DNA IN YOUR FACE
Jonella Paxton was not a happy woman. She had literally begged to be released from the hospital. She was extremely worried about Donovan. After tangling with Pat Draper in the loft, she knew the jerk meant business. However, what was irritating her more than anything was the fact that she had Donovan's junior bulldog 'guarding' her. She knew he wasn't any more thrilled than she, but she didn't give a fuck. If she was back to her old self, she might go a round or two with him. They had come to blows a couple of times over the past two days since Donovan had been gone. He was such a saucy prick. Oh, really? And you're not a saucy prick yourself? Come on, Pax. You're tweaking Jakie's nose because you no longer have a nose to tweak. Well…that wasn't exactly true. She could still tweak Donovan's nose when she wanted, but he had ways of punishing her that she didn't care for. Nope. Not at all. She wasn't aware that Donovan was coming down the hall as she was reclining in bed, contemplating throwing a snotty Kleenex at Agent Shaw.
Donovan had only been back in town for about half an hour. He was jet lagged and irritated. No. I'm more than irritated. I'm pissed off. He wasn't happy that he had had to leave his daughter in Miami. He wasn't happy that the crazy fuck who killed his ex-wife and her husband had also tried to kill his fiancée. He was ready to choke Patrick Draper. As he drew closer to the room, he could hear elevated voices coming from within. Dear God, what the hell are they doing, he thought. You know, I'm not that fucking thrilled to be here, Jake's voice said. Oh yeah? Well, why don't you go outside and stuff your face between some nurse's legs and leave me the fuck alone? If people need to get scared away, I'll just fucking lie here naked, Pax's voice retorted. That'll surely do it, Jake snarled. Donovan didn't know whether to be angry or amused. He opened the room door just before Jake approached it. The agent was snarling and slid past Donovan as if he hadn't seen him at all. When he focused his eyes on Pax, he couldn't keep an amused grin from his lips. She was sitting up in bed with her arms crossed over her chest. She was chewing on the inside of her jaw. If she didn't stop soon, she might need stitches.
As soon as Pax's eyes met Donovan's, her demeanor changed almost instantly. Thank fucking God. "Glad you're back. Now if I could just get released out of this hell hole, my life would be complete," she told him with a tired sigh.
He smiled a little and sat down on her bedside. He reached out and took her hand into his. It had truly been a long two days. "I missed you, Jonella."
"Get mushy with me all you want, but please…please…get me the fuck out of here first," she said.
* * *
Alayna Norwood was not a happy woman. She had finally gotten the results back from the DNA she and her merry band of police officers had collected. There was no match. The hair found near Remy Hilton did not belong to Frank Donovan. It sure as hell didn't match anyone in her special group of suspects. She was completely livid. One thing that Alayna didn't enjoy was being wrong. She had been more than certain that she would have had enough to make an arrest. Not now. There was less to connect to the girlfriend. If she couldn't go for Donovan's jugular, then where the hell was she supposed to turn? Shit a brick. Where am I supposed to go now? She had tried calling Donovan a couple of times since she received the bad news, but he had mysteriously gone out of town. She had heard the girlfriend was shot [awwwwwww] and in the hospital. One of her colleagues had been the first on the scene. He had told her all about it. She found herself upset that the shootist hadn't gone for her head. It was probably the same guy who did Remy and her husband. Why oh why couldn't it have been Frank Donovan? Why oh why am I being punished this way? Why oh why couldn't it have been his assassin girlfriend? She glanced down at her wristwatch. The hour was growing later by the second. If she didn't get her ass moving, her plans for the rest of the night would be ruined.
A look of sheer disgust came across Donovan's face as he made eye contact with Detective Norwood. He was quite tempted to demand that she leave his home. What the hell did she want from him now? His blood? Semen? She was responsible for turning his former in-laws against him. They wanted to take his daughter from him because of her. His hands ached to go around her throat, but he held back. He had enough shit to deal with it as it was and he didn't need to have her breathing down his neck even more. "What is it that you want now, Detective Norwood?"
She smiled a little. "Come on now, Frank. Why are you so formal all of a sudden? You can call me Alayna." Without waiting to be asked, she elbowed her way inside and waited for him to close the door. "Wow. Nice place you have here. The FBI has been very good to you." She turned and saw that Donovan was standing by the closed door. His arms were crossed over his chest. Apparently, the girlfriend was still in the hospital, because she hadn't heard or seen her yet. Good. It would give her an opportunity to play around a little. Alayna surely liked to play. "I thought I should come by and pay you a small visit. I have a few things to tell you." Again, without being asked, she moved over to the sofa and made herself at home. "Would you please sit down? I'd like to speak to you and it's difficult to do so with you standing by the door."
