Running Away With Him: A Suspense-Filled, Instalove Romance (Sweet, Sexy Shorts Book 12) Read online

  Running Away With Him

  A Suspense-filled, Instalove Romance

  Kaylee Spring

  Copyright © 2020 by Kaylee Spring

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Free Book?

  Also by Kaylee Spring

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Kate

  I can’t hear his footsteps over the heartbeat in my ears. But I know he’s out there. Looking for me. Waiting. Ready to add more bruises to the growing collection on my arms and face.

  My breaths feel too loud. Ready at any moment to betray my hiding spot. He’s going to figure out where I am. And when he does, no one will stop him as he drags me back to his place. No one will help. Not even the police.

  Because he is the police.

  Not to mention that he’s my ex. Not like he accepts the fact that I broke up with him. This past week he’s only been cyber stalking me. But the moment I saw a flash of him while walking past the cosmetics section on the first floor of the department store, I knew why he was here. Somehow he’d followed me. And I knew he wouldn’t leave without me at his side.

  What would happen after is something he’s threatened time and time again when I would cry after he slapped me so hard that I swear I felt my teeth rattle in my mouth.

  “See what happens if you try to leave me, bitch. You can’t do anything. You can’t go anywhere.”

  Despite his threats, I'd gotten free of his grip a week ago. Now I’m peeking out from behind shelves holding skinny jeans advertised at 30% off for their spring sale. There’s only one front door. I don’t have much of a choice: eventually, I’m going to have to make a run for it.

  But run where? Trevor knows where I live. He knows all the friends he cut me off from over the six months we were together. I foolishly brought him into my little circle back when we first started dating. Before he showed his true side. When I thought he was just a teddy bear.

  Instead, he turned out to be a grizzly, tearing away at me without the slightest provocation.

  “Can I help you find anything?” A less than helpful sales attendant asks from behind me, causing me to nearly leap out of my skin at the sudden intrusion into my space. My frantic eyes scare him away soon enough. And another peek outside reveals no sign of Trevor.

  While the adrenaline is still pumping, I dash out onto the tiled floor and straight down the escalator. But the moment I get down one floor, I see him watching from above. Our eyes meet and it’s like a direct line opens up, allowing all his malice access into my heart.

  He’s going to catch me. And then he’s going to have his way with me. And after I’m used up, bloody and crying, he’ll never let me out of his sight again.

  I’m now on the fourth floor, which is apparently men’s wear. I could keep heading down the escalator, leaping down the steps, hoping to keep ahead of Trevor, but hope failed me each and every time before, so why should it help me now?

  I need to be unpredictable. It’s the only way I’ll be able to avoid him. I can’t outrun him, but I can outsmart him.

  Maybe.

  So I dash across the floor, and into the first shop I find. I wasn’t planning on bringing anyone else in on my plight, but as I pass by a well-dressed businessman who looks to be about my age, I latch onto his arm and hiss out a pathetic, “Help me.”

  Chapter 2

  Brad

  “Do you have this in a medium?” I ask the attendant that’s been hovering over my shoulder ever since I stepped foot in her little corner of the department store. She wears a nametag that identifies her as ‘Liz’.

  With hands folded in front of her immaculate black dress, Liz, who has at least twenty years on me, shakes her head. “I apologize, but if it isn’t on the rack, I’m afraid we don’t have it. Perhaps I could help you find something else?”

  Of course, even shopping is something that simply can’t go right for me on this morning to top all shitty mornings. I’m just on the verge of ranting about why I find myself at such an upscale department store at eleven o’clock on a Monday morning. But I don’t go into the whole story of how I’ve recently obtained an internship at the one software upstart in California that requires all employees to adhere to a strict dress code. Explaining that my boss essentially banned me from the building until I could change into a more appropriate suit and tie won’t help Liz find me the very first suit I’ve ever had to purchase.

  “Then how about this one?” I hold up a navy jacket with pinstripes. I have no idea whether pinstripes are in fashion, or even how wide they’re meant to be, but it’s in front of me and it’s 50% off. “That’s a medium, sir. If you would like me to help you find the matching pants, you can try them on in the fitting room.”

  Half an hour later, I’m emptying out half of my pathetic savings account for a single suit and white shirt. Then I stop by and spend another fifty bucks on the cheapest pair of dress shoes I can find that don’t look like they were made in a toy factory.

  After all of this mess, it’s noon, and I have just enough time to grab a sandwich on my way back to the office. Where I will sit in my cubicle, checking code and trying to remain unnoticed.

  I’m cursing under my breath as I turn the corner, my jeans and hoodie stuffed in a bag that Liz provided me with after changing into my new get-up. My toes hurt, my wallet’s painfully empty, and I’m considering just skipping lunch altogether in order to save the cash. That’s when a woman dressed in a tiny skirt, her make-up streaked with tear tracks, clutches at my arm. She’s looking over her shoulder, her breath fast and shaky.

