“Where?” I ask in a demanding voice.
“Australia,” she finally admits. “Sydney. I guess I’ll see you there?” Her attempt to hold back her laughter fails and she giggles softly.
The arrogant grin on her face pisses me off. “Of course you will.” Placing my hands lightly on either side of her small waist, I pull her into me. “We’ll be traveling together.”
With that, I lean my face down and merge my lips with hers.
Chapter 25
Annabelle
“Well I have to say, dealing drugs is a lot more lucrative than the killing business.” I feign shock. “Oh wait! I forgot. Dealing drugs does involve killing.” Then I feign remorse, adding, “My bad.”
The private jet is nice, camel-colored leather seats and couch, steel bar area with padded barstools and plush cream carpet. Rain is pattering against the small double-paned windows, but luckily we aren’t experiencing turbulence. The cabin isn’t huge like jumbo jets, but it’s big enough to be cozy without being crowded.
Gabriel shoots me a dirty look from the seat across from me. “Shut up, Annabelle.” Still looking pissed, he says, “Besides, my dad got a good deal on this jet. He bought it from a corporation that went bankrupt.”
“Just saying! Jeez, so touchy.” I grin unrepentantly at Gabriel while reclining in the plush sofa. “I’ve never flown on a private jet. First class international is my usual method.” Then I laugh. “Unless I’m in a big hurry to get out of a country, then the traveling methods get a little more interesting.”
Despite the curiosity that I can see burning in his eyes, Gabriel attempts a stoic expression and says monotonously, “That’s awesome.”
“You have no idea,” I taunt him, knowing that he won’t ask for details of my past escapades despite the fact that he’s dying to know.
I’m hiding my own emotions and thoughts much better than he is. But then again, I’m a professional. Gabriel’s an amateur playing in my world. It’s actually quite annoying to be stuck with Gabriel on his family’s private plane for the next twenty-two hours. A couple days ago the idea would have given me a thrill, but that was before I caught him about to let that skank suck him off. Now, I’m just being tortured by his presence. I’ve written our relationship off. Seriously, the skank is lucky to be alive.
Not to mention the fact that Jackson is royally pissed off at the moment. Big brother doesn’t approve of my boyfriend, I guess. With the ‘boyfriend’ wanting to kill me and all, I can sort of see his problem. Jackson’s currently on a commercial flight, flying first class to Sydney. He plans on continuing his little assassin-out-of-control babysitting job Simon has him working, but from a distance. Probably with a sniper rifle aimed at Gabriel’s head the entire time.
But, a deal is a deal and back in Paris I made one with Gabriel. If he went back to Miami until graduation then, once he’d donned that cap and gown, I’d let him know where in the world is Annabelle Blanc. The image of him down on the football field in his academic regalia, scowling at everyone, brings a smile to my face. He looked all cute and angry when he accepted his diploma.
I didn’t plan for him to escort me to my next assignment, but he claims that he doesn’t want to let me out of his sight. He pointed out that it did take him four months to track me down before he found me in Paris last March. Four months was nothing. If I wanted to, I could disappear forever.
If I’m to believe Gabriel, that he hasn’t messed around with any girls since we separated six months ago, then he must be one horny teenage boy right about now. Well, if I have to be uncomfortable with the situation, then so does he. Slowly, not looking at Gabriel, I lay down sideways on the couch, knowing full well that it’ll cause my skirt to ride up as I raise my knees. My black lace panties are exposed for anyone who cares to look.
Glancing over at him indifferently, I suggest, “It’s going to be a long flight, you may want to lay down for a nap.”
I don’t even think he hears me as his eyes are glued to my crotch area. Stifling a laugh, I squirm around on my seat, pretending to get comfortable. I move my hand down to my stomach and lift the hem of my shirt just enough to stroke a finger along my stomach. Glancing at him again, I watch his eyes slowly move from my crotch area to my stomach and up to my face. I smile innocently at him.
He doesn’t smile back, but says, “Anna?”
“Yes, Gabriel?”
“Come here.”
