SASSY IN STILETTOS ARe version (14 page)

“I took what I thought was the only key. He must
have given her the combination to the alarm too. I don’t know. She uhm…” Micha’s
gaze slipped down to her hands, and she licked her lips nervously. “She had a
gun. Took me outside and told me to get in her trunk.”

Her voice went cold and flat, and Caleb wanted to
hold her. To comfort her. To chase away the nightmares, like he’d done in the
elevator.

“Once I was in the trunk, she held a knife to my
neck.” She pulled back her hair to reveal a thin, faint line below her jaw.

Lifting his fingers, he used then to trace along the
faint scar he’d never noticed before.

“She told me she was going to gut me. I wanted to
fight, but I didn’t know how. The gun and the knife—I was so panicked.” Micha
drew in a shaky breath before continuing. “We drove for what felt like hours. Then
nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean nothing. She parked and left me there in
the trunk. I eventually grew tired of waiting. I figured since she was going to
kill me anyway, I might as well make her work for it. I finally managed to get
one of the headlights out, and I stuck out my arm and waved it around. I freed
my mouth and started screaming holy hell. It took two days for anyone to find
me. She’d parked at the far end of a mall. Some kid had seen my arm sticking
out and called the cops.”

Icicles formed in his gut as she recounted her
story. Someone had made her this fearful and distrusting. The urge to maim and
kill flooded him with adrenaline and cold fury. “Shit, Micha, I’m so sorry.” He
put a hand on her knee for comfort.

Micha didn’t take his hand. But she didn’t brush
him off either. “Yeah, well. It’s why I don’t like small spaces. I was in there
for thirty-six hours. Cops arrested her. She’d gone back home like nothing was
up. She was sentenced to ten years in a psychiatric ward.”

His head throbbed. He didn’t like the sound of
this. “Is there any chance she’s out?”

Micha shook her head, and her curls flounced
around her shoulders. “No. They would have called me to tell me.”

“Okay. I’ll look into it just to be sure. What
about the guy? Have you seen him since?”

Micha’s breath caught. Her eyes hardened, and the
soft grey irises went the color of flint. When she spoke, her voice shook. “He
was in my office today.”

Caleb stared at her. The asshole who had triggered
the worst event of her life had been in her office today, and she was only now
telling him? “Micha, this is the kind of shit I need to know. What’s his name? I’ll
have the cops pick him up and talk to him.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He was
there to do the screen tests. My ex is Simon Jax, the actor.”

Say, what the fuck? “Simon Jax. The action star. The
one who does more explosion scenes than Michael Bay can dream up?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s also my first assignment
for the new entertainment channel.”

Caleb dredged up curses so foul they would have
made his Army Ranger father proud.

Micha seemed impressed. “Wow. I should have been
taking notes on how to curse properly.” She cleared her throat. “Turned out he
had
been still married when we started seeing each other,
but had filed for separation when we became serious. That’s what sent her over
the edge, I guess. I haven’t seen him since. Until this assignment.”

“There’s no way you can do that interview. When
did you get the flowers?”

“The day I found out about the job.”

“Is there any way someone could have found out
about the position and that you were in the running?”

Micha shrugged delicate shoulders. “It’s possible.
Simon was there for screen tests. Since he’s invested in the production company
as well, the network wants Simon to do a running piece where he follows other
stars like himself as they do humanitarian work overseas. They’re trying to tie
it into the show. His team might have leaked the information. It wouldn’t have
taken too much work to find out who at SDM has on-air experience.”

“So it’s possible his wife could have found out?”

Micha blinked rapidly. “Ex-wife. And it’s
possible, but she’s still locked up. I don’t know how much access she has to
media.”

The hair on Caleb’s neck stood at attention. He
didn’t like any of this. But he’d get some confirmation before he freaked her
out. “I’ll start checking in the morning. In the meantime, you look like you
could use some rest.”

She nodded as she unfolded her long, bronzed legs
and stood. “Caleb, I won’t go back to being afraid.”