Although he would rather stick an ice pick in his eye, he walked over to a chair near the couch and sat down. There was an amused look about her and her eyes were sparkling evilly. She had a bottom line and he had no desire to discover it. Her actions weren't cute or endearing or even tolerable. He would give her approximately five minutes to state her case and then he would boot her ass out the door. "I don't see your gun or your cuffs. Am I to assume this isn't a business call," Donovan began. "If it's one of a social nature, I think you're wasting your time. Your vile words ruined what little relationship I had with my former in-laws. However, I'm sure you're aware of that. Pardon my rudeness, Detective, but what the hell do you want?"
She never lost her smile. "I can attribute that to a bit of over zealousness on my part, Frank," she said, rolling his first name off her tongue as if it were exotic. She saw that he noticed the shift. Good. Perhaps he will now loosen up just the slightest. We're alone and that's nice. "I do have to admit that I made a hasty mistake, Frank."
Frank? Why the hell is she suddenly calling me Frank? What the fuck kind of game is she playing now? He watched as she brought her body up to its feet. She slowly approached him. There was a matching chair to his and she took hold of it and dragged it around to where it was almost in front of him. With a dawning sense of horror, he realized that she was wearing a low cut black top that revealed quite a bit of her cleavage. She had a lot to show off. Is she coming onto me? Is this the deal? She was very close to him now. So close that he could smell her perfume. It wasn't a nice fragrance at all. It reminded him of a perfume one of his old girlfriends used to wear. What was it? Something called Dark Vanilla. The name was a definite misnomer. It smelled more like strong pipe tobacco. The one thing he hated more than this woman was fucking tobacco. It was all over her.
"I'm sorry, but I made a mistake. We found lots of black hairs on Remy's person and I simply assumed that it belonged to you. The DNA doesn't match and I wanted to apologize to you in person. Phone calls are so impersonal, Frank. Don't you think? I know I screwed up and that's why I came over here. I'd like to make things up to you."
Donovan was too stunned by her words to immediately react. Of course the fucking DNA didn't match. Why the hell would it? He was close to opening his mouth and using choice words while he was at it, but something stopped him cold. The bitch sitting across from him reached out. Her pale, freckled hand settled on the inside of his thigh. What the fuck is she doing? What the fuck is she thinking? She leaned toward him, her poison green eyes half-lidded, and before he could breathe, her lips were on his. Not only did she smell like tobacco, but she tasted like it as well. It was sickening. When her disgusting tongue touched his bottom lip, he was sure he would vomit.
"If you don't get your fucking lips off my fucking man, I'm going to cut them off and fucking feed them to you one at a time."
At the sound of the indignant voice, Alayna backed away. Goddamn it. She hadn't known the bitch was here. Paxton stood on the last step of the staircase. She seemed sweaty, exhausted, and irritated. She was leaning on a crutch and her eyes were burning into Alayna. She didn't think she had ever seen a woman so angry in her life. Alayna wasn't afraid of the woman. After all, she was on crutches for God's sake. Donovan, on the other hand, hadn't turned at all. His eyes were fixed on Alayna. She noticed that they had turned black. Now he could do some damage. However, she didn't think he would kill her. Alayna didn't know whether to laugh, scream, or cry.
Pax hated the fucking crutches. It took forever for her to hobble toward the bitch. For once in her pathetic life [or maybe it was two or three times…who counted] since this whole thing began, her focus wasn't on her or her own feelings. She was thinking about how this whore had hurt Donovan and his daughter. She had caused so much pain and destruction in so little time. What kind of nerve did she have coming into her home [Well…your loft] and hitting on her husband [Well…fiancé, but you might as well call him your fucking husband]? Before, she had thought she was an idiot. But now, she thought Alayna Norwood was a fucking idiot. There was a difference. She had managed to get to the end of the couch before stopping. She was a little worn out, but there was no way she would show any sign of weakness to the cop. "You certainly enjoy fiddling with things that you have no right fiddling with, don't you," Pax began. "I have one good foot, two fists, and a crutch. Which would like up your ass first?" Pax was on her way to get the bitch, but Norwood made her escape before she could. That didn't necessarily deter her. She started after her, but Donovan reacted and took hold of her arm.
Pax stopped and turned toward him. At first, he didn't know what to expect from her. It was obvious that the woman was feeling him up and she had seen the disgusting kiss. Of course, she had also seen that he didn't push her away. It wasn't that he wanted the bitch. He was simply too goddamn surprised to react. However, would she buy it? "Jonella?"
