Hell, yeah, he wanted her, but in a whole different way than she meant. He clipped the other cuff to his own wrist, frowning. “What makes you think I won’t hurt you?”
“We both know you would have already. Besides, I don’t know if you even could.”
His gaze lifted to her face, searching for evidence of cunning, lies, ulterior motive. No one truly understood or accepted his abilities, including himself. The fact that she was intrigued instead of appalled touched a cold, rejected part of himself he’d closed off a long time ago. It had been years since anyone had believed in his humanity. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time for her to see him as harmless.
“Didn’t you read that article? Weren’t you there when I gutted Taz?” His stomach turned at the memory of sickening sensations—the knife piercing Taz’s skin, sinking into flesh, driving through muscle. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
He scooped up the Walmart bags and opened the door a couple inches to peer out. Streetlights glowed over the main road, clear of traffic. The shadowed parking lot beyond was quiet and empty but for a few cars and the U-Haul. He glanced up and down the walkway outside the room and found it clear.
He turned and met Alyssa’s eyes, trying to ignore their soft almond shape and the long fringe of lashes. “Let me make one thing very clear: I am not going back to prison. Ever. I’ll die first. You may not believe I’m dangerous, but I’m also not backed into a corner at the moment. And you have a lot more to lose now. I can either explain that five grand away after this is over and clear your name or throw your life to the sharks. You choose.”
She held his gaze without responding. She’d heard him, and that was all he needed to know. He pulled her alongside him as he stepped out.
The motel was made up of two buildings, configured like an L. Their room was on the short end of the bottom leg. The office, closer to where the truck was parked, lay at the end of the longer section.
Despite the gray light of dawn, Teague kept to the shadows of the building, dragging Alyssa behind him. As he traversed the corner where the two sections met, a door closed near the motel office. Teague pushed Alyssa into an opening between the buildings, home to an icemaker and vending machine, and peered around the siding. A woman shuffled to the edge of the parking lot, a bathrobe wrapped around her chubby figure, a cigarette between her fingers. It was the office manager he’d deliberately avoided when he’d picked up the coffee and newspaper earlier.
“Great,” he muttered. “Right between us and the truck.”
Alyssa leaned into him to see around the corner. “What is it?”
Her warm breath bathed his ear, sliding down his neck. He nudged her back to put more distance between them and shushed her. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in the way his scalp tingled and his shoulders tightened. In the way an uncomfortable pinch took up residence in his stomach. That was a sixth sense he’d developed in prison, unlike his lame, struggling pyrokinetics that had been chemically burned into him one terror-filled night.
He couldn’t chance walking right by the woman, so he waited. It seemed like forever as the manager continued to stare out at the parking lot, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the cigarette taking quick trips to her lips. In the distance, tires hummed on the asphalt, growing louder. The hair on Teague’s neck prickled.
He scanned the length of the motel for another exit. If they went around the back and approached the truck from the opposite direction ...
The drone of a car engine brought his gaze back to the parking lot. A police cruiser pulled in and coasted toward the manager, who waved it down.
Dread settled in Teague’s gut. He gripped Alyssa’s hand and pulled her with him as he crossed the breezeway between buildings and peered out the other side. The neighborhood beyond was barren, the only inhabited building within sight another shacklike hotel half a mile down the road.
Before he’d strategized a plan, another police car passed the hotel—this one with lights flashing, but no sirens.
“Fuck.” Teague jumped back into the shadows and collided with Alyssa. A cry of surprise and pain rumbled from her mouth. Teague pressed her face into his shirt with a hand on the back of her head.
The click of another door drew Teague’s attention. A man wandered out of his motel room with an ice bucket in one hand, the other rubbing at his eyes as if he’d just woken. The man stopped and looked toward the parking lot, squinting at the red-and-blue flashing lights.
While he was distracted, Teague walked Alyssa back into the shadows alongside the vending machine. Her face was still pressed into his chest. Her breath, hot and fast against his T-shirt, filtered through the cotton and slid along his skin, making his mind blur around the edges.
“Oh ... my God ...” she said between breaths, her voice raspy with pain. “My side ... hit that stupid ... gun.”
The other motel guest grumbled something unintelligible as his attention shifted from the cops back to the ice machine. The sound of his feet dragging on the cement brought Alyssa’s focus around, her eyes wide with surprise. And in the fraction of a second that followed, Teague realized that if he didn’t act fast, Alyssa would act faster.
Before she could speak, Teague put one hand under her chin, turned her face and covered her mouth with his. She stiffened and squeaked, pushing at his chest. The hand cuffed to Teague’s pulled hard. He tightened his grip on her face and pulled back just enough to murmur, “Kiss me back, Alyssa. Please. Don’t push me into a corner.”
He couldn’t read her expression in the shadows, but her mouth softened under his, her hand stopped tugging, her muscles lost some of their tension.
“Oh, hey, man,” the other man stammered. “Sorry. Don’t mean to ... uh, er ... I’m just gettin’ some ice.”
Teague broke contact only long enough to mutter, “You ain’t botherin’ us. Is he, baby?”
Before she had a chance to answer, Teague kissed her again, and not solely for the purpose of keeping her quiet. He kissed her because he had to. After feeling those lips against his, he had to feel them again. And again. Her mouth was warm and soft. And with each press of his mouth, hers relaxed. Within seconds, she’d leaned into him, abandoning resistance.
Teague tightened the arm at her waist and pulled her closer until they were chest to chest, hips to hips. He shifted, allowing her body to rub against his, allowing him to get a better feel of all her soft swells and lean muscle.
And that was the moment she responded. Her hips met his pressure. Her mouth moved under his. The hand at his chest gripped the fabric of his shirt, as if to keep him close.