“I’m here now. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ll
find out who’s doing this. I promise you, no one’s going to hurt you.”

Micha tossed in her bed. Moonlight seeped in
through the cracks in her plantation blinds, casting the bedroom in an eerie
light. She
should
be able to sleep. She was
exhausted. It had been a hell of a day. Between the cops, Jax, and Caleb, she
had nothing left to give. But her damn eyes wouldn’t stay closed. She flipped
again. Her brain worked in overdrive, trying to piece together how everything
had spiraled so out of control.

A sliver of fear snaked under her covers, trying
to worm its way into her body, but she shut it down. She was
not
the helpless woman who Trisha Jax had locked in her
trunk. She was
not
afraid to be alone. She didn’t
need the feel of a warm body to reassure her that everything was okay.
Specifically not Caleb Atkins’s warm body.

She kept giving the command to her eyelids to stay
closed, but no, they stayed open as if propped up by some invisible sticks. It
didn’t help things to know that Caleb lay less than a hundred feet away from
her. If she strained her ears, she could hear him breathing. It did feel better
to have him here as far as her safety was concerned. She knew he meant it when
he said he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. But for how long? Sooner or
later he would have to return to his life. Shit, he had other cases. Having
everyone on her was probably taxing his resources.

The tiny voice in her head reminded her that Caleb
wasn’t here of his own volition, though she didn’t doubt he would have been, if
she’d asked. But he was here on Adele Westhorpe’s dime.
Meddling
old lady.
Micha flipped onto her belly and clutched her satin pillow.

No matter what she did, she couldn’t shake her awareness
of him. Of how he studied her. And every time she thought of how he watched
her, she also remembered what he’d done to her in that elevator. The feel of
his hands, so tender and hot. His lips on hers. How her body had hummed and
come to life under his sure strokes and caresses. She also remembered how she’d
begged him to make love to her. She tossed her head trying to dislodge the
memory. It didn’t matter how much she wished, there was no recalling those
words.

Micha groaned. Simply thinking about how else
Caleb could touch her made her ache and had heat pooling between her thighs.
His sure and nimble fingers had brought her to the precipice of orgasm with no
effort at all. And then the way he’d refused to make love to her. Backing away
from her and insisting on holding her. She didn’t need his pity then, and she
didn’t need it now. She needed him, the man. If he’d given her what she’d asked
for, he could have chased away those shadows, but as always, Caleb with his
moral code and what not.

Micha felt the pull and ache deep within her. Her
sex crying out for relief. Geez, how long had it been since she’d gotten some? She
did the quick mental calculation. A year.
Wow
. What
the hell had she been doing for a full year? Oh yeah, she’d focused on her career
because she knew sleeping with anyone besides Caleb wouldn’t have done the
trick.
Shit
. No wonder she was nearly climbing the
walls with lust.

She fidgeted in her bed again, trying to get
comfortable, but nothing worked. Her muscles were too tense.

“Oh, fuck it.” Reaching into her bedside table,
she pulled out old faithful. The vibrator she’d bought from one of those women-only
sex toy parties the magazine had done a feature on, had come in handy on more
than one night like this. Yeah, except that was different. Before she didn’t
have an available male sleeping in her living room.

He would never know. And once she climaxed, she
could finally get a good, deep sleep. Turning it on, she put it on its lowest
setting. No need to wake Caleb. Closing her eyes, she forced her brain to her
fantasy of choice—Boris Kodjoe and Channing Tatum attending to her every need. Imaginary
Channing kissed a path between her legs, and she slid her hand down her body,
but try as she might, she couldn’t get into it. Every time imaginary Boris
looked up from her breasts, what she saw was Caleb suckling her on the
elevator.

When imaginary Channing licked at her core,
telling her how good she tasted, it was Caleb’s voice she heard. Pissed beyond
belief, Micha tossed the vibrator back into her drawer. Damn Caleb Atkins. That
fantasy
always
worked.  Without fail. And he’d ruined
it with his expert touch.

