CHAPTER TWELVE

Propelled by pure adrenaline, Kira kicked off her cumbersome shoes in mid-stride and raced up the stairs as quickly as her feet would carry her. She was acutely aware of the sound of footsteps rapidly advancing on her but she didn’t dare look back to see how far away her pursuer was. All she knew was that he was gaining on her, fast. If she could just make it out of the isolated stairwell and onto one of the residential floors, help would be only a shout away, she told herself as she barreled up the steps. She was only a few steps from the seventh floor landing when she felt the ground suddenly fall out from beneath her, sending her knee crashing into the concrete step that her foot had missed. The howl of pain that instantly burst out of Kira’s mouth morphed into a screech of terror as she felt a strong, masculine hand grip her ankle. She barely managed to put her hands out in front of her to break her fall as she felt herself being dragged down the stairs. The rough surface of the concrete scraped painfully against the palms of her hands as she slid face down towards her assailant. The sound of her own screams bounced violently off the walls and rang loudly in her ears as she felt herself being flipped over onto her back and pinned helplessly to the incline of steps by the weight of the man straddling her. The gangly Chinese man looming over her couldn’t have been anymore than twenty years old and appeared to be covered from head to toe with tattoos. Even in the murkiness of the stairwell she could see the deadness in his dark eyes as they stared menacingly down at her, sending a chill down her spine. That chill became a shudder when she saw him pull a small switch blade from inside one of his black, combat-style boots. Her screams rose to piercing levels as she saw him raise the knife in the air and flick his finger across it’s trigger, causing the long, sharp blade to suddenly spring free with an ominous snap. Then, just as suddenly, Kira felt the man’s body being jerked away from the upturned hands she was using in a futile attempt to push him away, freeing her from the weight of his body.

Ethan’s arm wrapped tightly around the throat of Kira’s attacker, pulling him down to the landing below. The man retaliated with a sharp, forceful jab to Ethan’s diaphragm, winding him just enough to cause him to loosen his grip around the man’s neck. Ethan just barely managed to leap back from the path of the knife as the man swirled around and savagely swiped it at him. Moving backwards on the narrow slab of concrete, Ethan edged to the top of the stairway that led down to the sixth floor landing as the man advanced on him, adroitly tossing the knife back and forth between his two hands as he moved. When the attacker took another swipe at him with the knife, Ethan managed to grab hold of his arm and, using his own body as a fulcrum, flipped the man over his back and down the stairs, sending him crashing down to the sixth floor landing. The sound of the man’s neck snapping reverberated within the small space with a sickening crack, alerting Ethan to the fact that he was dead before he even reached his crumpled body. Just to be on the safe side, Ethan placed his fingers against the man’s carotid artery.

“Is he dead?” Kira asked as she stood looking down at Ethan from the top of the stairs.

“As a doornail,” Ethan replied as he made his way to her. Seeing the dazed look on Kira's face, he began to gently rub his hands up and down her trembling arms, “Are you ok?”

“I think so,” Kira answered weakly, her voice strained from screaming.

“I never should have left that VIP room without you,” Ethan angrily reprimanded himself as he brought his hands to her face, brushing her hair out of her eyes as he carefully surveyed her from head to toe.

“You had no way of knowing that some random wacko would attack me.”

“There was nothing random about this attack,” Ethan said grimly, quickly wrapping up his inspection of Kira before making his way back to the body below.

Kira followed him down the stairs. “What do you mean?”

Ethan squatted down next to the dead man. Pulling a wallet out of the man's back pocket, he began to thumb through its contents. Coming across a driver's license, he read the name of the dead man. “What I mean is that ol' Seng here, followed you from the casino.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I followed you from the casino too.”

“You did what?”

“I followed you from the casino,” Ethan repeated, noting the look of dismay in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t spying on you and your date. When I left the VIP room I noticed one of Gan’s men following me. I managed to ditch him in the crowd on the ground floor and then waited outside for you and Channing to leave and, sure enough, you two had a tail as well. I tried to call you on your cell phone to warn you but it kept rolling over to voicemail.”

“I turned it off in the VIP room and forgot to turn it back on,” Kira explained as she looked down at the corpse lying broken at her feet. “Gan sent this guy to kill me? Why?”

“Because he recognized us both from the hit on Xiao. When he saw us both show up at the VIP room he knew he’d been identified as the shooter.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me to go with you to the poker game,” Kira concluded, shame causing her face to redden. “I should have listened to you. It’s my fault this happened.”

“We can argue about who’s fault this is later. Right now we need to stash this stiff before somebody sees us with it.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?

“Do you really want to spend another night at the police department answering questions about yet another dead body?”

“Not really, but that’s still no excuse not to call the cops. Unless you think that you could get into trouble for killing him.”

“I’m not worried about the police. I just don’t want Gan finding out that his guy is dead just yet.”

“Oh,” Kira said, not knowing why it should matter when Gan found out but figuring that this wasn’t the time for a drawn out question and answer session. “In that case, there’s a small storage room on every residential floor in this building. We can probably stick him in there, but only for little while.”

