Lunchtime Chronicles: Carolina Reaper Read online

  Zyana shot out of the booth and took off in a mad dash. “Help!” she screamed her way to the front of the restaurant. Her clumpy steps sounded as she attempted to run in heels and that cute little blue dress she wore.

  “He’s back there. He punched out my date. You have to call the police,” she told the wait crew who were gathered near the bar area.

  “He’s coming!” she yelled, darting behind the bar with the rest of the group. At the sight of me, diners and the staff visibly cringed and ducked out of my way, unwilling to test the way I looked with the way they presumed I would act.

  Six-foot four inches and two-hundred and fifty pounds of suspected killer is what people saw, and I preferred it that way. It meant I rarely got fucked with.

  Once I was at the bar, I leaned across it, making the three staff members and Zyana hustle back. “Zyana, I’m—”

  “You leave her alone! I’m calling the police on you,” the woman on the phone with the apron tied around her waist yelled in my direction.

  “Zyana. You need to come with me.” My words were mingling with those of her protectors yelling for me to stay away. Fuck! I didn’t have time for this shit.

  At this point, the whole place had gone still, leaving the music pouring in from hidden speakers to beat at the piercing silence. The voice of the 911 operator sounded, giving the woman on the phone instructions.

  My stalking approach made them all shuffle away as a group while I made my way to the opening that led behind the bar. The one holding the phone was too slow, so I yanked the phone from her hand and tossed it in the trash bin behind the bar.

  The two young males standing in front of Zyana had balls as they were willing to get their asses beat to protect a perfect stranger. However, this was their lucky night because she didn’t have plans to wait for me to make my next move. She was climbing up and across the counter. The heels and dress were giving her hell, but she hopped over and took off for the front door.

  “Shit!” The last place she needed to be was alone and in that dark parking lot.

  “Zyana!” I yelled after her while making a beeline for the front door, barely catching her retreating back as she exited. Wide eyes shined at me from every direction inside the dim space of the restaurant. Some lifted phones as they attempted to record and snap pictures of the dim scene.

  Once out of the front door, I spotted her running into the darkness. She had run out of the heels and left them lying in the middle of the parking lot. I had to give her credit. If I were the bad guy, she was not going to be taken easily.

  Her keys hitting the pavement sounded as I made out her shadowy figure hunched near the back of her car.

  “Come on. Fuck.” Her curse words registered. Once she had the keys, the lights on her car flashed, signifying she had disarmed it.

  The blinding light of an approaching car came barreling around the back of the dark building, which urged me to pick up the pace of my run. My seasoned eye caught the sight of a pistol before I gripped Zyana’s arm and pulled her down to the ground.

  Tap! Tap! Tap!

  Bullets pounded into the back of her car. The shooter’s weapons were silenced, so the punching impact of the bullets merged with her ear-splitting screams. She fought my tight grip while I dragged her to the front of the car and clamped a hand over her mouth once we were in place.

  “I’m here to help you, woman. Calm the fuck down. I’m Israel Sylas. Major sent me.”

  At those words, she calmed but continued her attempts to squirm out of the cage of my arms. That is until more bullets pounded into her car, and the sound of her back window shattering stilled her.

  “I need to return fire, or they’re going to keep shooting until you’re dead. Can I have my hands back?” I asked but didn’t let go until she nodded.

  I dropped my hands to pull my pistol from my waistband and took up a prone position on the ground. Zyana jerked away and scrambled back on her butt, revealing that she still didn’t trust me. The men climbed out of their vehicle, leaving it running with the doors open after pulling to a stop behind Zyana’s car.

  “Zyana. Lie face down and slide as far under your car as you can get,” I ordered.

  Thankfully, she didn’t protest because the moon provided just enough illumination for me to make out the two men approaching, but it also made us targets. As soon as a sliver of light revealed enough of one within my kill range, I centered my aim between his eyes and let my finger flex against the trigger.

