Cliff's Edge

by Meg Tilly

  The thought of this asshole in her bedroom, pawing through her things, made Rhys want to punch something. But the guy had started crying, and Eve made Rhys release him. Wouldn’t let him call the cops and report the intrusion. Wouldn’t let Rhys throw him out on his ass.

  No.

  She was serving this low-life tea.

  “B-both please,” Larry answered from the little kitchen table, his head in his hands.

  “There you are,” Eve said, placing a delicate china teacup and saucer in front of the hulking Neanderthal of a man, who was still weeping. She glanced over Larry’s head at Rhys. “Would you like some?” she asked.

  “No,” Rhys said. The thing that pissed Rhys off the most was the anger that was surging through him. He prided himself on being able to maintain his cool in the most difficult of circumstances. So why was he feeling so damned furious now?

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She reached into the cupboard and removed a pale blue teacup with gilt around the edge and on the handle and placed it on the counter. “No need to snarl.”

  Rhys briefly considered the merits of arguing that point but decided against it.

  “And stop pacing,” she added. “You are scaring Larry and making me dizzy.”

  Rhys slammed to a halt, arms crossed over his chest, and glared at the intruder. “Better?”

  “Now you are towering over him. Sit down.” Eve reached over and patted Larry’s arm. “Drink your tea, Larry.”

  Rhys didn’t budge. It was taking all of his control not to rip Larry’s arm—that she was so tenderly patting—right out of its socket. The weeping act this dude was putting on pissed him off big-time. Howie would always cry. Every single time his mom came home from the hospital, battered and bruised, the litany would begin: “So sorry—don’t know what got into me—will never do it again.”

  Ha! Fucking asshole.

  Larry took a shaky slurp of tea. “Do—do you hab some Kleenex?” he asked. “I gotta blow my dnose.”

  Rhys stomped into the bathroom, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, stalked back into the main living area, and slammed it down on the table, causing Larry to jump slightly. It was a good feeling.

  “All right,” Rhys said. “Time for answers.” He turned to Eve. “Did you give him a key to your apartment?”

  “No,” Eve said, looking troubled.

  “No.” Rhys placed both hands on the little vintage Formica table and leaned in. “She didn’t give you a key, and yet the door was open and you were inside. Care to tell us how that happened?”

  Larry unspooled a long length of toilet paper and blew his bulbous nose loudly. There was a lot of liquid up there. He unrolled another long streamer of toilet paper, mopped up the excess snot, then dropped the soggy mess. Eve winced as it made contact with her table.

  “We’re waiting,” Rhys said.

  Larry lifted his shaggy head and looked at Eve mournfully. “I came to work, see, and—”

  Rhys could see Eve’s spine stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “We’re closed, Larry,” she said. “There’s no work today.”

  “I know,” Larry said hastily. “But my mom was hosting her knitting club, didn’t want me hanging around the house. So, I came here. I—I sometimes do on my days off, to clean up the perimeter. No time to do it properly when we’re open. Too busy.”

  “The perimeter?” Eve asked, looking wary.

  “Yeah.” Larry nodded. “I sweep off the sidewalk in front of the establishment. Sometimes little weeds poke their way through, right along the base of the building, so I pull those out.” His hands were miming the various activities. “Can’t leave them there to proliferate. They’d weaken the foundation. And then there’s the windows.”

  “Windows?” Eve was sitting back in her chair and seemed slightly dazed at this outpouring of words.

  “They need washing!” Larry said, arms waving, head nodding, his long beard making the movement seem even bigger. “And that’s why I was here. Gonna wash the outside of ’em and try to get the inside cleaned when we had a midmorning lull.”

  “Larry, we have a window-washing service,” Eve said, shaking her head. “There’s no need to come here on your day off to—”

  “They don’t come often enough. It’s bad for business. Gotta have clean windows. The windows are the eyes to the soul!” Larry must have realized that his voice had built to a shout because he flushed deep red and snapped his mouth shut.

  The kitchen was silent.

  Eve blinked. “Oh,” she said softly. “I see.”

  See what? Rhys thought. He hasn’t answered the question. “Window washing,” Rhys said, not the least bit bothered that Larry visibly cringed whenever he spoke, “is all well and good, but that doesn’t explain what you were doing in Eve’s bedroom.”

  Larry’s hound-dog gaze darted from Eve’s sympathetic one to Rhys’s. Larry blanched. “It . . . It was open,” he said, swallowing hard. “The door. It was already open.”

  “So why didn’t you just shut it? Walk away. Why did you feel the need”—Rhys could feel white-hot anger rising as he flashed back on the image of Larry standing among Eve’s private things—“to enter her apartment, walk through to her bedroom, and who the hell knows what else?”

  “I heard a noise, sir,” Larry whispered, his eyes welling up. “Wanted to make sure Ms. Harris was okay.”

  Nineteen

  “YOU AREN’T GONNA fire me?” Larry asked, a quaver in his voice. And Eve thought, not for the first time, what an odd contradiction Larry was, the rough external appearance and the vulnerable sweet inside.

  “No. You’re my A-one worker. Couldn’t manage without you.”

