Page 15 of Carnal Urges

“I can spot a fellow smartass a mile away. It’s one of my manytalents. If you really want to be impressed, you should watch me play Texas Hold’em. I slay.”

Gaze softening, he tilts his head and looks at me. Reallylooksat me, the way men rarely do, with genuine curiosity.

Most of them never get past my boobs.

But the look is gone in a flash as more bullets pummel the side of the car. It slips sideways, skidding. Then we hit something, hard, and come to a jolting stop. The only reason I don’t smash through the rear window and go flying out like a missile is because Declan is somehow on top of me again, pinning me down with his substantial weight.

When the dust settles, I say breathlessly, “This is getting to be kind of a thing.”

“You’ll be running your mouth in your grave, won’t you, lass?”

“I’m going to be cremated. There won’t be any mouth to run.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way around it.”

His heartbeat thuds slow and steady against my breastbone. His face is so close, I can count every piece of dark stubble on his lovely square jaw. His peppermint-spice scent fills my nose, one of his big hands is protectively cradling my head, and I become the teeniest bit aware that my kidnapper is, in fact, attractive.

Not just handsome. Attractive. As in, my ovaries are very, very interested in that big pistol he’s packing between his legs.

He was right. I am brain damaged.

He must hear my ovaries fangirling over him, because he turns his head a fraction of an inch and cocks an eyebrow at me.

“What, no smart comeback?”

“Um. No.”

How are my hands clutching his waist? How is one of his thick thighs wedged between my legs? How did the temperature in this car suddenly rise by twenty degrees?

Declan’s gaze drops to my mouth. A smoldering pause ensues.Then, in a husky voice, he says, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Remember what I said: stay here.”

He rolls off me, throws open one of the doors, slams it shut, and is gone.

“Back?” I shout into the emptiness. “Where the hell are you going?”

As if in answer, gunfire erupts outside.

I flinch when more bullets slam into the windows. Then I let out a little scream when someone jumps onto the roof. Then, aggravated with the flinching and screaming, I sit up, yank the gun out of my waistband, and huddle into the corner of the back seat holding it in both hands, my finger on the trigger.

Outside, World War III is in full swing.

Whoever’s on the roof is thumping and bumping all around, stomping his feet like a bull and roaring like a lion. I wish I could see what’s going on, but between the night, the tinted windows, and the pouring rain, all I see are the blur of swiftly moving figures and the bursts of bright white light when someone fires his gun.

It goes on for what seems like a hundred years before everything falls eerily silent.

When minutes tick by and nothing happens, a sense of dread creeps over me. I’m a sitting duck in here. A bunny rabbit waiting for the wolves to swarm in.

Declan said not to move, but… what if Declan’s dead?

Then I suppose the gentlemen of MS-13 will be my new captors.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.

I mutter, “Oh, screw this,” quietly crack open the door, and peek out.

We’re in an industrial area not far from the airport. Overhead, a jumbo jet flies low, headed to a distant runway with a muffled roar. Nearby, a manufacturing plant chugs smoke from tall cementstacks. Lined on either side of the street are large warehouses, their parking lots empty. Several yards behind me, a dozen or so vehicles block the road, muscle cars and motorcycles that must belong to the other gang.

Bodies litter the middle of the street.