by Cynthia Eden
She lunged for Bran.
His eyes were wide and stunned as she barreled into him. “What?”
A crack sounded just as they tumbled to the ground. A crack and then glass shattered almost in the same instant. Her head whipped around as she sprawled on top of Bran, and she saw that the glass on the grocery store’s front door had shattered.
It shattered because someone shot at us…and the bullet went through the door.
“What in the hell?” Bran grabbed her. “Did someone just shoot at you?”
At her? No, not at her. At him. “I saw a gun,” she whispered as she held tight to Bran and made sure the man stayed down. “In the upstairs window, across the street—there was a gun!”
“Fucking hell!” Bran tried to jerk upright.
She clutched him tighter. “You are not getting up! Someone is shooting! Are you crazy?”
He rolled them, spun them hard and fast. “You could have been shot!”
Oh, hell, now his body was shielding her, and that just wasn’t going to work.
Before she could flip him over, footsteps rushed toward them. “What in the hell is happening?”
She recognized that rough bark. Cole crouched close by.
“Someone shot at us,” she hurried to explain. “Second floor, across the street.”
Without another word, Cole took off running.
***
Julia had a scratch on her cheek.
Bran’s eyes narrowed as he watched an EMT examine the small wound. He saw Julia sigh and try to push the woman’s hand away.
He hadn’t even realized she’d been cut by the flying glass. She’d launched at him, catching him off guard. Her leg had tangled with his, and they’d both gone down right before that bullet had fired. An instant before.
What if she didn’t just have a scratch? What if the bullet had hit her?
“You didn’t see the shooter?”
It was the town sheriff asking the question and frowning at him. Bran had known Gideon Warren for too many years to count. They’d met long before Bran had started coming to this mountain town. Hell, he’d come to the town in the first place because Gideon had told him it would be the perfect place to escape from the paparazzi. An ex-Marine, Gideon was tough and fierce, and he guarded his little town with a zealous dedication.
“Didn’t see a thing,” Bran muttered and that fact pissed him off.
Once more, his gaze slid to Julia. The EMT had moved away, but the guy with the tats—the fellow who’d come barreling out of the grocery store right after the shot—that stranger had closed in on Julia. As Bran took an instinctive step toward Julia, the man even lifted his hand and the back of his knuckles slid over her cheek.
What. The. Hell?
“Why were you even in town? I thought you’d stocked up on supplies already. So why come back?”
The sheriff’s question followed him as Bran stalked toward Julia. She saw him coming and stiffened, and the tattooed guy who was being a million times too handsy with Bran’s assistant stepped back.
“Oh,” Gideon said from behind him. “That’s why.”
For the moment, Bran ignored the sheriff. He was too busy hurrying closer to Julia and her new friend.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Bran heard the fellow say to Julia. “When I came out and saw you both on the ground, I feared the worst.”
Bran strode past him. He stopped right in front of Julia, making sure to put his body between her and the other guy. Then Bran lifted his hand and his fingers feathered over Julia’s cheek.
“It’s just a scratch,” she murmured. “Nothing to worry about.”
His hand lingered against her cheek. “I do worry. You could’ve been seriously hurt.”
Her gaze searched his. Seemed to soften behind the lenses of her glasses. “I wasn’t hurt. You weren’t. That’s what matters.”
Behind him, a throat cleared. Her new friend again. “The shooter was gone before I got upstairs. Got to say the guy moved helluva fast. Figure he had a vehicle waiting close by.”
Bran turned toward the guy. Took his measure. “Thank you for your help.”
A wide smile split the stranger’s face. “You’re Bran Copper. Hell, I’d help you any day of the week. Huge fan.” He offered his hand. “Name’s Cole. Great to meet you.”
Bran took the hand. Felt the strength in the grip. And saw the way Cole’s gaze slid to Julia once more.
Cole was far too interested in Bran’s assistant. He let go of Cole’s hand.
“Why would someone want to shoot you?” Cole asked as his brow scrunched.
