Page 10 of Soulmates
And David smells pretty damned good.
“I need to go home.” I pull up to a red light, calculating how long it’ll take us to get there. “We should be safe enough and can figure out what to do next.”
David’s hair doesn’t have quite the swoop as when we first met, there’s no kohl around his eyes, and his jeans are so tight, I wonder how he can breathe. He also wears a soft gray tank top and a darker hoodie; altogether conventional compared with his other outfits.
“You must have liked this guy.”
“What?” He curls his lip but doesn’t look at me. “Shut up. I half think you set that bomb off just to keep me from having fun.”
Good thing the light changes so I have something to do besides tell this little pisser off. “Maybe.”
“You’re not thinking.” He jabs his finger on the pad to roll his window up. “Which doesn’t actually surprise me.” Stroking his hair, he glares into the dark. “If whoever sent the bomb found us at the Travel-Dodgy, they’ll likely know to look at your apartment.”
I don’t change course. We pass one of those rows of palm trees, the tall, perfectly matched pairs lit up from underneath. They make LA look classier than it really is, the stately palms and Art Deco architecture doing their damnedest to distract visitors from the refuse of human ego.
He’s got a point, even if he’s being an asshole about it. Whoever is harassing us may know my address. I could call Sheena; in fact, I’ll have to tell her we’re not at the hotel and I’ll need her to meet us wherever we end up
But where should we go?
I keep us headed for the four-oh-five, but decide that instead of going west to Santa Monica, we’ll go east, through Hollywood to Los Feliz. Jacques owns several safe houses, and I pick one at random. They’re all sturdy and secure, but Connor helped Jacques buy this place, so maybe my choice wasn’t entirely random.
For the first time since I lost him, Connor’s memory doesn’tgutme. Instead, I get a bittersweettwinge because yeah, one time areal man cared about what happened to me. Rather than ruminate on the change, I glance at my passenger. “So who’s after you?”
He gives a “tsk” of disgust. “Who’s after you?”
I shake my head, tapping the brakes to avoid hitting a Prius with a speed problem. “No one I know about.”
We sit in silence for the better part of two miles. “Yeah, you’re right,” he finally says. “It’s probably me. I’ve got”—he turns his face to the ceiling, and for just a moment, there’s a crack in his armor—“family stuff.”
I barely keep myself from laughing at thecliché. Of course, the son of the American Were Authority Alpha would havefamily stuff. He needs to stop with the vulnerability,though. His one or two glimmers of sadness give me a perverse need to comfort him.
David’s phone chirps, and he glances at it and fires off a response. “Wants me to live in her goddamn back pocket,” he mutters. Straightening in his seat, he glares at his own knees. “Might be hard to believe, Guido, but even in the twenty-first century, some people don’t think a gay can be an alpha.”
His bitterness burns.When his phone chirps again, once, then twice, he ignores it.
I’m not sure if I should respond to his last crack or not. After a beat, I decide to shift our direction. “Let’s not narrow our options too quickly. I’ve been thinking—”
“Be careful, hero. Don’t hurt yourself.” He flaps both hands like he’s waving off smoke from my overheated brain. He’s not quite smiling, but the bravado is back.
And just like that, I want to punch him in the mouth. “At any rate,” I continue, fighting a grin, “Jacques knows we’re together. Maybe he’s got an agenda, either to make trouble with the wolves”—though if Jacques is taking a swing at the American Alpha, I’m not the only one with a death wish—“or take me out”—always a possibility—“or kill two birds with one exploding room service tray.”
“S. M. H.” Davidrollshis eyes. “I can’t believe you fell for the old exploding-room-service-tray trick.” His giggleedgestoward hysterical.
With a sound that’s half groan, half laugh, I merge into the high-speed lane on the freeway. “You’re right about one thing.”
“What’s that?” he asks absently. He pulls out his phone and turns it around in his hands.
“Someone could know where my condo is. We’re heading for a safe house.”
“Mm? Where?”
Watching him inspect his phone is distracting me from the road. “In the hills above Hollywood. What’s wrong?”
He gives me a bleak look. “They could be tracking me through my phone.”
Before I can respond, he flings it out the window.
“Now they can’t.”
