pretty well."

  "And I said nobody is hitting anything off," I put in.

  Puck just grinned at me and winked yet again. "Not yet, at least."

  "How about not ever?" I snapped.

  Puck sidled closer, and the closer he got the more on edge I became. I could feel his proximity so keenly it set the fine hairs on the back of my neck on end, and then he got closer yet and I could smell him. He was a little more than an inch shorter than me, but somehow seemed able to make it feel like he was surrounding me, staring down at me with his chocolate brown eyes. I wasn't breathing, I realized, and sucked in a breath.

&nb
sp; What the hell? What was he doing to me? Why was I reacting to him like this? Men didn't affect me. No man had ever affected me like this; no man had ever made me forget to breathe, made me feel small and delicate and yet somehow safe. He was dangerous, I knew that, I'd seen him kill only moments ago--dangerous men were a known quantity to me. The only way to survive on the streets was to join a gang, so I was well-versed in the language of macho, swaggering, alpha males, well-acquainted with guys who could and would shoot you as soon as shake your hand. Puck was different; he had that same machismo, the same cockiness and swagger, the same hardened, lethal air, but Puck was something new, a kind of man I'd never encountered before.

  I was searching his eyes, trying to figure him out, trying to figure out my own reaction to him--when he reached up, his hand moving slowly, deliberately, and his palm cupped around my waist, his fingers dimpling in my back just above the waistband of my skirt. He tugged me up against him, and my breath caught. He was a hard mass of muscle, immovable and powerful and masculine, his eyes glittering and bright, his lips quirked in a sly smirk. And goddamn, that beard. I'd never been a fan of big beards, but somehow, on Puck, it was just . . . perfect.

  I could bury my fingers in the thick black mass of his beard and yank him in for a kiss--

  Gah--what? Who put that ridiculous thought in my head? Sorcery, I tell you.

  His hand was huge and strong, his fingers spread across my back, the span so wide his thumb brushed near my shoulder blades while his pinky was teasing flesh in the tiny gap where my blouse had risen above my skirt. The touch of his hand was making me crazy. There was shirt material between his hand and my skin--except his pinky--and yet I felt his touch like fire.

  And I stopped breathing again.

  "You feel that too, don't you?" he murmured.

  I stepped backward out of his touch. "Nope."

  I'd momentarily forgotten there were other people around us--Layla, Kyrie, Temple, and Lola, not to mention a bus full of women. And sirens howling somewhere.

  "Ha, yeah, welcome to the sisterhood," Layla said. "You can fight it all you want, but you're just delaying the inevitable."

  I pivoted to face her. "The hell are you talking about?"

  She pointed at Puck and then me. "You two. That. Y'all were sparkin'."

  I snorted. "Yeah, good one." I tried to pretend I wasn't blushing, that I didn't still feel his hand on my back even though I'd put several feet between us. "You're crazy."

  "Sparks, Colbie." Puck winked fucking again, this time exaggeratedly, broadly, just to piss me off. "There were sparks. No sense fighting the inevitable."

  I pointed at the bus. "Are you people forgetting about the dead people and the police and--I don't know--the fact that we were all kidnapped and were about to be sold into prostitution?"

  "Oh, I doubt they would have paid us," Layla said. "I think Cain is more the slavery type than the prostitution ring type."

  "If what Duke and I went through was anything to go on," Temple said, "then yeah, I'd say Layla's right."

  Everyone knew what Temple Kennedy looked like--you saw her on magazine covers and billboards all the time, even if you didn't watch her show--she was tall and sleek with just the right amount of curves, perfect blonde hair and blue eyes. She and Kyrie both had the same coloring but they were equally stunning in different ways.

  I stared at them both. "Is there really a difference? Forced to be a prostitute or sold as a sex slave . . . seems like the same thing from where I'm standing." I gestured at the bus. "And again, can we maybe stick to the salient facts? Such as, for example, them?"

  The bus windows were full of faces; the women inside were watching us intently. Waiting. None of them seemed inclined to want to leave the relative safety of the bus. Not that I blamed them.

  "We can't just leave them," Puck said, "but it's going to be hard enough for me to get the five of you out of here, much less another dozen women, most of whom probably don't speak English."

  "You don't need to include me," I said. "I can take care of myself."

  Puck pointed at Layla with a thumb. "You saw what she did. Pretty sure she can take care of herself, too. That ain't the point." He stabbed his chest with the same thumb. "Getting these four women back to my friends and my boss and my boss's boss in one piece is my job, and I take my job very fucking seriously."

  "I'm sure you do. I'm just saying, I can rescue myself, but thanks anyway."

  Puck laughed. "You're missin' the point, Legs. I want to rescue you. I'm hoping you'll find yourself extra thankful, if you know what I mean."

  "Legs? Really?" I glared at him. "Next you'll refer to me as Tits, or Ass, am I right?"

  "Nah, that'd just be rude."

  "You are unbelievable." I gaped at him and then turned to Layla. "How the hell do you deal with this asshole?"

