I stalk toward her, checking to see if there’s anyone around. The place is deserted, which is weird for this time of day but highly fucking convenient. Sloane takes a cautious step back, a look of mild panic on her face. “Zeth, just calm down. It was an accident,” she whispers.
I grab her around the waist and lift her so that her feet are off the floor. She freezes for a second—not entirely sure what to do—but then tries to wriggle free from my grasp. I lunge forward with her, slamming her back up against the announcement board that displays the bus departure times, crushing my body against hers. Next comes my mouth. I take hold of her face in both hands and press my lips against hers. I’m not fighting the urge to be rough with her right now. Instead, I’m making myself be rough. It feels necessary—my relief at seeing her safe and unharmed is enough to make me dizzy. And I want to devour her in some sick way, to press her into myself so the two of us aren’t individual people anymore, but one living, breathing entity, where the threat of separation can never trouble us again. Her skin feels hot underneath my hands. Her heart is slamming in her chest—I can literally feel its pulsing rhythm against my own ribcage. She exhales sharply as I tease her lips apart; I slide my tongue inside her mouth and taste her. She responds, slowly at first, and then something snaps. Her hands are clawing at me, pulling down my hood and fumbling with the zip to my sweater. I want her to take it from me. I want her to take every single last item of clothing from my body and I want to remove hers, too. I want to fuck her until she screams right here and now in the Seattle bus depot.
But we can’t.
“Sloane? Sloane, wait. We have to get out of here.” I hold her face in my hands again—her breathing is even faster than mine, her eyes completely glazed over. “You should know something, though,” I whisper, my lips brushing lightly against hers.
She looks like she’s been drugged. “What?”
“You knew you were just being followed, and you turned and defended yourself. Nothing…nothing has ever been hotter than that.”
A brief attempt at a smile passes over her features. “I’m glad I’ve impressed you,” she says.
I can’t believe this woman. What the fuck did I ever do to deserve someone like her? To deserve the look she’s giving me right now? It’s a mystery I’ll never be able to work out. “Sloane, always consider me impressed.” I lower her slowly so she can find her feet. “Right now, we need to leave before Lowell shows up and castrates me, though.”
She gives me a sideways look as I guide her back the way I just came, back toward the Hummer and Michael. “What the hell did you do, Zeth? And who the hell is Ernie?”
I almost want to smile. Fuck it. I let myself have this one. I grin big. “You,” I tell her, “are about to find out.”
******
“You kidnapped her dog?”
“Technically he dognapped him,” Michael says. I bundle Sloane into the backseat with Ernie, making sure she doesn’t sit in the wet patch he created earlier, and then I climb into the passenger seat. Sloane eyes the Schnauzer dubiously. Ernie eyes her back.
“How the hell did you figure out where she lives in the first place?” Sloane asks.
Michael guns the engine and then we’re out of here. “Lowell’s based in Cali, actually. I have a guy who finds things out, though. She’s staying at a hotel downtown. He hacked her details on their system and told us she’d checked in with an animal.”
I watch Ernie lick the back of Sloane’s hand, feeling rather fucking proud of myself. “And a DEA agent who can’t be separated from her dog while she travels must really fucking love that dog.”
“Oh my god, no wonder she went so pale. She’s going to string you up for this, baby.” Sloane laughs.
Baby.
I’ve wanted to hit loved-up assholes for using that endearment before. But when Sloane says it… I don’t really know what to think. I catch Michael’s amused smile, itching at the corners of his mouth, and I don’t feel like busting his balls. I just raise my eyebrows at him, a look of shock and amusement of my own. The fucker grins, then, like it’s Christmas day and Mom and Dad aren’t fighting.
“I suppose we’d better get out of here,” he says. The words sound rounder coming out of his mouth, shaped by the texture of his smile.