  “Really?” Larry said, his face brightening.

  “Absolutely,” Eve said firmly. “I’ll see you Tuesday, bright and early.”

  “You don’t want me to wash the windows?”

  “No. You go on home.” Eve could feel Rhys’s gaze on her as she stood at the door watching Larry reluctantly start to lumber down the metal open-rung stairs.

  “All right,” Larry said. “Bye-bye.”

  “Bye, Larry,” Eve said, and then stepped back into her apartment and shut the door. She remained for a moment with her back to Rhys, trying to calm her body. These heightened waves of sexuality that are roaring through you are the residual adrenaline from the drama before, she told herself. Do not make an ass of yourself.

  “He lives with his mom?”

  “Yeah,” she said, keeping her voice soft so it wouldn’t carry through the door to Larry. “He went through a rough patch, got tangled with the wrong people, but he’s turned himself around. Is back on the straight and narrow.”

  “You hope,” Rhys said. She could hear the taut frustration in his voice. “You should have let me question him.”

  Eve turned to face him. “I believe Larry,” she said. “I must have forgotten to lock the door and the wind blew it open.”

  “Or (a): He was blowing smoke up your ass,” Rhys said through gritted teeth, “or (b): He interrupted someone in the midst of a burglary. The place has clearly been tossed.”

  Eve glanced around her apartment. No tossing had happened here. It looked pretty much how she had left it. However, no need to admit to that. “Or (c):” she said. “You are a tiny bit paranoid.” He glowered at her, but she paid him no mind. “Understandable,” she said, giving him a reassuring pat on his shoulder, “given your dramatic inclinations . . .” The rest of her pithy comment had vanished like a mouthful of smoke. She stared at his large sun-bronzed hand, which had captured her smaller one, her knees suddenly weak. The solid warmth of his hand, the slight roughness of calluses were so unexpected. She had thought an actor would have soft, unused hands. Rhys’s hands could have just as easily belonged to one of the construction workers on her dad’s crew.

  There was a thin white scar tha
t ran between the first two knuckles and disappeared just past his wrist. How did he get it? A shiver went through her, and without meaning to, she leaned forward and rested her cheek on it, barely touching his skin, as if that would somehow take the wound away.

  A growl rumbled from his chest, snapping her gaze to his.

  He was watching her intently, the pupils of his eyes almost obliterating the deep midnight-blue irises.

  “How did this happen?” she asked, her voice coming out lower, husky, as if she were recovering from a cold. Her gaze dropped again. Her finger, skimming lightly, followed the scar’s trajectory, traveling across the tanned, warm skin on the back of his hand.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I DON’T REMEMBER,” he said. He forced himself to release her hand.

  He took a step back, then another. Needing distance from her, from memories of his childhood, which had roared to the forefront.

  “Liar,” she said, her voice soft, eyes sad. As if she could see deep inside him to the wounded, scared kid he hid from the world.

  He turned. Looked out the window. Larry’s hulking form was leaning against the brick wall of the building, his shoulders bowed. Why was he lurking in the parking lot? Keeping hidden by the dumpster from passersby on the sidewalk?

  Rhys lifted his hand to rap on the window. Let Larry know he could see him. Was aware he hadn’t left. But before his knuckles reached the glass, Larry’s head snapped up, his eyes staring daggers at Rhys through the glass. Gone was the weeping, wishy-washy giant.

  “Well, fuck you, too,” Rhys murmured.

  Larry jerked his arms outward as if taunting a gored bull, his teeth bared, then spun around and stalked off, muttering angrily to himself.

  “What are you staring at?” Eve asked.

  He shrugged, turned away from the window. “We need to go through your apartment.” He was relieved to discover his voice and body were calm again. “Make sure nothing’s missing. That the place is safe.”

  Twenty

  RIGHT THERE. BEHIND that copse of trees. He pulled over. His vehicle bumping, bouncing as its wheels left the asphalt. Once he was totally hidden from the road, he shifted to park, applied the emergency brake, and switched off the engine.

  He was feeling light-headed, nauseous. His breath was coming too fast, too hard. The sound harsh, loud in his ears.

  Shaking. Whole body shaking.

  Caught. Almost caught. He dragged a sweaty hand across his face, dropped his forehead to the steering wheel. That was close. Too close.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in that position, but gradually, along with the adrenaline and fear coursing through him, came glee as well.

  Granted, the night hadn’t gone as he’d planned. However, he’d successfully breached her defenses, broken into her apartment with relative ease.

  Eve.

  Last night had been amazing. He’d lain in her bed. Slept with his head on her pillow, pleasured himself in her sheets.

  Which he’d removed from the premises—of course—DNA and all that.

  He reached into his satchel. Yes, the sheets were still there. Had survived the drop from the second-story window. He’d worried someone would run off with his prize before he managed to retrieve it.

  But no, his satchel had been there on the ground, waiting patiently.

  Fortune had smiled upon him yet again.

  He removed one of her sheets and wrapped it around himself, covering his head, his shoulders. He gathered huge handfuls of the fabric, lifted it to his face, and inhaled deeply. He could smell her, could smell himself. The combination of their two scents intermingled was unbelievably erotic.

