at warp speed and straight into oncoming traffic.
“You’re on a one-way street!”
“Yeah, well…” Tires squealed, and she was now fishtailing on what looked like a busy frontage road paralleling train tracks. “Hang on while I lose our tail.”
“What—?” Oh, that tail. The puke green sedan on the other side of the tracks where a silver bullet train was suddenly blurring by.
Silver bullet… Hmmm. His dizzy head jumped to the memory of icy cold beer and—
“Hold tight!!” she ordered.
“Y-y-yes, ma’am!” he yelled back.
The clown car drifted into a perfect one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, just as the final train car rumbled by, sending them back in the same direction they’d come from. No sign of puke green then, only another dizzying turn and squealing tires, followed by a thousand blurred buildings and more course corrections than Walker could track. Too many bikes and canals and…
Automatically he slammed both palms to the dash when she brought the car to a sudden stop and yelled, “Get out!”
If only he could make his fingers work to open the tiny handle to his door. Shit. He was all thumbs, and that was kind of funny—him being in clown shoes like he was—
Until she jerked it open and hissed, “Do I have to do everything?”
Umm, yeah. Maybe. Instead of saying that, he manned up and said, “Almost had it.”
By then, Miss Impatience had a stranglehold on his scraped raw wrist, and he was on his feet. Just a little too quickly. He didn’t see the curb because he was looking at her. One clown shoe landed sideways in the gutter; the other only half made the curb. His ankle collapsed, and over he went, on Persia.
They fell onto the sidewalk together, but somehow, he managed an outstanding quarterback save that put him on his back and her core on his belly. And just that fast, he was home safe with his nose buried in the wonderfully warm valley between her pillowy breasts. He loved it there.
His lungs reacted instinctively, inhaling deeply and sucking in every last glorious feminine pheromone. Clean womanly sweat. Fresh laundry detergent. Some kind of flowery, female deodorant. Walker stretched his neck, his tongue ready to lick those tantalizing scents off of her body.
But just as his hand cupped her ass, she pushed to her knees. “Knock it off, Hotrod. We need to get inside and you out of sight.”
“Yeah. Right.” He knew that.
Once she’d climbed to her feet, he rolled to his knees. Shit. The thousand step staircase ahead of him might as well have been to the stars.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Man, this guy was heavy. But at least Hotrod was on his feet and moving forward. Mostly. But he was damned sick, and everywhere she touched, his skin was burning hot. Had to be running an awfully high fever. But that poor eye. And his forehead. Who had he been fighting?
“One more step,” Persia urged encouragingly.
Her left hand was now splayed over the center of his chest, her other hand clenching a balled-up knot of his pink poncho. She’d dressed him in that because the orange, government-owned jumpsuit beneath it had ICC Detention Unit stamped in bright red on his back. Guess the ICC wanted to make sure escapees would be easy to spot in a crowd. A big guy like Walker certainly would have been.
At last, they were at the front door to the safe house. “Lean against the wall here, and please stay on your feet. I might not be able to get you up again.”
“Won’t have to. I’m…I’m not going anywhere,” he huffed, even as he leaned backward and his head hit the doorjamb. “I’m good.”
Good and stubborn, she thought.
They’d known they’d get separated after running into the media mob camped outside the ICC, so Izza had ordered Persia to locate Hotrod and break him out, while she created a distraction. It seemed reporters from the entire world had shown up today. Evil, nasty, lying sharks, all of them. Wonder who they’re after? Couldn’t be Hotrod, could it? How’d they know he was there? Who told?
Ignoring her panic, Persia pushed the door open, then shrugged her bag off her shoulder and let it hit the floor. Thank goodness, she’d brought a ruggedized TEAM laptop. It was unbreakable. “Okay, let’s do this, big guy. Slow and easy. I’ve got you.”
Hotrod palmed the doorjamb over his head with one big, sweaty hand, then ducked into TEAM safety. “Christ, it’s freezzzzzing in here.”
“No, it’s quite stuffy, but you’re sick. You’ve got a fever, and you’re chilled.