****
Hours later, after they had gotten their things out of the car, Chelsea found her mind once more turning to the questions that had plagued her earlier. “You should probably visit the salon here,” Johan suggested, sitting back on the couch while she flipped through the channels, trying to find something she wanted to watch.
“Hm?” Chelsea glanced at him; Johan had another book in his hands, and not for the first time she considered how utterly bizarre it was to think that a guy who carried multiple weapons on his person as a matter of course, who only had about three or four changes of clothes in a backpack to his name, somehow also had half a dozen books.
“We’re putting distance between us and the guys after you,” Johan said, putting the book aside. “But it would be even easier to evade them if you changed your appearance a little bit.” Chelsea glanced at him sharply.
“The salon downstairs would probably cost several hundred dollars,” she said. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m unemployed at the moment.”
Johan smiled. “They charge it to the room automatically; no need for you to use your card.”
In fact, Chelsea realized that from the moment they had left her house days before, Johan had paid for everything, one way or another; usually with cash, when they got gas or food on the road. “I would go with you, of course. There’s no point in you being undefended.”
“Just how different could a salon make me even look?” Chelsea was not entirely sure why she was resisting the suggestion so much—a mixture of her doubts about Johan, her sense that everything in her life was changing, an irrational clinginess to one of the few things that hadn’t changed. Underneath that, there was a little voice in her mind, a subtle insecurity, that said that Johan didn’t find her very attractive. Even though he’d had sex with her every day since they’d fled her apartment, and Johan had told her she was cute, or gorgeous, or beautiful—the comment he’d made that she should never be permitted to wear more than a towel came to mind obediently in the man’s low, almost growling murmur—Chelsea had been plagued with doubts her entire life; no amount of compliment from even a gorgeous man like Johan was going to undo the years of taunts.
“You would be surprised how much they can do with a haircut, color, things like that,” Johan said, shrugging. “Even if they start flashing a picture of you around, most people don’t pay that much attention to details.” Chelsea worried at her bottom lip, pulling it between her teeth for a moment while she considered.
“How are you affording this?” she asked him, putting down the remote to the TV and pinning Johan down with a level gaze. “The hotels, the cars, the gas? I have never traveled this well in my life, much less while fleeing people who want to kill me.” Johan shrugged off the question, looking unconcerned.
“I have an expense account. When we’re sure they’re not chasing you anymore, I’ll request funds to get you an apartment, and to get you new documentation—ID, bank account, all that. You’ll basically be in a kind of witness protection program until Rosen goes to trial.” Chelsea frowned.
“But who’s paying you? This isn’t a federal thing—if it was, we’d be staying in cheaper hotels and eating more fast food.” Shadows flickered across Johan’s bright eyes quickly; so quickly that Chelsea almost missed it.
“We have funding. You could get a full makeover in the salon and it would be a drop in the barrel. Don’t worry about it.” Chelsea brought her tongue up along the roof of her mouth and clucked it against her teeth.
“Fine, if you want me to change the way I look, I’ll change the way I look,” she said tartly. “After all, I let you talk me into destroying my phone, I let you talk me into leaving town, I let you talk me into eating, sleeping, and fucking on your schedule…” she stood up quickly as her anger flowed to a sudden flashpoint she hadn’t realized she was approaching, snatching up the remote control and turning the TV off before letting the device clatter onto the coffee table once more. Johan’s eyes widened and her stared at her with something almost like alarm. “Let’s go down to the salon so they can make me look like a completely different person who isn’t running away from her entire life!”
Johan stood in a quick, fluid movement that made Chelsea start. In an instant, it seemed, he was only inches away from her, looking down into her eyes. “If you don’t want to fuck me, all you have to do is say no,” he told her lowly. “If you don’t want to sleep, then don’t sleep. If you don’t want to eat, don’t eat. If you don’t want to go to the salon, don’t to go.” Johan’s hands dropped to her shoulders, sliding to her arms. “My only job is to get you away from the people who want to kill you and keep you safe,” he said, his hands tightening on her slightly. “If you want to make that harder for me, you are more than welcome to. If you want to sulk and starve yourself, or if you want to be an insomniac, be my guest.”
“I don’t even know what I’m running from! I don’t know what I’m running to! All I have is your word that you’re supposed to protect me. Until what—four days ago?—I had never even met you before.” Chelsea twisted and pivoted, breaking his hold on her arms and stepped away from Johan, scowling at him. “I barely know you, I barely know anything about what is going on in my life, and you keep popping these—these—suggestions to me. ‘Let’s have sex to kill time.’ ‘Let’s get rid of your phone.’ ‘Let’s change your appearance.’ ” Chelsea waved her hands about wildly, feeling the anger thrumming through her body, the doubts exploding out of her in a torrent. Everything she had been thinking and yet not letting herself think rose to the surface of her brain. “I’m fucking terrified, Johan! And you’re just sitting there, driving the car, or reading a book, or—or—getting me off like nothing is going on at all. Because you know everything, don’t you?” Chelsea glared at him. “You probably know the damned size of my underwear.” Johan’s eyes flickered with amusement, his lips twitching.
“Seven,” he said lightly. Chelsea inhaled sharply. “I helped you pick up your clothes yesterday.” Her hands curled into fists, her fingernails digging into the skin of her palms.
“You know what? No. I am not going to the salon. I am—” she felt a jolt of fear; she had no idea where she was, she had no access to the car—at least not as long as Johan had the keys—and she believed him that there were, in fact, people after her. Where could she realistically go? “I am going into the bathroom, and I am going to enjoy being by myself for however long I feel like it.”
“Sure,” Johan said, eyeing her with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Like I said, you can sulk if you want to. Sulk as long as you want to, in fact. Stay in there all night.” Chelsea let out an irritated little scream, breathing in deeply and staring at him for a long moment.
“I am locking the fucking door behind me,” she said, stomping barefoot in the direction of the master bathroom. Chelsea slammed the door shut behind her, only remembering afterward to twist the lock on the knob before she threw herself onto the rim of the bathtub. A sharp jolt of pain shot up from her buttock to remind her that anger would not make her invulnerable to injury, but Chelsea ignored the lingering ache, inhaling and exhaling slowly through her nose as her anger died down from a rolling boil to a simmer. I am not sulking, she thought bitterly. I need time to myself. I need space. I need to not be in the company of some gorgeous man who makes me forget that my entire life is in fucking shambles right now. Chelsea stood, pain rippling through her buttock and leg as she began to pace the small floor of the bathroom, unwilling to let go of the irritation she felt. She was going to stay in the tiny room until she figured some things out, she told herself. However long that was. Even if it did mean sleeping in the bathtub.