  He unstrapped his seat belt, unzipped his fly, lifting his hips for easier removal. Didn’t want his stiff dick to snag on the small metal teeth of the zipper.

  “Soon, my love. Soon,” he murmured, wrapping his hand around himself, envisioning her on her knees, hands tied, being forced to bring him to satisfaction.

  Twenty-one

  EVE STARED AT her bed in disbelief. “My sheets are gone.” She felt sick to her stomach. “Why would anyone do that? Such a creepy thing to steal.”

  “You want to call the cops?”

  “I don’t know.” She rubbed her face, suddenly tired. “Not sure what the right thing to do is.” She sank down to her bed, but it felt weird. She stood up quickly. Her bed didn’t feel like a safe haven anymore.

  You don’t have time to be grossed out, she told herself. You need to figure this out. Someone has been in your room, taken your sheets? That’s such a personal thing to do. Must be someone I know, but who? Was Rhys right? Could Larry be the culprit? The thought made her feel guilty. Ashamed. As if she’d kicked a puppy when no one was looking. No. He didn’t have the sheets. If he had taken them, wouldn’t he have been carrying them when Rhys tackled him? It didn’t make sense.

  “You okay?” Rhys asked. He put an arm around her shoulders. “You look pale. You need some water.”

  “No. I just . . .” She was feeling light-headed. “I wanna get outta here.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let me lock up.” He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze, then rounded the bed to the window, started to slide the window frame down when something on the floor caught his eyes.

  He crouched down.

  “Oh shit.” His voice sounded deadly serious. He blew out a breath, long and slow, then looked at her. “Eve, do you use plastic cable ties for anything?”

  “No,” she said, stepping toward him. “Why?”

  He straightened, his face like granite. “That’s it. We’re calling the cops.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “THEY DIDN’T SEEM too concerned,” Eve said, easing her car onto Rainbow Road. “Guess stolen sheets don’t rank high on the crimes list.” She was trying to act nonchalant. Unfazed, even though her insides felt as though she’d drunk battery acid.

  She glanced over at Rhys, who hadn’t spoken since they’d left the apartment. “They weren’t that interested in the cable ties either.”

  “That’s because they’re idiots,” Rhys bit out, his face grim.

  Well, at least he was finally talking. She couldn’t take much more of this stone-cold silence. “Why were you so freaked out when you found them?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he said, as if that was the end of the conversation.

  “Actually,” she said, her voice coming out sharper than she intended. “I do. That’s why I asked.”

  Silence.

  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Well?”

  “Look.” He turned to face her. “I hope I’m wrong. As you said, I’m an actor. I have an active imagination. It’s just . . .” He huffed out a breath. “I did a movie where I played a corporate raider who got kidnapped. He was held for ransom. It was based on a true story. The kidnappers used plastic cable ties to secure him, then wrapped him from head to toe in duct tape, only leaving air holes to breathe through. That movie fucked me up. Even now, three years later, every time I hear someone ripping off a piece of duct tape—which happens a lot on movie sets—the sound makes my skin crawl. Hated that bloody movie. If I’d known what it would take out of me, I never would have agreed to do it.”

  He turned away, stared through the windshield with unseeing eyes. “So yes, finding plastic cable ties on your bedroom floor is worrisome. The upside of all this is, you’ve got yourself a cook until Luke and Maggie return. No way in hell I’m letting you go to the café alone.”

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN THEY GOT back to the house, Rhys reset the property’s perimeter alarms. Reached to activate the interior ones as well.

  “No,” Eve said. “Don’t. It’s pointless. We would be hostages of the house. Not able to let the dog out to go pee or open a wi
ndow to get a little fresh air without having to disengage the damned alarm.”

  “What if you have a stalker?”

  Eve snorted, acting nonchalant even though she was feeling anything but. “Puuleaze. Who’s gonna stalk me?”

  “Any number of people.”

  “I’m not the movie star.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re a heart-stopper,” he said, which was really quite sweet of him.

  She forced a laugh out. “Look, it was probably an isolated incident. Some homeless person saw the lights were off, car was gone, and decided to spend a night on a comfy bed.”

  “And the sheets? How do you explain that?”

  “Maybe he accidentally peed the bed and didn’t want to leave the mess for me to find?” But even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew it was a stretch. Her body knew, too, because that jangly nervous feeling was starting up again in her belly. “I just . . .” She shrugged, unable to find the right words. “I . . .” She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets.

  “You just what?” he prompted. The compassion in his eyes loosened something inside her, made her want to explain.

  “This was supposed to be my vacation,” she said. “I can’t really afford to take a trip. I wanted to have these few days to live a carefree existence, with no debts to pay, no clock to punch. To be able to come and go freely, with endless hours to paint my heart out.” She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t help. A tear escaped and then another. She turned her head away, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “If I . . . have to be turning the house alarm on and off every time I want a breath of fresh air . . . every time I need to run inside to refresh my water or get a different paintbrush that I didn’t know I would need, it would disturb the muse. Block the process, and I . . .”