Page 11 of Chasing Grace
Stone chips flew a foot from her chest, and without the slightest bit of regard for her safety, she shoved herself off the ledge. Her freefall scared the shit out of Chase until tension gripped her ropes, halting her rapid descent.
Momentum working against her, the photographer’s body smashed into the rock wall, and the breath he’d been holding exploded from his lungs. She, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate. In amazement, he watched her make fast work of righting herself and her equipment before she rapidly rappelled the rest of the way down the mountain.
Not long after, she disappeared below the tree line, and her ropes went slack.
The hella sexy climber was on the ground.
And on the run.
A quick check on Bodak’s camp, and Chase confirmed two men were hightailing it to a truck parked off to the side. Didn’t take a genius to figure out Sam Black wanted the photographer, and he’d dispatched his head of security to get her.
Concern for the woman comingling with a shot of adrenaline, Chase grabbed his pack and scrambled from branch to branch. From his previous vantage point, he knew the direction she’d be heading in.
One vehicle occupied the northeast lot, it had to be hers, and even though she was closer, he was faster. Already calculating distances and speeds, he dropped the last fifteen feet out of the tree and hit the ground running.
With a second parking lot a mile up the road from the one she was heading for, the men were going to have to split up to cover them both. Too close to call, he gave the photographer a fifty/fifty chance of getting to her car first.
His only advantage? No one knew he was coming.
Fucking Jackson.Breathing heavy and holding the stitch in her side, Gray crept to the edge of the parking area. Crouched behind a sumac for cover, she shrugged off her backpack and retrieved the car’s key fob. Her rental was where she’d left it, in the middle of the empty lot, with nothing and nobody around it.
Over the pounding of her heart, she listened, scanning the perimeter for hidden threats. She saw nothing. She heard nothing. She had enough experience with near-miss bullets to know that meant nothing.
She did a quick assessment and figured she had two choices. Make a break for her vehicle or keep running. Before she even realized her brain had decided on a course of action, her body flew into motion. As she sprinted for the Mazda, she prayed to God she made it.
Apparently, God was busy.
The flying tackle came from behind her and to the left. Going down hard on the loose gravel, her head bounced, scrambling her gray matter. Before she could react, a heavy body landed on top of hers, flipping her onto her back in one fluid motion.
Instinctively, Gray dug in her heels and bucked her hips, hoping to dislodge her attacker. When that didn’t work, she twisted her body left, then right, rolling on the ground and using her elbows to inch her way backward.
Her hip throbbed. Her head ached. And sharp stones scraped at her palms. But she was making progress. Well, she was. Until a Mack Truck slammed into her diaphragm, and she lost the ability to breathe and fight back with a single blow.
As her vision went black, stars circled for the second time in less than an hour. In the absence of oxygen, she concentrated on not passing out while her lungs took a spur-of-the-moment vacation.
New plan. Breathe first. Fight second.
When her vision started to clear, her hopes of escape flatlined. The man straddling her stomach had to be at least two hundred and fifty pounds of illegally enhanced no-necked muscle. The he-man was the size of an SUV, and he certainly didn’t give a shit about occupying a no-parking zone.
“You got some fight in you, princess.” He had an ugly grin pasted on his ugly grill, his gaze locked on to the territory south of her collarbones. “I like it when you granola-eating, tree-hugging types fight back. It’s a real turn-on.”
Breath coming back in short bursts, she gasped, “Let me up, and I’ll show you…how much fight I have…you fucking no-neck prick.”
“You kiss your kids with that dirty mouth, bitch?” Grinding a burgeoning erection into her stomach, No-neck lowered his bloated face to her ear. “Maybe I should make it so you got something better to do with that filthy hole.”
As his hand disappeared into his pants, Gray’s searched around for the nearest sizable rock she could reach. She came up with a whole lot of gravel. Disappointed, she scooped a fistful, and hoping to blind the asshole, at least in one eye, she swung her weapon with all her might.
The urge to maim rushed like heroin in her veins, her rage fueling her war cry, “Fuck you, No-neck!” Expecting to feel the jarring affirmation of a solid connection with the man’s helmet-sized head, she found herself giving him a fierce one-armed hug instead.
As though he meant to shield her, No-neck’s limp body covered her head to toe. But before she could extricate herself from the wreckage or come up with a reasonable explanation for her good fortune, he rolled off her of his own accord.
On his back, arms splayed wide over his shoulders like he’d surrendered to a higher authority, her attacker’s unconscious body left her with questions. When she didn’t find any answers, she looked at the sky.Meteor? Lightning? Hand of God?
She had nothing—until rust-colored eyes flecked with gold obscured her view. Too sore to move, Gray didn’t bother trying to convince her body it should be engaging in a fight-or-flight response against the new asshole.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
“What?” That made no sense. If dickhead number two planned to kill her, why did he care if she was bleeding? Why didn’t he just shoot her with the gun in his hand and get it over with?
