Billionaire For Ransom - Layla Valentine Page 0,39

glanced at the speedometer in front of Jack.

We were going a hundred and ten. Right. No problem.

“What exactly happens if we have a blow-out when we’re going a hundred and ten?” I asked quietly, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“We don’t have to worry about that much,” Jack said. “Since we won’t survive for long enough to care.”

Okay. Terrific.

I put the thought aside as completely unproductive and instead went over that plan for our day one more time. It wasn’t sophisticated, though it had been the best we’d been able to come up with in our half-asleep state the night before. Still, I thought that it just might work. We’d been out of the city for at least six hours now, and the last time we’d seen the men we’d started to refer to as ‘the bad guys,’ they’d been shot up in a parking lot, without usable transportation.

They’d also been sitting ducks for the cops themselves, who we knew had been on their way to the scene of the little shootout we’d taken part in. With luck, Jack’s would-be clients had been arrested and were now sitting in jail, waiting for their lawyers to get them out.

I’d never been arrested, but I didn’t think you could post bail within six hours of having been arrested. Not when those six hours existed mostly over the course of a night.

But I started getting nervous the moment I saw the sign that indicated that we were entering city limits. No, we couldn’t see the city quite yet. But it was there, just waiting, like a demon crouched on the horizon.

“Do you think they’re waiting for us?” I asked quickly, trying to figure out how far it was between here and the airport. How quickly we might be able to get tickets out of the city. Where we might hide in the airport in case we had to stay there to wait for a flight.

Jack crouched down a bit in the seat, his hands flexing on the steering wheel—which made the muscles in his forearms stand out even more.

I gulped, trying very hard not to think about the way those muscles—and that warm, smooth skin—had felt under my fingertips about four hours ago. The way he’d shifted so that I could actually lay on him for more warmth, when the night got suddenly cold. The way he’d wrapped his arm around me and sent my body abuzz, making it even harder to fall asleep—and almost impossible to focus on what he’d been saying at the time.

I almost groaned at the thought, but then he jerked the wheel to avoid something in the road, and I jerked along with it, coming right back to the real world.

God, this wasn’t the time to get lost in a fucking daydream. What was I doing?

We were in an actual, swear-to-God life-or-death situation here. And I was remembering how hot the guy who kidnapped me had felt lying next to me in bed.

Ridiculous. Unacceptable.

The fact that he hadn’t even tried anything more than holding my hand should have clued me in, anyhow. I was crushing on him—but that didn’t mean the feelings were returned. I had to get my freaking head out of the gutter and into saving-our-lives mode. Pronto.

“And what are we going to do if they are?” I asked, noticing that Jack hadn’t answered yet.

He blew out a harsh breath. “I want to think that they’re not waiting for us, but I also think we’d be stupid to expect to be in the clear,” he answered, his voice rough. He cast me a quick glance, his eyes burning. “I think we have to expect that someone is going to notice the moment we get into town. And I think we have to expect to be running for our lives.”

I pressed myself back into the seat, trying to sort my way through that. “Terrific.”

Then, without warning, his hand shot out and took mine, squeezing it hard before going suddenly still and then jerking away again as if he’d just realized what he was doing and second-guessed it.

I flexed my hand, feeling the absence of his immediately, the warmth of his skin lingering on my own like an embrace. An embrace that I’d slept in… and now missed more than I ever would have expected.

“I’m not going to let them get you, and that’s a promise,” he said quietly. “No matter what it takes, I’m going to get you home.”

I kept my mouth shut, too surprised