Page 31 of Savage Escape

Caden Quinn had just initiated physical contact. Initiatedintimatephysical contact. Withhim.

There was a god.

Unwilling to be the one to break contact first, Nathan stayed where he was (which was all up close and in her personal bubble) and cocked an eyebrow at her.

She only shrugged, “Just in case,” and pushed past him.

That brought reality right back, like a punch in the face.

11

CADEN

“Would you stop fucking grinning!” Every time she glanced sideways at him, he was smiling that crooked ‘pleased-with-himself-I’m-so-hot-and-look-at-these-great-abs’ smile. It took a concentrated effort on her part to keep her own lips in a firm line.

They were strolling down the halls of the hospital-turned-makeshift prison, waltzing into an almost certain doom, and there he was, grinning like they were skipping down the rainbow bridge headed for Middle Earth.

Or no, she was getting her Hobbits and Norse gods mixed up, but it was understandable seeing as how high school had been a long time ago, and even then she barely even attended before she’d dropped out. The point was, he had to stop grinning like an idiot. It was doing weird things to her stomach, weird fluttery things she refused to acknowledge as butterflies—because they weren’t fucking butterflies.

“What?” He only smiled wider as his eyes strayed down to her lips.

“You knowwhat. Stop!” She mentally shook herself, about-faced, and strode further down the hall before she gave into the insane urge to kiss him again.

The first part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. Now they only had to make it outside, commandeer a vehicle, and drive off into the sunset. All the while remaining undetected and hoping like hell a firefight didn’t break out because they were woefully outnumbered and laughably outgunned.

“Do you like Mexican food?” He caught up in two strides and was once again at her elbow, still grinning. Caden decided her best defense was to not look at him and concentrate on the escape at hand.

Savage had the AK-47 slung over his shoulder. An automatic that was unreliable, at best, taking into consideration the frequent jamming of the model. The smaller handgun she’d pilfered off the guard only had one extra clip, good for close range, and that was about it. She kept that tucked into her baggy jeans. The pen knife she found on the bigger man’s body was in her left hand and making her all kinds of wistful for her own weapons.

“I can’t even look at a burrito without getting queasy—not since that mishap in Mexico.” Maybe ‘mishap’ wasn’t the right word for the six months she’d spent in the sweltering heat that was the Yuma, and the scant seven minutes it took for it all to go to hell.

“How ‘bout Italian?”

Briefly, she entertained the possibility of her captors having her gear. And shit, if she was going to go down that road, maybe they’d even catch themselves a leprechaun. It was using its magical rainbow abilities to clean the assortment of knives and guns she kept on her person when she wasn’t imprisoned. Wasn’t that a nice thought? Maybe she’d get a unicorn with built-in GPS, too.

Drugs left over from the last torture session had to be the reason she was feeling all light-headed and weirdly giddy. Or maybe Savage just brought out her whimsical rainbows and fucking daisies side.

In any case, it was not her current captors who had her weapons. It was the shit-buckets who’d sold her in the first place. They would have already either pawned them off or pocketed them. Not an altogether pleasant thought. In fact, it was kind of sickening. Her Karambit was most likely being used as a nail file in the sweaty fist of some idiot who didn’t know his ass from his hat.

“Eh?” Discomfited at the proximity of the man and the way his heat was soaking into her skin, she shuffled to the left and tried not to scowl. “Sure.”

A door opened up at the end of the hall. A short, uniformed man stepped out. They’d passed a few already, but the others had been too occupied in conversation or on their phones to notice. This guy was a loner and already glancing down the hallway at them.

“Do you like dancing?” Nathan leaned over and got all up in her personal bubble again with his body heat and his intense stare.

It was unnerving and frustrating.

The man at the end of the hall zipped up his fly and started towards them.

They were in a situation and he was busy picking out curtains and naming their nonexistent children.

“Savage.” Caden made sure to keep her face pleasant and her tone light—the man was three feet from them now and squinting as if he was trying to place their faces. Fuck. “Focus.”

“I’m multitasking.” Lopsided grin on megawatt, he lunged, with more grace than a man of his size should have, clipped the side of the guard’s head, and the man was down for the count.

Boxing one-o-one: hit them hard on a pressure point, the blood flow to the brain is momentarily cut off, and the body responds by shutting down.

“What are you doing!?” Caden resisted the urge to swat the annoying ex-agent upside the head. “Now we have to hide another fucking body!”

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