  She just laughed and shrugged. "Puck is just . . . Puck."

  Lola spoke up for the first time. "What was it you said on the plane, when we first met, Puck?"

  Puck grinned. "I'm like whiskey--I'm an acquired taste."

  "Not exactly how you said it the first time," Lola said, an eyebrow quirking up.

  Lola was exotically gorgeous, with dark caramel skin and springy black hair in a crazy explosion around her shoulders, tall and strong looking, with tits and ass even Layla couldn't quite match.

  God, those women were all incredible--it would've been easy to feel insecure around four women each more beautiful than the last.

  "How'd I say it on the plane?" Puck mused. "Oh yeah . . . I'm whiskey, bitch!"

  I groaned in aggravation. "You're all acting like this is business as usual!" I gestured again at the windshield, blood-smeared and bullet-riddled. "That's not normal. I thought I was pretty good at staying calm, but I'm starting to freak out just a little."

  Puck moved toward me, feathered his hands into my hair, and his fingers found the back of my neck near the base of my skull, where my tension tended to gather in painful knots. His strong fingers kneaded gently but firmly, and the tension loosened.

  "Colbie, babe--just breathe." His smile was reassuring and calm. "We got this. You're in good company."

  I rolled my head and shrugged my shoulders, not liking that I liked the way he was massaging me. "Don't touch me. And don't call me babe--I'm not your babe. I'm not your anything."

  But yet I couldn't quite make myself stop him from massaging my neck. Damn me.

  He chuckled. "You're a prickly one, ain'tcha, princess?"

  "If you're such a big shot, then how are you going to get us out of here?" I rolled my eyes and huffed, and then the huff turned into an involuntary breath of relief as he shifted his touch and found the worst knot and managed to knead it away. "Do you even have a plan?" I asked, my eyes sliding closed as he worked the tension out of my neck.

  "Get everyone somewhere safe, find a way to contact the boys . . ." his next words were whispered in my ear, "and then get you naked and make you come at least a dozen times."

  I shivered. "Bullshit."

  "Which part?"

  "You couldn't make me come a dozen times even I did let you get me naked, to which, by the way--no."

  "I said at least a dozen. Bet you a thousand bucks I can."

  Damn him. Damn him. And damn me--doubly, for being so affected by him and for being a sucker for a bet; I offset my income during college playing poker . . . and not always honestly. Street habits died hard, what could I say? If you could count cards and bluff as easily as breathing, and had tens of thousands of dollars in college debt, yeah, you were gonna cheat at poker. And sometimes, you let yourself get roped into high-stakes games simply because you had a really hard time turning down a bet.

  "At least twelve times? In what span of time?"

  Puck's laugh was low and dark with lust. "Like to gamble, do you?"

  "No," I said, the denial automatic. "Well, maybe. Yes."

  Another chuckle. "A thousand bucks says I can."

  I groaned. "I'm not taking
your wager, Puck Lawson."

  "Yes you are."

  "No, I'm not."

  The sirens were all around us now.

  Someone cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt, you two," I heard Layla say, "but we kinda need to get going soon."

  Puck backed away from me, and I breathed a sigh that was equal parts relief and disappointment.

  "Time to move," Puck said. "We need a cell phone so I can get hold of the boys. Layla, you stay here, watch the rest of these ladies. Colbie, you come with me since you can actually talk to people around here."

  "Do we have any money?" I asked.

  Puck dug into his pocket and came up with a handful of wadded up bills in various sizes and colors. "I took this off Anton." He fished a small roll of hundreds out of a different pocket. "Plus my backup cash. There's a thousand here if we need it."

  I took the stolen currency from him and sorted through it. "Two thousand in rubles, two hundred in euros, and about a hundred in dollars." I did some quick mental conversions. "According to the rates as of yesterday, this is about . . . three hundred forty dollars total, not including your personal stash."

  Puck stared at me. "You can do currency conversions in your head?"

  I shrugged. "I'm in imports and exports, so knowing the conversion rates is part of the job."

  "And you speak Russian and Chinese?"

  I nodded. "I specialize in Russian and Chinese high-end imports."

  He seemed impressed. "Nice. Smart chicks make me horny."

  I lifted an eyebrow at him. "I'm starting to wonder what doesn't make you horny."

  He laughed. "You have a point. There isn't much. Nuns . . . I'm not a fan of nuns, except the fake ones in porn. Centipedes also freak me out. Um . . . the IRS--they piss me off to no end. Pretty much everything else makes me horny." He let his eyes rake down my body blatantly. "A hot, smart, educated woman with a wicked sharp tongue? You got me rockin' a chubby, and I don't even know what color your bra is yet."

  "Blue," I blurted. Now why the hell did I tell him that? He didn't need to know. "Let's get moving."

  Puck's eyes shot to my chest, as if he could see through my shirt, but then he quickly shifted his gaze up to my eyes, his expression serious. "So. Which way, you think?"