Free Honey Moon by Arlene Webb Page B

concerned citizen laws.
    He slowed and hunched his shoulders as he strode on the glittering sidewalk to the entrance. Beneath the bright moon, the trapped energy of the sun resonated in every laminated seam of inch-by-inch solar-gridding. He wished the energized walkways had the ability to do more than repel cold and snow and light. Sending a high voltage charge up his leg would help cattle-prod a progressive guy from devolving to a caveman.
    What other choice do I have? He sighed. Time to psych himself up to bust open another stereotype—all men are capable of unjust violence—he hadn’t thought pertained to him. If love at first sight was real, then certainly someone with his size and strength could easily beat another into submission if he got the jump on…him—a pilot about to be world-renowned? If the man wasn’t already famous?
    Oh God. He was a pathetic supervillain. He should have thought the breaking-entering-assaulting thing out thoroughly. The guy would be a handsome aerospace engineer chosen to pilot a frickin’ shuttle to the moon, meaning he wouldn’t be alone. He’d be in bed, getting the rest he needed to make history, come dawn. His glamorous wife would be using his perfect six-pack abs for a pillow, while the allotted child, a cooing baby girl, cuddled her teddy in a crib in the same room. Or a bachelor, the pilot would have twins either side as he sprawled in his satin-sheeted bed, custom-made to be the size of an apartment, a queue of beauties waiting in his luxurious suite that took up an entire floor.
    But then why’d this hotshot pilot live in the crappy side of the city, in the seediest ‘scraper that didn’t have more than three security cams on the rear entrance? There wasn’t a phone-swipe key box in sight to enter the building. Not even a lame-ass cheap one.
    Sam mentally shrugged, ducked his head and yanked open the building’s door to slither in. He stared at the dull red carpet and hurried for the elevator. Once inside, he ignored the cams above his head in each of four corners and tapped the dull gold 76.
    The elevator, which reeked of what he feared was semen and piss, slowly worked its cables to go higher and higher. With an unpleasant lurch, it finally halted and the doors opened to an empty corridor.
    He eased the duffel bag off his shoulder as he crept toward number eighteen and unzipped it. He stopped beside number seventeen. Stomach in knots, his presence being recorded on at least one cam, he yanked off his sweat-soaked shirt and pulled out what would have been the seamless, white uniform top of a delivery service employee if he hadn’t wadded it up in the bag.
    A moment later, the bag sat on the floor beside the door labeled eighteen, the bottle of Cristal was in his hand, and instead of throwing up, Sam pushed the buzzer.
    Nothing.
    He tapped the buzzer again. Waited five minutes and hit it once more, this time keeping his finger pressed down. The time clicked away on his wrist phone for another half a minute before the com opened.
    “Whaaat?” The rough voice, thankfully male, sounded slurred and furious.
    “Sir, I am so sorry. Please. I have a gift from the Love Center.”
    “The L…C? Why the fuck are you bringing it now?” The guy snorted. “Leave it by the door.”
    “I can’t. It’s too expensive. I was supposed to deliver hours ago, but I ran into some complications. Come sign for it and accept a Nixon from me for your trouble.” The picture of the disgraced thirty-seventh president of the United States was on the two thousand dollar bill—a bit of a collector’s item.
    “Fuck. Hang on,” the man muttered.
    Sweat beaded on Sam’s forehead, his hands shook and hard swallows kept the two gulps of vodka from coming back out.
    The door flung open and the stench of cheap beer whacked him in the face. A ripped guy—wearing a spotted wife-beater style T-shirt and tighty-whities glared out of thin-slitted eyes. He raked his gaze from the bottle in Sam’s