23Holy carp.
Thnx for all the alerts. And fanx to romanceaddict, myheartisyours (glad to see u find him hot, lol he is my main man after all), Snow Wolf Alpha, Aminde and bonghi for reviewing!
Nearly had a heart attack.-But then I didn't :)
How else would you get chapter 2 otherwise?
Chapter Two
His glacial eyes glittered with triumphance as he tucked his gun down his pants once more. As his sweatshirt lifted up, I caught a glimpse of tanned flesh and a tattoo of a dog on his hipbone. Then I caught sight of a trail of dusty golden-brown working it's way into his briefs. I blushed as I realised he was wearing Armani. For a vagabond, he sure kept up with Elle Magazine. Apparently Armani boxer-briefs were one of the six sacred laws of appeasing your other-half.
I wondered if he had a girlfriend, or even a wife, buying him gifts.
Then I wondered if he was a daily-subscriber of Elle Magazine.
That had to be it. This guy was too cocky to be able to remain in a full-term relationship.
My hands are twisted nervously in my lap. Something cold brushes against my hand and with a sickness, I realise it's the panic button.
It was practically crying out for me to push it.
And so I did.
The nearest police station was two miles away, right at the end of the street. With a quick mind I calculate that they'd be en-scene within three minutes tops. The Police department seemed to have a knack for deploying special units whenever 7-Eleven was involved. I supposed part of the reason was because half of them did their grocery shopping here.
Thank God for small necessities.
The burglar had finished tucking away the elasticated bills within his pockets. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked off, whistling a merry tune. It wasn't until he reached the automatic doors, that I realised I was letting him get away.
"Wait!" I cried and practically vaulted over the till. Though it was only in the last second or so, that I remembered I'd been an abmissal failure at high-jumping in school. Picking myself off the floor I ran, bursting into the cold November night with my unbuttoned duffel coat flapping around my ankles.
Thankfully I've never had the problem of networking my lungs.
"STOP! I have something you want!"
Okay, so looking back I should've realised that I'd just signed away my soul to the devil. But at that moment in time, it seemed the only thing to make the figure strolling away from me stop.
I wasn't thinking straight. All I was thinking about was that I needed to keep the guy in my sights till the cops showed up. The plan was so unbelieving simple that I should've known something would go wrong from the off.
"You have something I want?"
His words were dangerous, his posture even more so. Having abruptly turned around, I could feel his eyes boring into my face. I stepped closer and felt grateful for the strobe lighting overhead casting shadows besides our own away. With a nervous whimper, I realise his fingers were tightly gripped on the handle of the gun still tucked in his waistband. His stiff shoulders said more than words ever could.
"Yes," I whispered having no clue to what I was going to offer him. My brother? Nah, I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Such a shame too. My wisdom? Pfft, yeah right. The only thing I could offer him was fashion advice. But like that was going to happen. I doubt he wanted to hear it from a person who still owned Disney pyjamas...
"A t-tie. It matches your eyes. Do you want it?"
Where did that come from? Holy crap, kill me now.
On second thoughts, don't. Please let this be an elaborated dream- my subconscious teaching me a lesson the hard way that random outbursts are bad.
Angry silence.
And then faintly...nee-naw, nee-naw...
Could it be? Did I dare to hope?
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"What the fucking hell did you do?"
Two rounds of expletives in so many minutes. I'm thinking I'm setting a trend with pissing of people here.
I didn't know where the new burst of confidence gave from, but I raised my nose and sniffed anyway.
"You didn't actually think I'd let you get away, did you?"
"You what?!"
Ah. So he had a hard time of believing my strategy. I opened my mouth to give him a piece of mind but choked when a few strands of hair flew into my mouth. Annoyed at being interrupted, I clawed away my hair and glared at him.
"I pressed the panic button, you doofus. What else did you expect me to do? Ogle your ass and give you custard creams?"
Whoa, the whole power thing was getting to my head. That and the fact that the piercing wails of a siren was having a curious effect on my sarcasm. Somehow the knowledge that he couldn't get to me without arousing suspicion from the officers in their truck, just a mile away now had me stepping back into the relative safety of well-lit doorway of the store.
"Get back here. Now."
Even from here I could tell the words were laced with poison. My mouth fell open as I pondered this guy. Hell, the police were just an inch away from kicking his ass and he still had the notion he'd emerge victorious? I never knew people could be so delusional. Blanking him completely, I instead focused on the blue lights starting to dot us. The road we were on was deserted, with dusty woodland on both sides. It wouldn't take them long to see us.
"You happen to be forgetting something."
Despite my anonymity, my eyes couldn't help to swing around and catch his. I was curious to what I had forgotten that this guy wanted to thoughtfully remind me of. Hmm...maybe I didn't switch the lights off when I ran after him? That had to be it...
"I can shoot a bullet straight through your stomach from here."
Huh? What on earth? What happened to reminding me to be an eco-warrior? It's all about peace, bruv.
My eyes flickered down to his hand and I gulped when I realised his gun had re-emerged and was pointing straight at my abdomen. Though in the half-darkness it more looked like a shiny protractor.
Hugging my coat to my body, I inched towards him warily eyeing his dark aura and silver contraption alternatively. So it came as a nasty shock, when a hand grabbed me around the elbow and forced me to the store window. My eyes were wide and doe-like as I gazed up at him, confidence shattered and lower lip trembling. His eyes were shuttered as something cold poked me in the abdomen. I didn't want to know what it was but by elimination alone, I could already guess what it was.
mommy...
"Mommy?"
