Red-Hot Santa by Tori Carrington Page B

before the guy could even blink, and kept running, not stopping until he was on the guy holding Max.
    He hesitated. Or it felt as if he did. In reality, he hadn’t stopped moving. He recognized the slow motion of his thoughts. The stop-motion animation. His adrenaline-flooded brain registered everything in sharp photo quality, allowing him to note details he might not have otherwise seen. It was the same sensation that allowed for lifesaving knee-jerk reactions when you were in danger.
    It was that same hyperconsciousness that allowed him to register within a glance, the way the captor held Max, the angle of the gun he pressed against her temple, the fact that his attention was focused ahead of him and not on Jackson.
    He launched himself against the gunman hard, the stop-motion animation vanishing and returning to real time the instant Jackson’s flesh crashed against the flesh of his opponent in a bone-jarring smack.
    They both fell to the ground along with Max.
    Before they hit the dirt, twenty thoughts ricocheted through his head, the top of them being how stupid he was. He had no idea if there was another gunman or several, or if the pistol the captor had held against Max’s temple had a hair trigger, no matter the angle he’d held it.
    But he was running on pure adrenaline, his only aim to free Max as soon as he could, pre-planning and caution be damned.
    He didn’t realize he was pummeling the guy until he saw the barrel of an M-16 in front of him, pointed at the gunman’s head.
    He blinked up to find Max smiling at him. “Got it.”
    The hostile wasn’t the only one she’d gotten. She had him as well…?.
    The thought filled the void left by the fleeing urgency, large and loud and undeniable.
    And it concerned him nearly as much as the idea of her being harmed.
    Yes, Max had him. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
    Somewhere down the line, their friendship had evolved into a hot affair then rushed toward something much more.
    The question was, what was he going to do about it?
    The answer that immediately came to him was the same as his response about what to do with the situation at hand—he intended to escape as quickly as he could…
     
    MAX COULDN’T PINPOINT exactly what, but within the squeeze of a trigger, something had changed. Jackson, well, he was behaving oddly. Not like the Jax she knew, either as a friend, or a lover.
    Directly after he’d climbed off her captor, he’d stalked away as if upset; with himself or her, she couldn’t be sure. And when he came back after checking the area, he seemed to pointedly keep his distance, avoiding her gaze and leaving her questions—even simple ones—unanswered.
    Jackson, Max and what was left of the team hiked toward the rendezvous point with Jax in the lead. He appeared to be sweating more than she had ever seen him do before, his handsome face set in deep, somber lines.
    Her heart still beat heavily from her brief hostage stint. She’d never had control taken from her in that way before, but training had served her well. She’d been reviewing her escape options and had felt confident of success when Jackson had appeared from out of nowhere and taken the guy down.
    They reached the clearing and stopped, Polson propping his hands against his knees. “Where they at?”
    Max looked at Jackson who looked at the sky. A chopper was supposed to come in and pluck them out, then take them to a nearby landing strip where a plane was waiting.
    Only there was no chopper.
    Was Lenny to have radioed first?
    If so, they were out of luck. The radio had been shot along with Lenny.
    “We wait,” he said stonily.
    “For how long?” Polson demanded.
    Jackson stared at him, then turned away. Max felt his distance as cold as any December wind now blowing back home.
    “Shut up, Polson,” Taylor said, earning agreement from the other four team members where they hung around on the perimeter, keeping an eye out even as they focused on their leader.
    They couldn’t