  “Help me,” she whispers. “Please.”

  When I pull away from her, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m startled more than anything at this stranger attaching herself to me. But I’m also very much aware of the price tag that was just snipped off the same sleeve she refuses to let go of. The last thing I need now it to return to the office with a suit that’s crumpled and stained with mascara.

  “What’s going on?” I ask and look around for anyone to hand this girl over to. “Do you want me to get security? Or the police?”

  At this, the weeping woman’s expression startles, the whites of her eyes round and wide. She shakes her head in firm little spurts, and mouths, “No, no, no.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask for the second time.

  “No police. Please.”

  “Okay, okay.” I motion with my free hand, waving it in defense, showing that I mean her no harm. “But you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “He’s a cop,” she says, looking over my shoulders as a woman walks past us, her jabbering toddler close behind.

  “Who’s a cop?”

  “My ex-boyfriend.”

  “Perfect! Let’s just give him a call and—”

  “No!” she shrieks and immediately covers her mouth. She pulls me back towards the bathrooms. It’s at this point that I should ex
tricate myself from her grip. After all, this is my first day at my job, and the sooner I’m back in my cubicle, the higher my chances are of actually having a job when I wake up tomorrow. Still, I’m a pushover, and I allow this frantic woman to pull me into a handicapped bathroom that’s gender neutral. As soon as she locks the door behind us, she explains, “My ex is the one who did this to me.”

  At this point she pulls her jacket off, revealing a sleeveless blouse and arms covered in bruises and scratches. This brings my focus back to her face. In the glaring fluorescent light of the bathroom, the dark spots on her jaw and around her left eye shine through despite the cosmetics that have been so meticulously applied.

  “And he’s a cop?” I can see the problem now.

  She nods.

  I’m rolling this information around in my head. It clashes with the reason I’m here in the first place, and the workplace I really should be getting back to. But I can’t just walk out of this bathroom without doing something for this poor girl. “And you think I can help how?”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “That’s easy enough. I’ll walk you to your car and then—”

  She’s shaking her head so that her blonde curls bounce over her face. “It’s not that easy. There are cameras everywhere. He followed me here, so I’m sure he’s got the security guards looking out for me. All he has to do is tell them that I’m some criminal, and they’ll all be on the lookout for me.”

  Without thinking about what it will look like, I glance down at my phone. Even if I make a beeline for the parking garage and catch all the green lights back to the office, I still might not make it before everyone is back from lunch.

  She shakes her head and looks to the floor. “If you don’t have time, you can just leave me here. To die.”

  I can’t say that I’m much a fan of her tone. It’s the same sort of passive-aggressiveness that caused me to leave my one and only long-term girlfriend. But whereas Bethany would refuse to move on for days if I set her off, this woman is quick to realize her mistake.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, closing the gap that has widened between us as we leaned against opposite walls of the single-occupancy bathroom. “It’s just that I’m used to guys not caring about what happens to me. I guess that’s where that snarky attitude came from.” She places her hand on my forearm. “The truth is that if you don’t help me, right here and right now, I don’t think anyone else will.” Her hand grazes down the length of my arm until her fingers caress mine. “So will you?”

  Chapter 3

  Kate

  When I look around the bathroom, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Eyes shining. Make-up ruined. Terrified out of my mind. And across from me, my possible savior. A hapless bystander that I’ve dragged into my mess. I can’t be sure, but in his suit and tie, he looks professional. Perhaps even on the wealthy side. The way that he’s keeping a respectful distance from me, even in this confining bathroom, also makes him the image of trustworthiness. While my reflection appears only pitiful.

  “If we’re going to do this, we should probably know each other’s names,” he says. “Mine’s Brad. What’s yours?”

  “Kate.” I lick at my lips before biting them in a way that might be sexy if we weren’t hiding in a bathroom that smells of stale urine. It’s not an action that’s meant to be intentionally sexual either. It’s just a nervous tic. One that Trevor always accused me of using to flirt with any other male I might come across. A tic that cost me many bruises and swollen lips.

  “Okay, Kate,” he begins with. “So let me get this straight. You’re running from your ex-boyfriend. Who is violent. And who also happens to be a cop. Is that right?”

  I give a quick nod.

  “And if he catches you, it's going to be bad. Really bad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” he replies.

  “For dragging you into this. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just running and then I saw you. You looked nice. I mean, you certainly seem nice. And now you’re involved and I don’t know what he’s going to do if he catches us together.”

  “Oh,” Brad mutters. “I didn’t even think about that part.”

  “So what are we going to do?” I ask in a shaky voice.

  “We’re going to….” he says but then stalls out, like a plane climbing too high too fast and losing its grip on the sky. After a deep breath, he tries again. “We’re going to get out this bathroom and find the emergency stairwell. There shouldn’t be too many cameras down there.”

