It's getting harder and harder to breathe and I fall to my knees, coughing and gagging on the air surrounding me. Black dots begin to invade my vision.

Suddenly I feel a pair of arms wrap around me and haul me to my feet. I feel their strong grip as they carry me quickly through the flames. I hear the curses that they mutter as they're forced to take different turns and navigate through the smoke and flames.

My eyes drift shut as darkness continues to try and pull me in. I hear the cursing get louder and feel the arms tighten around me more, but I'm barely aware of anything else. My chest burning and my head spinning.

"Dammit Nicky," I hear a voice say. The voice sounding echoey and far away. "Wake up. Do you hear me? Wake up, Nicky!"

I feel someone shaking me roughly. I let out a groan and open my eyes. I'm lying on my back on the hard ground, black smoke is filling the sky, there's a burning building behind me, and Ryder's concerned face leaning over me.

Relief at seeing him alive floods through me. Volkov was lying. "You're alive," I whisper softly. Another thought comes to mind. "I think that's the first time I've heard you actually use my name."

He frowns down at me. "And you clearly don't know how to follow orders," He mutters as he helps me into a sitting position. "I told you to run. Not hide. Run. Stupid. Completely stupid."

Suddenly I'm not all that glad to see him.

I narrow my eyes at him. "I-" I let out a yelp as his fingers dig into my leg.

His gaze is focused and full of concern as he assesses the wound on my leg. "What happened here?"

"I got hit by a car."

Ryder pauses with his hands on my leg and looks up at me. Some kind of a mix between anger, concern, and amusement lights up his eyes. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," I reply.

"And I missed it?"

"I hate you."

"Hey, I just took down several gang members and ran into a burning building to save your ungrateful ass. I'm entitled to a little enjoyment of my own."

I guess I can't exactly argue with that. Doesn't mean I won't try though.

He removes his jacket and places it to the side before removing my sweatshirt. He tosses the smoke-filled sweatshirt aside and wraps his jacket around me. His fingers brush my arms as he secures the jacket around me.

His gaze goes to my face, his eyes once again full of concern. "Seriously, are you okay? Nothing's broken?"

I shake my head. "I don't think anything's broken. It just hurts, but I can walk."

He nods. "Good, cause we need to get the hell out of here. I took down the guys guarding this exit, but pretty soon the rest of them are going to be heading this way."

He grabs hold of my arms and pulls me to my feet, walking me quickly out of the alleyway and away from the burning building. His hand is at the small of my back as he leads me away and his gaze continuously darts over his shoulder, watching for anyone following.

I hear him swear and his hand at my back pushes against me with more urgency than before. I don't have to look over my shoulder to know that we've been spotted. To know that we're being followed.

I go to cross the street and try to put some distance between us and them but Ryder grabs my arm and pulls me in the other direction.

"There's a party going on at the park. I saw it when I drove past. The park's just around this corner and we can blend in with the crowd until we can get around to my rental car," He says quietly. He glances down at me briefly and grimaces. "Well, I don't know exactly how much blending in we'll do. You look like a train wreck."

"Gee, thanks. You really know how to make me feel better," I reply dryly, allowing him to lead me to the park.

True to his word a party of some sorts is being held at this park. People swarm all over the place and it's not too difficult to disappear in the mass of people.

Ryder continues looking over his shoulder and it's not hard to see why as I catch sight of people moving through the crowd with that tattoo in plain sight. All of them looking for me.

Unconsciously I press myself closer to Ryder. I feel him tense and I expect him to push me away. Instead, he surprises me as he puts his arm around my shoulders and draws me further into his side.

He leans down so his mouth is right next to my ear. "Keep your head down," He whispers, his breath fanning over my ear and neck. I nod since I don't trust myself to say anything. Damn him and this stupid effect he has on me. An effect he will never know about.

He slows to a stop and then turns and guides me in a different direction. He stops again and swears vehemently under his breath before leading me in yet another direction, only to stop and swear some more.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a very colorful vocabulary? All anyone has to do to find us, is follow the muttered curse words," I tell him.

"They're everywhere." I watch him run a hand through his hair in frustration, his eyes darting around the crowd, trying to find a way to avoid them. "Dammit," He mutters as he pulls me in yet another direction.

"I'm going to get dizzy," I inform him. He ignores me.

He pulls me along and then stops again. His gaze darts around wildly. I follow his gaze and can see several people with tattoos moving toward us. None of them seem to actually be aware of us though. They're still looking and the crowd's providing us some much-needed cover.

Ryder looks down at me and I can see something calculating in his eyes. Like a plan coming together. "I look like every average guy. It's you they'd recognize, not me."

I just stare at him, not at all following along. And no way he's getting a comment out of me on his "average" looks. His ego's big enough as it is.

"This way," He says quickly and pulls me along after him.

He pushes me back so my back's against a large, wide, concrete pillar that's one of many holding up a large outdoor canopy. He stands in front of me, blocking me from view as he looks over his shoulder . . . and then swears some more.

He's going to hell for that mouth alone.

I peer around him and nearly take off running as I spot Volkov in the crowd. Ryder seems to notice this though because his hand fists into the back of his jacket that I'm wearing and keeps me from running off.

