Without Regret

Ten minutes later with a ticket in hand, she walked over to the small cafe where Chris sat watching her and thought about grabbing a quick bite to eat before her flight took off. Now that she knew she was about to be free from this nightmare food sounded pretty good.

“Do you have your computer?” Chris asked casually as his gaze swept over the small terminal.

“Yes,” she said, wondering if he wanted to make sure she could email him to let him know she was safe. It was sweet really, something she didn’t expect from the big jerk, but no less sweet.

“Good,” he said, gesturing for her to join him. She was about to refuse and explain that she didn’t have much time and really needed to grab something to eat when his next words gave her pause, “Can you hack into the airport’s system?”

She had to snort at that. “Yeah, why?”

“Because I need you to hack into the system and make it look as though you boarded the plane,” he explained absently as he glanced around again. If she didn’t have a better understanding of what was out there she might think he was paranoid.

“Why would I need to do that? Once I hand my ticket over it will update itself,” she explained. Then again he probably wanted to ensure that she left some sort of paper trail for this Quinn man to follow, which brought up a very interesting question.

“How exactly is Eric going to meet me in Texas if I just bought the ticket?” she asked, wondering if maybe he was already waiting in that private jet they used to smuggle her here for Chris to call him.

“He’s not,” Chris said, not bothering to look at her.

“I thought that was part of the deal,” she said, trying not to panic. After what she saw last night she really didn’t like the idea of one of those beasts chasing after her. She’d hoped she was going to be protected by Eric and some of his men. If she couldn’t count on any of them for help then she was going to the police the first chance she got. Granted they weren’t going to believe her and they’d probably lock her away with insane people who thought they turned into werewolves, but as long as they didn’t sprout fur she was actually fine with that.

“There was never any deal, Munchkin. You’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you,” he said, still looking around and further pissing her off.

“And if I don’t?” she demanded, tossing her bag over her shoulder as she glared down at him.

Finally he looked up at her and simply said, “Then you’ll die.”

Chapter 22

“There has to be some other way,” Izzy said as she backed up, looking around the dimly lit parking garage nervously.

Fighting back the urge to throw her ass in the car, he reached out and took her hand into his. “There is no other way,” he explained calmly. “Now get your ass in that car before I spank it.”

“But I-“

“Just get in the damn car,” he snapped.

She tossed her bag in the back seat as she glared at him. “Fine. You didn’t have to be such a jerk about it.”

“Apparently I do. Now move your cute little ass,” he said, reaching out and palming that beautiful ass as it moved past him because he really couldn’t help himself.

“Hey!” she hissed, slapping his hand off her ass. “Stop touching my ass, you pervert!”

“Move it and I won’t have to,” he snapped back, knowing he was lying. There was no way he was going to be able to stop himself from doing at least that much when he was around her.

Even as he should be focusing on getting them the hell out of the state without being seen he couldn’t help but think about that kiss. He hated the way she made him want her, need her. Handing her over to Eric would be the smartest thing to do in this situation, but he couldn’t do it. He needed to make sure this was done right and that meant doing it himself.

“You know what? I’m done with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. In fact,” she said, shoving her hair out of her face before she stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest, “I think it would be best if we didn’t speak until you drop me off.”

“That’s more than fine with me,” he said, shutting the door, not bothering to explain that he wouldn’t be dropping her off anywhere, at least not until this bullshit was done. As long as she was willing to keep quiet and let him pretend that she wasn’t there then he really didn’t feel the need to piss her off by enlightening her of the fact that she was bait.

********

“I thought you said you weren’t going to speak to me,”

Chris said as he slammed his fist against the dashboard and cursed when the air conditioner didn’t kick in.

“I also didn’t think I’d be stuck in a sauna roasting my ass off for six hours straight,” Isabella snapped as she gave up trying to get the window down any further.

She’d been lucky to get it to go down three inches and now it was time to face the facts.

Chris hotwired a lemon.

None of the electrical equipment worked. None of the controls for the back doors worked at all. The radio only came in on an AM Spanish talk show. The air conditioner didn’t work and the headlights and windshield wipers turned off and on at will.

“It’s not that bad,” Chris muttered.

“Not that bad?” Isabella demanded as she gave up on staying the hell away from him and climbed into the front bench seat, “accidentally” kicking him in the head in the process.

“Hey!”

“Oooops, sorry,” she mumbled, secretly pleased that she got at least one hit in after all those failed attempts earlier.

“How exactly is this ‘not that bad’?” she asked, looking pointedly at his sweat slicked bare chest.

“Hey, no one told you to wear a flannel shirt. Take it off if you’re hot,” Chris said, finishing off the last of the water they’d bought an hour ago.

“I can’t,” she muttered. “I’m not wearing anything under it.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, looking over to frown at her.

“I wish I was,” she mumbled pathetically.

“Why the hell didn’t you put something else on? It’s not exactly winter, Munchkin. When I sent you upstairs with Madison and Jill I told you to borrow something of theirs. If you had just done as you were told you wouldn’t be sweating your ass off now,” Chris snapped, sounding pretty pissed, which only pissed her off more.

It was hot, she was freaking exhausted since she hadn’t had more than an hour of sleep in the last forty-eight hours and she was starving since the only place he would stop at only sold beef jerky, pork rinds and large individually wrapped pickles. She was hungry, she just wasn’t pork rind-beef jerky hungry. Not yet anyway.

“Look, you big jerk!” she snapped, turning in her seat to glare at him as she let him have it, “I did exactly as you asked. I went upstairs with them and tried to try on some shirts, but none of the females in your family are as well-endowed as I am and I couldn’t pull the damn shirts over my tits if you must know!”

“Why hell didn’t you just take one of my tee shirts?” he demanded in an accusing tone as he shifted in his seat, again.

“Because I was freezing my ass off and I wasn’t given much of a choice. Joshua tossed the shirt in the room and told me that I had to move my ass!”