Lena stepped into the shower, relaxing bit by bit as the warm spray ran over her body; soothing away the stress and tension that had been her constant companions for the past few days. She closed her eyes, stepping further back into the shower and pushing away all thoughts of her father and her new predicament; instead solely focused on enjoying this one moment she had to be free from all the worries that had been assaulting her.
As she was bending down to grab the bottle of shampoo, she heard the door creak open as someone else joined her in the bathroom. Moving to the side slightly so as to obscure her body through the fog on the glass of the shower door; she raised her voice to be heard over the spray as she said:
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to kno…”
Lena stopped mid-sentence as she heard what sounded like soft fabric dropping to the floor; followed swiftly by John Reese opening the door to her safe haven and stepping inside.
“John, what the hell!” She exclaimed, scrambling backwards and frantically attempting to cover as much of her body as she could with her arms; even as she took in the way his eyes raked over her from top to bottom, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
“C’mon, Lena…don’t pretend that this isn’t what you’ve wanted” John said in a low voice as he continued to stalk towards her; trapping her between the wall of the shower and his lean frame. He smirked a little at her audible gulp before she replied:
“It doesn’t matter whether I want it or not, John; it’s…”
John cut off the rest of what Lena had been planning to say, closing the remaining distance between them and claiming her lips with his own; while his hands moved to cup either side of her face.
Freezing in shock, Lena brought her own hands up; initially in an attempt to push him away from her. Against her better judgment, however, she found them instead coming to rest on his shoulders as she unconsciously leaned into the kiss; giving off a small whimper as his tongue used this opportunity to slip inside her mouth and explore in earnest.
They remained like that for a moment, and Lena found herself pondering how she hadn’t burst into flames from the urgent onslaught of John’s mouth. This man was too dangerous for her; hell, he was too dangerous for any woman…and yet she couldn’t bring herself to stop him as his hands slid from her face to her neck as he broke the connection with her lips to begin trailing warm kisses down her face.
John’s lips continued their torturous path from her face to her neck, his hands shifting to grasp both of her hips as she arched into him yet again. She swore she could feel him smirk against her skin as a particularly sharp bite on her collar bone caused her body to jerk suddenly; bringing her chest flat against his own.
“Just tell me if you want me to stop, Lena” He said in that damned teasing tone of his that drove her to the edge of insanity; even as his lips settled around her left breast and his arm snaked around her back, bringing her even closer to his warm body.
“You stop, and I will kill you” Lena said, halfway between a moan and a whimper as his lips on her breast caused a fire to migrate through her bloodstream and settle between her legs.
“Promises, promises” He replied, smirking yet again as he straightened, bringing his lips to her mouth once again; and reaching a hand down to loop her leg around his waist as he pushed her back into the wall of the shower.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Lena woke up with a start, bringing a hand to her throat as she tried to calm her heavy breathing. How in hell had she come up with a dream like that? Of course, she really shouldn’t be surprised that Reese had somehow planted himself in her mind; since he had already been making regular appearances in her life from the beginning of his association with her father.
Now that was an interesting relationship; Lena thought to herself as she shook her head slightly. She knew that her father would like nothing more than to gain Reese as an asset; and she couldn’t say that she blamed him. The man was practically a killing machine when necessary, and someone like that on their side would likely prove to be invaluable. But Reese firmly resisted the offers of a “position” within the mob, no matter how persuasive her father attempted to be; and that was something that Lena had to admire. Try though he might to deny it, the ex-agent did have a moral compass; even if it was a bit skewed at times.
Lena sat up in the bed, stretching out her muscles as she yawned. She froze in mid-stretch, however, as the realization that she had no clue where she was hit her like a ton of bricks.
This wasn’t her room. She wasn’t sitting in her bed. Where the hell was she?
Frantically scanning her surroundings, she tried to place her location by the décor in the room. Letting out a frustrated huff when that technique didn’t work, she threw back the covers to make her way over to the window; only to realize with a groan that she was clad in nothing but her underwear, bra, and a button-down shirt. Bringing a hand up to massage the bridge of her nose, she slumped back a bit on the bed as her mind went into overdrive.
So, she had been kidnapped. She frantically tried to remember back to the night prior; and her time at the bar. All she could remember was drinking a Whiskey Sour and dealing with Scarface. For a brief moment, her mind flitted over the possibility that this was his doing; but she quickly cast that thought aside. He wouldn’t dare. Whether her father was in jail or not, he knew better than to mess with her.
Moving to stand up again, she brought her hand up to cover her mouth as a wave of nausea swept over her from her sudden movement. As she stood in place and fought through the desire to vomit, her mind thudded to a stop with a new conclusion. The lack of a clear memory of last night, the slight headache, the nausea…she must have been drugged. It hadn’t been until after that second unsolicited drink that she had started feeling odd…something slipped inside her drink seemed like the only logical observation given that fact. And judging by her current attire, the perpetrator had been male.
Fighting back panic at this discovery, she tried in vain to keep her mind from jumping to the next step in the process of figuring out what had happened to her. Men usually only drugged women and took them back to grungy apartments if…
“God, no” Lena whispered, running a shaking hand through her curls, and slumping down to sit in a ball on the floor. This couldn’t have happened. Not to her. She was Carl Elias’ daughter, for God’s sake! From an early age, she had been taught how to handle herself; she had been taught all the perils that the world held for a woman. Like her father, she was not quick to trust just anyone; often taking it to the level of paranoia. So how could this have happened?
