“I know this is new. For both of us. I get the sense your ex didn’t treat you the way you should be treated.”
“Jase—”
“Let me finish. He was a fuckwit who didn’t appreciate what he had. Didn’t protect it like he should’ve. I’m grateful he fucked up because it means I got a shot at you. I know what I have. I see it in everything you do.” He took a breath. She needed to understand what he saw. “How you get excited about a scared little dog. How you talk about the folks at your gran’s retirement community. When you ask me questions about what I do and I know you’re asking because you’re trying to figure out which of your patients might be interested.” He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “More importantly, I know what we can have together. I’m going to do everything I can to protect it. I need to know if you’re willing to do the same.”
Bree dropped her gaze. She raised her hand and touched the hollow of his throat before running her fingers up to his jaw. She ran her thumb over his bottom lip as her eyes followed the movements of her hand.
She finally looked up. He could see the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes and braced himself. “I haven’t been serious about a guy in a long time. I’m not counting fuckwit because I never actually intended to get serious with him. The whole time we were together, I was ambivalent. About him. About our relationship. It would never have occurred to me to call him about things, good or bad.” She swiped her fingers under her eyes. “I’m scared of everything I’m feeling,” she ended on a whisper.
He kissed her forehead. “We talked about this.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that this is a lot. You and me. Someone leaving bodies addressed to me. I have to compartmentalize things and when I do that—” she took a breath and looked back down at his throat. “—when I do that, some things get left out. I can’t help but think I compartmentalized Chad out of my life. I’m worried I might do the same with you.”
“That’s what your scared of?”
“I’m freaking the fuck out.”
He tilted her chin to get her to look at him. “Bree. I will fight for this. I will fight to be in every compartment you create. But I need to know you’re going to fight too.”
She nodded a few times and sniffed. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I’m asking.” He kissed her. Sweet. Gentle. Undemanding while sealing their promise to each other.
He raised his head and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Your place or mine?”
“Dogs,” she said.
“Yours. I’ll follow you.” He stepped back to give her room to open the door and get in. He knocked on the window and motioned for her to roll it down. “If I’m not right behind you, wait for me before you go in the house.”
“Okay.”
He stuck his head in the window and kissed her. He jogged around the corner to his truck and started it before he had the door closed. She was still in the parking spot when he drove down the street. She backed out when he stopped a few cars behind. He watched his rear and side view mirrors on the drive to her house, unable to shake the unease that had settled over him when he had left her at her car. He wanted answers. He wanted Bree safe.
Jase parked beside Bree minutes after she turned her car off. She sent Denise a text to let her know she was okay. Denise texted back that she was on her way and Jase could just deal with the company. Bree didn’t think Jase would mind. It would also save her from having to tell the story twice.
She’d been with her second-to-last patient when Cindy told her she had an urgent call. One of the techs had finished the treatment for her. She’d surprised when it was Tim on the phone. He’d shared only that the investigators wanted her to go to the station to make an official statement. When she got there and learned there had been another murder, she immediately called her grandmother for the name and number of their lawyer. Not that she had anything to hide, but she’d learned to always have a lawyer present when dealing with any official business. Up to this point, that had applied only to issues with the foundation.
She hadn’t been expecting Gran to show up with the main partner of the top law firm in the area. The detectives had definitely sat up and taken notice. She’d gotten the feeling they were much more solicitous to her because of her grandmother and the lawyer.
She finished her text to Denise and got out of her car. Jase met her at the hood of her car and took her hand. He led her to the side entrance. She unlocked the door and the dogs trotted in to greet them. Jase bent and gave them each a scratch on the head.
“Stay here while I check the house.”
“Jase—”
He grabbed her hips. “Please. Stay here.”
Bree sighed. After not calling to tell him she was at the station, she was willing to let him have this. “Fine, but I’m letting the dogs out.” She followed him into the kitchen. The deadbolt on the patio doors was still locked.
“All clear?” she asked when he came back into the kitchen.
“Yes. What did they ask at the station? Do you know who was killed?”
“Slow down, Perry Mason. Denise is coming over and she’s going to have the same questions you do. I’d rather do this once.”