  The silencer on my pistol didn’t tell any secrets, but the man’s body hitting the ground told me all I needed to know. The quick steps of his buddy sounded behind me, causing me to flip and fire, but he didn’t fall. My bullet had disoriented him enough that he staggered back, giving me enough time to stand and deliver a clean shot to his face at point-blank range.

  The power of the shot punched through the top of his head and sent brain matter flying out the back of his skull. His body teetered back and forth before it decided to tilt in my direction. He hit the ground face-first with a hard flesh-smacking thump, landing parallel to where Zyana had slid under the front of her car.

  “Oh my God!” she screamed, letting me know she’d been introduced to the asshole who had come for her.

  “We have to go. They are going to send more guys after you.” I spoke while gripping the dead man’s pants legs and dragging him out of the way so that she could slide from under the car.

  “How do I know you’re not the bad guy?” she questioned while dusting herself off and backing cautiously away from me.

  “Your brother, Major, sent me to help you,” I told her, moving every time she moved in case she attempted to run.

  “How do you know my brother?” she asked like she was planning to do an interview. She kept glancing at the gun in my hand, the dead man at our feet, and her open car door.

  “Look. I don’t have time for this. Unless you want to be picking bullets out of your ass, I suggest you stay with me.”

  “Or what?” she asked.

  She ran for her car door, snatching it open wider and attempted to climb in. I gripped her in a tight bear hug from behind, which caused her to release a loud scream that was stopped when I clamped my hand over her mouth. The hammering of the heel of her foot came next, inflicting damage to my shins.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I’m going to let go, and you’re going to be a good little girl and stop that fucking yelling. Right?” My teasing tone probably didn’t help matters, but I couldn’t help myself with this feisty little ball of hellfire.

  She nodded and mumbled, “Um hum,” before I dropped my hand.

  “Why can’t I follow you in my car if you’re who you say you are?”

  “First, you’re boxed in.” The gunmen’s car was still running behind hers, and a cement privacy wall was about six feet in front of her car, separating the hotel’s lot from the restaurant. “Second, I know you know that your brother does not hunt down run-of-the-mill criminals. If they know where you are, they already have your license plate. Now, let’s go,” I barked in my most commanding voice.

  Apparently, my voice had no effect on this hardheaded-ass woman because she went right back to screaming.

  “Help! Somebody help me!”

  I picked her up and tossed her screaming over my shoulder. The sound of sirens no less than three minutes out was as troubling as the sound of the crowd gathering at the side of the building.

  People gawked and pointed at my dark figure strolling through the parking lot with a woman tossed across my shoulder, kicking and beating the shit out of my back. Thankfully, the crowd hadn’t spotted the dead men in the darkness.

  I turned us away from the crowd and headed deeper into the dark to the opening that would get me back into the hotel’s parking lot. Once we reached my bike, I set Zyana in place on the back with a hard thud and yanked her legs apart so she would straddle the seat.

  “I have a damn d
ress on, you fucking psychopath,” she spat while yanking her dress down those sexy ass legs of hers. “And no shoes, you crazy fool. You can’t expect me to ride on this thing like this,” she continued to spit her words while I tossed my leg across the seat and climbed on, crowding her space and wedging myself between her legs. My closeness shut her the hell up.

  “I promised your brother that I’d protect you, so even if I have to tie your hard-headed ass to me to keep you alive, that’s what I am going to do.”

  Reaching down, I gripped her ankles and drew her flush against my body, making her gasp and beat at my back as she called me every word that sounded best with the word, fucking. When I sat her feet atop my thighs, she snatched them back down.

  Massaging my throbbing temples and taking deep breaths did nothing to douse my burning irritation. I shot a sharp glare over my shoulder that at least stopped her from hitting me in the back.

  “If you don’t put your legs up, the exhaust pipe is going to burn the shit out of you, and I’m not stopping while your skin is melting because there will probably be bullets flying at your fucking back. You need to stay seated in the position I put you in and shut the fuck up with all the unnecessary mouth action. You’re giving me a fucking headache.”

