Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2) (18 page)

“I knew all this had something to do with him.”

“Does it really matter?” Henry looked away from the road for a split second, locking her in brief but intense eye contact. “Here, we can enjoy the beach without having to constantly look over our shoulders.”

Ha. As far as Sasha could tell, Henry looked over his shoulder at least every other minute, no matter what the circumstances. But at the moment he looked so sincere – and so hot – that she just smiled.

“No, it’s not a big deal. I just wondered what you guys were hiding. I can’t wait to spend a day at the beach – which one doesn’t matter.”

No matter where their location, she’d get to spend the day relaxing, enjoying good food – if she did say so herself – and indulging in an eye candy buffet comprised of shirtless Henry, Grey and Liam. They were all sure to draw every female eye on the beach, though Henry was the hottest of the three by a landslide. His muscles were perfect, and the scars on his back made him look tough and rugged. His gorgeous fair hair contrasted with the uber-masculinity of the rest of his features, setting them off.

She couldn’t wait to strip out of her cover-up dress and down to her red bikini so she could show off a little. Henry would finally be distracted from her fading black eye, and by the time they left the beach, he’d be ready to jump into bed with her again … and stay there all night. She was sure of it.

* * * * *

It was twilight and Henry had never been so glad to pull into his own driveway. Nothing but the scents of sea salt and sunblock filled the back seat of his truck – he’d dropped Liam, Grey, Alicia and Kerry off at Liam and Alicia’s place. Sasha had followed him back to his house in her car, and he was finally about to be alone with her – a fact his dick was acutely aware of, as if it had a mind of its own.

He was back to wondering what kind of blows his health might suffer at the hands of blood deprivation to his
actual
brain. Not that he was really complaining. He’d been feeling like shit ever since he’d accidentally knocked Sasha out of bed a couple nights ago, and he’d winced that morning when he’d first caught sight of her at Liam and Alicia’s place. The bruise was fading, but still visible.

Still, sometime over the course of the day – probably the moment when she’d stripped down to her bikini – his guilt had been superseded by aching desire.

Desire that’d flared into a supernova of lust when she’d suggested that he bring her back to his place. She hadn’t even bothered to make any excuses as to why – they both knew
why
. And while he’d been too disgusted with himself to touch her a mere 48 hours ago, a day of watching her flaunting on the beach had him fairly certain it’d kill him
not
to touch her.

She’d flirted with him all day, smiling and touching him at every opportunity. Each brush of her fingertips and flash of her teeth had made him feel 10 feet tall.

Rubbing sunblock onto her back for her had given him a boner from hell, and he’d had to put a towel in his lap to avoid looking like some kind of creep perving around a family beach.

He was just as hard now, and it was all he could think about as he climbed out of his truck and stepped down onto the driveway, keys jingling and gravel crunching beneath his flip-flops. He still wore his swim shorts along with an old, sand-colored t-shirt from his Marine Corps days. The shorts did nothing to hide his raging erection – hopefully his elderly neighbor, Ms. Keller, wasn’t looking out her window.

Sasha flashed Henry a smile as she stepped out of her car. He knew that smile – it was the same one she’d flashed him when she’d asked him to apply sunblock to her back.

“So I was thinking…” she said, sauntering toward him, her curves clearly visible beneath her slightly damp cover-up dress.

She never got a chance to finish what she’d been saying. A loud
pop
exploded by Henry’s right ear, the sound of a hole being punched in his truck. He recognized the sound immediately for what it was, even though the noise of discharge had been muffled. Suppressed on purpose, probably.

“Get down!” He lunged at Sasha, pushing her down into the gravel.

Sure enough, another bullet hit the side of his truck just a few feet above the ground they were sprawled on.

He met her gaze for the briefest of moments and saw a wild-eyed look of fear. The sight of it sent a clawing feeling tearing through his chest, and he tightened his hold on her, afraid she’d try to get back up.

“Stay right here,” he said, infusing his words with as much urgency as he could. “Don’t move. Don’t get up. Don’t even lift your head.”

He stayed low to the ground, crouching as he rounded the truck and climbed back into the driver’s side, reaching under the seat. As soon as his fingertips touched metal, his erratic heartbeat began to stabilize. It was still pounding like a race horse’s hooves against a track, but that was all right. He could do this.

A quick look around the front of the truck showed him nothing and nearly got him shot in the head. There was no question that the person firing on him was hiding in the woods, but they were hiding well – Henry couldn’t see them.

Which meant that to stop them, he’d have to go where they were.

