In Bed with Boone
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Without further warning she was caught from behind. Arms snaked around her waist, snared her, held her, and with those arms on and all around her, she fell to the ground. She screamed breathlessly, and the man who’d caught her let out a loud whoosh as he landed practically on top of her. Since his arms were already completely around her, she was partially protected from her fall to the hard-packed ground. But still, it hurt.
Jayne closed her eyes, lost in darkness and the weight and suffocating heat of the man lying atop her. They were going to kill her, just like they’d killed poor Jim. Dammit, she would never forgive Pamela for this.
“On your feet, sugar,” the one who had caught her ordered.
He dragged her up, keeping his hand tightly around her wrist even when they were standing face-to-face. Well, her face to his broad chest was more like it. It was the hoodlum in the leather jacket who had caught her, and he wasn’t even breathing hard! She could barely catch her breath.
The man who had shot Jim raised his weapon and pointed it at her. Jayne closed her eyes.
“Put that down,” the man in the leather jacket ordered calmly. He took a step to the side, effectively shielding her. “Does she look like a fed? Does she look like some dealer who’s here to snatch your stuff? Hell, what we have here are two yuppies who have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He turned to face her again, and she had no choice but to see his stubbled jaw and cruel lips. And though she couldn’t see well in the dark, she sensed that the look in his eyes was accusing, as if this catastrophe was all her fault.
“Don’t matter,” the fat man with the gun in his hand said. “She’s seen us. Ain’t nothing else I can do but shoot her.” He sounded so matter-of-fact, so insanely logical.
The man who held her too tightly shook his head in what appeared to be dismay. His long dark hair swayed softly, his stubbled jaw clenched. And he muttered the most foul of words beneath his breath. The grip on her wrist was a vise she didn’t even try to fight. He jerked her around thoughtlessly, placing his body between her and the man with the gun. All the while he cursed, low and gruff. His body tensed; a muscle in his jaw twitched.
“I want her,” he growled.
The fat man lowered his gun. “You what?”
“I said I want her,” he repeated in an almost grudging manner. “We’ve been stuck out at that damn shack for over a month, and let me tell you, the women in that pisshole you call a town aren’t exactly up to my standards.”
Jayne panicked all over. “I’d rather die,” she said. She tried to jerk away from the man and attempted to kick him where it was supposed to hurt the most. She ended up falling, landing on her backside in the dirt. The grip on her wrist never let up.
The man who manacled her wrist turned his shadowed face toward her, leaned down and whispered, “Be careful what you wish for, sugar.”
Boone kept his body between the woman and the gun. She thanked him by kicking him in the knee with a pointy-toed shoe. He had a feeling she’d been aiming higher before she’d lost her balance and stumbled. The skirt of her obviously expensive suit rode high on her shapely thighs. Her knees knocked together and her toes pointed in, in a fashion that should have been comical but wasn’t.
Light from Marty’s wavering flashlight raked over the woman’s body. Soft, barely curling hair not much longer than chin-length brushed pale cheeks. That baby-fine hair was blond, he thought, but not golden. A touch of red made it brighter. Different. The pearls she wore around her neck were surely real and expensive, like everything else about her. Her suit was the color of an Easter egg, not pink and not orange, not pale and not bright. She was all creamy white and golden pink, and she was rightfully frightened half out of her mind.
Focusing on her gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, to still his racing heart. No one was supposed to die here. Tonight’s sale was to have been a simple exchange, a little business Darryl had to take care of before his next meeting with the man who ran things around here. Boone had had no choice but to tag along, taking mental notes, knowing that in less than a week this entire operation would be shut down. Just a few more days, and he’d be meeting the infamous Joaquin Gurza face-to-face.
“Watch your step, sugar,” he said as he hauled the woman to her feet.
“Do not call me sugar, you…you goon,” she said indignantly. Her honeyed Southern drawl reminded him of home.
He cast a glance at Darryl, the drug dealer who’d been so quick to pull his gun and fire. Boone cursed himself for not seeing it coming. He likely couldn’t do a damn thing about the man lying in the road, but he’d do his best to save the woman—if she’d let him.
“Well, then, what’s your name, darlin’?”
She hit him, hauling off and landing a pathetic punch on his upper arm. “My name is none of your business,” she snapped.
Darryl laughed. “Come on, Becker,” he said. “Have at her and then let me shoot her. She looks like an awful lot of trouble, and she’s got a big mouth.”
Boone placed his face close to the woman’s. “Sugar, your choices are limited,” he whispered. “You shut your mouth and stick close to me, or you end up like the man in the road.” Even in the dark he could see the new wave of panic that flitted across her pretty face. “Was he your husband?”
She shook her head.
“Boyfriend?”
She shook her head again.
He couldn’t afford to tell her too much, but he sure as hell couldn’t hand her over to Darryl. Marty and Doug, who looked on as if this was the most amusing scene they’d witnessed in a long while, weren’t much better. Nope, the woman was his responsibility—until he figured out how to get rid of her.
“No,” he said, his eyes on the woman, his words for Darryl. “I’m not going to ‘have at her’ and you’re not going to shoot her. It’s not going to be that easy.”