“Here.” Ben’s breath tickled my ear as he steered me toward an open spot at the counter.
Was his voice deeper now? Yes, I was sure it was, as the timbre slid down my spine and pooled in my naughty bits. I yanked my elbow out of his reach. The last thing I needed was him touching me while I got wet from him whispering in my ear. I used the hand of my freed arm to readjust my backpack strap. No need to be rude about it. After all, the guy wasaiding and abetting me going on the lam from who knows what. I would be polite. And professional. Which meant no more touching.
I put some distance between us as we approached the car rental representative. Ben noticed my reaction, but only spared me a glance before turning his attention—and his thousand-watt smile—on the woman behind the computer. She smiled back and introduced herself as Megan, and now I wanted to slap her, too. But I would never admit that, so I smiled at absolutely no one while Ben asked for a mid-size sedan. Megan asked when and where we planned to return the car. When Ben said next week in Chicago, my knees trembled.
A little over two years ago, I’d flown into Chicago for a whiskey distillers’ trade show. I’d closed three distribution deals that week, then had flown to Maryland to visit my mom. She’d lost some weight and a lot of energy but assured me she felt fine. Six months later, she received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. I moved home, even set up a satellite office in the Maryland suburbs, and cared for her for the last six months of her life. After her funeral, I flew home to California, bought my condo, and hadn’t gone past the Mississippi since then, leaving the East Coast clients to Devlin. It seemed like some sick sort of payback that now I was headed east again, this time to escape the mess he’d made of our company and quite possibly my life.
Ben and Megan were discussing details like accident coverage and mileage limitations as the weight of the past two weeks settled over me and squeezed the breath from my lungs.
“And will your wife also be on the rental agreement as a driver?” Megan asked.
“No,” Ben said before I could protest our marital status.
“I’d say yes,” I managed to choke out.
“She’s kidding.” Ben shot me a hard glance with a raised eyebrow. “She doesn’t have a driver’s license.”
Shit. Mai had warned me not to use my ID or credit cards. That was the whole reason for having a friend rent the car for me back in Vallejo. I was so bad at this. And if I was in real danger, if Devlin had truly fucked my life, I needed to become a hell of a lot better at living on the run.
My difficulty catching my breath morphed into a churning in my gut. I knew the reaction far too well. I staggered away from Ben and Megan’s friendly banter, heading in the direction of a metal bench where I could collapse for a few minutes and pull myself together. I was halfway there when my stomach lurched, and bile burned up my esophagus. I changed course and launched myself at the nearest garbage can. I barely made it there in time to spew vomit into the receptacle.
A minute later, something cool pressed against the back of my neck. The touch of an angel. I glanced up into the eyes of the devil.
“I’ve got you,” Ben said.
He pulled the cold water bottle off my neck and slid it into the pocket of my backpack, then set to work piling our bags onto a luggage cart that had materialized beside him. I was pretty sure we had Megan to thank for that. She stood a few feet away from us with an odd smile on her face.
“Thanks,” Ben told her. “We’ll be on our way now.”
As I wrestled with the problem of walking to wherever we would find our car, Ben wrapped one arm around me and took most of my weight against his body.
“Not necessary,” I said, although I knew it probably was. I took two steps sideways to slip out of his grasp.
He silently reached out and anchored me against him again.
This time, I pulled away forcefully.
“Fine, have it your way,” he said.
I was about to gloat—politely, of course—when he bent at the waist, leaned into me, hoisted me onto his shoulder, and carried me out of the airport with my ass in the air.
4
BEN
“What the—”
“If you want to draw more attention to yourself, keep talking,” I said. I managed to keep Savannah balanced on my shoulder and the luggage cart under control, which was no small feat, given she was wriggling and slapping my back to try to break free.
I didn’t mind the challenge, and I quite enjoyed the view of her fine ass in her tight jeans as she writhed, so I let her do her worst.
Someone squealed. Not Savannah this time. Megan was following us. As much as I’d enjoyed flirting with her to try to get a rise out of Savannah, which had happened but not the way I’d hoped, our time together was over.
I stopped and turned to face her. “Did we forget something?” My cold tone seemed to have no effect on her.
She clapped her hands together. “Are congratulations in order?” she whispered.
What the... Oh, fuck. I followed Megan’s thinking. Since I didn’t know jack shit about Savannah’s life except for the few crumbs Mai sometimes threw my way, for all I knew, Megan might be right.