“What for?”
“So you can finish what you interrupted last night.”
“Gabriel . . . .”
“Yeah?”
I say very slowly, “Fuck. You.”
He gives me a wicked smile. “Yeah, that’s kind of the idea.”
I scoff at that, “As if I’m going anywhere near that thing after last night.”
He’s still smiling and with mock sincerity he croons, “Aw, but baby, I would have been thinking about you the whole time.”
Words like mad and angry aren’t adequate enough to describe what I’m feeling at the moment. Rage, maybe. Red hot fury, definitely. For someone like me, I need an outlet for an emotion like that. Bottling it up for now, I smile seductively at him. “That’s so sweet, baby. How about we make another deal?” I lightly run my fingers over my panties. “See this?”
Gabriel licks his lips. “Uh-huh.”
“Well,” I begin and briefly pause, “If you can get at it during this flight, it’s all yours.”
As expected, he pounces. I immediately lift both of my legs and arms up in the air as he nears and use all my strength to vault him over me. He goes flying over the arm of the couch and I hear a tearing sound as his shirt rips.
Landing with a thud behind me, I don’t even bother turning my head back to look at him. He groans in pain and says, “Ow.” I giggle, never more proud of my skills than I am at this moment. Finally glancing back, I see him sitting up. “That hurt, Anna.” Looking petulant, he straightens out his gray V-neck shirt while sitting on the floor. The tear I’d heard is about two inches long at the neckline.
Moving into a sitting position, I imitate his earlier crooning, “Aw, baby, I’m sorry. You didn’t think I’d make it easy did you?”
He scowls at me, practically pouting. “Just how hard do you plan on making it?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Hmm, how hard?” Pasting a thoughtful expression on my face, I furrow my brows. “Let’s just say . . . the word I’m looking for . . . would be . . . impossible.”
He’s not amused. “Anna, you’re trapped here with me for the next twenty-two hours. You have to go to sleep sometime.”
I laugh at his empty threat. “And when you finally get around to killing me, are you going to do my dead body too?”
He frowns. “That’s sick. You know what I meant. When you fall asleep I could seduce-” He shoots me a dirty look at the sound of my laughter getting louder, saying, “Just shut up.”
That only makes me laugh harder. “Mm-hmm,” I say, giving him a skeptical look, as if I question whether or not he would.
He rolls his eyes. “Stop it Anna. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure.”
He lets out a little growl and lunges for me, grabbing both of my arms and pinning me against the back of the couch. “Now I gotcha.”
“Oh no,” I say in fake dismay, throwing my head back, “You got me now.”
He grins triumphantly.
“But, Gabriel?”
He leans his head down and starts kissing my neck. “Huh?”
“How are you planning on keeping me pinned down while you unzip your pants?”
He nibbles on my earlobe, making me suppress a shiver. “You’re going to unzip for me.”
“No I’m not. I don’t do ex-boyfriends.”
“You did me in Paris,” he reminds me, lifting his head so I can see his raised eyebrows.
“I thought we were getting back together,” I grind out through a clenched jaw. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Gabriel sighs in defeat, letting his weight drop onto me. The sigh transforms halfway through into a frustrated grunt. “You’re killing me, Anna.”
I graze my lips against his ear and nibble a little in retaliation. “You’re killing me too, Gabriel.”
His head rears back so that he can look me in the eyes. “There’s no going back, Anna.”
I glare at him. “As if I’d get back together with you after I caught you with that dirty slut.”
He glowers back at me. “I’m not going to apologize for that, Annabelle. I think what you did was way worse.”
“Depends on how you look at it.”
Gabriel slowly lifts off me, putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You are such a sociopath, Annabelle.”
Believe it or not, his words hurt. I’m so sick of being so vulnerable to him. “Well, you are such a . . . stupid boy!”
The stupid boy has the nerve to laugh. I sit up and punch him in the gut. Stupid boy ain’t laughing now. Now he’s too busy grunting in pain.
