Page 32 of Bared

To get Jayd Cimarron out of here.

He leaned down, roping one hand around her wrist while jamming his phone into a back pocket with another. With any luck, none of the commotion had disconnected the call to Oz and Jagger, and he’d be able to give them a better report once they were out of Gervais’s crosshairs.

But the world wasn’t ready to be okay for him yet. And the idiot bully wasn’t ready to be done with the chase.

After an outraged roar, Gervais was on his feet and giving them steady chase. Brick didn’t glance back to confirm the fact. Not necessary. The shithead was as subtle as a pig in heat, swearing and growling and stumbling.

But despite his noise, the asshole was fast.

Brick cussed beneath his own breath. They had to get out of sight somehow.

The alley curved a little, buying them a few seconds of invisibility from the guy. Those moments were enough for Brick to look up and spot a small symbol that was stamped on the glass over an ornate black door. Other than the round insignia, which some might mistake as a bicycle gear or Celtic clan symbol, the entrance was completely boring.

But it wasn’t unremarkable to Brick. And that round, three-part emblem was inducing him to anything but yawns in this moment.

This moment, with Jayd Cimarron’s wrist in his grip…and her eyes, now pleading him so fully for her safety…

She picked now to get wise about trusting him?

He couldn’t waste time answering that. He had to simply accept it. For the moment, he had what he needed from her to get this shit done.

He lunged forward and pushed open the door.

Safety.

Or so he assumed.

In the split second before yanking Jayd all the way through the portal, Brick glimpsed movement around the bend in the alley. Movement too significant to be a scuttling rat or feline.

It was human.

Fuck.

It was Gervais—observing exactly where they were taking shelter.

Chapter Five

“What on earth?”

The wonderment had assaulted Jayd’s mind at least a dozen times in the last hour. This was the first time it breached past her lips. She was justified. The acceleration of her pulse told her so. Her mind refused to tame the throb, spinning into a strange storm of reactions as Max Brickham dragged her down a narrow, tiled hall. She was nervous but consoled. Furious but grateful. But strangest of all, she used the freedom to admit and examine all those things—which meant, in her most vital intuitions, she also felt safe.

So in actuality, she had gone insane.

That had to be it—because there was nothing safe about the atmosphere around her. The music was dark and moody. The air was thick and leathery. And then there were the shrieks and moans. Victims in pain, making her chest ache with—

What?

Sorrow? Anguish? Trepidation? Fear?

Only the last on that list was true, though it was not the same sensation she had always coupled to the feeling. She was afraid but not in fear. She was trepidatious but not terrified.

“Brickham?” she spurted as soon as they stopped in a round vestibule bracketed by a couple of doors. In front of them, a wide archway was filled by a black velvet curtain. The music was coming from somewhere beyond that, along with more broken groans and cries. “Wh-What is—”

He cut in on her with a harsh sound from his throat. “Quiet,” he ordered. “And do exactly what I say. If your friend followed us in here, we’ll need to act fast.”

“That bonsun is not my friend!”

“And we are way out of time for semantics.”