Page 49 of Ravaged With You

He shrugs. “It’s a word. It works.”

I laugh. “Well, whatever the word, I can tell you that I feel better having you beside me.”

The words weren’t intended in any sort of sexual sense, but as soon as they’re out of my mouth, I realize that’s how I mean them. I do want him beside me, and not only standing next to me, protecting me from bad guys.

I want him beside me. In my life, in my bed. I want him. Charlie Cooper.

But I’ve already told him most of that, and it didn’t get me anywhere. So for now at least, I push those feelings aside. It’s not like I have nothing else occupying my mind. I’m full up on interesting topics. Like, oh, coming up with a plan for staying alive, avoiding the bad guys, and finding the damn MacGuffin.

Just another day in LA.

I exhale, frustrated and tired. “Why do you think they’re watching us?”

He starts to walk toward his car, his hand lightly at my back. “I assume they’re making sure that we’re really looking for this thing.”

He clicks the button on his fob and unlocks the car, then opens my door for me.

“Hello?” I say as I slide into the passenger seat. “They’ve attacked both of us, and they killed Mel. Hell yeah, I’m looking for it.”

I look up at him, still standing there with the door in his hand. “That won’t be the end of it will it?” I ask. “I mean, once we find this thing, it’s not over, is it?”

His shoulders rise and fall as he shuts the door. I watch as he circles the front of the car and then enters. “That won’t be the end, will it?” I repeat, the words heavy on my tongue.

“It would be nice if it was.”

I exhale, not liking the answer. Because we both know damn well that once they have the missing thing back, there’s no reason to keep us alive. We’ll have become a liability.

“So what do we do?” I ask as he pulls into traffic.

“What we’ve been doing. We find this thing. Then we’ll have leverage, and we go from there.”

“You know what I said earlier about having you beside me?”

He glances toward me—a quick glance since he’s driving, but I swear I see the heat in his eyes. Right now, though, I don’t care.

Right now, that’s not what I’m thinking about at all. “It goes double now.”

I settle back in my seat, wishing I had a coffee. I could use the caffeine hit right about now. I’m about to ask for him to find a drive-thru, when the sound of his ringing phone reverberates through the car.

The in-dash screen identifies the caller as Ryan, and Red taps the button to accept the call. “What’s up?”

Immediately, Ryan’s voice fills the car. “You driving?”

“Yeah. Do you need us to come there?”

“Find a place where you can pull over. I’ve got something I want you to take a look at. I’m going to send it to your phone.”

“I have my tablet in my bag,” I say. “Send it there and we’ll be able to see it better.” I give him my number so he can text it, and as he sends the image and I open the file, Red pulls into a nearby parking lot to pull over.

“Tell me when you’ve got it open,” Ryan says. “And by the way, the phones are done. Mario popped by your place to deliver yours, but since you weren’t there, he let himself in. I apologize. Mario sometimes forgets the smaller things like, oh, privacy, in the bigger picture.”

I laugh. “It’s all good. Tell him thanks.”

“He’s here with me. And what I told him was to ask permission first next time, and that you’ll report in if you see anything odd. We’ll look at the other clone in the meantime.”

“Sorry about that,” Mario says. “Figured you’d want it right away.”

“Not a problem,” I say, and I can practically hear Ryan rolling his eyes.