“A little while is all we’ll need,” Ethan assured her as he opened the door leading to the sixth floor corridor and poked his head inside. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he used his foot to keep the door propped open and then bent down to grab Seng by his lifeless arms. “Grab his feet.”

Ignoring the throbbing pain in her knee, Kira obeyed his instructions as she and Ethan carried the dead body down the hall as quickly and quietly as possible, praying that none of the people who lived on that floor would get the sudden urge to take a late night stroll. When they finally reached the door of the storage room, Ethan fished out a set of lock picks from his back pocket and proceeded to make quick work of the flimsy lock, inspiring Kira to actually be grateful for his criminal inclinations for the first time ever.

“Now what are we going to do?” Kira whispered as Ethan closed the door to the storage room and relocked it, leaving Seng's body safely tucked away behind some boxes inside.

“What we always do in my family when we happen to find ourselves with an inconvenient corpse on our hands.”

“What's that?”

“Call Donovan.”

***

Kira glanced down at her hands as she waited alone in her apartment for Ethan to return. The throbbing in her knee had finally subsided and, although her palms were red and stung like hell, they didn’t appear to be bleeding. Her body shivered at the memory of them scraping against the concrete as she was being dragged down the stairs by Seng and then snapped to attention at the sound of Ethan entering the apartment, using the key she had given him to let himself in.

“How’d it go?” she asked as she jumped to her feet.

“Smoothly enough,” Ethan said. “Donovan and I loaded him into a laundry cart and rolled him down the stairs to the ground floor then out the fire exit door leading to the alley behind the building.”

“Wouldn’t that cause the alarm to go off?”

Ethan arched an incredulous eyebrow at Kira in response to her question.

“Of course. You disabled the alarm,” Kira answered her own question, feeling stupid for even asking it.

“Temporarily. Then it was just a matter of loading Seng into the trunk of the car that Donovan parked in the alley and then away he and Donovan went with nobody else the wiser. Fortunately for us, you appear to be living in a community of early risers who are all safely tucked into their beds at a reasonable hour.”

“Lucky us,” Kira said as she collapsed back onto the sofa. “What is Donovan going to do with him?

“Don’t worry about my brother,” Ethan replied, pointedly not answering her question. “This isn’t his first trip to the rodeo. Believe me, he knows his way around a dead body.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Kira replied with a shudder as she recalled Donovan’s coldly stated intentions to make Seng’s death look gang related. She didn’t even want to know what that meant which was just as well since Ethan clearly had no intentions of telling her.

“How are you holding up?” Ethan asked as he sat down on the sturdy wooden coffee table in front of the sofa, positioning himself directly across from Kira.

“Better then Seng,” Kira noted grimly. “If you hadn’t come along when you did he would have killed me. It was beyond stupid of me to show up at the VIP room tonight.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that.”

“Gee, thanks.” Kira frowned. “You sure know how to boost a girl’s wounded ego.”

“I’m more concerned about your wounded body,” Ethan said quietly as he gathered Kira’s hands in his and ran a cool, soothing palm over her irritated skin. “You look like you got pretty banged up in that stairwell.”

Kira felt her entire body relax in response to Ethan’s gentle touch. “Just a few bumps and bruises that’s all.”

“You could have been killed,” he said softly as he stared down at her hands, marveling at how small and delicate they looked compared to his.

“But I wasn’t, thanks to you. So thank you.”

“For what? Abandoning you to a bunch of killers back at the VIP room?” The softness that had been in his voice suddenly turning harsh with self-reprimand.

“You didn’t abandon me. I didn’t go there with you, remember?”

Ethan released Kira’s hands and rose abruptly to his feet. “But you should have left with me. If you had, Gan’s man wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near you.”

“You don’t know that,” Kira pointed out as she watched Ethan begin to pace the room in his agitation.

“Yes, I damn well do!” Ethan barked, his anger directed at himself. “If I had just left with you like you wanted me too instead of running out of the room like a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum, none of this would have happened.”

Kira stood up and walked over to where Ethan was pacing, placing a hand gently on his arm in order to stop his movements. “We both made foolish choices tonight so I guess that makes us even.”

“Not exactly since your foolish choices didn’t cause you to blow millions of dollars on one hand of poker.”

“You and your brother have plenty more money where that came from.”

“The money is beside the point.”

“I know it is. After seeing you with your father tonight, I think I’m finally beginning to understand what makes you tick.”

“Is that so?” Avoiding Kira’s gaze, Ethan spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“Yes, it is. At first I saw your desire for revenge against Jared as nothing more than an obstacle between us. Something that was more important to you than me. Something that kept you trapped in the past and away from me.”

“And now?” Ethan asked hopefully, as he finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.

“Now, I see that it’s your way of trying to free yourself from the ugly tentacles of your past so that you can fully become the man that you were meant to be. The man that I’ve seen glimpses of. The man I fell in love with.” Kira paused momentarily weighing her next words carefully. “The man that I still love.”

