She had to get away from Dawg, because if she didn’t, he would own her soul. And that terrified her more than the thought of leaving her home ever had. She would never be able to defend herself. She knew his touch now, knew his kiss, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would never love anyone as she loved Dawg Mackay.
ONE
Somerset, Kentucky
Eight Years Later
It was a nightmare.
No, it wasn’t a nightmare, because she was pretty damned sure she was awake. And in nightmares, bullets weren’t real. They weren’t real, and they weren’t exploding around the warehouse like hellish fireflies destroying everything they lodged inside.
Nightmares came with a certain understanding that it was a dream, not real. This was definitely real, and if something really good didn’t happen very soon, then she was going to have holes in her body that were not supposed to be there.
She fought to hold back her screams as bullets whizzed over her head again, popping in the wood crates around her and sending a shower of wood chips and shattered glass from inside around her head.
This was bad. Very bad. She stared around, wide-eyed and dazed, as she scrambled around more boxes, more crates, fighting for as much protection between her and the bullets as she could find.
Crista Jansen was certain her horoscope hadn’t said anything about bullets today. Something about dark knights and ill-advised trips, but there had been nothing in there about bullets.
She would have remembered.
She would have changed her plans.
Oh boy, would she have changed her plans.
Scuttling behind what she hoped was a very thickly packed crate, she covered her head with her arms as glass sprayed around her.
Those weren’t just regular bullets. Those were fast bullets. Automatic? Uzi? Something. The kind that spat fire as they pelleted out dozens of rounds at a time. And she knew because the red flashes of light in the otherwise dark interior of the warehouse were a pretty good clue.
A terrified squak, a cross between a squeak and a squawk, fell from her lips as chips of wood exploded from the sides of the crate she found to hide behind.
They were serious out there. People were killing people, and she was caught in the crossfire and wondering how the hell she was going to get out of this one.
She knew this was a bad idea.
She knew. She had felt that sick feeling in her gut the minute she stepped into the cavernous warehouse and realized the lights didn’t work. But had she, dumb ass that she was, backed out and left?
Oh, hell no, she had just pulled her penlight from her purse and trudged merrily on her way, looking for that stupid box. She told the delivery company to deliver to her home, not here. Yet when she returned home from work, what had she found? An official notice that her package had been dropped off at their local distribution warehouse and why, lookie, there had been the magical key to open the damned locker it was in.
Well, guess what? There’s no locker here, she told herself sarcastically. No locker, but plenty of bullets singing a macabre tune through the darkness.
So now, rather than collecting her belongings, she was just trying to stay alive. When did fate decide to bust Crista Jansen’s ass? For God’s sake, hadn’t she had enough bad luck in the past eight years?
This was all Dawg’s fault, she decided. Every bit of it. He lived and he breathed and because of it; fate hated her. Fate was female, right? It was probably jealous. There could be no other explanation.
This was so bad.
“Where did the fucking girl go—?” a harsh, accented voice muttered roughly.
Okay she was the only girl she knew of in this stupid place. She had only heard male orders, commands, and screams since hell had erupted around her.
Crista turned, crawling on her hands and bare knees—she should have worn jeans instead of one of her few good skirts—trying her best to get as far away from the mayhem and bloodshed as possible.
She knew not to come in here, she reminded herself. Remember that sick feeling? That panicked feeling? Hadn’t she learned years ago it meant bad things? Get the hell out of Dodge type things?
She had been feeling it more and more lately. And this was just another event in a long string of very odd events. Clothes that would go missing and then turn back up in her closet, freshly washed. The feeling of being watched and strangers who thought they knew her.
Hadn’t she told her brother last week that something was wrong? And speaking of screwy brothers, where the hell was hers? Damn it, Alex would have to disappear when she needed him most.
Military mission be damned. She didn’t need him across the world, unavailable; she needed him here, now, getting her ass out of trouble.
And she hadn’t told him good-bye when she talked to him.
Strange that she should remember that as she wedged herself into a dark, musty corner surrounded by crates and backed by a cement support beam.
She hadn’t told Alex good-bye when she talked to him last week. She had just hung up on him because he had said something totally idiotic.
Something along the lines of “Call Dawg.”
Oh yeah, right. She was going to do that.
He should have known better than to make such an insane suggestion. Where the hell had his mind gone in the past eight years? Had he forgotten how hard it had been for her to stay in Somerset that summer? Dawg had chased her with steady determination for months before the rest of her world had collapsed around her. Even though it was more than obvious that he hadn’t remembered that one stolen night she had spent in his bed, he had still chased after her with a tenacity that reminded her why they called him Dawg.
Because he never let up. He never gave up.
She flinched as a projectile tore through the side of the crate that she had hoped was thick enough to protect her. She stared at the hole it made coming out mere inches from her upraised knees and gagged.
It was nearly the size of her fist.
“Get down!”
She heard the male voice screaming from a distance as another bullet ricocheted against the cement beam, inches above her head.
She went down. All the way down. And fought to get through the small crack between the support beam and the heavy crate, wondering how the hell a bullet could penetrate it when she couldn’t even move it.
