Page 26 of Ace
Son-of-a-bitch!Keller slammed both eyes shut as shattered safety glass from Savannah’s side window blasted his face.
Savannah jerked into him like a rag doll. She screamed, “Someone hit us!” then gripped the dash with one hand while her other dug into his forearm.
“You hurt?” he asked, fighting to control the rental.
“I don’t think so.”
“Hold on,” Keller ordered as he slammed the Camaro’s brakes to keep it from slipping down the opposite bank and into the swamp. This section might not be deep, but he wouldn’t risk getting caught in the tire-sucking mud, not with a monster truck climbing onto the road and dead on his ass. Damned thing was outfitted with a snorkel smokestack.
“You sure you’re not hurt?” he asked, verifying the panic and anger vibrating off the womanly body at hisright. Empathy had its silver linings. Being able to read Savannah’s emotions the precise moment she touched him was definitely one of them. And right now, she was as pissed as he was. She wanted to strike back at whoever’d rammed them, too.
“Just scared. Didn’t see that truck coming, did you?”
“Sure didn’t.”But I sure as hell see it now.
By then, the Camaro had settled back onto all four wheels on the road, but faced the opposite direction. After crossing the road and charging down the shallow embankment, the truck was in the process of churning a wide half-circle at Keller’s left. Rooster tails sprayed high behind both rear tires when it gunned its engines and drifted sideways. The son-of-a-bitch was gunning for a second shot. The damned thing could easily climb over the Camaro like stink on pig shit. One more shove like the last, and the Camaro would be on its side in the swamp with Keller and Savannah trapped inside. Not happening.
Dropping the Camaro into low gear, Keller slammed his foot to the metal. Instant power. The car’s rear-end engaged like a beast. Its racing tires dug into gravel and bedrock.Oh yeah.All four tires kicked ass while Keller executed a tight U-turn, showed that POS hillbilly truck his backside, then peppered the monster climbing into the center lane with a hefty shot of gravel.
Shifting into neutral, Keller asked Savannah, “Can you drive a stick?”
“You bet.”
“Then slide over here and take the wheel. Get to Sanctuary as fast as you can. Wait for me there.” Hegave her no time to answer, just rolled out the door and onto his feet while he simultaneously unleashed both cannons he packed. Squaring his shoulders, Keller didn’t stop until he stood between the truck and Savannah, poised to kill.
If only she’d done what he’d asked.
Pissed at the fools sitting behind the massive cold-rolled carbon steel push bar on the hefty truck ahead of him, Keller straightened his right arm and aimed at that now cracked windshield. Two men. Two targets. Two damned good P226 Sig Sauers packing forty-caliber Smith and Wesson rounds. This wouldn’t take long.
“FBI,” he shouted. “Put your hands where I can see them and get out of your vehicle.”
There was no way to get a clear view of the driver from where Keller stood, not that he cared. Plucky sort though, sitting there with mud all over his ride and revving his engine like he thought he had a dog in this fight. No hands lifted out either driver or passenger windows, but Keller had time. These bastards would either comply or go down resisting arrest, he didn’t much care which.
The Camaro had yet to move.
Not wasting time, Keller commenced forward, his pistol on the joker behind the wheel. Firing over the rig, he ordered both suspects again, “I’m FBI and you’re under arrest. Put your hands up and step out of your vehicle. Do it now.”
That elicited precisely what Keller expected. Gears shifted. The mighty wheels lurched, sewing mud up the rear flaps. Keller found himself looking up at a rig withthree-foot high, heavy-duty, mud-terrain tread monster tires. A wicked slash cut through the tread on the left tire, a detail Keller stored for future use when he wasn’t about to kill someone.
The truck lurched again. Spinning mud. Taunting him. Not one to let an insult go unchallenged, Keller charged the damned thing. Pissed at what this asshat attempted against Savannah, he fired one round through the windshield to make his point, then three into the radiator behind the fancy GMC emblem. No steam billowed skyward—what the hell? The truck kept coming. Worse, Savannah was now standing at his elbow.Damn it!
Fighting for her life now, Keller fired both weapons. But nothing slowed the beast barreling toward him. At the last second, Keller lifted both barrels to the sky, grabbed Savannah against him, and together they rolled down the embankment and straight into the swamp.
Landing on his back, he wrapped both arms around her, then crossed his pistols behind her back, ready to shoot if those bastards came after her. Whimpering, she buried her face in his chest, but Keller had no time to process the protective instincts roaring to life in his soul. They had to move. “We need to get back on the road before they run us over,” he said.
That produced the proper response from Savannah. Pushing gingerly away from him, she eased to her knees between his legs, then to her feet. And wasn’t she a pretty sight, her face splattered with mud, the rest of her—?
‘Drenched’was the word that burst into Keller’s all-male mind. Savannah was dirty and drenched and delightfully wet. Possibly aroused. He certainly was. Her nipples surely were, the nubs clearly defined beneath her skimpy shirt.
Since he was already covered with mud and slime, and he couldn’t get any dirtier, Keller rolled onto his knees and took a much needed moment to get his body to stand down. This was not the time or place. His suit and shirt were ruined. His go-bag was still on the back seat of the car where he’d tossed it at the airport car rental garage. Which was a good thing. At least he’d have clean clothes to change into once they got to Sanctuary. Hopefully, he could shower there.
Like the thought of being naked in Savannah’s shower helped? Instant images sparked Keller back to life. Savannah in the shower with him. Water cascading off her brown sugar skin. She’d melt in his hands. He’d bury himself in her lush, warm body. They’d pound into each other until the water ran cold and then…
Argh! He had the hard-on from hell straining to get out of his pants. He’d never be able to get back on his feet at this rate. Keller glared at the audacious woman who now stood with one foot on the bank, holding a hand out.
“You coming?” she asked.
Keller looked up at Savannah. The juxtaposition felt right somehow, him on his knees in the filth, her looking like an angel with the bright sun at her six, her gentle, helping hand outstretched to deliver him from evil. Not that Savannah was big enough or strongenough to lift him to his feet, but she was there. Damned if those red rosary beads hanging from her neck didn’t add to her exotic allure.