Crap. Did I say that out aloud? So much for having the nerves of steel like I've boasted about whenver Ryan got on my wick about being a dweeb. (So what if I'd only had one boyfriend? It shows I'm a committed person! Even though it was two years ago...)
"Close your eyes," he growled and I complied readily, only breaking them open when I felt something yank my head forward rashly. The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't see him at all. The second was that the only thing I could see was his shoulder and it taking up a huge amount of my line of vision.
Something wet kissed my lower earlobe.
And I freaked out.
"Geroff you freak! This is not cool!" I shrieked and tried to dodge his hand when he reached out to trace my chin; but instead ended up pressing into him even further. Talk about rock solid. Was there even one forgiving bone in his body?! I tried to pull my head back, but a gloved hand in my hair kept my head painfully still. It was almost as if he didn't want me to pull away and look at him...but why? It wasn't like I knew who he was.
His tongue grazed my inner ear canal.
Which meant only one thing-
He'd taken off his balaclava! Oh god, Oh god, Oh god, Oh god-"Moan."-Oh god, Oh god, Oh god
In my spurt of hyperventilating, I heard him whisper a word into my ear that didn't register. It was only with a cold nudge with the butt of his gun, driving the relentless metal into my yielding flesh did I think to comply. "Oh, god."
"You have to do better than that."
What gave it away? I thought bitterly. Was it the quiver in my voice or my racing heart?
My eyes lifted upward and I nearly sobbed in joy as the white and blue truck pulled up outside the store. The sirens stopped, and two police officers jumped out, a man and a woman, both with radio clips in their ear and tired expressions. One of them had obviously been enjoying a coffee because I could smell the waft of beans as the car door slammed close even from here.
"Is everything alright, miss?" The man asked, adjusting his hat nervously. By his quick-flitting eyes and quivering palms I could tell he was new to the system. Fresh-faced out of boot camp. The asian lady looked on the verge of being bored and instead decided to lean on the hood of a car and cross her arms.
"Say yes..."
The hissed instruction made me painfully aware of my situation. Looking at the police officers, I wanted to leap into their arms and hug them silly. It was almost painful, the realization that help was so near but yet so far. It was like they were just standing there to taunt me with something I could never have.
"Y-Yes..."
My breath hitched as the gun dug harder into my belly-button. It was almost like a curse disguised as a blessing. On the one hand, his hand pressed to my belly prevented me from being plastered to his chest but on the other, a gun was being pressed to my belly! Hello? What kinda flip-side was that?
"Loose the stutter." The next instruction made me grit my teeth in anger and I gazed with fire in my eyes, at the two people who could be saving me but weren't. The asian lady had gone back to examining her split ends whilst the other one, had turned beet red. Apparently by his flaming face, he hadn't known that I stuttered. To him, I'd been clearly having some sort of mini-orgasm.
Puh-lease.
Then an idea hit me. So amazingly brilliant, I wondered what had prevented me from executing it earlier. All I had to was mouth for help and pray Laurel & Hardy over there could lip-read!
"Help me," I mouthed and watched as the woman begun to eye me with interest. Flicking back her hair, she narrowed her eyes on my lips as I mouthed it again and again and again. I had got so worked up over it, that I hadn't realised I was crying until I noticed my nose had begun to run.
At last the dawning realisation dawns on her face, and she jumps up and waddles over to her partner and whispers something in his ear.
Hallelujah! I was saved at last! I discreetly wipe my nose on his shoulder and wince when teeth bite into my earlobe. He wanted me to suffer... but didn't know that his suffering had just begun.
How ironic.
"Sir, would you please step away from the female. You are surrounded. Please come quietly."
My brain was frozen. I couldn't think, speak, talk anything. I had watched with increasing alarm as the woman had dived into the car, once again drifting espresso into the air, before emerging with a amplifier and a gun in her hands. I could tell what she was thinking. I'd seen many cop dramas to prove testimony to that fact. She wanted him to come quietly and mutely. What she didn't know was that my life was in immediate danger. For all she knew, I was just being harassed by a random bloke who wanted to cop a feel. She hadn't even trained her gun on him yet!
Neither of them had.
How freaking fantastic.
"Sir, we haven't got all day here. Please take a step away from the female."
I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. She must have been on a twelve-hour shift, pumped on caffeine, and the only thing keeping her going was the thought of getting the hell out of here.
My captor had frozen completely. Light brushes of air wafting a few tendrils of my hair. And then in my ear uttered so quickly, "Their deaths will be on your conscience," that I didn't comprehend until I was shoved to the ground and shots were fired in the air.
Hearing the bullets whizz past you at high velocity was not a pleasant sensation, let me tell you. And when a resulting moan and a scream flitted through the air, I covered my ears and cried even harder.
Two bodies fell heavily to the floor and then there was silence broken by approaching feet.
"Get up."
I curled into a ball and wailed loudly into my lap.
"I don't have time for this. Get up."
I shook my head slightly.
"GET UP!"
"NO!" This time it was me who was yelling. I uncurled my hands and knees first, and finally my head. My eyes were bloodshot, my skin alabaster. Dashing away a few tears, I stared upward and a blurred face came into view.
And then into focus.
Strong jawline. Short hair. Straight nose. High cheekbones.
A girls' vision of a wet dream if you got past those cruel eyes.
"I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE WITH YOU, SO LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! YOU ARE ONE TWISTED FUCK AND I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY TO YOU!" I paused for a drawn-out breath and was about to curl up into the foetal position again until his emotionless voice stopped me.
"Have you finished?"