Page 55 of Pride
“We need to leave,” he repeated, his voice rasping.
Alice nodded dumbly, his arousing scent curling around her. “Leaving is good.”
He pulled her up the stairwell, and they broke out onto the rooftop. Cool wind gusted their face. They were so fricking high, there were clouds around the buildings.
“How—?”
Parker shot Alice a wolfish grin and showed the grappling gun gauntlets on each forearm, then he tugged her close and said, “Hold on.”
She placed her palms on his chest. “But, don’t you usually use the wingsuit to get down from this height?”
She was sure she’d seen blurry pictures in the newspaper of one of the Deadly Seven coasting down from a building after stopping an active shooter.
He looked down at her. “There’s only one wingsuit and no chute. I admit, the grappling guns take a bit of finesse, but it’s better than going splat on the ground.”
Shouts echoing up the stairwell jolted them.
“Activate the suit,” she said, adrenaline pumping. “I’ll jump on your back, rodeo style.”
“Alice, do you understand the kind of training required to pull that off? Just hold onto me while I use the gun.”
“There isn’t time for an argument.”
The door opened and SWAT poured out, guns aimed. Before they had a chance to catch Parker’s identity, Alice shoved him off the edge of the roof. The look in his eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. Horror, pain, anguish. Then he twisted like a cat and slammed his arms and his legs closed. He opened like a falling star, the wingsuit activated, and started coasting.
“Miss, don’t do it,” said one of the cops, but Alice was already running, launching herself off the roof in a swan dive. Ice cold wind slammed her face, watering her eyes as she descended. She focused on the gray shadow coasting a few feet below. In an effort to close the gap, she pulled her arms to her side and tipped her head down, increasing velocity. Closer and closer she went until she landed on his back, almost tipping him and losing balance. Parker recovered equilibrium, and she adjusted her balance to ride him.
It was ethereal, if only for a moment.
The wind, the clouds, the ride. She felt like a goddess in the sky aboard her warrior dragon. He craned his neck, his hood flapped off his face, and his hair billowed.
“Hold on,” he shouted, his voice snatched by the air.
She gripped his hood, knowing the jolt coming next could potentially send her careening, and if it did, she would have no escape, no second chance. Her life would be over. Even the adrenaline pumping through her veins was not enough to dull that thought. She gripped his hood, engaged every muscle in her aching body, and braced.
Parker’s right arm angled toward a building, a grappling hook on a thin tensile rope fired out and latched onto a building. Instantly, the rope retracted. They whiplashed, wobbled, and then their velocity clashed with gravity. Parker went forward. Alice went to the side, her stomach jumping into her throat. She slipped off his back. Her fingers cut on his hood. Parker shouted, but Alice was underwater, not in the air. Everything was distant. Time slowed as her life hurtled before her eyes. Her sins. Her future in Hell. The lack of love in her life. The family she wanted. The man who came for her, risking everything. The same man whose other arm snapped out and yanked her back to him.
Seconds.
It took mere seconds.
The wingsuit retracted, freeing Parker’s mobility, and then she was back in his vice-like embrace as they swung alongside a building, clinging to him with everything she had. Metal claws embedded in the facade of a building, tearing up the brick. Eventually they came to a stop, fifty feet from the ground. Parker’s deep scowl and dark eyes said it all. She looked away as he lowered them into a city alley.
The moment their feet hit the ground, he retracted the grappling hook and growled, “What were you thinking? You could have been killed!”
Rolling her shoulder, testing the muscle, to hide the fact her body trembled with the aftereffects of adrenaline, she scowled back at him. “I didn’t. We both got out.”
“You pushed me off the roof without knowing I could activate the suit once airborne.”
“I knew.”
“No, you guessed.”
She shrugged. “I don’t see what the big deal is. I know you. I know you think of everything, including that, as a safety, you would allow the suit to activate or deactivate mid-flight. And you did.”
He pointed in her face, eyes blazing. “You could have been killed!”
She folded her arms, eyebrow raising, pretending not to be ruffled. “Were you worried about me, Lazarus?”