The clatter of ice hitting a plastic bucket echoed in the small space. “Did you see the cops out there, man?” the guy asked. “Do you know what happened?”
Teague didn’t answer. There was nothing that could make him pull away from Alyssa short of a cop holding a gun to his head, which he fully understood could happen at any moment.
The man’s voice seemed to nudge Alyssa from a trance. She broke their kiss and looked up at Teague. Her eyes glimmered in the dim light, heavy-lidded, filled with surprise and confusion and heat.
“Can’t you see I’m busy here?” Teague didn’t have to fake the irritation in his voice.
The other man harrumphed and continued to fill the bucket. Teague ran his thumb over Alyssa’s bottom lip, slid his palm to her jaw, and his fingers into her hair. He let his other hand drop to the low curve of her spine and pulled her hips against his again. Fully erect, he indented the soft swell at the center of her pelvis. She sucked in a breath, met his pressure, closed her eyes.
Teague’s mind hazed over. Almost slid right out from under him. His groin pulsed with heat. His hands ached to roam. He couldn’t stop himself when his mouth fell back to hers. And she didn’t resist. Her hand pressed against his face in the most endearing way as she tipped her head and opened to him.
The leash on his restraint snapped. He kissed her back with a hunger that reflected all those dark, desperate years alone. Years he thought he’d never feel a woman’s lips again.
Her hand slid over the back of his neck as she tilted her head a little more. Up and over his scalp as she teased her tongue into his mouth. After an instant of shock, he accepted her invitation with a groan that felt as if it rumbled all the way from his feet. Lost himself in the texture of her, the heat of her. The sexy play she elicited with her lips, teeth, tongue was like unlocking a private playroom door, giving him a glimpse into the secrets she kept for a classified few.
And he liked the private disclosure of those secrets. Really liked it.
Teague’s veins were filled with high octane, his body ready for a long, hot, steady burn followed by an intense, shattering explosion by the time the racket from the ice machine ceased and the man started back down the walkway.
“Might want to head back to your room,” he muttered. “Cops’ll find any excuse to bust you.”
Alyssa pulled away in one sharp movement, leaving Teague dizzy with lust. His heart beat double time, his chest rocked with quick breaths, his muscles strained for action.
And his brain was definitely focused on one thing, and one thing only.
Whoa.
He shook off the haze and peered around the side of the building toward the parking lot. Only minutes had passed, but it felt as if he’d been floating in an alternate universe.
Lights swept over the parking lot as another vehicle pulled in. But not a cop. Teague forced his mind to clear. He sharpened his attention on the man who emerged from the idling SUV and made his way to where the two cops stood talking to the woman. An eerie trickle of familiarity cut at Teague’s belly. Something about the way the man carried himself, the slant of his shoulders, the arrogant tilt of his head, but most of all, the stagger of his gait. Not quite a limp, but definitely not right.
Teague had only met one man who’d walked that way and that man had no business showing up here. Now. Ever in Teague’s life, for that matter. Not again. Even the possibility threw Teague’s screwed-up world way the hell off kilter. If it was Vasser—Teague would never forget that bastard’s name—then nothing was as it seemed, and Teague was screwed beyond imagination.
One cop held a hand out to the hotel manager, gesturing her to stay put as all three men pulled weapons and trotted toward the U-Haul. And all Teague could focus on was that man’s damned limp.
Fuck
.
With his heart still pounding, his damn dick still hard, he scanned the parking lot for a vehicle to jack, but the few cars present were all out in the open. He moved back to the opposite side of the passage and peered down the length of the building. An older model Honda Pilot sat in the manager’s space.
He looked down at Alyssa. “You’re going to have to move fast.”
Her tongue drifted over her bottom lip. Her eyes remained downcast, her head turned away. Her body language screamed embarrassment. She’d probably shocked herself as much as she’d shocked him with that kiss. The possibility that she regretted it nagged at his ego, but there was no time to dwell.
He dug in his pocket and found the cuff key. With a quick click, he released the metal from his own wrist. It was simply too awkward to keep her tethered to him.
He wrapped his arm around her back, using the good side of her ribs for support. “Put your arm around me and hold on.”
They scuttled along the building, obscured by the motel’s shrubbery. Two more cop cars came blaring onto the scene just as he and Alyssa reached the Honda. The cops would search the rooms first, but that wouldn’t take long. And as soon as they found Ice Man, they’d know which direction to look. Teague had five minutes, tops. And if that other guy was really Vasser, the cops were the least of Teague’s problems.
If he had thought his spiraling plan had hit rock bottom when he’d killed Taz, he’d been wrong, just like he’d been wrong about everything else.
He dropped the Walmart bags at his feet and secured Alyssa to the driver’s side door handle.
“Come on.” She jerked against the metal. “This is so unnecessary.”
“Where you’re concerned I never know what to think.”
He dragged the lantern from one of the plastic bags and worked at its metal handle, but couldn’t pry it loose. Anxiety pumped through his body. Teague closed his eyes, cleared his mind and channeled the energy into his hands. The metal softened and twisted and finally snapped off one side. Before the heat slipped away, he worked the thin metal rod in his palm to straighten the curve then create a hook at the end.
“That’s just ...” Alyssa’s soft voice brought Teague’s gaze up. She was peering around his shoulder, her eyes wide with awe.
“Weird,” he said. “I know.”
“Amazing, not weird,” she countered. “You have to change your thinking patterns.”
“Whatever.” He slid his new tool between the glass and the window frame on the driver’s side. The metal hooked around the interior door handle on the first try, and he popped the door open. He uncuffed Alyssa from the door and pushed her forward.