“I have no idea.” He liked the guy’s tats. Didn’t like the way the fellow lingered around Julia.
“Ahem.” The sheriff had his hands on his hips. “That would’ve been the question I was hoping to get answered.”
Every muscle in Bran’s body tensed. “I don’t know who shot at me.” And at Julia. “I’m just glad the sonofabitch missed.” He curled his arm around Julia’s shoulders. “You ready to go?”
The sheriff knew where to find him, and Bran figured he’d be getting a visit from Gideon soon enough at the cabin. Gideon would talk to witnesses, examine the crime scene, and then corner him at the cabin.
“When you come by to grill me more, will you bring my groceries?” Bran asked Gideon. “No sense sending the kid out.” Not when someone is taking shots at me. “And let Joe know that I don’t want him looking at the truck just yet.”
“What the fuck am I?” Gideon groused. “Your personal assistant?”
“No.” Julia gave a little wince. “That would be me. Don’t worry. I’ll call and make arrangements for the food delivery tomorrow.”
Gideon’s gaze sharpened on her.
“I am ready to go now, Bran,” Julia murmured. “Very, very ready to go, if you don’t mind.”
Bran steered her toward the motorcycle—
“It’s going to be on every news channel in the world,” Cole called out.
Bran stiffened. He schooled his features before glancing over his shoulder.
Cole motioned to the crowd. To the folks with their phones out, filming everything. “Bet all this is already live on social media.”
Yeah, it probably fucking was. “Thanks for your help,” Bran told him. His arm tightened around Julia’s shoulders. He wanted to get her out of there.
Then he realized…the cameras were filming them. The phones were on him and Julia, and everyone could see the way he was touching her. Everyone could see how close he was to her.
Dangerous.
His back teeth ground together.
“Clear him a path out of here!” Gideon barked.
His deputies hurried to obey.
Bran climbed on the bike, made sure Julia was secure behind him, and, with a rev of the engine, he hauled ass out of there. He wasn’t going to feel safe, not until he had her back at his cabin, securely locked inside with him. Ever since he’d heard the crack of the gunfire, ice had been spreading through his veins. An ice that barely contained the red-hot fury raging inside of Bran.
Chapter Four
“Want to tell me what in the hell you were thinking?”
He’d just locked the front door. Reset the cabin’s alarm and whirled to face her. Julia could see the rage starting to crack through Bran’s hard expression. He put his back to the door, crossed his arms over his impressive chest, and glared at her.
“Thinking?” She took a step toward him. “I thought I saw a gun…a rifle, actually. I was worried someone was going to hurt you, so I kind of…jumped at you.” She blinked. Hoped to look innocent. She’d done a bit more than jump at him. Because Bran was so much bigger than she was, taking him down had needed to be strategic. She’d launched at him and hooked her right foot behind his leg. She’d managed to unbalance him and send him topping down just in the nick of time.
But then he’d flipped her over and tried to shield her with his body.
When he’d approached her at the am
bulance, Cole—her annoying partner—had been smiling. “Who was getting the protection there, huh? You letting the rocker cover your ass?”
That had just been straight-up cold. She’d make Cole pay for his remark later. After all, he was the new guy on the block. She was the senior officer. It was kind of her job to make his life hell and not vice versa.
“Julia.”
She blinked again. She was rather hoping the big blinks came off as innocent and cute behind her glasses and not as, uh, frog-like. “Yes?”
“We need to make something clear between us.” His arms fell to his sides as he strode toward her.
She stiffened but didn’t back away.
“Under no fucking circumstances…”
Oh, okay, now he was right in front of her. She tipped back her head so that she could stare into his truly blazing, golden eyes.
“Don’t you ever put yourself between me and danger. Not ever, got it?”
She didn’t have it. Julia was also not about to make a promise that she had zero intention of keeping. “It was reflex.”
That part was true.
“I wanted to shove you out of the way. Get us both out of the way. I jumped forward, and I didn’t even think about it.”
