Chapter 4

ChapterFour

My mind emptiedbefore I developed even a flimsy excuse or denial of following him. Shit. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared instead.

“Why are you following me?” he repeated, and I realized that, oddly, he still wore his sunglasses. Who wore sunglasses at night?

“What makes you think I’m following you?”

Jax Smith smirked. “Where are you going, then?”

“Um…”

“Do not bother lying. You were following me.”

The sound of something skittering on the far side of the alley punctured the silence that followed.

“Do you know how I know?”

I shook my head.

“Because I…,” he stopped a moment, “saw you when I left the gym. Then, I went the opposite direction I intended, away from almost everything commercial that is open at night.”

“You lured me here?” I spluttered and stepped back from him.

“You followed me here.”

I uncrossed my arms and rubbed the sides of my jeans. His head angled down slightly, as if drawn by the movement.

Jax stepped forward, invading my space.

My breath caught in my throat while my heart hammered. The earlier desire now sparked a tiny flame that made me want to both wrap my legs around him and shove him away from me. Instead, my eyes traveled up his considerable length. I was tall, but he was… “You’re gigantic,” I blurted out. Somehow this hadn’t fully registered before, when he was behind me. My gaze wandered over his broad shoulders and muscles barely contained by the black shorts and t-shirt he wore from his workout.

He flexed and actually half-smiled. “Yes, going to the gym here is great,” he said, though he almost seemed to be talking to himself with the non sequitur. “Everything is so much easier with your lower gravity.”

His smile disappeared at the same time I asked, “What? Our gravity?” Confusion swept through me. Was he from a higher altitude, that the gravity difference was noticeable? I didn’t remember that from when I was in school.

“Stop interfering with my work,” he ordered.

The deflection worked. “What are you talking about? I’m not interfering with anything.”

“Did you, or did you not, call the US Marshals to confirm my identity?”

I stared over his shoulder and fumbled with how to respond. How could he know that?

“You are probably wondering how I know you called.”

My gaze snapped back to his mirrored sunglasses. Fear coursed through me and I glared harder at him. Was he reading my mind?

“Whether or not I am an actual US Marshal, I have connections.”

A flare of tension caused my body to tremble. This could get so much worse than alleyway encounters and lost jobs if I wasn’t careful.

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “I can monitor anything.”

His hot breath against my flesh spiraled me back to that morning’s encounter. My nipples hardened and desire pooled in my belly.

“Why are you interfering with my work?”

“I’m not,” I argued again. This was becoming tiresome. Why did I have to keep denying my involvement in something I knew nothing about? Especially given his behavior that morning. My rising anger obliterated my longing, fear, and common sense. Fuck this dude and his power trip. “You abused your power. I wanted to find out if you were an actual federal agent.”

His eyebrows lifted above the top of his mirrored sunglasses. “I did what?”

“You abused your power.” My legs quivered at my repetition of the statement. No matter how my body responded in the moment, and still flashed to it, saying the truth out loud scared the fuck out of me.

“I did not.” His words, so matter-of-fact and without rancor, floored me.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I did not abuse anything. We bartered to an acceptable interaction, like at home.” He shrugged.

Bartered? At home? The fuck?

“Bartered?” I asked.

“Yes. I do not normally barter with females… around here,” he finished after another odd pause. “You seemed… different.”

My head swam with the nonsense he was spewing. Where the fuck did this guy come from? Another planet? The memory of his penis vibrating against my backside and feeling like it split into multiples surfaced unbidden in my mind. Nah. That was just my emotions fucking with me. Had to be… didn’t it?

“You interfered with my pursuit.”

“I don’t know what pursuit you keep referring to,” I interrupted with a snarl.

“I offered not to make things difficult for you,” he continued, ignoring my outburst, “so long as you cooperated with the necessary action to determine that you were not helping my fugitive this morning.” He held his hands clasped in front of him, appearing at ease.

I, on the other hand, wanted to jump out of my skin. “Bartered? Cooperated? I don’t know what you’re even talking about.” My head shook of its own volition.

