Read The Vigilante's Lover: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (The Vigilantes Book 1) Online

Authors: Annie Winters,Tony West

Tags: #bondage, #near future, #007, #Fifty Shades of Grey, #serial, #JJ Knight, #spies, #high tech, #romantic suspense, #James Bond, #thriller, #cliffhanger, #romantic thriller

The Vigilante's Lover: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (The Vigilantes Book 1) (13 page)

I wrench open the passenger door.

Jax jumps inside and has the car in motion before I can pull the handle closed. All his dash monitors are issuing warning beeps. The grid with the dots pulses red in every direction.

“Have they found us?” I ask.

“They’re about to.”

Jax slams on the gas and drives us out of the trees. We hit the gravel in a full skid. He yanks on the wheel and we head to the highway.

“They’re totally going to follow us,” I say.

“Yes, they are,” he says.

“But you have a plan?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says.

Now that we’re in the car, I feel a crazy sense of elation. I can’t help it, but let out a little squeal.

“What?” Jax asks.

“This is so exciting!”

I’ve never been so crazy hyper before. I don’t care anymore how I got into this world, that Jax tied me up and dragged me into it. It feels right. I belong here. This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life.

“They were going to send me home,” I tell Jax. “Like I could go back there after all this!”

Jax careens down the road. The red blips concentrate on a spot well behind us. I’m betting that’s where my bracelet is. I squeal again. We fooled them!

“Would you stop with that damn noise?” Jax growls.

“I’m too excited!” I punch him on the arm. “What are we doing next? Where are we going? Did you find out where Klaus is? I want to meet him!”

With that, Jax jerks off the road and we’re back in the woods again.

21: Jax

I’m not sure what game Mia is playing, but I’m done going along.

I grab her by the neck and squeeze a spot that I know creates a screaming pain through her skull.

Her eyes go bright with pain, but she can’t easily speak while I’m doing this.

My voice is like ice. “Who killed Klaus? Was it you? Or Jovana? Or one of her people?”

I let go. She slumps forward so fast that her forehead bangs the dash.

I wait until I know she is recovered enough to hear me. “Who killed Klaus?” I ask again.

Her back shakes a little, and that annoying protective urge in me is pricked again. I ignore it. “Answer me,” I insist, “or I’ll do that again.”

She sucks in a long shuddering breath. “I—I thought I was special,” she manages to get out.

I grab her shoulder and drag her back against her seat. “I am aware that you have somehow managed to compromise the Vigilante information network. That is no small feat.” I pull my hand away. “That doesn’t tell me who killed Klaus.”

She turns her face to me, eyes wet with pain and fear. “Klaus is dead?”

If her training is this good, I need to know who did it, because her confusion, fear, and innocence are so convincing that I let go of her and sit back.

“He was killed at your safe house, six months ago. Both his record and the notification of his death were deleted.”

She shakes her head. “No. I was there with my aunt. That’s right when I arrived. Almost to the day.” Her eyes plead with me. “We were alone. Nobody was killed there. I never heard of the Vigilantes until you told me.”

I want to tear out my hair, a feeling I’m not used to. Interrogating difficult prisoners was something I used to do all the time. Why is this pathetic sniveling girl getting to me?

I reach to tap my watch, realize it was confiscated at the silo, and manually bring up the dash screen. “Encrypted message,” I say.
 

The display flashes red, then green. “Encryption initiated,” it says.

“Message to Sam and Colette. Klaus dead. Records deleted. Rendezvous in—” I glance at the countdown to when I have to give up the ID of the car. I can’t push it. “Thirty-six hours.” I give a set of coordinates that will put us near the safe house.

Mia sniffs. “They were going to send me home.” She rubs her neck. “But I didn’t want to go.”

I cut off the communication screen so that it won’t add her ramblings to my message. Her voice sounds so forlorn, so lost.

“All right, I’ll play,” I say. “Why didn’t you want to go home?”

Her green eyes search mine. She looks me over, my hair, the white shirt, now wet and sticking to me, my suit jacket still at the silo. They rest on my hand, which just caused her no small amount of pain.

“Because I want to be with you,” she says. “All the way. With you.”

22: Mia

There, I’ve said it.

Jax’s expression is unreadable. I’ve just bared my pathetic heart. That I want him. I want this life. I don’t want to go home. That he can tie me up. He can do anything he wants. I’m willing.

“Well?” I manage to ask.

The soft dings of the alarms suddenly increase in volume and speed.

Jax glances at the dash. “They’ve found us,” he says. “Damn it.”

