Page 61 of Strangers in Love

“Yeah, well, I’d planned to go after them once I dropped your ass off, but now my cover’s blown, which means I’ll have to rethink how I’m going to get around the city without getting my ass thrown in prison, if they don’t just kill me outright.” I went to the door and looked both ways down the hall. No one yet, but I could hear shouting from the courtyard. “How fucking stupid are you that you thought that was a good idea?”

“I’m not stupid.” She followed me out into the corridor. “I’m actually a genius.”

I glanced at her but managed to hold back a derisive snort. “Could’ve fooled me.”

The verbal sparring was ridiculous, so I turned my attention to getting us out of the hotel in one piece. After that, we just had to get to the airport, which could prove to be an interesting task. We not only had kidnappers possibly looking for us, but now, we had the fucking authorities onto us as well.

This was turning into a fucking shitshow.

Forty-Two

Aline

Partof the reason I’d been so excited to come on this trip was because I felt like it could finally show everyone that I was capable of taking care of myself. I had a master’s degree in education, and I intended to use it to teach elementary students, but my own family didn’t believe I could handle the real world.

I’d spent my entire twenty-two years of life being protected and watched over, and I’d thought going to Iran with the world-wide aid organization, Neutral Ground, to teach English was the perfect way to demonstrate my true capability.

And then I’d been kidnapped and held for ransom.

It hadn’t been my fault. Nothing I had done had led to my kidnapping.

Well, that wasn’tentirelytrue. The man from Neutral Ground who’d sold my name to the group who’d taken me had been a huge flirt the entire time I’d been in Iran. It’d all come to a head the night before I’d been scheduled to leave.

My older sister, Freedom, had been in the hospital after having her appendix removed, so the jerk had been more forceful than usual when he found me alone. As a result, I’d rejected him a little more harshly than I had previously. He hadn’t taken it well.

Putting the blame on me for how he’d chosen to respond, however, would be almost the same as blaming an assault victim for their attacker’s actions due to the victim having refused the attacker’s initial advances. Sadly, that happened all too often, and I could see even my parents using this incident as a prime example of why I needed someone to ‘take care of me.’ They wouldn’t imply that I didn’t have the mental faculties to care for myself, only that I was naïve to the ways of the world, but it was insulting, nonetheless.

Except now, I was considering that they could have a legitimate point. After all, leaving the protection of the hotel room with the intention to place a call that could possibly be traced wasn’t exactly the most intelligent decision I’d ever made.

I was self-aware enough to know that I’d made a mistake and honest enough to be angry at myself, but I was also angry at the massive soldier in front of me. Eoin had saved my life by rescuing me from my kidnappers, and because of my actions tonight, he’d been forced to rescue me again. This time from a man attempting to drag me out of the hotel.

I’d been in the wrong, but Eoin wouldn’t listen to what I needed, forcing me to take the situation into my own hands. The frustrating man had been obnoxious and rude almost the entire time we’d been together.

Well…almost the entire time.

Heat rushed to my cheeks as other memories from the past twenty-four hours flashed through my head. Memories of the bits of time when hehadn’tbeen obnoxious or rude. Memories of how I’d lost my virginity only hours ago in the most intense, erotic experience of my life.

As this was neither the time nor the place to delve intothatparticular hornets’ nest, I pushed those thoughts from my mind and focused on the broad, muscular back in front of me. I knew that, underneath his cotton t-shirt, there were probably scratches left by my nails, but I didn’t let myself dwell on that either. I had to prove to Eoin that I wasn’t a complete imbecile.

That, and get out of here alive.

I followed him from the room and down the hall, one of my hands holding tight to the strap of my bag. I’d filled it with whatever I’d been able to grab, which meant most of the contents weren’t mine, but I hadn’t really had time to pay proper attention.

The only thing I knew for certain was that Eoin had taken the weapons, and there were a lot of them. Normally, I wasn’t a fan of guns and knives and whatever else the team had brought with them, but I certainly had a new appreciation for them now.

I heard people yelling behind us, and my already rapid pulse increased until I could almost hear the thrumming in my ears. I’d slept fairly well for a few hours, but I knew what was keeping me going was adrenaline. I’d become familiar with it over the last few days.

At least now, I’d eaten not too long ago, so I had fuel to back it up, and I hoped that would keep me from crashing too fast or too far. We weren’t in the clear yet.

We turned a corner, went through a set of doorways, and came out in a short, hidden hallway. Full of shadows, it didn’t look like the rest of the hotel, the little I’d seen of it, anyway. A door with writing on it was propped open enough for me to be able to see inside to the stacks of washers and dryers, and I realized that this was where the maid and maintenance rooms were located.

As we approached the outside exit, I saw what I hadn’t when we’d come into this hallway. A keycard in Eoin’s hand. He swiped it through the scanner on the door. It felt like forever passed before the device beeped, and then something clicked. Eoin led the way outside, one hand near what I assumed was a gun. With the other hand, he tossed the keycard into the closest trashcan.

We’d come out behind the hotel, and he took us farther from the front. I didn’t need to ask why. I could hear people shouting now, and unless I was imagining things, I heard sirens in the distance as well.

A bright thread of panic raced through me, and I felt the urge to run, to get away as quickly as possible. It took every ounce of trust I had to continue following Eoin’s lead.

Neither one of us spoke as we made our way through a series of back alleys and the like, but as we reached a place where we would need to step out into a more public place, he stopped.

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