AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The rational half of me is still here, and so are my knees. They act before I can even process the thought. Call it self-defense. I bring my knee straight up into Mr. Kissy Face’s balls.
He grunts deeply into my mouth—even that isn’t unpleasant—tears his mouth from mine, and lets out a keening cry. I leap off of him as he rolls and grabs his family jewels.
When I spin around, I see all four guards standing in the open patio door beyond the deck, watching. I’m not dumb enough to think that I can still escape. I know it’s futile. I won’t get over the wall now. All I can do is salvage my dignity.
I make sure the wet T-shirt is still hovering near my kneecaps, lift my head, and stalk toward the house. The guards have the sense to clear out, which is a good thing, seeing as I’m coming at them like a wrecking ball. They’re all sitting back down at the table with some board game when I enter through the open door. The kitchen smells like pizza.
It makes sense, given that there’s an open box with a fresh-looking, steaming pizza on the island. Scarlet is standing next to it, and she has the lid open. As the island faces the window that looks into the backyard, she must have seen the whole thing. So why is she grinning like that?
“Told him that the thump on the roof wasn’t a bird. It was you trying to escape,” Scarlet scoffs. “Anyway, good for you. I love a feisty, fiery spirit. It’s good to know you have it in spades. That’s how you take the howl out of the badger.”
“What the farge is it with badgers?” I grab two pieces of steaming hot pizza and storm off.
As I get to the end of the kitchen, one of the goons cries out, making me jump, but I don’t turn around. “Dang it, I knew it! I knew it should have been the candlestick and not the rope!”
Another voice chimes in, “That’s right, you murdering motherfucker. It was you all along.”
A third, deeper voice laughs uproariously. “Thanks for handing me an easy victory. I can count on it every single time. It must be the anchovies rotting your brain.”
I make it back to my room without anyone tackling me or shadowing my steps. I guess they figure that’s it for escape attempts tonight. I wonder what they would have done if I had just bolted for the front door. Why didn’t I try that option?
I lock the bedroom door behind me, disgusted with myself. The only way to collect what little of my shredded pride I have left is to stalk over to the window and watch while nibbling at the pizza as Alden picks himself up and limps to the house. There’s a round of laughter before it’s cut short as the door closes.
I guess I can cross this escape option off the list.
If only I could get some sleep, I might be fresh enough tomorrow to come up with a new plan. It’s clear that I’m going to have to use my mind, not what little physical prowess I have to get myself out of this. Normally my mind is my greatest asset, but right now, it’s thoroughly frazzled from everything that happened, including that kiss. And feeling Alden’s big, solid, muscled body beneath mine with just a thin scrap of wet cotton T-shirt separating us.
It just goes to show that I’m no good at this cloak-and-dagger bad shit because I can’t stop myself from hoping that his balls are going to be okay. Yeah, I don’t have a mean bone in my body. Not even when I desperately need one to get myself out of this mess.
CHAPTER 7
Alden
I have to say that after a night spent icing down my berries, I’m not overly eager to present them to the perpetrator of all that pain again, but Granny insisted I take Azalea’s freshly laundered clothes—which Granny did herself in the early ass hours of the morning—up to her and give her some heads up about what she was going to find at breakfast. She gave me a look along with the clothes she handed over, and it basically told me that if I was all the hope there was for humanity, then humanity was screwed in a big way. In short, she wasn’t too proud of my seduction skills so far.
What can I say? I know computers. I know the streets. And I know how to hide money with the best of them, how to move it, and how to take down an entire empire of crime singlehandedly. But charm my way into my sort of fiancée’s good graces? Yup, my bruised balls are proof that I’m pretty much shit at it.
