Authors: Sarah Grimm
The sight of her did what the blonde at the bar had not. That quickly, cold fear turned
to hot desire. His body tightened, his pulse tripped along at an increased rate. Since
she had yet to notice his arrival, he took a few moments to just look at her, to see
with his own eyes that she was in one piece.
As he watched, she continued her journey, back and forth before that grand bed. Despite
her cool dismissal of him two days before, he wanted to gather her close and channel
that pent up energy into something more fulfilling. He closed his eyes against the
wave of longing, only to feel her in his arms, to hear her pleasure as he slipped
inside her.
“Sergeant, what can I do for you?”
Justin blinked once, twice, to clear the sudden, unbidden image from his mind. Damn,
he was hard as a rock. He tried to moderate his breathing, forced each deep breath
as he strode for calm. “I’m here for Ms. Conroy,” he informed the lone officer at
his left.
She turned at the sound of his voice, and like every time their eyes met, something
hot and dangerous sparked between them. They stared at each other for a long, intense
moment as the air between them buzzed and crackled. Hunger rose like a white-hot wave
to wash over him.
He didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding calm anytime soon.
Setting his jaw, Justin faced the uniform. “What can you tell me about what happened
tonight?”
“Break-in, or so she says.”
“You don’t believe her.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. The man’s tone held the
answer.
“Sir, there are no signs of forced entry and nothing missing. In fact, the alarm system
was tripped by the first on the scene.” In a move guaranteed to press his importance,
the officer settled his hands upon his utility belt and flared his chest. “Ms. Conroy
admits to being overtired and overstressed. What with her last altercation barely
two days ago, she’s letting her imagination get the best of her, hearing things that
aren’t there.”
Unimpressed, Justin leaned forward and checked the name on the man’s severely starched
uniform. “It could be, Officer Carlton, that she’s justifiably afraid and hearing
things that are there.” He met the man’s glare. “What with her last altercation just
two days ago.”
Carlton’s self-importance still firmly in place, he puffed his chest out a few more
inches. The lines of his face settled into a frown.
“Why don’t you take off, go file your report. I’ll handle Ms. Conroy.” For a good
sixty seconds, the officer held his ground. Twenty more, he looked as if he might
argue. And then, just when Justin thought things were going to get ugly, Officer Carlton
turned and headed for the stairs. Justin didn’t wait any longer. He crossed the room
to Paige.
She looked terrible. How long had it been since she’d gotten any sleep, something
to eat? In the four days he’d known her, she’d dropped enough weight that her cheeks
no longer appeared sculpted, but hollowed, the vibrant green of her eyes, dulled.
As predicted, she had one hell of a shiner. Varied in shade from black to raspberry,
it covered her left eye from just above her brow to her cheekbone. He could tell her,
from personal experience, that her bruise would turn a hideous shade of green before
fading. Instead, he chose to keep that bit of information to himself.
“How are you doing?”
She curled her bottom lip between her teeth and studied him as if considering her
answer. “I’m better than when I called you.”
“Some of your swelling has gone down. Does your head still hurt?”
She stiffened her spine, pulled her strength around her like a blanket. “Not much.”
Justin tucked his hands in his pockets, determined to remain cool and detached, the
competent professional, just as she wanted him to be. He nearly broke out in a cold
sweat from the effort to keep from reaching for her. He wanted to touch her, hold
her. She didn’t appear to need his support, definitely wouldn’t welcome it. The desire
was there, just the same. “What happened tonight?”
“Someone broke into my house.”
He had to hand it to her, even faced with Carlton’s patent disbelief, she held tough
to her belief of an intruder. She must have heard the officer’s comments, but she
didn’t back down. He admired that about her. “Go on.”
“I woke up, heard someone downstairs.”
“The sound of the intruder woke you, or something else?”
“Something else.”
“You don’t know what?”
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “No.”
“What exactly did you hear?”
“The first sound, I’m not sure…” Her eyes closed, as if returning to the moment. “Breaking
glass, I think. Then, I heard the darkroom door. It squeaks.”
