Where Loyalties Lie

22

He was quiet for several minutes before redirecting our conversation. “Where are you from? That takes one destination off the list of possibilities.” “A suburb of Los Angeles.” “That leaves the two coasts off-limits, but a whole lot of options in between.” “I had tossed around the idea of Chicago.” “Is there a reason you gravitate toward big cities?” I shrugged. “Not really, they just seem easier to blend in.” “Also a lot more opportunities to be spotted.” “What are you suggesting? I’m not going to go live by myself on a farm. I’ll die of boredom.” It was his turn to shrug. “Something to consider, that’s all.” By some miracle of God, he let the subject rest and stopped his incessant questions. His point about a more rural setting had been valid, but there was no way I would admit that to him. He seemed to think he had all the answers. I couldn’t give him the smug satisfaction of knowing he might have been right. I turned on the satellite radio and channel surfed and sang for the next few hours. If we talked on occasion, it wasn’t about anything of importance. We took a brief pit stop in Pennsylvania at lunch, gassing up and grabbing food. “When we get back on the road, why don’t I drive for a bit?” Tamir suggested as we walked back to the car. “You’ve been struggling to stay awake, and it’s not going to be any easier once you have a belly full of fast food.” Apparently, he had noticed my gallant effort to stay awake during the last hour of driving. “I can’t let you drive. The second I’m in that passenger seat, I’ll pass out, and you’ll turn this car around and drive us straight back to New York.” “If you get back in the driver’s seat, you’re going to pass out behind the wheel and drive us off a bridge.” He backed me toward the car, one imposing step at a time. “You didn’t get much more sleep than I did last night.” I was being difficult, mostly because I was so tired. My back stopped when it hit the driver’s side door, and Tamir towered over me. His body pressed against mine, our faces inches apart, and his hands caging me in on either side. “You can accept my promise that I will not turn this car around, or you can watch helplessly as I throw you in the back seat, but I am not letting you kill us both by driving right now. So, what’s it going to be?” His voice purred across my skin, igniting my body in a lusty heat and making my lips swell with the need to press against his. Suddenly, I felt much more awake. I wasn’t crazy about either of my options, but I had been struggling earlier, and I didn’t want to chance running off the road. Accidentally killing myself would put a real kink in my plan to stay alive. I’d have to put some small degree of trust in Tamir and hope that he was telling me the truth. Even if he did reroute our course, it was better than being in a car accident. “Fine, you drive,” I muttered. After conceding victory, I expected Tamir to step back and release me. He didn’t. At least, not at first. Scalding coffee-colored eyes dropped to where I could feel my pulse thudding at the base of my neck, then he lowered his face to the side of mine until his lips ghosted across the skin behind my ear. I immediately turned my face away, but whether to escape him or to allow him access, I wasn’t sure. He took a deep breath, inhaling my very essence with a lungful of air, then released it on a shaky exhale of practiced restraint. Wariness battled with longing. Frustration collided with curiosity, each of us lost in our own silent, internal war until self-discipline won out. Mine had been an epic struggle to simply keep from arching against him while molten need pooled deep in my belly. The source of his struggle was a mystery to me, but its presence was evident in the cataclysmic heat of his stare. Then it was over. He lifted himself off me and stepped back. I could feel his penetrating stare devouring me, but I was too overwhelmed to meet his eyes. I stumbled around to the passenger side and slipped inside. It took a solid ten minutes for my heart to stop throwing a rave in my chest. Neither of us said a word about what had just occurred between us. Not long after I calmed down, I laid my seat back and finally got some rest. About two hours later, I startled awake, greeted by the devastating tsunami that was my reality. I’d had a bad dream while I slept, but it was nothing compared to what waited for me in the real world. Stuck in a car with a man I didn’t know, running from people who wanted to kill me. My life was in shambles. I dropped my head back and watched the countryside fly past. It came as a pleasant surprise when I noticed a highway sign advertising Cambridge, Ohio. He hadn’t turned us around. While I had hoped he wouldn’t, a part of me was genuinely shocked that he hadn’t. If I had been in his position, I wasn’t sure what I would have done. “I was starting to wonder if you were out for the night.” “Sorry about that.” “Not a problem, but I’m going to need directions after I make a quick phone call.” He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and selected a name in his contacts. The car immediately transferred the call to the speaker system, but to my surprise, Tamir didn’t send the call back to his phone. “You’re bailing, aren’t you?” The raspy, feminine voice filled the car, causing a mass of tar-like jealousy to fill my stomach. “I had to head out of town for a while. Not sure when I’ll be back.” “Don’t be gone too long; I’ll be big as a house and worthless,” she pouted. Big as a house? Was she … pregnant? Oh, Jesus. Did Tamir have a pregnant girlfriend back in the city? Now I felt defeated and slimy, lusting after a man who was already taken. “Somehow, I very much doubt that,” Tamir said with a smirk. “I’ll buzz you when I get back. Until then, try to stay out of trouble.” The line clicked dead. She’d hung up. I glanced at Tamir out of the corner of my eye. “She sounds … lovely.” “She’s something, that’s for sure. Her name is Maria. You may have seen me training with her before class most nights.” I whipped around in my seat to face him. “That was her? The badass woman you’re always sparring with? You’re having a baby with her?” He threw his head back and laughed deep from his flat, chiseled belly. “No,” he said when he finally calmed down. “She’s married to another man; it’s his baby she’s carrying. I’m just her trainer and longtime friend.” Oh. Well, at least I could take homewrecker off my updated resume. That was good to hear. “She’s amazing to watch. I assume she’s been training for a long time?” “I’ve been training her since she was fifteen, but she started five years before that.” “You two must be really close.” “Until recently, I didn’t think anyone would ever be close to Maria. Things change; we mature. Now, she’s married and finally settling down.” “How old is she? Twenty-five?” “Twenty-six, I believe.” “The same age as me,” I murmured. Tamir’s jaw flexed.