Mine To Hold (14 page)

Was that why he had this place here? A place
that was both haven and hell? A place he’d brought her to? “How
many…” She cleared her throat. “How many other women have been
here?”

“Just you, Claire. Just you.”

Drake’s words whispered through her mind.
He doesn’t keep them, you know…He sleeps with them, gets the
lust out of his system, then he lets them go. He doesn’t like to
have the same lover twice in a row.

“Why me?” Claire asked him.

“Fuck if I know.”

She blinked. Well, that wasn’t exactly some
romantic confession. She started to ease back from him.

But then
he
was holding tight to
her.
“I just know that I need you close. Sometimes, I think
if I can’t see you, if I can’t touch you—” He broke off, and his
head jerked to the left.

His body tensed as he stared into the
darkness.

Jeez, but she didn’t want the guy to stop
talking. “Noah? What were you saying?”
Keep saying it.

“We’re not alone.” Then he pushed her back
and ran toward the sand dunes.

Shocked, Claire stared after him for a few
seconds before understanding kicked in—it sure kicked in hard when
she saw the dark shadow rise from the sand dunes and start running
away.

Only Noah wasn’t letting that shadow get
far.

Claire raced after Noah. The sand flew
beneath her feet.

Noah tackled the shadow.
A man.
They
hit the sand with a thudding impact that she heard even over the
waves. Then Noah spun the guy over. “
Who the hell are
you?”

Breath heaving, Claire rushed to his
side.

“Get off me!” The guy shouted. He tried to
swing at Noah.

A terrible mistake. The swing missed.

Noah’s fist drove down. He didn’t miss. He
hit the man in the face. Once. Twice. Powerful blows that were
brutal with their intensity.

“Try again…” Noah snarled. His fist was
poised over the man’s face. “Who. Are. You?”

“P-private investigator!” Then, he snarled,
“Shit, you broke my nose!”

“I’m about to break a whole lot more than
that,” Noah told him. She’d never heard Noah’s voice sound that
way. Lethal.

Deadly.

Chilling.

Claire tried to peer at the private
investigator’s face. She could see the round curve of his cheek.
The high forehead. The thinning hair. The moonlight was strong as
it shone down on them.

“Who are you working for?” Noah asked him.
His hand was still poised to punch.

“Screw off!”

Noah’s fist plunged down again.

“Noah!” Claire lunged forward. She grabbed
his arm. “Stop!”

“
Shit!
” The PI cried. There was a dark
shadow streaking down his face. Blood. Definitely blood. “I’m going
to sue your ass! This is assault!”

Claire tried to drag Noah off the guy. He
didn’t move.

“This is private property, dumbass,” Noah bit
out. “And you took the first swing.” Then Noah shoved his hand into
the guy’s pockets.

“Wait, stop, what—”

Noah rose, and he had what looked like a
wallet in his hand. “Guessing your ID is in here.”

The man stumbled to his feet. He put his hand
to his nose, obviously trying to stop that blood flow.

Claire stood there, her frantic breaths still
shaking her chest, shocked by the violence that had erupted so
suddenly.

“Harrison sent you,” Noah said flatly.

The guy’s shoulders jerked.

“The senator’s dead,” Claire said. It didn’t
make sense that this guy would be here if he’d been hired by Colby
Harrison to—

“Not the senator.” Noah’s voice was sharp.
“Ethan. You were the one sending him the pictures of Claire,
weren’t you?”

Pictures?
Her goosebumps got
worse.

“In case you haven’t heard, Ethan Harrison is
dead, too,” Noah announced and it sounded like there
was…satisfaction in those words.

The man backed up. “What?”

“Why don’t you try and call your employer?
You’re going find out that your services aren’t needed. No one’s
left to pay you.” The waves crashed behind them. “And after you do
that, you need to get out of this area as fast as you can.” He
advanced on the guy.

The PI darted back.

Claire couldn’t move.

“Because I’ll give you one warning. Only one.
If you
ever
come near Claire again, it will be the last
mistake you make.”

Noah’s sudden eruption of violence…the deadly
intensity that clung to him…

It made Claire think too much of her
past.

