Page 67 of Hot Pursuit
“What?” he asked, unable to stop the sarcasm from leaking into his voice. “Pushing each other’s buttons all the time?”
“Well, you can’t knock the results…” She eyed him pointedly. “But what I meant was you, me, us. This is going to be fun.”
“Fun, huh?” He cocked an eyebrow and tightened his grip on her waist. Jo had just enough time to narrow her eyes suspiciously before he flipped her on her back and rolled over, pinning her to the mattress. She let out a yelp, but he caught it with his lips, letting his hands slowly make their way up her waist, before he settled his forearms on either side of her head and pushed against the pillows, breaking the kiss off with a grin. “For once, Jo, fun is exactly what I have in mind.”
- 23 -
Jo
Jo stared at the clock on the nightstand. Nate had fallen asleep forty-five minutes ago with his torso pressed against her back, his arm draped over the dip in her hip, his hand clasping her tight. And though she closed her eyes over and over, fighting for sleep, her mind was wide awake. And her gaze kept slipping back to that clock. Again. And again. And again.
Because it was 2:00 a.m.
And then 2:05.
And then 2:15.
And now it was 2:40.
And she was supposed to meet Thad in fifty minutes. Thirty blocks uptown. Which she’d have to walk as to not leave a digital record of her location. So they could do what they came to New York to do—steal a painting from a rich man so he could cash in his insurance and they could get paid. Only now, Jo knew there was a much darker side to the whole exchange, a much more dangerous and despicable one than she’d ever cared to realize before.
How did it work exactly? Would her father sell the painting to the Russians? Did they pay him a set fee for his work? Did Thad know all the details? And what would the mafia use a painting for? Collateral on a drug deal? To launder money? In exchange for human trafficking? For murder? The very thought made Jo shiver, cold despite the warmth seeping into her back from Nate’s body.
Nate.
Nate…
Thinking of him caused physical pain, a burning in her chest, because the past few hours had been the most magical of her life. A living dream. The future he painted—oh, she wanted it so badly she could taste it, a sugary, buttery vanilla cake that was too indulgent by half. But now the high had worn off. With Nate asleep and her mind left to wander, the elixir of his touch had faded, leaving memories that would turn bitter with time.
Because she couldn’t stay.
She had to go.
She had to leave.
Jo glanced at the clock again.
2:45.
If she didn’t get out of here in the next ten minutes, she’d be late.
As though sensing her thought, Nate sighed and shifted his grip, tugging her the slightest bit closer and nuzzling his face against her back. Jo closed her eyes. Why did he have to fit so perfect? Feel so perfect? Say the perfect things? Perfect Nate Parker. With his perfect lips. And perfect hands. And perfect…
Jo cleared her throat.
Focus.
But she couldn’t. Her mind kept wandering back to an image of the two of them snuggled on his couch, arms intertwined, her head on his chest, both their gazes focused on the view outside his apartment window. For some reason in her mind it was snowing, which she knew didn’t happen all that often in Washington, DC, but it never happened in the Bahamas, and the idea of watching that white glitter float and fall had always seemed so cozy, so romantic. Maybe there was some smooth jazz playing in the background. Jo had made fresh hot cocoa, with marshmallows of course, and the smell of chocolate hovered in the air around them. The idea of that singular moment filled her with so much bliss, because it was ordinary yet extraordinary, mundane yet remarkable, the way all her favorite love stories always were.
Jo blinked.
The scene shifted.
She sat in a hard plastic chair with fluorescent lights shining painfully in her eyes, turning everything a sickly shade of chartreuse. Her palm was pressed against a wall of thick glass, fingers scratching at the impenetrable divide, unable to break through. In her other hand rested a phone, filled with nothing but static, as she stared at her father, a man who now looked old in every sense of the word. His gray hair was wiry and thin, starting to bald at the top. His eyes were empty of all the life she remembered, dull and devoid. His once firm, tan skin was now an ashy sort of gray and limp with wrinkles.Why?the silence seemed to ask.Why did you do this to me, to us, Jolene? Why, pumpkin? Why?But when this ghoulish version of her father finally opened his mouth, that’s not what came out.
I’m dying, he whispered.
And her stomach dropped to the floor, through it, to a bottomless place she hadn’t visited since her mother passed all those years before. Because he was sick. And alone behind bars. A place where she couldn’t hold him, couldn’t save him, couldn’t comfort or protect him.