“How long until she gets here?” He pulled a glass from the cabinet.
Bree opened the refrigerator and grabbed the pitcher of tea. “Not long enough for us to have sex.”
“Why, Dr. Marks. What a dirty mind you have.” He wiggled his eyebrows and smirked. “That wasn’t what I was asking at all, but now that you bring it up—” he sauntered over “—do we have time to make out?” She walked backward until she hit the counter.
“Maybe.” She set the pitcher down. “Depends on your definition of making out.”
“How many definitions are there?” He pushed close, resting his hands on the counter behind her. His body pressed against hers from chest down to her knees. He bent his head into the crook of her neck and scraped his teeth along her sensitive flesh.
She ran her hands up his chest. “Well, there’s middle school making out.”
“What’s that?”
“My hands on your shoulders.” She rested her hands on his shoulders, the muscles bunching and moving under her fingers. “Your hands on my hips. Mouths closed and just our lips touch.”
He licked the spot on her neck. “Nope. Don’t like that one at all. What’s next?”
“Junior high making out. Arms wrapped around each other. Mouths open, but very little tongue.”
“A little better, but not really interested in that.” He bit her earlobe before switching to the other side of her neck.
She closed her eyes and a small shudder passed through her.
“What’s the pinnacle definition of making out?” he asked.
This was fun. She enjoyed teasing him and the way he teased her back, not holding a grudge from earlier. “Well, I’d have to say the ultimate definition of making out would be strangers in a dark hallway.”
He lifted his head from her neck. A sexy smile spread across his face at her reminder of the night they met. “Yeah. I think that one is my favorite.”
He cupped her head and kissed her. Hot. Open-mouthed. Tongues intertwining. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer. Her arms wrapped around his neck. Everything but his warm body enveloping hers faded from her mind. The heady scent of his skin. The desire racing through her as she clung to him. She slowly came to her senses when he ended the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers.
“I think we need to go back to the middle school definition, or I’m going to put you up on the counter and Denise can get bent.”
She threw her head back and laughed.
He dropped his head into the crook of her neck. “I love that sound.”
She leaned back. “Let me get dinner started. You want something to drink?”
“Sure. Is that iced tea in the pitcher?”
“Sure is.” She moved out of his arms and put ice in the glass he’
d pulled out earlier.
“Did you have a coming out?” He leaned his hips against the sink, hands beside his hips. His t-shirt strained across his chest.
“A what?” Her brows met in the middle of her forehead.
“You know. Did you come out? As a debutant?”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “Uh, no. Why on earth would you ask that?”
“Because your grandmother is Vivienne Coffee.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” She poured tea into the glass. “No, I was not a debutant. I did not have a coming out. The summer I turned sixteen, my grandparents took me on a cross-country road trip to Yellowstone. In an RV. For three weeks.”
“Not a fun trip, I take it.”
She shrugged. “Now that I’m an adult, I realize it was great experience. I’d love to do it again. But I wish I could slap my sixteen-year-old self for not appreciating it more while it was happening.”
“But you were still a Coffee.”
“No. I’m a Marks.” She returned the pitcher to the fridge. “Gran didn’t become Vivienne Coffee—” she hooked her fingers twice “—until my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. The hospital here wasn’t equipped to treat him, and they were advised to go up to Raleigh.” He took the glass she held out. “She didn’t want to do that. She wanted them to be here, at home, with family and friends. They could afford in-home hospice care, but it bothered her that other families didn’t have that option. So she donated money to the hospital on the stipulation that it be used to build a new cancer treatment center.”
She poured another glass of tea and returned the pitcher to the fridge. “Her reputation for philanthropy grew from there. Before my grandfather got sick, they donated money anonymously. Gran wanted the new center named after my grandfather.”
“How come you never mentioned it?”
She signed and leaned against the counter across from him. “People already look at me funny when they find out I have money, which is why I don’t tell a lot of people. When they find out my grandmother is Vivienne Coffee, their entire attitude changes. They either think I’m some stuck-up rich girl and treat me like shit, or they start sucking up to me for who they think I might have connections to. To me she’s just Gran, so I don’t tell anyone.”