Ethan had erupted into violence so quickly.
So often.

Noah isn’t Ethan.

“Get the hell out of here,” Noah ordered.

“Give me back my ID and I—”

“You don’t get anything back. I’ll be turning
this over to Weston Securities. They’ll learn every detail I need
to know about you.”

“Th-there’s no need—”

“Yes, there is, because if you don’t stay
away from me and Claire, I’ll be the one lurking in the shadows
near
your
door. And you’ll see what it’s like to be
hunted.”

The man turned then and he ran, disappearing
into the darkness.

Noah stared after him. One hand was clenched
around the wallet he’d taken. The other hand was fisted at his
side.

The waves kept pounding against the
shore.

“How do you know…about the pictures?” Claire
asked.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at her.

It felt as if someone had punched
her.
“You said Ethan had pictures of me. That
he’d
been the one
to hire that guy…how do you know all that, Noah?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He stalked toward her.
Shoved the wallet into his back pocket.

She stood her ground when she wanted to
flee.

Noah isn’t Ethan.

She’d never been afraid of Noah before.

She’d also…never seen him attack a man
before. One instant, he’d been sharing his past with her.

The next…he’d been punching a man with lethal
fury.

Now he seemed so contained. So
controlled.

“It matters to me,” Claire said as she lifted
her chin and forced her shoulders to stay straight. “How did you
know that?” Maybe he’d just been guessing. Just been—

“Because Ethan looked me in the eyes, and the
bastard
told
me that he had someone watching you.”

Her heart was racing in her chest, pounding
louder than those waves.

“And I went to his cell. I saw the pictures
that he had of you.”

Claire shook her head. This wasn’t happening.
“When?”

“I saw him yesterday.” Flat.

The day before Ethan died?

“Noah…” Fear was there now. Fear and enough
dread to choke her. “What did you do?”

Chapter Seven

Claire was afraid of him.

Sonofabitch.
She wasn’t supposed to
fear him. He was the one who wanted to protect her. To help
her.

But when Noah took a step toward Claire, she
backed away from him.

“Did you kill him?”

He could hear her fear.

“
Did you kill him?”
Claire asked
again.Her voice was shaking.

His eyes narrowed on her. “Why does it even
matter? You know you’re glad that he’s gone.”

Claire spun from him then. She
ran
from him.

He hadn’t meant to send her fleeing.
“Claire!”

She didn’t slow down at his call. She just
ran faster. Why? Because she thought that she was running from a
killer?

That’s exactly what I am.

No matter how many fancy suits he put on. No
matter how many hotels he opened. No matter how many charity balls
he hosted…Noah couldn’t hide the truth.

At his core, he was a killer.

That’s what I’ll always be.

And he wasn’t letting Claire run away. Noah
rushed after Claire. “Stop!”

She was fast. He was faster. He grabbed her
arm and spun her around to face him.

Claire hit him.

Noah hadn’t expected Claire to drive her fist
at him—she had one hell of a hook—and he let her go.

She didn’t run then. She stood, staring up at
him, her chest heaving, and the moonlight showed the horror on her
face. “Noah, I’m sorry, I—” She shook her head. Her hand fell to
her side. “What’s happening? What are we doing?”

“We should go inside.” He fought to keep his
voice level, his control in place. If the PI came back, Noah didn’t
want the guy overhearing anything else that he and Claire said.

Claire glanced toward his beach house. The
lights were on and glowing brightly. He stepped toward her.

Claire flinched.

He held up his hands. “Let’s go inside and
talk.” Claire was at the edge of her control. He could see it.

I did this to her.

He wanted to wrap her in his arms, but he
couldn’t. Not yet.

Her head nodded jerkily, and she hurried to
his house. He noticed she made sure to keep a careful distance
between them. When they were inside, he secured the door.

“It all seemed so perfect before,” she
murmured, her eyes on the table in the kitchen. On the plates that
were still there. Their half-made dinner waited steps away. “I
don’t…I don’t get perfect, though. I should’ve known that.”

Hell, no, he wasn’t perfect. He never would
be.