She huffed angrily and hobbled across the room. Where was the fucking vodka? Oh yeah. The bastard got rid of it. As soon as she could walk normally, she would buy a whole fucking case and pour it down his throat. Why the hell was she mad at Donovan? The object of her rage had walked out the door, that's why. There was nowhere else for her anger to go. I am the old Pax again. I must stop this. Although they had been unaware of it, Pax had witnessed almost the entire scene that played out between Donovan and Norwood. She could have broken it up before the bitch laid one finger on his thigh [My fucking thigh on my fucking man], but for some morbid reason, she wanted to see what would happen. Donovan sat stiff and impersonal while Norwood was touching his thigh. When she kissed him, he acted as if he were kissing a brick wall. There was nothing on his face or in his movements but disgust. It showed her…finally showed her that he truly loved her, wanted her. She remembered the time before Donovan had 'chosen' her. He had never acted like that when it came to Remy, well, not for a while. It was weird, as if she were watching the whole thing unfold on television. She wanted to go back upstairs, but she was tired. Her adrenaline rush had faded and now it was time to take a pain pill and go to sleep. Pax collapsed to the couch and noticed that Donovan was still gazing at her questioningly. Yes, she had heard him call her. Yes, she knew he was concerned.
"Frank," she retorted.
Donovan approached the couch and sat beside her. He was all too aware of the crutch resting near her. At any moment, he expected her to whip it out and beat the living shit out of him. Did he know what to say? It was the most awkward moment of his life. Even admitting to Remy that he had had feelings for Pax so long ago didn't compare. "What you…"
"What I saw," she began, interrupting him. "Was nothing. You don't have to freak out, Frank. I know she came onto you. I know that you didn't exactly fight her off, but you didn't want it. I know it all. I saw it. It's not a big fucking deal."
"It is," he insisted. He could see that she didn't want to talk about this anymore, but there was more. She rolled her eyes and ran her hand through her unruly hair. "Jonella, I should have told you this when you first met the detective, but I didn't. It wasn't important to me until now. She has, in a way, hit on me before. It was when I married Remy. I won't go into specific details, because it was really nothing serious, it didn't go as far as this. I won't say her entire attitude was ruled by this incident, but I should have told you."
Pax rolled her eyes again. "Men are so stupid," she grumbled. "You think you know everything about women, but you know nothing. Of course this ruled her attitude. Why would she attack my character and me? Why would she attack her own damn cousin? Wake up and smell the nasty perfume, Frankie. I told you she was eyeballing you. Don't you think women know when another woman wants her man? I knew the minute I saw her. I suppose that's why I wanted you to understand that if you wanted an out, you had it." He started to say something, but she held up her hand. "Wait. I know. I remember what you said. All I want to say, Frank, is please don't be so stupid when it comes to women. You're so good at so many things, but you suck at reading women. You always have. If you didn't, you would have gotten at me back in the day," she told him with a smile.
"My inability to read women, especially you, is all my fault," he asked with a hint of a smile on his lips. His eyes were sparkling evilly as his hand came out to gently cup her breast. His thumb brushed against the nipple, hardening it. He drew lazy circles around it and said, "I could have used a little help, you know? You suck as badly as I do."
"Is there something else you need to tell me, Frank," she asked with a smile, her lips very close to his. She kissed him softly, fluttering her tongue along his lips. "We can't do it, you horny fucker. A banged up leg makes it kinda hard."
"I know," he said, returning her kiss. "But it doesn't mean I can't make love to you at all. There are other ways that can be just as satisfying."
"So what are you waiting for? Christmas?"
He smiled. "Ho ho ho."
* * *
Alayna Norwood stomped toward her cruiser. She wasn't finished yet. There was still a lot of game left to play. Donovan had rejected her twice. The first time, of course, was at Remy's wedding to him three years ago. It was obvious the little blonde slut had been knocked up. She walked down the aisle, already showing a little. She didn't have a hang up about things like that, but it was funny. Remy was always getting into some kind of trouble. She had thought that Donovan might be receptive to a little flirtation. After all, he was having a shotgun wedding, now wasn't he? She had bumped into him at the reception [on purpose, of course] and pinched his ass. She would allow his reaction to guide her next move. Instead of being grateful or receptive, he glared at her as if she were a sideshow freak. So, she had let it slide. He wasn't into fooling around. He truly loved her slutty cousin and child-to-be. Three years later, she attended Remy's second wedding. She noticed that Donovan had brought along a stork-like woman so unlike anyone she would have thought he would want to be with. Hell…she looked better than this woman. She reasoned he must have been having some type of rebound fling. Perhaps she could play around some more. When she lost her game, she decided to turn on the flirt trick again, and it failed. God. What else was there? She had to get to Paxton someway, somehow. She stuck her key into the door.