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t let himself think about how his truck was starting to look like a block of Swiss cheese. He just ran toward the noise of gunfire. Another shot came, louder than the last, as the suppressor’s effectiveness waned. It missed him, and he had the presence of mind to zigzag, making himself a less stable target.

He felt the air drag created by the next bullet as it whistled past. He ran harder, faster, tearing through underbrush as it tangled around his feet.

* * * * *

A deep, involuntary groan tore its way out from deep in Sasha’s gut as she experienced the biggest
holy shit
moment of her life. Henry had run toward gunfire, into the woods, carrying his gun.

Suddenly, she felt the pain of every little stone sticking in her palms and legs. Forcing herself up onto her hands and knees, she sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, willing the world to stop spinning around her. Henry had knocked the air out of her when he’d shoved her to the ground, and this felt like her first breath in a million years.

When she had a little oxygen circulating through her system again, she didn’t waste any time scrambling toward her vehicle. Crouching low behind the cover of her car, she opened the driver’s side front door and reached under the seat, fingers closing around the object she’d stowed there.

Next, she scrambled through the gravel, seizing Henry’s keys. Thank God he’d dropped them before running off. Fumbling for the green key she’d seen him use to unlock the front door before, she sprinted for the house, already breathless.

She expected to hear gunfire, to feel a bullet punch its way through her like the others had Henry’s truck. But there was no noise save for her ragged breathing and the slap of her 2” sandal heels against the ground. By the time she slammed into the door, she felt like she’d experienced a miracle.

Shoving the key into the lock, she tried not to think too hard about what the silence meant. Something good, please…

“Wolf!” She stumbled inside, beyond glad that only one of the three locks was usable from the exterior. The sliding bolt and door chain were only usable from indoors, when someone was inside the house.

She nearly tripped over the huge dog. He stood in the entryway, the fur between his shoulders bristling in a crest. He stopped baring his teeth once he saw her, but barked loudly.

“I know boy, I know. Come on!” She scrambled for the back door, where Henry had sealed the dog entrance, trapping Wolf inside the house. After undoing the three locks, she had it open. She didn’t know all the commands Henry had taught Wolf, but luckily, the dog sped out the door immediately.

At first she’d worried about how she’d get him out of the back yard. There was a gate, but it was padlocked and she had no idea which key went to it – several looked like likely candidates. But Wolf blew her worries out of the water when he crossed the lawn in a few long bounds, then leapt over the 4’ fence like it was nothing.

It seemed like hardly a second had passed when the sound of snarling came from the woods, a scary noise even to Sasha, who hoped desperately that it meant Wolf had located her and Henry’s attacker.

Unfortunately, Sasha wasn’t nearly as agile as Wolf. She made it halfway across the yard before she tripped over her skirt, landing sprawled in the grass. Thank God she’d been carrying her Shun in a leather sheath, otherwise she probably would’ve gutted herself.  

Leaping to her feet, she tore her dress over her head and dropped it. Climbing the chain link fence in nothing but her bikini was an awkward affair, but she made it, and then there was nothing to do but sprint into the woods, praying she wouldn’t be knocked out cold by her bouncing cleavage.

* * * * *

The first thing Randy thought when the dog’s jaws locked around his shoulder was that he was being mauled by a ghost. It was a brutal haunting, one that was rending his flesh from his bones as he gripped the Blaser, swearing. How the hell had he failed to kill the dog?

There was no time to waste wondering, and the rifle was useless to him now. Hell, as soon as he’d fired it he’d realized it’d never been used before – never sighted in.

Reaching below, he fumbled at his belt and pulled out the hunting knife at his hip. As he plunged it into the dog’s body, it occurred to him that he could turn this around – make lemons out of lemonade. He’d hang the dog up beside its owner, and wouldn’t that be a sight?

The dog yelped and finally let go, slipping down into Randy’s lap. The knife handle was torn from Randy’s hand, buried almost to the hilt. He barely had time to retrieve it before he saw that Officer Dryden was rising from where he’d fallen in the underbrush.

Randy had gotten lucky when Dryden had charged him with his Glock drawn. Dryden had only been able to fire one shot, and it had missed – barely – hitting the oak behind Randy. Then one of Dryden’s beach sandals had slipped out from under his foot, sending him flying. Randy had acted on instinct, scrambling to hit him over the head with the butt of his rifle.

Then he’d been attacked by the dog.

“You miserable sack of shit!” Dryden threw himself at Randy again, and this time he deflected a blow from the rifle’s stock.

