The Renegade Steals A Lady

Her night with him had been a learning experience. A discovery.

Not that she hadn’t been with other men. She’d dated. Been intimate on occasion. Safe, mediocre sex with safe, mediocre men.

Nothing about Marco Angelosi qualified as safe.

Or mediocre.

He was wild. He was wicked. He scared her to death.

And he’d ruined her for other men.

From the moment she’d first gazed up into his angel’s eyes, she hadn’t wanted anyone else. She hadn’t wanted anyone else even after she’d sent him to prison. And Lord help her, she wouldn’t want anyone else even after she sent him back.

But she would send him back.

Chapter 3

“You okay?”

Marco’s voice sounded faraway. Paige jerked herself out of her reverie and glanced at the rearview mirror. She was surprised, for a moment, to see him so close—just across the seat from her. She was even more surprised to realize her cheeks were as wet as they had been that magical night in the Miata.

Must be due to the head injury.

As unobtrusively as possible, she wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Fine.”

He looked grim. “Your face is as pale as a baby’s bottom.”

“I’ve been shot at, fallen off a cliff and I’m being kidnapped. How am I supposed to look?”

His only answer was a frown. Or maybe it was a scowl.

She rubbed her sleeve harder across her face. She had to get her act together. She was a cop. They were almost to her house. She had to talk Marco into giving himself up.

“You won’t get far in the Miata,” she reasoned. “It’s too easy to spot.”

“Not if no one is looking for it.”

It was Paige’s turn to frown as Marco pulled her Port Kingston PD Expedition into a parking spot in front of the steps to her second-floor apartment. He had to know every cop in the state would be looking for her car within minutes after he left.

Unless there was no one around to tell them he’d taken it.

She shivered, sure that her blood temperature had dropped five degrees in the last five seconds. She didn’t even realize Marco had moved until the car door next to her swung open. One of his hands slid behind her shoulders and the other caught her behind the knees.

Her heart seized up like a bad bearing.

She studied the hard lines in his face, the bruises, the shadows under his eyes. This wasn’t the Marco she knew. This man was a stranger. A murderer, the state trooper had said, and she had no reason to disagree. He’d shot her. Kidnapped her.

For the first time since she’d known Marco, she was afraid of him—truly and deeply afraid. Each step he took with her in his arms added to her anxiety. Her fingers curled to fists on his back. Forget convincing him to turn himself in. She just wanted him to leave.

The thought twisted her pride. She was a cop. She had a job to do. But she was also a woman, alone and vulnerable, and she was hurt.

Bravo followed them up to the apartment entrance and ducked around Marco as soon as the door swung open. Marco followed him to the laundry room. A creature of habit, Bravo went straight to his kennel and stood over his bowl. She always fed him when they got off work.

Standing well back, Marco swung the gate to the dog pen closed with his foot. The clank of the closing latch signaled the loss of Paige’s last best hope for survival.

As she watched Bravo nose his empty bowl, whining, Marco carried her out of the room.

In the bedroom, she scanned frantically for potential weapons. Her thoughts raced with her heart. If he put her on the bed, there was the lamp. If he set her on the chaise in the corner, she might be able to reach the scissors in her sewing basket. If—

He walked right through the bedroom, into the bathroom, and plunked her down on the toilet lid, then promptly turned, dropped the stopper in the tub drain and twisted the faucets on full.

Her jaw hung slack. “What are you doing?”

He’d left the tiny bathroom before she finished the question, but he called back, “Get out of those clothes.”

Like hell. The image of her naked body swimming in a crimson tub, her wrists slashed, shimmered in her vision. Would he try to make it look like suicide?

The absurdity of the thought wiped the vision away a second later. The bruises and abrasions on her body would make suicide a tough sell. She wasn’t sure what he was up to, but whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

Growing more frantic, she scanned the cluttered bathroom counter for something to use as a weapon. The facial cleansers, perfumes and assorted hair products within her reach weren’t much of a match against the 9 mm Glock Marco had taken from her.

But they would have to do.

Keeping one eye and one ear turned toward the bedroom, Marco dumped ice from Paige’s freezer into a plastic bag. He’d taken the phone out of the bedroom, but he didn’t dare leave her alone for long. He didn’t think she was ready to give up yet. Not by a long shot.

Ice pack in hand, he hurried back through her room, refusing to let the wide, pine bed he passed mean anything to him. What was past was past. He wouldn’t dwell on it.

Yeah, right.

He was still trying to shake himself out of the daze brought on by the sensory assault of her bedroom when he walked into the bathroom. Too late, he realized he should have been more careful.

Through the steam, a pair of dark service blues lunged at him. Instinctively he threw his hands up. Her forearm collided with his and he grabbed on to her fine-boned wrist.

He heard a hiss, but didn’t identify the sound until it hit him.

Aerosol.

Fire ripped through his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but did nothing to douse the flames. Only the edge of the counter that caught his hip kept him from going to his knees.

He swiped at his face with his free hand, the pain shooting back from his eyes into his brain. Paige tried to jerk away, but he tightened his hold on her wrist and yanked her toward him, growling, “No!”

The hair-spray can clanked to the floor. Paige fell forward. Her sharp cry pierced the curtain of pain blinding him. He pried his eyes open long enough to see her huddled on the floor beside him, grasping her leg. He must have pulled her weight onto her sprained ankle.

Grunting, with one eye cracked open just wide enough to be sure she didn’t have any more tricks up her sleeve, he lifted her from the floor back to the toilet seat. “Don’t move,” he warned.

As soon as she settled back, he fell over the vanity and splashed cold water in his face. The wash cooled the fire in his eyes pretty quickly. The fire in his blood took a little longer. He gave himself a few more seconds. Then, when he had himself under control, mentally and physically, he straightened up, shutting off the faucets and drying his face with the rose-embroidered hand towel hanging over the counter.

“Good try,” he said tightly. “But not good enough.”