He wrenches open his door and dashes around to the trunk. I can’t see what he’s doing with it open, so I climb out of the car, tangled in the heavy, cold, wet dress.

When I get around to the back, Jax is pulling a large gelatinous brick from the trunk. Attached to it is a circuit board with a blinking green light.

“Time to give you your life back,” he says to the brick and heaves it into the underbrush.

He slams the trunk.

“Well?” I ask again. “Will you keep me? I’ll do anything you say. Anything you want.”

He pauses for a second.

“You really have nothing to do with Jovana, do you?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I don’t.” My heart accelerates. I think he might be agreeing.

“And you’re not trained in any way as an operative?”

“I have the shoes now,” I say, lifting my foot in the white sneaker. “I can start.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when they open again, they are glittering and hard.

“I can’t have an innocent civilian come with me,” he says. “I’m a fugitive. I’m already putting my comrades in danger.”

I take two steps closer to him. “Don’t send me back to Tennessee. That’s not where I belong. I can feel it.”

Jax shakes his head. “We’re done here. The Vigilantes obviously know you are a civilian. I’m not sure why they are protecting you, and it doesn’t matter.” He points into the woods where he threw the brick.

“You stay close to that, and they’ll come for you. They’ll take you home.”

I lunge for him. “But I don’t want to go home! I don’t have a home! I have no one!”

I’m not going to let him go. I can’t.

He hesitates a second, and my hope surges. He’s changing his mind. He’ll let me come with him.

“You have no choice, Mia,” he says and pushes me away. “This is not the life for you.” He heads around to his door.

I won’t accept that.

I have to do something. He’ll drive away, and then I’ll never find him again.

He gets in the car and is about to pull the door closed when I leap for it, blocking it with my body.

“Mia, step away,” he says.

I’ve never done anything like what I’m about to do. I don’t even know how. But I know Jax feels something for me. I have to show him that we’re supposed to do this together, that he found me for a reason.

I’ll seduce him. I’ll be the persuasive woman that I was in my letters.
 

The letters. I glance behind Jax into the backseat. The red bondage rope is still strewn all over it from where I dug through my bag.

Without any hesitation, I jerk my sweater dress up to my waist to give my legs room to move. Jax looks down in surprise at the exposed red thong.

I throw a leg over him and straddle his body. I reach around him, far enough to grab the rope.

Then I’m back.

Jax puts his hands on my waist to lift me away. This gives me the perfect opportunity to wrap his arms in the rope and tie the fastest slipknot ever made. Before he can protest, I’ve got his arms over his head, four more knots locking him to the headrest. His elbows frame his face.

“Nicely done,” he says bitterly. “You want the Vigilantes to catch me, then?”

I swallow hard. I can hear the beeping of the alarm. I ignore it. I have faith that Jax can get us out of any jam.

I put my hands on his cheeks. His stubble isn’t rough, like I thought, but soft. It cushions my palms.

His eyes are dark, a stormy gray-blue. I look at his lips. I’m going to have them. Twice he almost kissed me, but didn’t. This time, I’m not going to let him get away.

I lean in, and we connect. His mouth is warm and softer than I expected. At first he just sits there and lets me move over his lips. I remember the bulge of him between us at the hotel, and I grind against his body.

His chest stills, and I know he’s feeling this. His face relaxes beneath my hands. Now his mouth moves across mine, and he’s kissing me instead of the other way around. His tongue slides between my lips and I automatically open.

I tilt my head to take him in as deeply as I can and a small groan escapes from my throat. I don’t feel cold anymore, not at all, and heat blasts through my body as I move against him. He maneuvers away from my mouth, his lips on my jaw, my neck. I’m utterly lost, drowning in his attention, fire licking through me everywhere we touch.

The ropes fall into our laps and I realize he’s worked himself free. I want to laugh, thinking my silly knots could hold someone like Jax. His arms come around me and press me hard against him. Our mouths find each other again and I want to scream about this feeling I have as we dive into each other again.

His hands stroke my back, my ribs, and come down to my bared thighs. He spreads me wider so I can feel him, hard and erect, pushing up against me. I don’t want anything between us. I want out of this heavy dress, to see him, to feel his skin.

The entire car lights up red inside. “Perimeter surrounded,” the car voice says. “Security breach complete in fifteen seconds.” It begins a countdown.

Jax breaks the kiss. “I hope this is what you wanted,” he says. “Because we’re about to get caught.”

You’ve reached the end of Vigilante’s Lover #1!

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