His hand lifted.
She stiffened.
But he was just brushing his knuckles over her cheek, being very careful not to touch the scratch there. An almost microscopic scratch, as far as she was concerned.
“I’m sorry you were hurt.” His voice was gruff, and his touch scorched her. “It won’t happen again.” A firm nod. His hand slid back. “Because you’re fired.”
“I am not!” What was up with the man’s obsession with firing her?
“Yeah, you are. There’s a reason I didn’t want to let you stay in the first place, and it’s not because—”
“Stop trying to fire me!” Her hands balled into fists on her hips. “I’m not going anywhere!”
His eyes glittered. “You’re in danger!” Just like that, he was toe-to-toe with her. His hands closed around her shoulders. “I put you in danger.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t, you—”
“What the hell would I have done if you’d been shot?” His voice was different. Rougher. His gaze fell to her mouth.
Oh, no. He was not going to kiss her. No way.
“What the hell would I have done?” Bran repeated, but this time, his words were almost a caress.
His mouth took hers. For a moment, she was frozen. Julia knew she should push him away. Tell him to get his hands and his mouth off her. There were a dozen different moves she could’ve used that would have thrown Bran across the room in moments.
She didn’t use a single one of those moves. Instead, her lips parted. Her hands rose and pressed to his chest, and she—God help her—she kissed him back. Tentatively, slowly, she kissed him.
And…
Heat exploded.
The white-hot lust seemed to burst through her. Her tongue licked against his. He let out a low groan, and then things went out of control. Maybe he went out of control. Maybe she did.
But…
Lust. Need. Stark Desire.
He lifted her up. Picked her up and held her with easy strength. Her legs locked around his hips as she held on tight. The kiss stopped being tentative as Bran kissed her with a ravenous hunger. A wild lust that called to every primitive part of her. Her hips arched against him. A moan built in her throat. He was kissing her with such focused passion. Such absolute, consuming need, and she was lost. Julia wanted to yank off his shirt. Wanted to touch his chest. Lick him, suck, bite—
“Julia.”
It was the rumble of her name that finally brought her crashing back to reality.
He’d torn his mouth from hers.
Her breath was heaving in and out, her breasts were aching, her nipples tight, and she was arching against him like a desperate woman.
Oh, jeez. One kiss and she’d gone molten. Been straight-up wild.
“I said…I wouldn’t sleep with you,” Bran rumbled.
His words penetrated the fog of her brain. And then they hit her like a slap.
“I’m not—we’re not…” She pushed at his shoulders. “Put me down.”
He didn’t. If anything, his hold tightened. “I lied.”
The breath she’d pulled in got caught in her lungs.
“I want you more than I can remember wanting anyone. And if you don’t say no, right now, I’ll fuck you here.”
Her sex quivered. “No.” Because she had to say it. This wasn’t just about insane need. It wasn’t just about the strongest desire she’d ever felt for a man. She hadn’t even known lust could hit that brutally hard and fast.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline. She had been riding one insane adrenaline high after the shooting. Maybe that was messing with her head. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had adrenaline-fueled sex—
“No,” Julia said again. She was not having sex with him.
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Give me a second.”
A second ticked by. So did another. And another.
“You smell so good. Like…strawberries.” Bran put his mouth against her throat. Licked.
She shivered. “That’s…um, my soap.” Or her lotion. Or something. If he licked her again…
Her nostrils flared. As far as she was concerned, he smelled absolutely delicious. Must be his cologne. Did he wear cologne? Or was that just him? She wanted to lean forward and lick. To bite. But that was wrong. A million times wrong. She was working undercover. She was protecting him.
Not fucking him.
Bran slowly lowered her until her feet touched the floor. After another long moment, he backed away. His breath shuddered out. “I’m sorry.”
She waited. Tried to get her racing heartbeat under control.
“I don’t…I don’t react quite normally around you.” A little furrow appeared between his brows, as if he wasn’t certain what was happening. “When I realized how close you came to getting seriously hurt earlier, something seemed to snap in me.”