“That’s it?”
”Yes.”
“I’ll be right back.”
The moment he left her alone, Paige felt vulnerable once more. She wrapped her arms
about her middle and fought the urge to pace. He wanted to know what woke her. She
wasn’t about to admit to him the truth.
For days she’d walked a tightrope of anxiety and stress. Jumping at shadows, starting
at the most minor, out-of-place sound. She’d taken to sitting with her back to the
wall, alert, aware, even in the privacy of her own home. Always, no matter how she
tried to fight, sleep pulled at her and when she could go no longer and her lids would
droop, her muscles relax, she would sleep. And dream. Horrifyingly realistic dreams
of pain and death, of eyes in the dark, watching her slumber, silently moving closer
and closer until they hovered just above her.
A shiver worked through her muscles. She shook the returned images from her mind.
Justin didn’t need to know the truth. She wouldn’t admit that bad dreams roused her
from sleep tonight—every night—only to leave her alone and frightened. Longing for
him.
At the echo of his booted feet ascending her stairs, relief surged. The sharp edge
of her anxiety smoothed. She straightened, mentally brushing aside all hint of vulnerability
and weakness. It was insane, really, her inability to brush aside thoughts of him
as easily. She’d only known Justin a few days, most of that time spent trying to prove
to him that she was not what he thought, yet sometime in all of it he’d become her
lifeline. It grew increasingly difficult to keep her thoughts from drifting to him.
Always to him.
Right now, she had enough on her plate without trying to analyze why.
“Your locks don’t appear to have been jimmied,” Justin said as he stepped before her.
“And the board covering the front window doesn’t seem to be disturbed.”
“That’s what Officer Carlton said, too.”
“Your security system, it’s code protected?”
“Yes.”
“Who besides you has the code?”
“No one.”
A frown creased his brow. “Did you remember to set the system tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“The uniformed officers tripped it when they arrived.”
“Not before, when you heard the noise?”
“No.” Like the uniforms before him, he hadn’t found any sign of a break-in. The first
hint of doubt settled in. Her arms found their way back around her middle. “Look,
I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The compassion in his gaze didn’t help her sudden feelings of guilt. “For interrupting
your evening.”
“You didn’t.”
Their voices blended, rolled over each other as she continued to speak even as he
replied. “For getting you out of bed for this.”
“You didn’t.”
“I just let my imagination get the best of me.”
“Paige, you didn’t.”
His words finally penetrated. She didn’t what? Didn’t get him out of bed? Interrupt
his evening? She stopped babbling. Her eyes, as well as her mind, focused on the man
before her.
He wore black. Jeans and a snug knit shirt tucked into the waistband, topped with
a blazer-style jacket of leather. He was dressed to go out, dressed to please the
eye and stir the blood. He definitely stirred something in her. Heat crawled up her
torso, warmed her from the inside-out. She raised her hand to the base of her throat
where her pulse beat wildly.
“I don’t believe imagination got the best of you.”
“You’re the only one who doesn’t.”
His eyes were dark and unreadable as he studied her. “It’s okay to lean on someone,
you know. We all need to at times.”
It wasn’t good to make it a habit, the way she had been doing lately. “I’ve never
felt so out of control.”
“You look pretty together to me.”
Because he saw what she wanted him to see. On the inside, she was slowly falling apart.
She needed to get a grip before she forgot herself and asked him to hold her. Or just
closed the distance between them and rested her head against the warm solace of his
broad shoulder. She ached for comfort, longed to be pulled against the hard planes
of his chest. Wrapped in his strong embrace, while his calloused hands stroked her
back.
Expelling a breath, she studied him through a veil of dark lashes. He was a cool one,
the way he controlled that lean and muscled body. She would bet he never felt vulnerable,
stripped and exposed as she did right now. Just his presence in the same room calmed
her, restored a bit of her peace. Imagine the comfort of his embrace.