  “But what if there are?”

  He looks around frantically, as if the answer is going to jump up out of the toilet. His eyes land on the shopping bag in his hands. He holds it out between us as with excitement, like he’s finally remembered the answer to the hardest question on a test.

  “You’re going to wear a disguise. This,” he says and opens the bag, revealing a hoodie and jeans. “Change into this. Your guy is going to be looking for you in the clothes you’re wearing now, right? And your hair is pretty distinctive too,” he says, taking in my blonde curls. “But throw some water on it, and you can even disguise that.”

  I nod and hope he doesn’t notice the faintest expression of disappointment that flashes across my face when I pull the clothes out of the shopping bag.

  “I swear they’re clean,” he says with a reassuring, if not very confident, smile.

  “It’s not that,” I say and hesitate to add what I’m really thinking, but it slips out without my permission all the same. “Just, when I first saw you, wearing that get-up, I thought you were in finance or something. Not that I care either way,” I quickly add at the end. But he laughs it off.

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m broke as hell.”

  It's the painful sort of laugh I know all too well. The sort that’s trying harder to reassure oneself than whoever might be listening that everything is going to be alright. That all the bills will get paid before the end of the month. That there will be something in the fridge besides expired mayonnaise and that jar of pickles you don’t remember ever having bought.

  As I step out of my heels, I hope that my smile comes off as genuine, because that’s truly how I feel right now. “Same here. More we have in common, I guess, right?” I turn around then and say, “Would you mind getting my zipper?”

  The zipper in question starts at my shoulder blades and goes all the way down to the start of my ass. He agrees shakily and his fingers are tentative on my back. Once he’s worked the zipper down ten inches, I know exactly what he must be thinking: ‘She’s not wearing a bra’.

  It's a strange coincidence that I should be so dressed up on the day that Trevor tracks me down. I was supposed to be attending a party tonight. It was through a friend named Rebecca, who I only know online, I’d gotten invited to this real high-brow get-together downtown. It was invitation only, and my name being on the list actually meant something. That’s the whole reason I ended up at a department store when most of my shopping prior to this point was done at Target or Wal-Mart, and I never imagined I’d be wearing an outfit like I am now that cost me a whole week’s paycheck.

  But I convinced myself it was worth it for a once-in-a-lifetime event. I’d even been stupidly fantasizing that I might meet a guy there. A one-night stand that could evolve into something deeper. Someone I could grow with to pull myself out of this lowest layer of society. And as much as I’m thankful for Brad actually sticking around after my explanation of how Trevor might rip him to shreds if he were to catch us, I can’t help but feel a bit deflated at the fact that I’ve managed to team up with someone in no better a position that I am to help myself.

  Still.

  Brad’s not hard to look at. He’s great in the height department, which translates to jeans I’ll no doubt have to roll up at the ankles. He’s got this sort of rough look to him, with a cleft chin and a rough haze of a five o’clock shadow. Plus, he’s kind enough to want to help, while not being such
a coward that he takes off at the eminent threat of violence that might befall him if we screw this up. And it’s not like I’ve promised him anything. Despite the fact that I’m literally stripping in front of him, this is hardly a romantic situation.

  But it would make for a good meet-cute. If I could do the impossible and strip away the high stress of this situation along with my clothes. If I could somehow rewrite the script of my life to be more in line with a romantic comedy, Brad would definitely be the male lead that I inextricably fall in love with along the line.

  He might not be the rich guy I thought he was when I first derailed his day. He’s no more able than I am to extricate myself from the muck that grips at my ankles and threatens to pull me deeper. He’s just a regular guy.

  A regular guy that’s still here.

  Still willing to help me.

  Even if there’s nothing in it for him.

  So when I pull my dress off and I see him peeking at me in the mirror, I don’t call him out on it. Instead, I allow a little hope to build inside me.

  That today will be the beginning of something new. A fork in the shitty road that has been my life so far.

  Chapter 4

  Brad

  The zipper plummets down her soft skin, revealing a bare back.

  “Thanks,” she says and turns around, her arm keeping her blouse up over her breasts. “Would you actually mind just turning around for a second? We’ve only just met and—”

  “Of course! Sorry,” I blurt out and turn around, actually shutting my eyes like some child. But when I open them, I realize that because we’re in a bathroom, I can clearly see a side view of her in the mirror. After she allows her blouse and skirt to fall, I’m rewarded with a brief but amazing view. Her breasts are smaller than they appeared at first, but they’re also perkier than I imagined. During my brief peek, I also manage to imprint an image of her sheer lace panties into my brain. But mostly what I’m going to remember is the curve of her hips, the tiny gap between her thighs, and the bulge of her pubic bone leading up to her toned belly.