  Finally, there was tense silence, except for the crowd on the other side of that barrier whose voices carried along the night’s dark sky. I didn’t address the part about Zyana hitting me because I liked it. The licks were foreplay as far as I was concerned. When I turned and placed my helmet on her head and snapped the chin strap closed, loud huffs and eye rolls were the thanks I received.

  She didn’t say shit when I repositioned her so that she was tightly against me with her legs at my waist and her bare feet locked into place in front of me. She was back there doing her best to slide her dress between her legs to cover herself or to put something between us. I didn’t care what she was doing because I had her sexy ass wrapped around me either way.

  “Hold on,” I called back before I kicked the bike to life. She, of course, didn’t listen. I reached back and took her hands before positioning them around me. My rough tug had her chest crushed into my back.

  She’d had that purse slung around her, so that must have been the object she had wedged against my lower back where I was hoping her pussy would be. I revved the bike and tore out of the parking lot, not giving her any choice but to hold on tighter.

  No less than ten minutes into the ride, the woman started yelling again. She kept a tight grip around my torso with one hand and was beating at my shoulder with the other.

  “Let…off!” The wind kept distorting her words, but I could make out something about her being ready to get off. “Stop…now!”

  A deep sigh didn’t help my nerves that were as revved as my motorcycle’s engine. She commenced caring out her protest, shaking my fucking torso and causing the bike to jerk and disturb what was supposed to be a fast, smooth ride.

  I let up, slowing the bike down. Major would owe me for this one. Once I was sure we hadn’t been followed, I veered into an empty parking lot of an electronics store that had closed for the night. The front of the building was secured by a single light affixed on a tall metal pole that made it resemble a snake standing high on its belly.

  As soon as my bike screeched to a stop, she wiggled herself free and hopped off. She snatched off the helmet and shoved it at me. I stayed on my bike, glaring at her, and wondering where she was going with no shoes on. Finally, I reached for the helmet and watched her spin on her bare feet and take off.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “I have a few places I can go and hide. This is not the first time I’ve had to do this. Thank you for your help.” Her words were muffled since she didn’t bother glancing back.

  I slung my leg across my bike and tracked her down within seconds. “This might not be your first rodeo, but your brother’s in deep with the Murda Mafia.”

  She froze at that deadly update, but still jerked away from my grip when I reached for her shoulder.

  “Leave me alone,” she barked in my direction.

  “Nope, not going to happen. I gave Major my word, now I have to keep it, even if I have to tie you up and sling you across the back of my bike.”

  “I wish the fuck that you would. I don’t give a damn how big and bad you think you are,” she spat, and the daring glint in her eyes told me she meant every word. In the midst of our battle, I fought a smile. She was a feisty ball of fire, and that shit turned me on.

  “Have it your way,” were my last words before I gripped and spun her into my chest. With her wrists clamped tight in each of my hands, I drew her into me, the top of her hair tickling my stubbled chin.

  The mean glare she aimed up at me was all hellfire and brimstone, the kind of look that was a lead-in for a good fuck session. She was no more than five-foot-five and one-forty max by my eye’s measurements, but she had the balls of someone twice her size.

  “Let go of me, you damn, fucking—” she barked, so upset she fumbled her curse words as her harsh breaths slapped against my chin.

  “I do enjoy all the nice words you say to me. Turns me on,” I continued while slapping a white zip tie on her left wrist before tugging her arms tight around my lower back. She wiggled, screamed, and kicked her ass off while I made repeated attempts to zip tie her hands together behind my back. If only she knew the tricks I could pull off with a few plastic ties. Her face was a mask of confusion, her eyes wide and searching as she struggled. “What are you…” Her question was stopped when she put more effort into her struggle.

  A triumphant smile filled my face when I snapped her other wrist into the second tie that I had linked with her first bound wrist.