Lena took several deep breaths in an effort to calm her frayed nerves as she made another attempt at standing to look out the window as had been her earlier intent. Gripping the edge of the bed for support, she heaved herself up off the floor and slowly walked over to the window; pulling back the blinds to peer out into the glare of the early morning sunlight. Squinting her eyes at how the sun aggravated her headache; she sighed as she realized that she had no clue what part of town she was in. That left only one option; and she cringed as she realized what she had to do. He would likely never let her hear the end of it; but she knew that, of all the people she could call, Reese was the one who could find her even when she didn’t know where she was.
She moved to the other side of the bed where her shoes were strewn on the floor; searching the area for her dress, and her cell phone that was stored inside a pocket, but found nothing. No dress…no phone. She turned back the bed covers, looked under the bed; she even opened the closet to find them…all to no avail.
Fighting a new wave of nausea, she steeled herself for the mortifying task that was now before her. She had no way of contacting anyone to help her…which meant that she would have to walk outside, try and figure out where she was, and either walk to her home or find a cab…in nothing but a shirt. It was embarrassing, but it sure as hell beat waiting for God knows who to come back for her and have another go at her.
As she made her way to exit the tiny apartment, shoes in hand (no way was she walking in heels and the shirt…she’d just suffer going barefoot); she came to a stop as she heard the thud of footsteps coming down the hall to stop in front of the door. She heard whoever it was on the other side fumbling with a key in the lock; and she dropped the shoes, diving into the bathroom beside the door and hiding in the darkness as the apartment owner entered.
She waited for the well-dressed man to close the door behind himself; and seized the opportunity while his back was to her to run out and make an attempt at shoving him into the wall. The man was too quick, however; dodging out of the way a split second before she would have made contact with him. As she collided with the wall herself, he returned to her; pushing her back and pinning her smaller frame to the wall with his own.
Lena bit back a yelp of pain at the sensation of being squished between the man’s body and the cool wall of the apartment; and she made an attempt to swing a hand up to smack his arms away from their position on either side of her. She stopped in mid-movement, however, as she found herself looking up into the eyes of none other than John Reese.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Is this any way to treat the person who let you sleep it off in their apartment?” John asked, looking down at Lena as he caged her in with his body; a smirk gracing his features and causing his eyes to crinkle up at the corners.
Had Lena been able to think about anything other than trying not to vomit on the man pinning her to the wall, she would have been awed by the effect of that smile reaching John’s eyes. As it was, she made a partial attempt at saying something snarky in response; but was brought up short as a new wave of nausea overcame her. She brought her hand up to nudge him away from her, holding her other hand over her mouth as he moved aside to let her dart into the bathroom.
As she knelt on the bathroom floor over the toilet, she cursed herself once again for having been stupid enough to not be watching her drinks at the bar. Breathing deeply as the nausea temporarily dissipated, she felt John silently come up behind her; and tried to fight against the embarrassment that was clawing its way to the surface as he sat down behind her and gently pulled at her shoulders until she was resting with her back against his chest.
“You don’t have to do this, John; just give me a second and I’ll be fine” Lena said, moving to get up from the floor.
It seemed that John had other ideas, however; because he looped an arm underneath Lena’s own to drag her back to him.
“Oh no you don’t” He said as he pulled her back against him. “I don’t want you getting sick all over the apartment…new carpet you know.”
Lena snorted, simultaneously bringing a hand to her head as the action triggered a spasm of pain to rack through her skull.
“Figures, you’d be more worried about the carpet” She said, turning her head slightly to look up at him with a smile. “So how exactly did I wind up in your apartment anyway, John?”
The look that crossed his face at her statement was in drastic contrast to his smile from before; his jaw clenching a bit and his eyes turning dark as he said:
“You were drugged in the bar, Lena. I wanted to follow you home; to make sure you were safe, but the man in the alley had other ideas.”
“Man in the alley? What man in the alley?” Lena asked, trying to wrack her brain for any lingering detail from the previous night. Brief flashes of an alley, and a man shoving her against a brick wall flitted through her mind; and she slid away from John so that she could turn to face him.
“Oh” She said, her voice hollow with the realization of what had almost been her fate. “So you…you brought me here because…”
“You passed out in the alley shortly after the man attacked you. I thought it would be better if you were here, where I could keep an eye on you; rather than dropping you back with your father’s men” John responded, still maintaining a hold on Lena’s hand as he saw how the spotty recollection of the previous night’s events was affecting her.
She rallied more quickly than he had expected her to, turning a neutral expression towards him as she indicated her current attire, and said “So the shirt...Why am I wearing your shirt?”
“You don’t remember the rain?” John asked, his tone returning to the teasing lilt of before as he smiled at her once again. The flat stare he received from Lena told him that she did not; so he continued: “I took the liberty of having your dress washed at the laundromat…I needed to get my own washing done anyway. I was in the process of bringing it in to the room proper when someone attacked me.”
“You didn’t have to do that…” Lena trailed off, looking down at the floor as the sound of a phone ringing interrupted their conversation. John pulled two phones from his suit pocket; one being his own and the other, hers.
“It’s for you” He said, handing her the device as she recognized the familiar ringtone. She gave him a look of thanks before standing up and moving out into the main room to sit on the bed; John trailing behind her as she spoke.
“Hello?”
“Lena, it’s me” Scarface’s voice said from the other end of the line. “You need to come back to HQ, now…we’ve got a problem.”
Standing quickly, Lena walked over to the window, gazing at the scene below before replying:
“What sort of problem? I’d rather know what it is I’m walking into.”
“It would seem that someone has persuaded the other crime families to unite against ours. They’re screaming for a war, Lena.”
Lena felt a chill creep through her body as she told Scarface “I’ll be right there” before hanging up and tossing the phone on the bed. Turning to John, she took in the curious gaze he was leveling in her direction before asking:
“Any chance I can hitch a ride back home? Something’s come up.”
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