As I stand up, I brush my black skirt down over my thighs and, head held high, walk back to the open door of the tiny bedroom area of the plane. On my way there, I grab the gun and blade that I left on the bar. Without turning around, I tell Gabriel, stupid boy extraordinaire, “I’m taking a nap. Don’t bother me unless you want a knife in your gut next time.”
I hear him mumble, “Bitch,” and am glad that he can’t see me flinch. While changing into more comfortable clothes, I think about how nice it would be if circumstances were different between us. That he wasn’t such a stupid boy.
Gabriel
God, that girl drives me crazy. My desires keep alternating between wanting to strangle her neck and wanting to put my mouth on it. This is going to be a long flight. Adjusting the crotch area of my black jeans, I try to get comfortable again in my seat.
Less than an hour after Anna went to the room, I’m stripped down to my boxer briefs on the couch, staring at the plastic door that separates us. I’m definitely not liking the word ‘impossible’.
Should I? Probably not. Will I? Probably.
With the decision made, I get up off the couch and quietly open the small cherry wood bedroom door. After stepping inside, I slowly shut the door behind me. Of course, at the worst moment, turbulence jolts the plane and the door shuts more loudly than I’d planned. I quickly glance over at the bed, but Anna only tosses over from her side to her back and continues to doze.
Almost in slow motion, I gently lay down on my side next to Anna. Some assassin, she still hasn’t woken up. I decide not to disturb her rest, but I do watch her sleep. The whole “appearances can be deceiving” phrase must have been created for people like Annabelle. She looks like any normal, but beautiful, eighteen-year-old girl. She’s even wearing a Hello Kitty pajama set for Christ’s sake.
Annabelle reminds me of a deceptively beautiful, poisonous flower. The kind that will kill you with just one taste. Or maybe she’s like the opium flower, highly addictive. God damn, the girl has me using metaphors! I’d tie her up just to piss her off, but no way in hell will she sleep through that. I’ll just stare and at her and maybe put my arm around her.
Well that does it! As soon as I lay my arm across her waist, she jolts awake, pouncing on top of me, straddling me with a knife at my throat. How the hell did she grab that so fast? Where the hell was she hiding it?
Her face matches her suspicious tone. “What are you doing in here, Gabriel?”
How to answer? Rude and sarcastic? Probably. Truthfully? Maybe.
Suddenly, I realize just how weary I feel. Hunting her down, hating her, fighting with her. I’m so tired of all the conflict. A suggestion comes to mind, but I plan to tread carefully. Annabelle’s already moved the knife away from my Adam’s apple and is now sitting cross legged next to where I’m lying. She still looks suspicious, but her facial expression has softened. “Seriously, Gabriel, what do you want now?”
I sigh and stare up at her. “How about a temporary truce?”
“A temporary truce . . . ,” she repeats and trails off, prompting me to elaborate.
I cautiously put my hand on her knee, squeezing it. “For as long as this flight lasts.”
“What then?” she asks warily.
“Then things are back to, uh, what’s normal for us.”
She shoots me a dirty look. “Are you just trying to get laid?”
I choke on a laugh. Clearing my throat, I tell her, “Well as nice as that would be, that’s not really my, um, main goal. Although, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten any pus-,” I choke on the word, clearing my throat again. “I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex with you.”
She grins mischievously, knowingly. “You are such a teenage boy.”
“Go figure,” I say, rolling my eyes. Then I pat my bare chest with the palm of my hand. “Come here, Anna.”
Looking down at me, she stiffens, then tears well in her eyes and she bites her trembling bottom lip. Slowly, cautiously, she moves her body towards mine and lays her head on my chest. I wrap my arms around her and damn if it doesn’t feel good. Peaceful. I never realized that wrapping my arms around another person could bring comfort to me. Didn’t even realize I needed to be comforted.
When I feel her tears wetting my chest, I start running my fingers through her hair, hoping to comfort her back. “It’s okay, Anna. We’ll figure this out later. For now, while were on this plane, let’s just forget about everything else. It’s just you and me, baby.”
And I’ll admit that I may have shed one or two tears myself before falling asleep.