“I wasn’t hurt,” she told him quietly. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
His head cocked. “But I do.” The furrow deepened. “I find I’m worrying a lot about you.”
Her breath whispered out. “You just met me.” And I’m lying to you about almost everything. So it was time for some truth. She figured that he deserved that. “I’m not here to sleep with my boss. No matter how sexy I might find you to be.”
His gaze sharpened on her.
“I don’t want to be one in a giant line that trails you.” The guy’s exploits were legend. The stuff that filled the online tabloid sites and made the paparazzi go crazy.
“There is no line. There’s only you.”
She was supposed to buy that? Now which one of them was telling the lie? “I’m here to do my job.” Absolute honesty from her. “This will not happen again.”
Bran nodded. “It will not.”
Good. Julia was glad they were in agreement—
“I will not touch you,” Bran continued in the rough voice that made her toes curl, “unless you change your mind.”
Her spine stiffened. “You’re just used to having every woman you meet drop at your feet.” She turned away from him. “That’s not happening with me. The kiss was nice and all—”
“I thought it was great. Pretty much the best kiss I’d ever had.”
She swung around. Her eyes narrowed on him. “What is the deal with you? Do you lie all the time in order to get what you want?”
His sexy jaw hardened. “Actually, I don’t.” Face intent, Bran stalked toward her.
She faced him fully as her body tensed.
“I don’t like lies. Fucking hate them, in fact. So I do my best not to lie to anyone or anything. You see, people have screwed me over for most of my life. My mom died right after she had me. My grandmother raised me until she passed away when I was a teen.”<
br />
Julia knew all of this. She’d read it in his file, but hearing him tell her the details of his life felt…different.
“My dad was never in my life, at least, not until I started getting record deals. The bastard came to me after I made it big, telling me stories about how he’d changed. About how he was different. How he loved me and wanted to be a family.” Bran’s lips thinned. “I saw through the lies soon enough. When the SOB just wanted to shove me deeper into the booze so that he could take as much money from me as he could. I saw his lies. Then the lies started with the people who were supposed to be my friends. My lovers. They sold secrets I had. They went to the press as often as possible. Hell, I even had one lover who secretly made a sex tape of us and showed it to the whole freaking world.”
Rage was there, rumbling in his voice. But so was pain.
Betrayal?
“I don’t like lies,” Bran said again, voice flat and hard. “I don’t like liars. And I am not the type of man who twists the truth and tells people what they want to hear. That guy? That would be my father. He lied to my mother. Told her he’d love her forever, but then he cut out when she got pregnant with me. My old man came to me, he lied to me, swearing he loved me, when all he wanted was a slice of my fame.”
Julia licked her lips. “I’m sorry.” She hated his pain.
She also hated that…I’m lying to him, too. But her lies were different, weren’t they? Because she was protecting him?
Except her lies didn’t feel different, and the knot in her stomach was suddenly very, very big.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Bran promised her. “When I said the kiss was fantastic, I meant it.”
He was so smooth. But… “Movie stars, super models…” Her lips curled and the smile felt cold. “And you’re saying I—”
Once more, his hands closed around her shoulders. “I’m saying you are different to me. You make me feel…more.” His hold tightened. “I don’t understand it. You were right a moment ago—we have just met. Yet with you…” His words trailed off as if he didn’t know what to say.
Unfortunately, she did. “Adrenaline rush.” That had to be it. She backed away, pulling from his hold. “One of those near-death situations, that’s what we’re experiencing. I think I read about it somewhere.” Another lie. Too many lies. She sucked in a breath. “When your body fills with adrenaline, everything gets all amplified. I’m sure that is what’s happening with us. Our emotions are out of control, so we think we feel things for each other that we really don’t. You’re not actually attracted to me, and I don’t—” I don’t really want to strip you naked and jump your body right now. Oh, wait. She did. Once more, Julia spun on her heel. “It will be different in the morning. Things will be normal in the morning.”