Irritated, she tossed off her duvet cover and sat
up. Maybe some hot chocolate with Amarula would help her relax.

Standing, she slipped her feet into her bunny
slippers; she remembered belatedly that Caleb was asleep on her couch. She’d
have to bypass him to get to the kitchen. And she’d likely wake him in the
process. Plopping back onto her bed, she moaned and covered her face with her
hands. She needed to get some fucking sleep.
Then why don’t
you go out there and get the best sleeping pill money can’t buy?
Because
she couldn’t just go out there and screw him. There would be repercussions. They
were friends. It would blow up. Not to mention she’d already tried that before,
and he’d turned her down.
Flat
.

But that was when you were
hysterical and vulnerable.
Now she knew exactly what she wanted him for.
She didn’t need to fill some fearful, emotional void. She desperately needed
release. He was there, and he wanted her. He’d said as much. But what if he
turned her down again?

Well, there’s only one way to find out. If he
turned her down again, she might actually die. She straightened her spine. She’d
have to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Taking her hair out of its high ponytail, she
shook it out and slipped off her robe, leaving only her panties and camisole. Hopping
to her vanity, she quickly dabbed the lightly sweet floral scent of Chanel
Mademoiselle onto her wrists and behind her ears, then went to the door. With
her hand on the knob, she paused. All she had to do was take the first step.

***

Caleb knew what his problem was. He was a fucking
masochist. Instead of trying to sleep like any normal man would do, he’d been
straining to hear anything going on in Micha’s room. It had become a special
brand of torture when he heard the low buzzing. His cock had gone instantly
hard and throbbed against his leg. Enough was enough, he was on the brink of
going in to see her, when she opened her bedroom door.

He sat up, shifting his gun from under his pillow
to the coffee table. “Micha? What’s wrong?” Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he
immediately wished he hadn’t. The sight of Micha in tiny, black undies and a
cotton camisole that stretched thin over her heavy breasts and barely covered
her belly was not what he needed. What he needed was to bury himself inside
her. Yeah.

A couple of hours with her pinned beneath him,
then on top of him, then in front of him would help take the edge off. But it
wouldn’t quell his desire for her. He’d been living with it for two years. He’d
need at least half of that to bank some of the raging need.

Her voice was soft. Husky. “I…uh…couldn’t sleep.”

“Bad dreams?” He simultaneously wished for and
hoped she wouldn’t ask him to hold her.

She shrugged. “I’d have to be asleep first.”

He cleared his throat. As she strode closer, he
picked up the floral scent, and his dick twitched. “What do you need, Micha?”

“I need a little help getting to sleep.”

Her long strides ate up the distance between them
in less than a split second. Caleb’s mind blurred as she stood before him. With
her sweet pussy directly at eye level, he couldn’t traverse the length of her
torso to meet her eyes. Tearing his gaze away from his prize wasn’t an option.

She reached for his face, then threw one leg over
him and straddled him. In an automatic gesture, his arms wound around her. With
soft, grey eyes, she searched his face as if looking for permission. She
shifted her hips ever so slightly, bringing her hot sex right up against his
straining cock. The only things that separated them were the flimsy scrap of
material she called underwear and his boxer-briefs.
Holy
fuck.
Caleb wanted to slide into her so deep he couldn’t find his way
out ever again.

But this was her show. So he waited.

When she placed a soft kiss on his lips, his whole
body tensed. The scent of her perfume intoxicated him. The way her soft fingers
brushed against his bare chest made his whole body tingle.

Micha slanted her lips over his again and kissed
him harder. As if he could hear the steel snaps of his control break, he slid
his hands up her back and into the nape of her neck. Taking control of the kiss,
he angled her head so they fit better. He used the tip of his tongue to tease the
seam of her lips until she opened for him. Once she did, he took.

Two years of frustration and need boiled out in
the kiss. Caleb demanded that her tongue meet his. He tasted and teased and
sucked on her tongue in a sensual rhythm that spoke of how he was going to ride
her. Soft hands caressed his back and clung to his shoulders as her hips rose
and descended involuntarily.