  “What the hell are you doing? Let me go! Are you crazy? Let…me…go!” With the ties binding her to me, I dragged her stiff arms up my body, giving her a little space so that she wouldn’t be face-planted in my chest.

  With my arms at her back, I bent and wrapped my hands around her lush hips and lifted her off her feet so that I had her legs wrapped around my waist. She had gone limp and unwilling to help me. It didn’t matter because she was the perfect amount of woman and her feistiness screamed that she needed to be manhandled.

  Once she acknowledged the sexually compromising position I’d put her in, her eyes, wide and piercing, sparked with barely contained rage as she scanned up and down our connected bodies. The up-close view of the hot fury on her tight face had me fighting back a grin. The depth of her anger radiated off her body and flowed against my skin, drawing me in instead of warning me away.

  I carried her back to the bike, wrapped around me like we were lovers, despite all the wiggling and cursing she was doing.

  “You’re nuts. Insane enough that after this is over I’ll need to check myself into the nuthouse to get rid of your residual crazy.”

  “You either shut the hell up, or I’m going to put something in that mouth of yours to shut you up.”

  My comment made her fiery words shoot out faster, and she even snapped her teeth at me, nearly taking a chunk out of my chin. All she was doing was making me want her because I loved myself a sassy woman. Or maybe it was just her. Whatever it was, was turning me the fuck on like never before.

  I lifted her higher to tuck her legs more securely around my waist, loving the way her ass and hips filled my hands. She cursed with the roaring intensity of a runaway train, and the proximity was like taking a hammer to my eardrums.

  “Let me the fuck down, you fucking psycho!”

  Thank fuck that damn purse of hers had shifted to the rear of her body. If she moved now, it meant she’d be rubbing her pussy against the bulge that I proudly presented to her.

  The moment she felt me, she went still and her eyes locked on mine. Nothing could keep the satisfied smirk off my face. Ten inches of hard dick barely contained in my jeans had calmed her feisty ass down substantially.

  �
��Will you at least cover my legs, you sick son of a bitch,” she spat at me, rolling her eyes with such firm intensity, it may as well have been a slap. I untucked the leather tails of my vest and let the material fall over her exposed hips. With a solid hold of her delicious thighs, I lifted her higher and climbed across the bike, sitting her ass on the seat before me. The swift movement had caused her to lock her legs tighter around my waist and her face to radiate her fury.

  “You got something else you need to say?” I asked, meeting her heated gaze. I tilted my head to glance into eyes that glowed with such burning anger it was a wonder I hadn’t caught fire.

  Lips poked out, chest heaving, and body shaking, I’m sure if she could have, she would have killed me. She strained against me, attempting to yank her hands free, but her movement did nothing more than make the front of her body work against mine.

  “Let me fucking go,” she gritted.

  “Or what?” I asked. She didn’t answer. “Your brother sent me to help because he’s in danger too.” At that update, she clamped her lips shut, and some of the tension eased from her body, but she didn’t stop her attempts to wiggle free. If she kept that shit up, one of us was going to end up coming.

  “As much as I know you would like to get away from me, I can’t let you out of my sight until Major gives me the okay.”

  I kicked the bike to a roaring start that jostled her body and added to my enjoyment of her heat rubbing against mine. Releasing the grip I had on her waist, I placed my hand on her lower back and pulled her in, crushing her pelvis against mine.

  My actions had her staring up wide-eyed, but she didn’t say a thing about my dick, which was as hard as a crowbar and pressing into the sweltering heat she released. I revved the engine and took off in a roaring dash, which sent her slamming against me.

  What should have been a ten-minute drive turned into twenty minutes, partly me making sure we weren’t being followed and partly me enjoying the scorching heat of our sexy position. Based on how hot her sex was against mine and that lust-laden spark flashing in her eyes, she was as turned on as I was. Other than her adjusting to ease away from my raging hard-on, I hadn’t heard another peep from her.