Clawing desperately at the side of the crate, she pressed, pushed, wedging herself into the minute amount of space and almost—almost managing to escape.
She screamed, terror racing through her, freezing her blood to ice as hard fingers grabbed her hair and pulled her back, jerking her back by the thick, dark strands and sending agonizing pain racing through her neck.
Her hands reached back, her nails clawing at the wrist behind her, fighting, struggling as she was dragged from the only means of escape in sight.
“Stupid whore! Where’s my fucking money? I teach you to betray me, puta!”
She was jerked around, staring back in horror at the dark eyes and pitted face of what she was certain had to be a demon.
Stringy black hair fell over his narrow brow, his flat cheekbones were ruddy with rage, his dark brown eyes lit almost red with fury. And he had a gun.
Crista watched in slow motion. She had heard that expression, events passing in slow motion, and hadn’t believed it until now.
Now she was watching it. Tearless. Breathless. Watching in slow motion as his arm raised. One hand pushed her against the cement support, the other was coming up. Up.
But the shot came too soon.
One minute she was watching that black weapon level up to her, the next a shower of red exploded around her as her hands flew to her face and a scream tore from her as his body jerked forward, then fell.
Right at her feet.
“Goddamn you, Crista!”
She recognized that voice.
Jerking her head up from the sight of the bloody mess her assailant’s face was now, she stared back at the dark figure, Law Enforcement emblazoned across the bulletproof jacket he was jerking from his broad chest.
“Put it on, damn you!” His voice was a hard rasp, guttural, animalistic, as he jerked her around and strapped her into the vest until the black velco strips were holding it snugly to her chest and back.
“Let’s go!” Hard gloved fingers wrapped around her arm as, with a shove, the crate she had been fighting to move was pushed back as though it were no more than a heavy box. “Move it!”
He pushed her through the opening before gripping her arm again and pulling her through the dark.
“What’s going on?” She breathed out roughly. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t cry. All she could do was follow Dawg.
And she knew it was Dawg. Those brilliant celadon green eyes, that dark, male, honeyed voice.
No other man sounded like Dawg. No other man moved like him or smelled like him.
And besides, it was just her dumb luck. He was here. She was here. Hell was erupting around her. Fate was laughing her ass off, and it was all Dawg’s fault.
“Shut up!” he snarled, not even bothering to so much as try to explain as he pushed her through the darkness. “Keep your mouth shut, keep your head down, and if God is in a good mood today, I might be able to save your ass.”
Save her ass?
“But I was just here—”
“Just fucking save it.” He pushed her against something cement, the dim light that spilled in from overhead windows emphasizing the enraged flames in his eyes. “I just killed a man for you, princess. A man worth a hell of a lot more alive than he was dead. Now shut your goddamned mouth and do exactly what I say. Exactly. Or I’ll slap cuffs on you and haul you in so fast, you won’t have time to twitch that pretty ass of yours.”
Before she could process the fact that they were racing from the back of the warehouse, Dawg was lifting her into the backseat of his black four-by-four double cab pickup. He pulled the bulletproof vest from her and jerked it back on, his eyes glowing with rage as his fingers tangled in her hair. He stared down at her, remorseless, before gripping the bottom of her T-shirt and wiping it roughly over her lower face.
Blood. She shuddered at the thought. Someone else’s blood stained her now. Then Dawg forced her head back a second before his lips covered hers.
Gunfire receded. Reality dimmed. The world narrowed down to his lips slanted over hers, his tongue pressing between them as hers opened. Electricity sparked, exploded, and sizzled through her head with a dazzling display of color as pleasure tore through her system.
Eight years without him. Without this. Without the hunger that consumed and burned away the ragged wound in her soul that leaving him eight years before had left inside her.
Her hands curled against the bulletproof vest, and a whimper that shocked her vibrated from her throat as he tore his lips from hers as quickly as he had taken them.
She stared up at him, wide-eyed, shocked, as he glared back at her.
“Where did you park?” he snapped out.
Her lips trembled as she fought to drag in enough air to answer him.
“The back lot,” she whispered as he jerked her purse open and before she could stop him, pulled her keys from inside.
“You’re damned lucky your car wasn’t here when this started, Crista,” he snarled. “Luckier than you’ll ever know. Now, lie down. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t twitch. So help me God, if you give yourself away in here, I’ll toss you into a cell so deep and so dark you won’t know up or down. Do we have that clear?”
She tried to nod, just as she was trying to breathe. A second later he was pushing her to the seat, pressing her cheek into the fine black leather with a harsh order to “Stay,” before the door slammed and he was gone.
And she was alone. She could still hear the gunfire, but it was distant and easing away. It was replaced with shouted orders, vehicles moving, and strident calls.
Inside the truck she shuddered, drew her knees to her chest, and tried to still the shaking in her body.
Shock. She knew she must be having some kind of shock reaction, because it was the middle of the summer. She shouldn’t be freezing so much she was shaking; breathing shouldn’t be hard. And God help her if she puked in Dawg’s truck. He would probably shoot her himself.