A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(3)

I tense.

Something’s off.

My body’s half in, half out of the window. A light breeze pushes the leaves toward me, the rustle a familiar sound. When you live this close to the ocean, the wind becomes a second language.

And it’s telling me something right now.

Instinct takes over. The amygdala sends rat-brain signals to my body. I stand up on the windowsill, look down, and coil my leg muscles. Too tight and I’ll snap a bone. Too loose and I’ll burst my spleen.

And...I jump.

You think the impact from the landing is the worst part of a long fall. It’s actually the seconds where you’re suspended in midair. With nothing to set you in space and time, you float.

You float like there is no sense of touch. Reaching out yields air. You can’t track time or measure your space. It’s like you don’t exist.

Until you land.

I dart to the left, my thighs screaming from quick, sharp movement.

I tackle the sound before I even hear it. My arms whip around the source of the noise, caging it in, pressing it against the mulch and grass, the carefully edged lawn around the base of the house.

“Mphhhh! Mmmm! Uh uh!” says the sound.

The sound is soft and hot, twisty and frantic.

And then the sound speaks.

“Fuck you, Drew!”

I sigh, as much as you can sigh while you’re taking an adrenaline bath as you straddle the woman who stole your gun and escaped from nine members of your security team.

“I love you, too, Lindsay.”

“Let me go!”

“No.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

She’s legally right, but operationally wrong.

I lighten up just enough for her to move from her side onto her back, our mouths inches apart.

Just like a few hours ago, in her bed.

A few pesky little details have changed since then.

“Where’s my gun?”

She clamps her lips shut.

Like that’s going to work.

“Lindsay,” I say in a low, even voice that is designed to scare the shit out of her. “Give me my gun or I’ll have my guys personally escort you back to that f*cking island, only this time you’ll arrive by parachute in the ocean a quarter mile offshore.”

She snorts. “You wouldn’t.”

The ragged, excited breaths she’s taking make her loose breasts push up against my chest, over and over. Our nipples brush up against each other.

Both sets are hard.

So is something else.

On me.

“Try me. You stole my firearm,” I hiss. “What the f*ck were you thinking? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? And what are you planning to do?” In the moonlight, her eyes should be big as saucers, frightened and agitated.

But they’re narrow and calculating.

Like a cat.

“You think you can escape and go get John, Stellan and Blaine? You stupid little -- ”

The bite comes out of nowhere as she sits up, her core muscles so f*cking powerful she bucks me up an inch or so, and she’s biting my ear.

I see stars.

But I’m not getting off her. She’s driven me to this extreme.

The only way to protect Lindsay is to literally pin her in place with my body.

And there are two ways we can do this.

The hard way

or

The harder way

So I headbutt her.

I see stars again, but she lets go and squeals, then howls in pain.

“Why did you dooooo that?” she moans, pressing the bridge of her nose with her fingers, rocking in place.

Ignoring her version of please, I get off her. She won’t bite me like that again. I haul her up and use an arm-twist technique that immobilizes her.

“Gun.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She juts her chin up, defiant.

God, she’s so f*cking rebellious and hot.

And a pain in the ass.

“You can be charged with multiple felonies for stealing a firearm from an active-duty military officer and a federal -- ”

“Prove it.”

“Prove you stole my gun?” I snort. “Your fingerprints are all over it.” She’s twisting in my hands but there’s no hope. I’ve held guys three times her size with this technique.

“Prove the gun exists.”

Wasn’t expecting that.

“Prove the what?”

“It’s not registered. All the metal’s been filed down. Bet it’s untraceable. Which means I can’t steal something that doesn’t exist, Drew,” she says, taunting me.

Teasing me.

Blood runs in a small trickle from her left nostril, looking like a black worm in the night.

“Do you mind?” She jostles her hands. “Can I wipe my nose that you just injured? Daddy is going to shit a brick when he finds out you’ve abused his daughter.”

“And when he finds out you stole my gun to go after three well-established, highly successful men to fulfill some sick, mentally unbalanced scheme you have for revenge against guys who did nothing more than meet your request for some gang bang sex, I don’t think your version of events is the one he’s going to believe.”

She moves to kick me in the balls.

I’m a nanosecond faster and swoop my foot across her ankles.