Chapter 26
Gabriel
When we wake up from our nap I have no idea how long we’ve been sleeping. My guess would be two or three hours because I feel refreshed. Our flight left early in the morning from Miami and it’ll take a total of twenty-two hours to reach Sydney.
I glance down to see the top of Anna’s head where it’s resting on my chest. It’s so peaceful, her sleeping on me, no fighting and no conflict. No her blowing peoples brains out. With her face in repose she looks so deceptively innocent, so freaking beautiful with her full lips slightly open and her eyelashes fanning out just above her cheeks.
Then her eyes flutter open and in them I see something that I don’t know how I could have missed before. Knowledge. Not the kind found in books, but the kind learned by living a hard life. Annabelle’s lived and seen things that most other people our age couldn’t even imagine outside of movies.
She smiles tentatively at me and I see not Annabelle, but Anna, the girl I fell in love with. It seems like a lifetime ago, but was in reality only eight months ago. I can easily admit to myself that I still love that girl, Anna. But what about Annabelle? Do I love her? Do I even really know her? I watched Annabelle shoot my father then so easily slip out of my life. Leaving me to deal with the pain and shock all alone.
Am I willing to deal with Annabelle in order to be near Anna? Did Anna really exist or was it all an act? The uncertainty is driving me crazy. Most importantly, should Anna die for the sins of Annabelle? Do I have the right to decide that?
“Why are you looking at me like that, Gabriel?” she asks as she pulls herself off my chest and into a sitting position, with one knee drawn up and her arms wrapped around it.
“Just trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t,” I say cautiously.
Her eyes are downcast as she answers, “You basically know all of it now.”
“Tell me more,” I insist.
Her big golden brown eyes dart up to mine. “What do you want to know?”
My next words come out more forcefully than I’d intended, “Who the hell is the fake Russian?”
She rolls her eyes. “Him again? Forget about him, Gabriel. Trust me when I say that you have absolutely nothing to worry about when it comes to him. Unless you try to hurt me physically. But then again, if you hurt me emotionally, he may have the right to be ups
et too.”
“Why would he have a right to anything? Did you guys ever date?”
She makes a gagging sound, “Hell no. He’s gross.” I’d have to agree.
Giving her a skeptical look, I prop myself up on one elbow. “I’m the farthest thing from gay that a guy can be, but even I have to admit that most girls would find him mildly attractive.” Understatement, the asshole looks like he belongs on the cover of GQ.
The gagging sound comes again from Anna. “Believe me, I know. I’ve been unfortunate enough to witness it. And while in no way do I understand it, in no way do I agree with them either.”
“So you guys are just friends. But why is he so protective of you?”
“‘Cause he’s annoying and I’ve known him for a long time,” she mumbles, looking down at the tan bedspread.
“What’s his name?” I at least want to know that much.
She purses her lips, making me want to nibble on them. “What did he tell you?”
I laugh at the memory. “He told me to call him Cool.”
“Dweeb.” She laughs, shaking her head. “Sorry Gabriel, I can’t tell you his real name.”
“How about I call him Dexter? He seems to be enough of a sociopath for that name,” I say resentfully. I don’t like the fact that Anna has another male in her life that she’s close to, whether they’re just friends or not.
Her face is all scrunched up in confusion. “Dexter? What do you mean?”
I forgot that she knows almost nothing about pop culture outside of music. I’m not in the mood to explain to her right now about the television show Dexter where a serial killer kills other killers. “Never mind,” I change the subject, “So, who are we on our way to kill this time?”
She scoots off the bed and I take the opportunity to check out her ass. “Are we fighting again, Gabriel?”
Sitting up, I rest my arms on my knees. “No, I meant it about the truce.”
Her frown is doubtful. “What’s the point, Gabriel? It’s a waste of time. You hate me, why pretend for a few hours that things are different?”
“You don’t know how much I wish things were different, Annabelle.” I grab her by the waist and pull her back onto the bed next to me. “How did this happen to you? How did you become a killer?”