Before Alayna could open her door, she was grabbed from behind. She had no time to use her defense maneuvers. Her attacker's hands were on either side of her head. Within seconds, he violently whipped her head to the right, and then to the left. He smiled when he heard the audible crackling noise of bones breaking. I love the sound of bones breaking in the morning. Wow. Brilliant. Nope. Wait a minute. He ripped that off from some dumb movie or something. He allowed her lifeless body to crumple at his feet. It was time to finish off the girlfriend and then take care of Frank Donovan. He had a busy night ahead of him and he couldn't waste a moment of it diddling around with a dead woman. Maybe I'll come back for her, he thought with a giggle.
* * *
"Frank," Pax whispered.
"Jonella," Donovan whispered sexily against her neck.
"No, you shit. I'm serious. I can hear something outside," she said.
Donovan immediately raised his head and looked down at her. She wasn't bullshitting. His body tensed and he slowly brought it up to a sitting position. There was odd electricity in the air. It was hard to explain exactly what it felt like. It was a sensation both he and Pax had felt before. They were under attack. Any moment now, the enemy would strike. If either of them bothered looking, they would have probably seen the hair on their arms standing straight up. Donovan said nothing. He held up his hand and waved toward her, giving off a clear message: stay back. This time, she couldn't argue. She was pretty fucking useless to him. However, she wouldn't hesitate to conk the fuck with her crutch. She wasn't stupid enough to reach for the phone. It would be dead. Instead, she leaned over and grabbed Donovan's jacket that had been haphazardly slung over the couch. His cell phone would be in its pocket. As she dug for it, he reached for his gun. Completely wired now, Donovan moved as close to the door as possible without actually standing in front of it. If they were dealing with Pat Draper, he would likely try to spring a surprise trap. With some type of weird body language, Pax and Donovan communicated totally and completely. If there had been an actual conversation mapped out, it might have played out something like this:
Get down.
Pax slowly lowered her body to the floor, taking care not to injure herself any more than she was already injured. I am down, goddamn it. Now do something before I have to take him out with my fucking crutch. Now hit the fucking lights, you moron.
Draper had no desire to hide or sneak in like he did when he had his encounter with the girlfriend. There was truly no use in it, anyway. He wanted to finish the job and do so with finesse. He took out his shiny black semi-automatic, ironically the same semi-auto that had blown out Hilton's brains, and aimed it toward the doorknob. It would blow off any lock known to man.
Donovan held his breath as the front door lock gave in under the pressure of the speeding semi-auto discharge. This guy is quite the ballsy one, isn't he? Donovan's body was stiff and solid against the wall. He watched as the door came open. For a moment, he had the greatest urge to shoot first and ask questions later. Darkly, evilly, he was almost certain that Pax would back him up. Of course, Director Trask. Frank asked him to freeze and drop it before he riddled Draper's body with bullets. I saw the whole thing. He counted the seconds as the door began to close.
Draper smiled a little when he stepped into the darkened loft apartment. He wasn't stupid. He could see that the girlfriend had hit the floor in a vain attempt to hide from him. It didn't matter. He would find her anywhere she was, just like Donovan. He swung the door closed and aimed his semi-auto toward his target. It was too easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Or strangling cops in their cruisers.
"Drop it," Donovan growled.
The other man turned and faced Frank Donovan. "Very funny, Agent Donovan. You drop it." He had yet to move the gun away from Pax's prone position on the floor. "Go ahead and pull the trigger. Regardless of what you do, I'm going to shoot her again. Would you rather watch her die or do you prefer dying with her? I think going together is truly romantic. What do you think?"
Donovan was readying to blow the fucker away when out of nowhere Pax's crutch flew end over end through the air, hitting Draper in the chest and knocking him back. Not expecting the sudden move, Donovan was stunned for a moment, but he quickly recovered. He dove for Draper and was on him within the blink of an eye. Vaguely, in the background, he heard Pax barking a harsh command: Get help, you shitheads. Draper has your fucking boss on the fucking floor. When Pax finished with the phone, she tossed it aside and turned her body over to its side. She began to drag herself toward the two scuffling figures on the floor. She didn't know what good she was to Donovan, but she thought that if she could reach somebody's weapon, she could end it right now. She had just begun making good progress toward the two men when a shot rang out, immediately filling the room with deafening silence and stillness.
"FRANK," Pax screamed.
____________________
To be continued…