Ethan’s eyes briefly fluttered shut as he allowed Kira’s words to wash over him, to soothe him. “I never thought I’d hear you say those words to me.”

“I never thought I’d let myself say them.”

“I love you too. You know that, right?” Ethan’s previously soft expression suddenly hardened with the firmness of his words.

“Yeah, I do,” Kira replied with a certainty that surprised her.

Ethan nodded his head as his expression softened with relief. “So what does this mean?”

“I have no idea,“ Kira admitted with a soft laugh as she reached up with one hand to stroke Ethan's face. “But we don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”

“Then what should we do?” Ethan lowered his voice suggestively as he pressed his hand against the small of Kira’s back and pulled her body taut against his.

A sultry smile slowly curled Kira’s lips as she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled in closer to him. “I think we should just enjoy being on the same page for a change.”

“And what page is that?”

Ethan’s breath fanned across Kira's face like a warm, sweet breeze, quickening her heartbeat and heating her blood. “This one,” Kira replied as she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

Ethan’s hand slid slowly along her spine from the small of her back to the base of her neck, cradling her head as he pulled her deeper into the kiss. Kira moaned against his mouth, causing her own to widen even more, giving more access to his gently probing tongue. The kiss was slow and sensual and all the more devastating for it.

When he finally emerged breathless from the fathomless depths of the kiss, Ethan cupped Kira’s face with both hands as he rested his forehead against hers, looking into her eyes. Unlike the night they’d made love in his penthouse, she returned his gaze without hesitation, holding it with a deliberation that signaled the fullness of her emotional engagement. With that same careful deliberation, she began to unbutton his shirt. This time her hands were steady and unhurried as she slid them along the smooth, taut muscles of his chest, over his broad shoulders and down his arms, slowly peeling his shirt and jacket from his body in the process. Planting a soft kiss on the center of his chest, Kira’s lips spread into a smile as she felt the rapid beating of his heart against them. Pulling back to recapture his gaze, she slipped her hand into his and guided him to her bedroom.

Pausing at the foot of her bed, Ethan once again gathered Kira’s hands in his, bending his head to plant light, feathery kisses on each of her injured palms, his lips acting as a balm to the slight pain that was retreating rapidly in the face of her mounting passion. “Turn around,” he whispered in a voice raspy with desire.

Kira obeyed his command, holding her breath as she felt him slowly slide the zipper of her cocktail dress down her back, sending the satin frock sliding into a crumpled heap around her feet, stripping her down to nothing more than the bronze thong she wore beneath. The breath she had been holding floated from her lips on a contented sigh as Ethan ran his hands possessively over the fullness of her naked breasts, manipulating the yielding softness of them with long, firm fingers as he buried his face into the curve of her neck. Her sigh ended in a ragged gasp as he scraped his thumbs lightly over the hardened peaks of her nipples, stroking the swollen buds with a slow, back and forth motion that sent shockwaves of pleasure rocketing down to her warm, feminine core. Knowingly, Ethan followed suit, his hand gliding slowly down the flat plane of her belly and slipping beneath the elastic waist band of her thong, probing, testing, teasing. Kira writhed against his clever fingers in slow, sensuous movements, determined to savor every moment of his expert touch in a way that she hadn’t allowed herself two in their previous, frenzied coupling. But it seemed that her body had other ideas as she found herself involuntarily pressing against his kneading fingers with more force and urgency than she intended, pushing her towards the point of no return at a faster pace than she wanted.

Feeling her control slipping away and instinctively sensing that it wasn’t what she wanted, Ethan withdrew his hand from it’s silken prison. Turning her around to face him, he carefully slid her thong down her legs before laying her gently across the bed. Quickly stripping off the remainder of his clothing, he covered her with his body, pausing briefly to study her face in the moonlit darkness of her bedroom. She stared back up at him expectantly, raw desire and deep emotion glittering like buried treasure in her dark eyes. Seeing his own emotions reflected in her eyes and relishing in the fullness of the connection they signaled, he resumed his exploration of her body, this time with his mouth joining his hands in their sensuous trek through its intimate recesses. Kira moaned with wanton, carnal delight at the dual approach, opening herself physically and emotionally to everything that Ethan had to offer while freely giving all she had to offer as well, her hands and mouth eagerly reciprocating the pleasure he gave her. On and on they went like this, tasting and teasing, exploring and caressing, their bodies moving in perfect synch with each other in controlled chaos as minutes seemed to stretch into eternity. When the urgency of their mutual need finally exceeded their control, pushing them past the breaking point, the ultimate explosion came in an intense burst of mind-shattering pleasure that left them both shuddering and completely spent but with a feeling of complete satisfaction that neither had ever experienced before. Gathering Kira in his arms, Ethan gently stroked her hair as they lay molded together in the darkness, relishing in the new level of intimacy they had just achieved until they both drifted off into a contented sleep.