Claire squared her shoulders. “There was no
trip to Vegas.”

“No, there wasn’t.”

“You lied to me.” Pain whispered through her
words. “I thought I could trust you.”

“You can.”

Her eyes lifted to meet his. “You went down
to Alabama.”

He nodded. “Trace got me in to see
Harrison.”

“Ethan.” Her whisper was stark.

He forced himself to take a long, deep
breath. That breath didn’t calm him worth a damn. “The senator was
dead, but I needed to make sure that Ethan understood exactly where
he stood with you. With us.”

Her eyes closed. “Did you kill him?”

“I didn’t set the bomb in that car.” He could
say that with absolute honesty.

After a tense moment, her eyes opened. Her
confused gaze was on him. “I’m just a woman you had sex with. Drake
says there are plenty of us.”

There was only one Claire.

“Why would you go all the way down there? Why
would you—”

He
had
to touch her. Noah wrapped his
arms around her shoulders. “You’re not like anyone else. You never
could be.”

Her breath caught.

“I went down there because I needed to see
him. He’s the bastard who ruined your life. The one who put the
fear and the shadows in your eyes.”

When her eyes widened, he nodded grimly.
“Yeah, baby, it’s still there. It’s always there. You look out at
the world as if you’re just waiting for people to strike out at
you. You’re beautiful…and you’re scared, so scared.
He
did
that to you.” His hands slid down her arms. Down, down to her
wrists. His fingers curled over the scars. “He did that,” Noah
repeated.

“I did it,” Claire fired back, her words
surprisingly strong. “I let him into my life. I’m the one who
picked up the razor, I’m the—”

“
Stop it
!” His fury erupted.

Claire tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let
her.

“He’s a sick, twisted freak. He locked onto
you, and he was going to do anything and everything in order to
keep you with him.”

“He was in jail,” Claire said with a shake of
her head. “He couldn’t—”

“He had photos of you all over his cell.” He
hadn’t intended to tell her, and if that asshole PI hadn’t shown
up…
She never would have known.
“He was as obsessed with you
as ever. He had plans, Claire.”
Plans that won’t ever
happen.
“He was counting down the days until he would be free,
and then he would’ve come for you again.” Noah knew that Ethan
would have killed her.

His fingers were caressing the skin along her
wrists. Claire wasn’t speaking. She was so stiff and still.

“I wasn’t going to let Ethan hurt you. I went
down there to tell him, to let him know that you weren’t alone. If
he came after you…he’d find me in his path, and I would kill him
then.”

Her lips trembled. “How can you talk about
taking someone’s life so easily?”

“Because Ethan Harrison wasn’t a man. He was
a monster that needed to be put down.”

She tugged against his hold.

“
I didn’t do it, Claire.
” But he
would’ve. And maybe that was what she feared the most. What he was
capable of doing. Noah let her go. “I didn’t kill him, but that’s
just because someone else beat me to the punch. If he’d come after
you, if he’d tried to hurt you…” It was better for her to see him
exactly as he was. No lies. No masks. “I would have killed him in
an instant.”

She stood before him. Her eyes too wide. Her
face too pale. “I don’t want you to be like him.”

Fury poured through his blood. “I’m
not.
”

“I knew he had a darkness inside, I knew it
from the very beginning, but I wanted him anyway.”

“Claire…”

“You have a darkness, too. I can feel it. I
want you, Noah, more than I’ve wanted anyone, but you scare me,
too.” Her hand raked through her hair.

“I know.” But she’d wanted him despite her
fear.

And he just—wanted her.

“More than that…” She licked her lips. “I’m
scared of the way I feel with you. Like the control I have, the
life I’ve got…I could lose it all.”

“I’m not going to let you lose anything.” Why
couldn’t she see that he wanted to protect her? To help her? “I
didn’t kill him,” Noah said again. “But I would kill to keep you
safe.” He backed away from her. “I want you. And you need to
decide…you
have
to decide, if you want me, too.” The rest
had to be said so he forced himself to add, “You have to decide if
you want me more than you fear me.” Noah took another step
back.

Claire wrapped her arms around her
stomach.