“What the—” The man with Ethan turned his head.
Noting that her head was currently beneath the muzzle of Bobby’s gun, Zoë used all her strength to bring her left foot down hard on his instep.
Bobby grunted, tightening his grip on her arm, but she still managed to bring her knee up hard into his crotch.
His howl had the man across the street, yelling, “Hey, what’s going on?”
The dog started barking.
“Help!” Zoë shrieked. She broke free of Bobby’s grip just as Ethan placed a well-aimed kick in the face of his captor.
Before she had time to do much more than register the skill involved in the move, he grabbed her hand and muttered, “Run.”
Run they did. They’d only taken a few steps before she heard a muffled sound and Ethan stumbled, almost causing them both to go down. But at the last moment, she caught her balance and pulled him forward. His legs were longer than hers, and since she had to run three steps to his two, it was difficult to get into a rhythm. As they turned the first corner, she glanced back to see that the SUV was backing out of the driveway.
Once back on a commercial street, Ethan dragged her into a shop entranceway and they flattened themselves against a glass window. Through it Zoë saw the black SUV turn the corner and drive slowly past. Fifteen long seconds ticked by before Ethan said, “They turned right. They’re probably going to drive around widening their circle until they spot us.”
Then grabbing her hand, he pulled her out onto the sidewalk and they ran in the same direction. As they stormed up the next block, hand in hand, Zoë worked to get into a rhythm. Ethan stopped at the corner and shoved her behind him long enough to send his gaze up and down the cross street.
“Clear,” was all he said. Then he dragged her diagonally across the intersection. A block later, he pulled her across the street and urged her down a flight of steps. Tourists were familiar with the stairs because they’d figured in a prominent scene in the movie The Exorcist. A body had been found at the bottom. As they hit the spot running, Zoë tried not to think about the body.
At the next corner, Ethan didn’t stop, didn’t even slow his pace. They simply ran around it and raced on. Later, she would recall how surreal it was—the bursts of muffled laughter that floated out from pubs and restaurants, the odd stares they received from the few pedestrians they zigged and zagged around, the patches of streetlamp light that they raced in and out of.
Her calves and lungs had begun to burn by the time she realized they’d left the commercial area and entered what appeared to be a winding drive through a park. When a car turned the corner ahead of them, Ethan jerked her behind a large elm and pressed her against the trunk.
Zoë concentrated on getting her breath. Her lungs were on fire. But it wasn’t just her lungs that were burning up. Her body seemed to be on fire at each and every contact point it made with Ethan Blair’s. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the car make its way slowly up the drive. But even as the sound of the motor faded in the distance, Ethan didn’t move.
She didn’t want him to.
The realization should have shocked her. Someone had tried to kidnap them, and they were running for their lives. She should be thinking about that. But she couldn’t seem to focus on the danger they were in. Not when her eyes were staring at the pulse that was beating in his throat. She wanted to put her lips against that pulse. She wanted to taste his skin. At the thought, the heat she was feeling grew more intense and her own pulse raced even faster. Her gaze moved to his mouth. She wanted to kiss him again.
The one kiss that they’d shared hadn’t been like most first kisses. He hadn’t taken the time to tempt or explore. Instead, he’d taken instant possession of her mouth as if they’d kissed before.
But they hadn’t. She would have remembered the slow way he’d probed her mouth with his tongue as if he’d been determined to sample and savor every part of it. Just thinking about it had that strange ache building inside of her, just as it had in the shadow of that hedge.
When she felt his finger move lightly along the underside of her jaw, she began to tremble. He tipped her face up so that she had to meet his eyes. For a long moment, she didn’t move, didn’t speak as a longing filled her. She was almost sure she saw a reflection of what she was feeling in his eyes.
“You’re really something,” he said as he dragged the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip.
The heat inside of her grew so intense that she thought some of it must be escaping as steam.
Then, with a sigh, Ethan drew back from her. “We can’t stay here.”