Page 23 of Target Me
I smirked at him, unable to pass on the easy in he’d given me.
“I’ve never had any complaints about how I ride a stick. I know all the tricks to make them purr.”
Logan shook his head, glancing out the side window, but I didn’t miss the quirk of his lips. Bastard knew I was hilarious.
“You can admit I’m funny, Logan. I promise I won’t hold it against—Hey, that’s a red light.”
“I know,” he grunted, pumping my unresponsive brake pedal to the chorus of hideous screeches from my brake pads.
Cars slowed around us as the light approached, but my little bug didn’t seem to want to obey. If anything, the hill we were going down was causing an increase in speed.
“Logan…”
“I know.” We shot through the red light and into the path of an eighteen-wheeler.
“Hold tight.”
Switching pedals, Logan floored the gas, rocketing us out of the intersection to the cacophony of horns blaring before mounting the curb, down shifting gears, and throwing the car into a turn as he hauled on the parking brake. The car skidded, sending grass and dirt flying around us, and finally came to rest alongside a chain-link fence that looked like it had seen better days.
With the abrupt halt of our forward momentum, an eerie vacuum seemed to settle over us, sucking away the outside world until all that existed was Logan and me, our panting breaths deafening in the void.
It took a greater effort than I could have imagined to convince my shaking hand to release the death grip I had on the panic handle; but as it slipped free, I found the task of keeping it elevated beyond my capability. From a distance, I heard someone curse.
It was getting increasingly difficult to hear as the rushing sound of the ocean began to fill my ears. Odd. I hadn’t thought we were close enough to hear the ocean, but the hissing grew louder and louder until I was forced to close my eyes against the onslaught of noise.
My body felt weightless for a moment, and I wondered if I were being swept out to sea. Dragged out beyond the horizon, where the waves could swallow me up and send me to the depths.
The squeeze of my jaw was the first indicator I wasn’t about to drown. The next was something warm and moist pressing against my mouth.
Lips.
Someone was kissing me.
Awareness returned to me in a powerful rush that made me gasp. Logan took advantage, thrusting his tongue against mine, begging me to come back to him without words. With a moan, I fisted his shirt, returning the kiss with equal fervor. He was a man possessed, his arms crushing me to him as though he was anchoring me to this life. Maybe he was. I had no idea where I’d been a minute ago, but it hadn’t been good.
With a growl, Logan pulled back. I whimpered, but he didn’t go far. His hands ran over my hair, down my neck, and over my shoulders, checking for anything out of place. Any injury that needed tending.
Now I was more conscious, I realized I was sitting on the bonnet of my bug. Behind me, my passenger side door stood open, and opposite, the driver’s side window had been cranked down, the door too close to the fence to be opened.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled, surveying the yards of tire tracks from the road to the place we’d stopped. Grass and dirt were strewn about as though massacred with a chainsaw.
“Jesus, you scared me. What the hell happened?”
“I think the brakes failed.”
Logan huffed, crooking a finger under my chin to raise my eyes to his.“I mean to you. I think you went into shock. We need to get you looked over by a doctor. Now.”
It wasn’t until Logan scooped me into his arms that I realized he had perched me on my car’s hood to check me over.
“I can walk,” I grumbled half-heartedly. It was probably a lie, but the more awareness returned, the more I felt the need to protest the manhandling.
He ignored me, typing one handed on his cell and cradling me to him as though I weighed nothing.
“Logan.”
“Bear’s going to swing by and take us to a doc he trusts. He’s organizing a tow for us as well. I want that car checked out. There’s no way those brakes should have failed without tampering.”
“How would you know?”
