Rush Read Online Free

mass of people gathered outside the gates of the parking lot. Cookie stood on something to make her taller than the crowd that jabbed picket signs in the air, shouting in response to the things she said. There were more than ever before and their signs were more sophisticated. This was a new kind of crowd—organized and more dangerous than the Sunday school teachers and PTA parents who usually protested.
    Suddenly a loud crack rent the air. The back window exploded behind them, pelting them with glass.
    “Get down,” Lucas ordered, shoving Mi’s head between her knees. He hit the gas pedal, sending them straight at the crowd blocking their exit.
     
     

 
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Mi braced for an impact that never came. Lucas finally took his hand off the back of her neck, allowing her to sit upright. She blinked, taking in the street they were driving on. One she didn’t recognize. She looked back at the smashed window. Glass bits dotted the backseat and a large rock sat in the infant car seat. Her heart fluttered like a caged bird in her chest.
    Lucas stared straight ahead, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “You all right?”
    Mi looked down at herself, then again at the back of the car. “Yes.” The breeze from the rear window sent pieces of her hair dancing around her face. A tidal wave of emotions she couldn’t delineate rose within her, threatening to consume her whole. She closed her eyes on stinging tears, willing them to go away. She hadn’t cried thirteen years ago and she wouldn’t cry now. Tears were a luxury for other people.
    “I’m fine,” she said, then again more forcibly. “I’m fine.” She repeated it like a mantra inside her head, hoping if she said it enough times it might actually become true.
    Lucas risked a sideways glance at Mi to be sure. She hadn’t resisted when he forced her head down and had stayed down until he let her up. She looked a little shaken, but otherwise okay. At least she wasn’t crying.
    “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice calmer than he expected.
    “Your place.”
    “But this isn’t the way.”
    “It’s not the most direct way.”
    Mi gave him a curious glance, but didn’t question him. He was really starting to like that about her.
    He’d narrowly missed hitting a couple of protesters back there. The looks on their faces as they’d leapt out of the way at last minute would stay with him. He was sure of it. Thinking about what to do next, he rubbed the heel of his palm over the ache in his right thigh. It was a reminder of an injury bad enough to earn him an honorable discharge from the Navy. He wasn’t sure anymore if he rubbed it to relieve the pain or out of habit.
    At first Lucas had thought their car had been shot at, but the rock sitting in the baby seat told him otherwise. His only thought had been to get Mi out of there in one piece as quickly as possible. He stole another glance at her. She leaned back in her seat, the slanting sun casting a golden light on her face, illuminating the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and nose. Her eyes glowed gold, fixed on a point in the distance. The only emotion she showed was the worrying of her bottom lip between her teeth.
    He thought about the protestors. What people did in the privacy of their home was nobody’s business. He didn’t watch porn or have pictures of half naked woman pinned up like the other guys in his unit. He believed in marriage, fidelity and straight up sex between two people, no gadgets or gizmos and certainly no—fuck, what did they call them—dildos. One prick in the bed was all he could handle.
    He darted his gaze back to her. He couldn’t help it. He’d been surprised by how different she looked without all that makeup. Fresh. Nothing like the TV screen siren she portrayed. It pissed him off that he was interested in her with or without the costume she wore for the show. Even now, looking about eighteen, she stirred something in him. More than just his dick, which