"Trust me on this," He says.

I'm barely listening to him. My fight or flight response has kicked in along with my self-preservation instinct and right now I just want to put as much distance between myself and Volkov as humanly possible.

"Hey," He says, snapping his fingers in front of my face before putting his hand on the pillar, right next to my head and blocking my view of Volkov. "Look at me," Ryder says softly.

I turn my gaze to him and his eyes burn into mine. There's no fear in his eyes, no worry, no panic. Nothing that gives away that he's even remotely concerned about how this is going to play out.

I don't know if that's supposed to be helping to calm me down. Quite frankly it's just making me question his sanity.

"Trust me," He repeats.

The craziest thing about all this? In this moment I do. I trust him. Considering I'm still confident he'd push me in front of moving bus if given the chance, that's a pretty scary realization.

But there's something in his tone that makes me reconsider. That makes me study him further. "Trust you to what?" I question softly, my heart beating fast and hard in my chest and not all of it's because of Volkov just behind us.

His eyes continue to burn into mine and the next thing I know, his lips are pressed into mine.

My first reaction is to lean in further and pull him closer. My second-reasonable-reaction is that I should probably be throwing punches or bringing a knee up forcefully.

He leans into me, trapping me between him and the concrete pillar, his lips still on mine, his hands on either side of my head. All thoughts of Volkov, the threat of death, and my injuries just seem to disappear, along with everything else.

In the back of mind, I realize he's only doing this because he's trying to make sure no one looks too closely at me. People don't tend to look too closely at two people making out. In the back of my mind, I know I should not be enjoying this as much as I am. In the back of mind, I know I'll so be giving him hell for this later, but for the moment I don't care. And when he finally pulls away it feels as if it ended all too soon.

He looks back over his shoulder. "Let's go rusty."

And just like that, the warm fuzzy feelings I was having toward him evaporate faster than a drop of water in an incinerator.

I look around and don't see Volkov in sight. He must have walked right past us, not noticing me behind Ryder.

Ryder guides me out of the park and down the street quickly, all the while continuing to look over his shoulder. I wait until we're a safe distance away and make sure we aren't being followed, at least for the moment.

I don't even get the chance to finish my sentence. "Out of all the plans you could have come up with-"

"Shut up," He cuts me off abruptly.

"-somehow you come to the awful conclusion-"

"I said shut up."

"-that kissing me is the way to go."

I don't get a response out him this time so I turn my head to look at him and notice his cheeks are turning a bright red. I can't stop the evil smile of amusement that spreads across my face.

Oh, this is going to be so much fun.

Ryder slows in his tracks as a few people start walking toward us on the sidewalk. None of them have any tattoos that I can see and usually the gang members proudly show off their tattoos. Ryder doesn't appear to see them as a threat either and continues on at his pace. He does reach down and take my hand though.

"Just couldn't wait to get your hands on me again, could you?"

"Just shut up."

His whole face looks like it's on fire and I can't keep the evil feeling of utter joy at his embarrassment from showing on my face.

"Someone else is coming toward us," I tell him. "I can't wait to see what you'll come up with next."

"Shut up," He grumbles, his tone holding warning.

"Make me," I reply, the evil smile never leaving my face.

He turns to me, his eyes gazing straight into mine, and he gives me a look that's purely sensual. A look that makes me nearly trip over my own feet. A look that wipes the smile right off my face and makes my eyes widen and my mouth part. A look that makes my cheeks flush red.

Suddenly his face morphs into a cocky grin. "I do believe I just did."

The urge to slap him is so strong it takes all my willpower to suppress it. Of course, the only reason I suppress it is because I don't want him to get angry and hand deliver me to Volkov.

"Come on, carrot top," He says and the urge to slap him comes back full force. "My car's just down this street."

I follow after him, debating what he would do if I kicked his legs out from under him and muttering curses at him under my breath.

He abruptly stops and I crash right into his back, which is the equivalent of running into a brick wall. I mutter more curses as my hands fly to my nose, which is now throbbing.

Ryder turns to look at me, an amused smile playing at his lips. "You should watch where you're walking."

"Why the hell did you stop?" I grumble, my hand still holding my nose.

"I'm not having you walk behind me where I can't keep an eye on you. You're a disaster magnet." Gee, thanks. "You either walk in front of me so I can trip you as you go, or you walk beside me."

I grumble a string of curses all directed at him and start walking beside him. His gaze stares straight ahead, but at the same time, he seems to be seeing everything. So very focused.

My eyes stray to his lips and feel a rush of warmth flow through me at the memory of him kissing me. I don't even realize I'm staring until Ryder turns to look at me.

The cocky smile's back in place. "You have a bit of drool there," He says as he points to the side of my mouth.

I feel my cheeks start to turn crimson and I'm tempted to bite his pointing finger. My first thought is to glare at him, but I don't. Instead, I go with my second thought and stare back at him dead in the eyes and slowly lick my lips.

His gaze breaks from my eyes and snaps straight to my lips. His eyes widen slightly and then he groans and runs a hand through his hair, turning away from me.

I copy the movement of pointing to his mouth. "You have a bit of drool there." The evil smile is back on my face.

"Stop talking."