The tattoo made him madder.
What the hell was that Chinese-looking word supposed to mean? Who the hell did she think she was, stupid pig with a Chinese word on her back? It probably said just that: “Pig.”
His fingers throbbed, pounding with blood rushing through them, as if his heart were thrashing in his hands, not his chest. He balled them back into fists.
No way could he let some pudgy bitch mess it all up for him.
Why wouldn’t she just sit the hell down and get out of his vision?
Her hips seemed to catch against the seats on either side as she passed up the aisle, dragging the bags on the floor behind her. Earphones hung around her neck, blaring music.
Finally, she flopped into a seat two rows ahead of him to his left.
Without moving an inch, he could see her blue-jeaned legs stretched out in front of her, the rings of leather around her two big toes to hold brown sandals in place on dusty feet.
Her right hand rested on the chair arm and her nails were bitten down to nubs, spots of polish still on the centers.
The thought of having to look over at her the entire ride to New York made Cruise’s teeth bite down on nothing.
He tried to look away from the girl, but he couldn’t.
He watched her chew down nervously on her nails, what was left of them. She absentmindedly gnawed and ingested germs, nail polish, and fingernail gristle without ever looking back at him.
Watching made him want to hit her in the back of her head with his fist.
Thankfully, she quit biting her nails.
But then she started thumping her dirty feet to the beat in her headphones. Even from here, he could smell her.
It poured out of her, oozing from the pores in her skin. She smelled of cheeseburger grease and Jergen’s white hand lotion. They had it in the kitchen at Reidsville and both smells were now physically revolting to him
When she cocked her head to listen to the music, long, stringy brown hair fell back to reveal her neck.
The sight of it hit him like a brick. It was totally out of place on such a thundering beast. Her neck drew him.
Hot streaks pulsed down his arms to his hands.
His lips parted and his eyes took on a slant. His breathing grew labored. He stared. He felt his mouth water and his body tighten against his clothes.
Her neck.
It was beautiful. Just the sight of it brought back the old feeling, an ache, a good ache spreading across him.
He wondered if she would notice if he just walked by and happened to touch her neck…just once.
Would she mind? Would she scream? Would she think it was an accident?
She might complain to the driver. Then there’d be a confrontation.
Would he be thrown off the bus for simply circling her neck with his fingers? Not to harm her, but more to compliment her on the one attractive part of her body?
It would just be once, and ever so lightly…like a butterfly kiss.
She might be flattered. How often did this grubby cow have a man admire her?
Suddenly, she reached into a bag and dug around, peering into its bottom. She pulled out a rubber band and as he watched hungrily in the dark, she pulled the strands back into a ponytail.
How could she not sense him, just two rows back, his body on fire?
He was radioactive, the muscles in his thighs, calves, biceps, and forearms taut and stretched.
His eyes bored silently into her. Only he understood the power he possessed, that his intense gaze had a magical power that sapped a woman’s strength to reject him. It was a secret power only he knew about and it radiated like a laser from his eyes, melting her, destroying her before he ever laid a hand on her, sucking her life’s energy into his own.
Her neck was soft and white, almost glowing in the dark of the bus, and with her hair newly pulled back, it was now totally exposed to his view…all the way from the concave hollow of her throat to the delicate neck bone disappearing up into her hair.
He was imminently more powerful than her. He was just a few feet away from her, and she had no idea of his presence.
Without warning, she stood up, reaching into the overhead bin to pull down a stack of magazines out of her bag.
She glanced back at him as she turned to resettle her frame into the seat, and when she did, her eyes, briefly, met his own.
They were crystal green.
He had only seen eyes similar to that once before…in court. His mind reeled backward…
It was late afternoon, and Hailey Dean had leaped up from her chair and shouted Leonard down in a dueling match over an objection she just made.
The judge ruled against her in a packed courtroom, cutting the bitch down to size. Leonard preened obviously, in his seat at counsel table, over the legal victory, and Cruise, sitting in the midst of his defense team at counsel table, joined in, letting a smile spread across his face.
He could tell she was trying to hide her disappointment from the jury.
Hailey turned away from the judge’s bench to go back to her seat, silently crossing the carpet to the State’s table, a thick, sturdy, oak-slabbed monster covered in papers and exhibits. Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she glanced over at the two of them. Faced with their cocky demeanor, she’d pressed her lips together in a straight slash and visibly gritted her teeth.
After only a moment, she got up again.
Deliberately, she’d walked to the front of the defense counsel table.
Resting her fingers on its edge, her eyes locked directly with Cruise’s. She’d faced him head on as she stood there in front of his table, her back to the judge and jury. And for the first time since the trial started three weeks before, she smiled at Cruise.
It was an odd smile, though, fixed, slanting up on one corner, showing no teeth.
Crystal green eyes stared into his own, and Cruise felt a hot tingling melt down his body through his spine, into his legs and feet.
It was then that he knew.
He was going down for this. She was taking him down.
He felt the rush of diarrhea and held it in only with a quick, powerful effort, his haunches tensed together.
Now, sitting on the Greyhound, he remembered. Within seconds, the electricity drained from the rest of his body, out of the muscles across his shoulders and arms, his chest and abs, and instead, all the electricity shot to his hands. They sizzled with energy…they’d explode if he so much as brushed them against the textured fabric of his seat.
Cruise literally pulled his eyes away from the seat diagonally ahead of him, willing himself to drag his face, chin first, away from the girl and her neck. He tucked himself completely behind the tall, cushioned seat reclined backward just a few inches in front of him.
Eyes burning and heart thundering, he turned back toward the night whisking by outside his window.
It physically hurt to turn away from the girl in the dark of the bus. He placed his hands, throbbing hot, against the cool of the bus window. Tall pine trees silhouetted against the lighter shade of black sky made giant figures posing in bunches, mocking him at a distance.
Eighteen hours to New York City; he’d be there by tomorrow night.
The next few weeks would fly by, just like he had planned night after night, locked down in a cell. All because of Hailey Dean.
31
New York City
WHEN HAILEY’S CELL PHONE RANG, WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT, SHE was wide awake in bed with a book she’d been trying to read to put herself to sleep.
She kept telling herself it was the coffee keeping her awake.
That, and the dinner. With Adam.
But there was something else, too. Some nagging uneasiness she somehow sensed had nothing to do with caffeine or Adam Springhurst.
Who was calling so late? Somebody who had her cell number. She reached across her bed and down to her purse on the floor, fishing around for the cell. This late, could it be bad news from home?