As her legs suddenly went weak, Paige forced away the thought. She couldn’t get involved
with him. Couldn’t let herself care.
She dragged in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.”
“I never said you were wasting my time.”
She’d been so afraid, coming out of a nightmare then hearing someone move around downstairs.
So sure of what she’d heard, certain of someone in her studio. Now…
Maybe it had been a dream, or the panicked imaginings of an exhausted mind. “I must
be overreacting.”
“It would be understandable.”
She closed her eyes against the kindness in his voice. Snapped them open at the brush
of his finger beneath her chin. He tipped her face to his. “Then there’s the broken
bottle in the darkroom. Imagination doesn’t explain that.”
Relief filled her. She wasn’t losing her mind, after all. “Thank you.”
“For what, doing my job?”
“For answering my call, even though you were probably busy with something else. For
believing in me. Again.”
“We aren’t going to start this again, are we? I wasn’t busy.” He lifted his hand and
traced his fingertip along her jaw. “I had dinner with my mother earlier. On my way
home, I stopped off for a drink. That’s where I was when you called.”
The caress of his fingers across her skin made her pulse trip. “I’m glad.” She wasn’t
supposed to care where he went or who he spent his free time with, but had to admit
to being thrilled he hadn’t been on a date. Just the thought of him touching another
woman the way he touched her now made her stomach clench painfully. “I’m glad you
weren’t busy.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” His fingers continued to dance down her neck before settling
at her throat. “Busy or not, I would have answered your call.” His free hand slid
around her waist, eased her closer until his warm breath brushed across her lips.
“This is where I want to be.”
Longing swamped her. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She lifted her hand, placed
it against the center of his chest. “Justin.”
His lips brushed against hers lightly, gently and her mind clicked off. Her body reacted
immediately, instinctively. Her blood heated. Her bones melted. Sensation shot through
her like lightning bolts.
His kiss was as hard and demanding as the body pressed against her. His hand moved
from her neck, fisted in her hair and dragged her head back as his mouth continued
to seduce. His taste seeped into her. Something between a moan and a sigh slid up
the back of her throat. She knew she should pull away. She told herself to pull away.
Instead, she parted her lips and surrendered.
Her mouth moved eagerly on his, exploring, discovering his taste. She couldn’t breathe.
The heady, male scent of him surrounded her. Her head spun. Fire burned inside her
belly. She felt the pull of desire, the heat simmering between them. Felt herself
go wet. The ache of need was more than she could stand. She gave herself up to it.
Palm flat against his chest, her hand streaked up, slipped beneath his jacket and
skimmed down his side. Her fingers curled into his shirt. From somewhere deep inside,
sanity returned. Alarm bells chimed in her head like a gong. Her body tightened as
a chill ran the length of her spine. She pulled her mouth from his, pressed trembling
hands against his shoulders and staggered back, out of his arms.
“Paige…” His voice hoarse, and tinged with confusion, he reached for her.
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” Struggling to reign in her reeling emotions, she turned
away.
The intensity of what they’d just shared rocked her foundation. Never before had she
felt anything so powerful, experienced anything so right. When he touched her, when
he pulled her to him he made her forget everything but him. Gone was her fear, her
anxiety. In its place raged need stronger than she’d ever known. Longing so powerful
she’d been helpless to resist. Until the placement of her hands upon his smooth washboard
of muscle registered. Reality slammed back into place.
How could she have forgotten so quickly? The one thing she feared most was there,
right there beneath her right hand, beneath the cool polymer of his Glock. The memory
of him holding that same side of his body as pain stole the warmth from his eyes settled
in. Followed quickly by the remembered pain of loss.
“This is wrong,” she said softly.
“I want to take you home tonight,” he replied as if he hadn’t heard her protest.
“You ask too much of me.”
“It’s too much to want to protect you? Too much to believe you should be safe?”
Her body still vibrated from his touch. When her eyes darted to the bed near her and
his followed, a flood of heat arrowed from her breasts to between her legs.