Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (7)

“No, it’s not.”

“But I thought you were a fucking cleaner.”

“You thought wrong, Blunder Barbie.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I have no feckin’ choice.”

Batman gives me his back as he bends to pick up Jamie’s slack arm, hoisting the corpse onto his shoulder with a grunt. When he draws close to me with a glare, I don’t flinch, though my heart etches my bones with every hammered beat.

“You don’t know me,” I hiss.

His glare sears my skin. “And I don’t want to,” he says.

I watch him walk to the tow truck with the body slung across his shoulder. My eyes never stray from his form as it slips into shadow, not even when Conor stops at my side.

“I’m sorry about him,” Conor says, his voice low and quiet as he clutches the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “He’s just … yeah. It’s not been a good night for him. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but it’s nothing personal. And he’s just been doing this too long, I guess.”

I nod and peel my gaze away from the tow truck where Batman is busy wrapping the body in plastic and then a blanket. Though I hear his labored grunt as he hoists Merrick into the back of the vehicle, I keep my attention on the forest. The trees beckon me to find a quiet place where I can sit with my thoughts. Maybe I could find some peace, if the world fell silent, just for a little while—

“We’ll come back with the boom truck tomorrow night and get the car out of the lake. I’ll clean up anything left on the road tonight,” Conor says, interrupting my fleeting fantasy. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, but I don’t look his way. “Batman there … he can be rough around the edges, but he’s as solid as they come. We’ll get it done. We’ll make sure nothing links you to this place. No records. No evidence. Soon it will be like the whole accident never even happened.”

“Right,” I whisper, but my smile is fleeting. If it was supposed to reassure him that I’m totally fine, it failed. When I glance in Conor’s direction, I can see the concern flicker in his eyes, even though the rest of his features are obscured by his mask. I try a little harder with that smile of mine. “What accident, right?”

“That’s right,” he says with a laugh. He probably thinks it’s just a half-hearted, lame joke when he walks away to help the disgruntled Dark Knight fetch his scuba gear from the rocks and place it in the car. And though a faint trace of a smile lingers on my face, waiting for when they both pass by, I feel more alone than ever beneath it.

Budget Batman tosses the wet suit into the open trunk of his vintage Dodge Charger. He’s gotten changed into a pair of black jeans that hug his muscular thighs, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a fresh ski mask. He pulls on a fresh set of leather gloves and strides toward me as I resist the urge to clutch the gun that hides in the confines of my bag.

“Time to go,” he grits out as he draws close to where I plant my feet in the center of the road.

I cross my arms. “How about, ‘Time to go, please.’ Or, ‘Shall we depart? My Batmobile awaits, fair maiden.’”

There’s a steady rumble on the cool breeze. For a moment I think it’s a distant vehicle approaching. Maybe one with a shitty muffler.

But no.

It’s him. Growling.

I back away but he plows into me. In a nausea-inducing flash of movement, he tosses me over his shoulder and spins, and then my guts are bouncing against his bone and muscle as he stalks toward the vehicles. I catch my belongings before they fall, and the urge to shoot him in the ass is nearly as irresistible as the one to vomit down his back.

“Let me the fuck down.” My efforts to whack him are just as futile as everything else I try, from squirming to swearing to attempting to trip him with my giant bag.

“Sure thing, you feckin’ catastrophe.”

In one swift motion, I’m plopped down hard on my ass with my legs dangling out of the trunk of his car.

“Absolutely not,” I snarl. I try to shimmy out of the trunk but it feels like my brain has been sucked out of my head and replaced with soup. Everything sloshes. My thoughts. The world. The contents of my stomach. It takes too long to remember how to make my limbs work. By the time I do, Batman has me caged, his gloved hands braced against the base of the trunk on either side of my legs. The edges of his thumbs touch my thighs. He takes up all the space around me, and even though I close my eyes, his presence is everywhere. I smell him, mint and lake water. I feel the warmth of his breath on my face. When I meet his gaze his marine-blue eyes are the first thing I lock on to, their intensity amplified by the black ski mask that frames them.

A lump lodges in my throat. The tremor starts in my arms and creeps toward my hands. “Please, you don’t understand,” I say.

“In.”

“No.”

“Now.”

“Please,” I whisper. “Not in here. I’ll go with the tow truck.”

“No, you won’t. Not with the mountain of evidence my colleague will be taking out of here. And I’m not going to risk you being seen sitting up front,” Batman grits out.

“That sounds extreme and more like you just don’t want to sit next to me.”

Batman shrugs and leans an inch closer. There’s barely a thread of space between us. His eyes drop to my lips, which are smeared with thick makeup, painted crimson and black. “I guess you’ll never know,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “But there is no other option.”