His mouth drew up on one side. “I do not understand.”

“You don’t understand?”

“Yes. We bartered, you cooperated, I cleared you of involvement, we both enjoyed it. End of story.”

“End of story?” My words continued to parrot his. “Where the fuck are you from that femalesact like that?” I mimicked his voice on the word females.

His jaw tightened. “Except then you checked up on me. And followed me tonight. So maybe not end of story, after all.” He dropped his hands to his sides, flexing them several times. If he was going for intimidating, it worked.

I stepped back again, hitting the wall behind me. The grit felt rough even through my shirt.

“Now I have to wonder again if you are working with my fugitive. Maybe this morning he did not give you the object I seek. But, perhaps, you are working with him.”

“No, no, I’m not,” I babbled, my hands flat against the wall, trying to guess if I pushed off and launched toward him, could I catch him off guard enough to escape? I certainly couldn’t fight him off. The tingle in my pussy made me question if I wanted to.

“I need you to tell me the truth. If you tell me where he is, then this ends here,” he offered.

“I don’t know who he is. I don’t know your fugitive. I don’t know what any of this is about,” I yelled, reaching my boiling point. Somehow, I’d stumbled into a nightmare today and it wasn’t ready to be done with me yet, but I’d had enough.

“I do not believe you.”

“You do not believe me?” My voice held a note of hysteria mixed with anger and disbelief.

“No.” He reached out a massive hand to tug on a lock of hair curling around my jawline. I gasped at the intimate gesture. “Perhaps I still need to take you down to the station for a proper interrogation.”

“No, that’s not necessary.” It was obvious where this was going, and conflicting thoughts of want and disgust churned in my mind. But like this morning, there was no way in hell I was risking my potential new job. He almost certainly wasn’t a federal agent of any kind, but since he had enough connections to know I’d called the US Marshal’s office, he could still cause me trouble. All I needed was for something to pop during my background check. Without income, I’d be homeless and defaulting on my student loans in no time. The worst-case scenario swirled around in my mind. I swallowed down bile and tried to ignore the memory of his firm but carnal touch. “Do you need to search me again?”

“Would you be so stupid as to have the item on your person while following me?”

“No, of course not,” I objected to the insinuation.

“You need to show that you are on my side another way. Show loyalty.”

Show loyalty how? By having sex in the alley? Fuck me. “Did you hear the words that came out of your mouth?”

“Yes.”

“After what I said before about abuse of power?”

“Yes. I fail to understand why you keep insisting that. We bartered. You cooperated—”

“Whatever,” I interrupted, waving my hand dismissively. I’d always had a big mouth, but this was pushing it. When they found my dead body, I’d be sure to leave enough clues so Sherry could track this shithead down. “I cooperated only because you didn’t give me a choice.”

“You always have a choice. This morning, you did. Now, you do.”

“Not really,” I said. Had this man never taken a sexual harassment seminar for work?

“It is simple,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “If you want to come down to the station.”

“You’re gonna take me down to the station?” If I was going to sass this mother fucker, then I’d go all in. “Which station would that be?”

His jaw tightening was the only physical reaction I saw.

“Which station, Marshal Smith?” I taunted.

He withdrew a cellphone from his inner suit pocket.

“No!” I threw a hand out as if to stop him, but kept space between us. He’d successfully called my bluff.

“Well, then?”

“Well, I’m not having sex with you in an alleyway,” I retorted.

My phone buzzed with an incoming text.

“Ignore it,” he commanded.

“I need to text her back or she’s going to call in the cavalry to this location,” I said and explained my promise to Sherry, mouth dry like an actual desert. I mentally kicked myself for sharing this with him. What the hell was wrong with me? Sherry provided backup; you weren’t supposed to tell your quarry about your backup. Unless I didn’t want the backup…

“You should text her you lost me and will reach out tomorrow,” Jax Smith said, closing the distance between us in one step. “I know how you can show your loyalty.”