In fact, he grabbed the rifle and tore it away from Randy, who didn’t have the strength to hold on, thanks to his mauled shoulder. Fuck, if anything important had been severed or crushed, he was in hot water. At the moment, he was way too high on adrenaline to tell.

Dryden aimed a fist at Randy’s head – his gun had flown into the underbrush when he’d fallen – and landed a sharp punch, causing stars to burst forth in front of Randy’s eyes.

He was stunned but not unconscious, and he still had his knife. Even though he could hardly see past the bright patches of color obscuring his vision, the thought made him smile. This was how Troy had nearly killed that other officer, Alexander.

It seemed fitting that Randy would finish off Dryden this way. Then he’d make his way back to the house and decide what to do with Dryden’s sweet little girlfriend.

He’d wanted to kill her first – make Dryden watch – but it seemed that wasn’t in the cards. The bullets he’d meant for her had gone astray, and now it had come down to this.

“Ugh!” Dryden landed two more blows, the first to Randy’s stomach, and then another to his head.

Randy realized that he was thinking too slowly, moving too slowly. Desperate, he threw up the fist he had wrapped around the knife’s handle.

It worked. The blade hit something solid and he pushed with all his might.

Dryden grunted and swore, and the blows stopped. Then – Jesus Christ! – Randy started hallucinating.

It had to be the blows to the head. Or hell, maybe he
had
been shot but didn’t realize it. Either way, he saw a woman in a red bikini charging through the woods, blonde hair flying behind a face he couldn’t focus on because his attention was locked on two of the biggest tits he’d ever seen.

Holy fuck, were they bouncing. She was sprinting like an Olympic track star, and they looked fit to burst right out of her top. By the time Randy realized he’d frozen, she was on top of him.

She had a knife. Chest heaving, she raised it in the air and swung it down in an arc, like a woman possessed.

When the blade sliced through Randy’s forearm, he realized she was no hallucination. She was Dryden’s girlfriend.

Randy dropped his knife. Maybe it was shock, or something worse, but he just couldn’t hold on anymore.

“Shit!” He heaved, fighting a sudden wave of nausea, as he rocked back, away from Dryden and his crazy bitch.

Dryden was doubled over, and Randy could hear him breathing. He was moving, and Randy knew he had seconds, maybe less, to get the fuck out of there.

The girlfriend blocked his path, standing with her feet apart, gripping the knife that was dripping with his blood.

“You asshole!” she screamed, and lunged at him again.

This time, the tip of the blade caught him right across the cheek. He felt the sting of it, saw the hard gleam in her eyes that said she’d cut his face on purpose and would gladly do it again.

Fuck! He charged forward and hit her with all his body weight, bowling her over and not caring when he felt the sting of the knife again, this time on the same arm the dog had bitten. It was the price of getting past her, the price of freedom. Leaving her flat on her back in the underbrush, he ran like hell. His legs were just fine – all he had to do was not black out from shock or blood loss.

As he ran, heaving and fighting the urge to puke, it began to rain. It was a sudden downpour, one that made his wounds sting as it flushed the blood and dirt out of them. Rainwater ran into his eyes and down his body, staining the pine needle carpet an ugly pink as it mixed with his blood.

* * * * *

“Henry!” Sasha’s legs gave out, like she’d just run a marathon instead of sprinting through the woods. Wet leaves stuck to her knees after she pushed herself back up and scrambled toward Henry. She’d seen Randy plunge the knife into his neck – she was
still
seeing it, in her mind’s eye.

There was blood everywhere. God, it was a struggle not to throw up. Weird patches of light filtered in and out of her field of vision. Was this shock?

Maybe it was just panic. It was rising up inside her, a colossal parasite that fed off her fear and took over as she sank back to the forest floor beside Henry, getting leaves on her knees and blood on her hands. “Henry! Henry, look here!”

It was raining hard now and water got in her eyes, streaking down her face. The sensation was like crying, which she was also doing, an automatic response to the sight of so much red smeared all over Henry’s t-shirt. It was on his skin too, above the collar and below the edges of the sleeves of his shirt.

“Sasha…” He grabbed one of her hands, pulling it away from his neck.

Pain flared in her wrist, but it was dulled by fear. She ignored it.

Had she hurt him? Guilt washed over her, along with the rain. They always said not to move accident victims, didn’t they? What was the protocol for people who’d been attacked by psychopaths – were you allowed to touch them?

She squeezed his hand, hard. She couldn’t
not
touch him. The reserve of strength she’d drawn upon to face Randy was depleted, and all that was left was a gaping hole where it’d been. Doubt was already filling it. Doubt and terror, sharpened by memories of what it was like to lose someone.