take me tonight

Earbuds to obliterate any warning of approaching danger. Check.
Long flowing ponytail for an easy take down. Check.
Low slung running shorts to give even the clumsiest rapist easy entry. Check.
A midnight jog, an abandoned park, not so much as a key in hand for self-defense. Check. Check. Check.
Didn’t this woman have a mother who taught her common sense?
Hey. Not his problem. Johnny slipped deeper into the shadows of the Public Garden and waited for her to make her next pass.
She approached at an impressive clip and Johnny sank further into a hedge thick with sickeningly sweet yellow flowers, gauging exactly how long it would take until Hot Legs got herself snatched. He’d figured on four more minutes, but the first time she’d passed him he realized she was stupid, reckless, irresponsible and fast. So, maybe three minutes. Following her at a safe distance, he matched her rhythm.
She rounded the pond, veered into the dim beam of a decorative lamp, then slowed her step. Changing her mind? Rethinking her foolish plan? Or maybe just buying time? Johnny held back, waiting. She looked toward the footbridge to her right and the Charles Street gate to her left. Johnny crouched under a low willow branch to watch her sports bra rise and fall with slow, even breaths. Fast, and not even winded.
A beam of headlights cut through the park and she whipped around, her eyes narrowed, her posture suddenly transformed from clueless to alert. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, fiddled with her iPod and started into an easy jog.
He stayed about fifty feet behind her, just close enough to get hypnotized by the pendulum swing of her ponytail and mesmerized by the hip-hugging shorts that barely covered a marathon-toned ass. It would have been nice if Lucy had told him she was a runner; he might have planned this differently. But his boss had been short on particulars and long on demands. He only knew what to do, no clue why.
One minute.
How hard up could a woman be for a cheap thrill? Well, not so cheap. The cost of a plain vanilla fantasy kidnapping and quick release was a thousand bucks. Fifteen hundred for a simple rescue. Two G’s for something called the “deluxe” which he assumed included stud service from your white knight.
Evidently, male strippers were so last millennium for today’s fun-loving girls.
Not his problem, man. He’d just do the job Lucy gave him. That’s what Bullet Catchers do. No judgment on the shortcomings of the principal.
She neared the gate and adjusted her earbuds, clearly back in her home state of oblivion. She ambled now, much slower, bopping her head to the tunes, tightening her ponytail. Then she stopped, silhouetted against the pale beam that illuminated the half dozen swan-shaped row boats moored in the pond. She bent over, stretched to touch her toes, long, blond hair grazing the ground. On an exhale, she flattened her hands on the pavement, her body curled as gracefully as the swan boats behind her.
With a sudden jerk, she straightened, squared her shoulders, clenched her fists and continued directly to the open iron gate that led to Charles Street. Directly to her pre-destined appointment with a kidnapper. Which either took the cake for stupidity, or proved that somewhere in those sexy curves, she hid a set of titanium balls.
She lingered near the gate as a few cars passed the Beacon intersection, two blocks to the north. Along Charles, a white Audi zipped along the far lane across the one-way street; otherwise the street was as deserted as most of Boston’s roads at midnight on a Monday. She walked slowly, drumming her fingers against her bare thigh.
Johnny waited just behind the open gate, stealthy and quiet, but he wasn’t worried she’d spot him. Her focus was on the road. The muscles in her back tensed, even though she was trying to act relaxed and unprepared. She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of a car approaching. Scratch that. A van. Dark, older model. Parking lights only.
Show time, baby doll.
She stepped to the curb, slowing near the crosswalk. Johnny waited, counted to five, then broke into a light jog, wind singing through his ears. The van veered into the left lane, dropped to about three miles per hour, then stopped just two feet from her.
She froze for a second, then broke into a light run, just fast enough to seem real. But Johnny knew better. He kicked it up just as the van’s back door opened. “C’mere, honey,” a man called. “I need some help.”
She hesitated for a moment.
“C’mere,” he repeated.
She took one step closer, then Johnny swooped in, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her right off the ground, never missing a beat of his stride.
“Hey!” She squirmed in his arms and pounded him with one solid swat. “Not yet!”
He hoisted her higher and the man barked from the van. She whacked him again. “I haven’t been kidnapped yet!” She punctuated that with a knee that barely missed his own set of titanium.
“Come on, princess,” he growled as he charged toward the Camry he’d parked hours earlier. “This is how it works.”
He reached the car in less than ten strides, held her immobile with one hand, yanked the back door open with the other, and shoved her in as the van screeched back into the street to catch up.
“Not...” He slammed the door and barely heard her muffled “Yet!” She pounded the window in protest.
Yes, yet.
The van slowed, approaching just as he jerked the Camry driver’s door open. “Hey, asshole, what are you doing?” The angry voice from the van was as Boston as baked beans and Johnny didn’t take time to respond. He thought Lucy had pre-arranged this with the site and they knew what was going on, but even if there was a communication breakdown, he knew what his job was. He slammed the car door and stabbed the keys in the ignition, but furious fingers seized a handful of his hair and pulled like hell.
“I can’t believe you did that!” she shrieked.
Shaking her loose, he managed to start the car, threw it into drive, whipped it in front of the van and flew across three lanes to turn right on Beacon. The van didn’t follow. Still, the real rescuer could be close by with orders to find out who just muscled in on the business. Just in case, he blew out of there.
