At his inhalation, Elaina spun and watched his sculpted body spring through the air. Her muscles tensed at the sight. He was only human after all. Although she was leaving him, she didn’t want him to get hurt. Hell, half the reason she was leaving was so that he—and everyone else in Chicago—wouldn’t get hurt.
His powerful thighs filled out his jeans at his landing, and he took two steps forward before getting his balance. Must. Not. Drool.
He looked up and caught her ogling him. His broad grin could have equally applied to his successful jump or her gawking. Damn him.
The air in her lungs burst out in a huff, and she refocused on her goal. The sloping far corner of the roof led her to a convenient covered dumpster below. Alex continued following her, dropping the short distance to the dumpster and then to the pavement.
She wasn’t impressed with either his determination or the muscles rippling under his T-shirt. At all.
She was also a liar.
His grin had grown to light up his face. “Now where?”
“You can go to the side street that way.” She jabbed in a direction away from her route. “And have James pick you up.”
Without another glance at him, she left her apartment building behind, walking down a narrow driveway between twin sets of security fences and crumbling structures. Thick shrubbery along the fences and buildings kept the location hidden from the surrounding roads.
Footfalls echoed behind her. “I’m going wherever you’re going.”
Of course he was. “Stalker.”
“I can’t be a stalker if you want me here. Tell me to leave you alone, and I will. But we both know you won’t.”
Arrogant bastard.
He kept going with his delusions. “There is something between us. There is a ‘we.’ ”
She whirled around to tell him off. Unlike her neighbor, she couldn’t be bought. Not when it was a matter of life and death for her to escape.
But Alex was much closer than she’d expected. As in, toe-to-toe close. The hand she’d extended to point in anger landed on his chest, and she gasped.
He raised a brow at her hand and then lifted his gaze to hers. The determination that must have driven him to make the leap over the alley still shone like steel in his eyes, sharp and unbendable. His fingers slid through her hair, and her traitorous muscles leaned into his touch.
“Go on,” he whispered in a husky voice, thick with the challenge of baiting her. “Tell me.”
Her jaw tightened, flat-out refusing to open so she could contradict him. Despite the risks, she couldn’t deny that she wanted to keep him, claim him as she’d claimed the treasure in her satchel. Damn it.
She spun around and stomped off. His dark chuckle followed her.
Another security fence stood between them and the side street at the end of the driveway. She elbowed her laptop bag toward her back, jumped, and hooked the top of the tall fence. At least it wasn’t covered in barbed wire. The last thing she needed was getting rips in her only set of clothes.
Alex palmed her butt while helping her over the edge, sending flickers of warmth to inappropriate places. Maybe his middle name was Temptation.
On the other side of the fence, she stuck close to the overgrown bushes along the sidewalk to the right. Alex’s footsteps caught up to her again once he made it over the fence, and she motioned for him to stay behind her. They were approaching the intersection where this side street met the major cross street near her building.
This would be the trickiest part of her escape. The main thoroughfare in front of her apartment building was one intersection to the east of this one. So how could she cross the road without being seen by the paparazzi down the block? Sure, as a brunette, she might not draw their attention anymore. Then again, they might be used to their targets wearing wigs. And any photographs here would make the neighborhood a target for her father’s destruction.
Beside her, Alex had moved away, closer to the curb of the side street.
“Alex,” she hissed, “if you get me caught, so help me, I will kill you.”
He pivoted from surveying the opposite direction and met her glare. “We need to cross that street up ahead, right?”
She didn’t bother to argue with the “we” aspect of his sentence and nodded.
He seized her wrist and dragged her across the empty side street beside them. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but he shushed her and led them between the cars parked along the far curb. Once there, he edged them closer to the intersection they needed to traverse.
When he glanced away from the cross street again, she figured out his plan. This side street was a one-way road running the same direction they wanted to go. If a car approached the intersection without its turn signals on, maybe they could follow alongside as it crossed to the other side and let the vehicle shield their passage from any paparazzi at the corner of the next block.
Huh. That was a decent plan.
She stopped fighting his grip, and his lips formed a smug curve. “See? I can help you.”
“Don’t congratulate yourself until we see if it works.”
Lucky for him, the first vehicle to arrive at the intersection without turn signals was a white delivery van. They shot to its flank and jogged alongside. Once on the other side of the cross street, she circled through the connecting alleys back toward the road at a point halfway between the two intersections.
While they stood in the shadow of a building at the alley’s entrance, Alex leaned into her and whispered, “Now what?”
She hitched her thumb toward the sidewalk. Ten feet away was a bus stop.
“A bus?” He grimaced. “The climax to this great escape is a bus?”
“I didn’t ask for your approval.” She checked her watch. “You have two minutes to decide if your desire to stalk me is greater than your distaste for public transportation.” Assuming the bus was on time.
His grin flashed again. Great. He’d taken it as a challenge.
A few minutes later, the CTA bus rumbled down the street toward their hiding place. As soon as the bus crossed the intersection of the main thoroughfare down the block, she darted out and stood at the sign. Hopefully, no one would spot her, as the bus blocked most of the view of the sidewalk. Once the bus stopped, Alex loped beside her, keeping his head down for his hat to shield his face.
She inserted her Transit Card into the farebox twice and indicated Alex to the driver. “For him.” The driver didn’t spare them a glance, and they took a row near the back of the bus.
Alex slouched in his seat by the window. “You didn’t have to pay for me.”
“Really? Did you have the correct change out and ready, or would you be standing there like an idiot, letting the driver get a good look at you while you fumbled around?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, thanks.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Where does this bus go?” When she pointed toward the front of the bus, he tapped the phone on the chair, as though silently counting to ten, and then cleared his throat. “Where should I have James pick us up?”
“You can have James pick you up anywhere you’d like.” In answer to his arched brows, she leaned back into the unforgiving bus seat. “I’m serious. There is no we. I’m doing what I have to do, and I’m sorry, but that doesn’t include you.”
“And what do you have to do? Run? There has to be another option.”
“Believe me, I wish there was.” She’d never meant the sentiment more truthfully.
He twisted toward her and stroked her cheek. “You’re stuck with me following you no matter what. You may as well tell me the problem and see if I can help.”
Did he have to be so damned determined? And understanding? And perfect?
Her failure to push him away after the stalker accusation had proven how much she wanted him in her life, where she could claim him as her own. Despite the impossibility. Despite the danger. Despite the risks. This man tapped into needs she hadn’t realized existed, but now they throbbed, raw and exposed.
Her eyes closed with his caresses. She was so tired. The research for yet another move had kept her from sleeping at all the previous night, much less enjoying a regenerative sleep, and their sudden departure had prevented her from recharging with her talisman this morning.
Her successful acquisition notwithstanding, the energy maintaining her heart was still dangerously low. It would be nice to let someone—especially this someone—help her with things.
Her logic rejected the idea. Yes, it would be nice. But even if she could find a way to fit into his human life, there was nothing he could do.
She straightened and offered him the truth. “Unless you know how to prevent a 371-year-old dragon from turning Chicago into a burning wasteland in his obsession to kill me, you can’t help.”