Avenging Angel Read Online Free Page B

crumbling empire. Now he was a dead man on borrowed time. But she didn’t need to know anything about him, except at the end, when she might know he’d saved her life.
    “Please . . .” The whispered word came at him in the darkness, surprising him with its intense yearning, and undermining his resolve as no amount of demands could. Her voice was so soft, so husky and sweet, the way he remembered from a long-ago night when she’d whispered that word to him with her mouth almost touching his.
    He remembered the silky feel of her skin beneath his hands, the erotic way her breath had caught when he’d moved closer, tempted beyond reason to take what he wanted. Her scent had wound its way around him, increasing his pleasure, heightening his anticipation. They’d been so close, her breasts touching his chest, his hand cupping her face, ready to draw her into his kiss.
    Dylan swore under his breath. That had been his first mistake: wanting her beyond reason. His second mistake had been not taking her.

Three
     
    Johanna was a city girl, born and bred in Chicago. She did not particularly care for wilderness, and Laramie, Wyoming, classified as such in her book. For miles she’d seen nothing but dark sky, stars, and rolling prairie, with hardly a light since they’d crossed the Colorado—Wyoming border. There were lights in Laramie, but not enough to calm a city girl’s heart.
    Neither was the company. Dylan Jones had gone mute before they’d gotten out of Boulder, and she’d be damned if she broke the silence first, not after her unforgivable moment of weakness. She felt like a fool for pleading with him. It wasn’t like her to plead.
    Her gaze slid to him. For a man supposedly trying to save her life, presumably from Austin, he had gone out of his way to make her distrust him, starting with kidnapping her at gunpoint, a crime she would make sure he rotted in prison for committing. He frightened her, too, but she was trying hard not to dwell on the frightening aspects of her situation—or of his personality.
    He was silent, eerily so, and as unpredictable as a wounded animal. In one of the northern Colorado border towns, he’d twice pulled off the highway and into gas stations. Both times, after cruising the station at a crawl, he’d gotten back on the highway and driven on down the road. She didn’t know what he was looking for, but he’d found Laramie, for what it was worth.
    They stopped at a light on the outskirts of town. The streets were nearly empty and very quiet. The only sound she heard was his breathing, and it didn’t sound good. She hazarded a quick glance in his direction.
    The impression of a wounded animal came back to her. He was propped against his corner of the car with the shotgun wedged between the seat and the door. His breathing was ragged, his face pale under his beard stubble and his bruises. Nervous energy radiated off him as it did off a cat.
    “Are you sick?” she asked.
    Dark eyes, weary and determined, slanted her a brief look. Then he went back to his driving, silent as ever.
    Dylan didn’t have the strength to talk. It was taking everything he had to keep driving. He needed sleep, food, and medical attention. His pants were wet with his own blood, the front of his T-shirt saturated. He needed help, he needed a friend, and all he had was a woman he’d abducted with a twelve-gauge.
    He spotted the lights of an all-night gas station and convenience store and headed toward them, careful to use his blinker and stay just under the speed limit. His last two attempts to get gas and supplies had been unsuccessful. A cop had been in the first station, standing toward the back of the store by the coffee machine. Dylan hadn’t spotted the squad car, but he hadn’t hung around to look for it either. The second station he’d tried just hadn’t felt right, reason enough to leave.
    He pulled into the Laramie station’s parking lot at one end, taking his time in cruising by the front of