She smacked her hand against the back of his seat so hard he felt it in his chest. “That was too fast! I didn’t even get kidnapped! I paid to get kidnapped, you son of a bitch!”
He managed to snag her furious gaze in the rear view mirror. “You’re welcome.”
She choked and threw herself back. “That’s not what I paid for,” she spat. “I didn’t get a thing out of that.” She kicked his seat with a frustrated “Ooh. Damn it all.”
What the hell kind of buzz was she after? Climbing into a van with some creep for pretend danger? Was that really some kind of good time?
“You paid to get rescued,” he said, looking at her in the mirror again. He hadn’t seen a picture yet, not like he usually did. On a normal job, Lucy would have given him a dossier an inch thick, with every detail down to bra size. He adjusted the mirror slightly south. A decent – very decent – B-plus. “I am just doin’ my job, miss. Where to?”
“Where to?” She sounded incredulous. “I didn’t flag a cab to cruise Beacon Street. I paid to get abducted, thank you very much. And I did not get two thousand dollars worth of abduction services.”
“Two?” He coughed. “You bought the deluxe?”
Her eyes sharpened. “Don’t you guys communicate at that company?”
“I was told it was a standard rescue operation,” he said, hoping that would be the right term. “No deluxe.”
She crossed her arms, her cheeks more flushed with fury than her jog in the park or brush with a bad guy. “I was very clear in the application. I wanted the most amount of time I could possibly have before the rescue. My contact promised me at least an hour of kidnapping. An hour with the guy who’s supposed to be the best there is.”
“An hour? For what?” The question was out before he could stop himself. He back peddled fast. “I mean, isn’t the whole reason you sign up for this the rescue part? From a knight in shining…” He glanced at the dash and gave her his most endearing grin. “Toyota?”
She rolled her eyes. “I wanted the whole package.” She turned to the window, lost for a moment, then back to the mirror. “How long have you been doing this?”
Five minutes. “A while.”
“Do you do a lot of the rescues? Are you a regular?”
“Rescues? Oh, yeah, that’s all I do, sweetheart.” A bodyguard could certainly be considered a rescuer.
“And do you only work for takemetonite.com or are you a freelancer for other operations?”
How many sites were there where chicks paid for fantasy adrenaline rushes? Was this really a booming business? “Just this one.”
“Do you talk to them much? The girls you save?”
“If they want.” He had to give it more than this or she’d never believe he worked for the site. “I mean, I’ll talk if they, you know, bought the deluxe package.”
She leaned forward, pressing her fingers on his shoulders. “Let’s be clear here, pal. Is that deluxe business straight sex or something kinky?”
He tapped the brakes at a light and shrugged. “Hey. It’s your two grand, babe.”
“You need to turn the car around.”
“Huh uh. No way. You’re not going back to that park. You’ve been rescued. The first part is over, whether it lasted long enough for you or not. No do overs.”
“I know the rules,” she said. “But you need to turn around anyway.”
“Where do you want to go?”
She smoked him with a meaningful look. “I live off Chestnut Street in Beacon Hill. These are all one way streets past the State House.”
He zipped into the left lane to hang a U. “Home? You want to go home?”
“Yep. I want my money’s worth.” She reached back and whipped her hair out of the ponytail, shaking a thick blond mane around her shoulders, her expression fairly detached for a woman who’d just discussed straight or kinky with a perfect stranger.
Lucy had been uncharacteristically vague about this assignment, but it was a damn safe bet it didn’t include gigolo services. All she said was don’t let her go through with the kidnapping, and be sure she was safe.  Nothing about the deluxe treatment.
“What did you say your name was?” she asked.
“My name?” He slipped into cover mode, like a trained actor. Tonight, he was a thrill specialist. He dropped a few extra dollops of sex and attitude in his voice. “My name is whatever you want it to be, doll.”
“Enough with the bogus endearments. What’s your name?”
“Johnny. My name’s Johnny Christiano. What’s yours?”
“I’m Sage Valentine.”
“Sage.” He’d liked the name the minute Lucy had told him. “Tasty stuff, sage.”
“I’m not named for the spice,” she told him.
“Actually, it’s an herb.”
“Whatever. I’m named for wisdom.”
Oh, yeah? She sure wasn’t demonstrating any of that tonight. He watched her closely, seeing the wary, worried look deepening her green eyes. Or maybe they were brown. Hard to tell in this light. But real pretty. Kind of tilted up at the sides and wide, with thick lashes and expressive eyebrows. Nice cheekbones, too. His mother always said you could tell a classy girl by her cheekbones.
Of course, Ma hadn’t met a woman who paid a couple of grand to be kidnapped, rescued and screwed for a good time.  On second thought, with that family? Maybe she had.
Sage leaned her head against the glass and closed her eyes. “I still can’t believe you wrecked my kidnapping.”
“Was it your first time, Sage?”
“First, last and only,” she sighed.
He couldn’t believe it. He actually felt guilty for saving her ass. “Maybe I can make it up to you.”
“Maybe you can.”
Of course he could. He knew just the thing to put a smile on her face. It worked with every other woman he’d ever known. “Don’t worry, angel. I have something special in mind for you.”