Hot Protector(9)

Her answer shocked him. “Honey, no way. I like to look at everything while I’m sampling the buffet.”

It was her turn to be surprised, judging by the silence. In the distance, he could hear the helicopter sweeping overhead. They had to get out of here before Androv’s men figured out where they were. They were most likely thugs, not Special Operators like he was, so he definitely had the advantage. But he had to use it while he had it.

“Follow my voice, Sophie, and come to my side.”

He heard the rustle of bushes in the dark and then a curse. But a moment later she made it around the car. His vision had adjusted and he could see her. He wished like hell he had his night vision goggles, but that was part of his gear back at HOT. No taking those home for fun.

“Can you see?” he asked her.

“Do I look like a cat?” she grumbled.

“Not especially.”

She sighed. “Sorry. No, I can’t see well. I can tell that the big shape in front of me is you, and that’s about it.”

He set the bag on the roof of the car and rummaged through for a T-shirt. Then he pulled it over his head and zipped the bag again. It was chilly, but as soon as they started moving, he’d heat up.

“Keep your eyes on my shape and follow me. If you feel like you can’t keep up, for God’s sake let me know. I’ll be finding a trail and I can’t look back and make sure you’re there every ten seconds.”

“Chase,” she said as he turned away.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for helping me.”





SOPHIE HAD no idea how long they had walked, but she was utterly miserable. It was dark and dank in the woods, and her mind began to conjure up all kinds of critters hiding in the gloom: snakes, bears, foxes, wildcats. Bigfoot. She stayed on Chase’s heels, as close as she could get, and prayed nothing would get her.

She kept listening for the sounds of pursuit—cars, motorcycles, horses maybe—but she heard nothing. The helicopter had stopped flying overhead about an hour ago. But that didn’t mean Grigori had given up or that she was safe. She knew that.

For the first time in hours, she could think about everything that had happened tonight and just how close she’d come to dying. New York City was big, and she’d thought it would take Grigori quite some time to realize she’d left the city instead of hiding out at a friend’s. But his men had been so close on her tail that it was impossible to believe they hadn’t been tracking her through her phone. Chase was right and she’d been a fool to keep it.

When they’d found her, they’d set Chase’s apartment on fire. With her and Chase in it. Sophie shivered.

Eventually, Chase stopped and she walked right into him, colliding with his hard body and bouncing backward. Somehow he turned and caught one of her flailing arms before she fell. Her heart skittered as he tugged her up and she hit him again, only this time she hit softer—and she felt the impression of all that hard muscle against her body.

He was a temple of muscle. A monument to working out, with taut peaks and hard planes in all the right places, a rippling fantasy man come to life. She practically moaned, except that would be weird.

Weird because they were running from men intent on killing her and weird because he was technically her stepbrother. Though in the few visits he’d ever made to California, all she’d done was think how intriguing he was. Her thoughts had not been sisterly in the least.

“Steady,” he said, and she nearly laughed. Steady? Oh no, she was anything but steady.

“Why have we stopped?”

He tilted his head up, and she realized that she could see him much better now. The shadowy outlines of his face had coalesced into a beautiful portrait.

“It’ll be light soon. We need to stop.”

“But shouldn’t we keep going? Keep distance between us and them?”

He shook his head. “Are you ready to do that, Sophie? How much farther can you go? Another hour? Two? Ten?”

It hit her then that he was stopping for her. If he’d been on his own, he’d have kept going.

“I… No, not much farther. My feet hurt and my back aches.”

Not that she hadn’t felt worse after a day at work, but that was different somehow. She could go home and soak her feet or get a massage from her massage-therapist roommate.

There would be no massages tonight. She looked at the pinkening sky. Today.

“All right, we’re going up this tree here,” he said, placing his palm against the side of the tree he was standing near.

Sophie tilted her head back to look up into the thick tangle of branches. “Uh, I don’t think I’m much of a climber, Chase. Unless you have a ladder.”