He set his tea down and pulled her into a hug. “I already told you I don’t want your money. I was surprised when Tim said her name, that’s all.”
“Thank you.” She tucked her face into his neck. Little by little, her muscles relaxed, and tension eased out of her. Her eyes stung and she swallowed hard. The emotions she’d held pent up crashed, threatening to overwhelm her. It’d been so long since someone held her for no other reason than to just hold her.
They stood that way for several minutes, arms wrapped around each other, until Jase’s stomach rumbled. “You said something about dinner, right?”
Bree chuckled. “Yes. Is chicken okay?”
“Sure. You want some help?”
“You can chop the onions.” She smiled sweetly before moving out of his arms.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Jase sniffed and slid the onions off the chopping board into the sauté pan. The kitchen door opened, and Sprocket trotted in ahead of Denise. Denise looked in the pan.
“Stuffed chicken?”
“Yes,” Bree said.
“Sweet. And there’s tea.”
She fixed herself a glass of tea and sat at the counter next to the refrigerator. “Spill. What happened at the station?”
Bree began with getting the call at work and then finding out there had been another murder.
“Did you know her?” Denise asked.
“No. I’d never seen her before. I didn’t recognize her name either. She was a junior editor at one of the magazines Chad wrote for.”
“Shit. Was Chad screwing around with her as well?”
Bree shrugged. “I asked the investigators the same thing. They said he had said no, but I’m willing to go out on a limb that he was probably lying.”
“Is it possible Chad killed her?” Jase asked.
“Before all this happened, I would have said no.” She mixed frozen spinach in with the onions in the pan. “After the way he was when you kicked him out, I’m not sure any more. But, the police said he has a solid alibi for when this girl was killed. He was in Atlanta covering a game.”
“So, not Chad,” Denise said.
“Nope.” She split the chicken breasts to stuff with the spinach and onion mixture.
“Tim said there was another note,” Jase said.
“Yes. This one said, A woman like you should be treated better.”
“What does that even mean?” Denise asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with it.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I told the investigators about Chad. Steven, my old neighbor, Jaelyn’s husband? He provided them with all the information the PI got for him. They’re looking into this latest girl’s life to see if there’s a connection to Chad. Right now, they’re going on the assumption that someone has fixated on me because of Chad.”
“So it’s a guy?” Denise asked.
“They don’t know. They’re leaning that way because both the girls were stabbed, but there was no sexual trauma, so it could also be a woman. Or an impotent man. They don’t know. Or they aren’t saying.”
“What about the prints from your room? Did anything ever come back from that?”
“No. They didn’t get any hits. They did ask about my room again. What had been moved. What pieces of clothing had been messed with. I told them everything I could.” She turned on the faucet and washed her hands.
“Do they think there’s a direct threat to you?” Jase asked.
She put the chicken in the oven before she answered him. “They don’t know. They don’t think so, but they’re going to have a patrol car drive by randomly. It’s a dead-end street so it’s not exactly going to be random. If someone is creeping around, hopefully it will spook them.”
“I don’t like it,” Jase said, a fierce scowl on his face. “You’d think they’d know whether or not there’s a threat to you.”
“I agree with Jase,” Denise said.
“I’m not all that happy about it either, but there’s not much I can do about it. The notes haven’t been threatening. They’ve been…flattering? I don’t know.” Bree shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “I haven’t noticed anything that makes me feel uneasy or makes me think someone’s watching me, but I haven’t been hyper-vigilant either.” Polly padded over to her and whined. Bree placed one of her hands on the dog’s head and scratched her ear.
Denise walked around the counter and hugged her. “Hey. You got this. We got this.”
Bree dropped her head to Denise’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Someone is killing women because of me.”
“No.” Denise forced Bree’s head up. “Do not take that on yourself. Someone is killing women because they’re bat-shit crazy. It has nothing to do with you.”
Bree tilted her head. Her forehead furrowed as she pursed her lips. “It’s easy to say that. It’s a lot harder to believe that when someone is leaving me notes on their bodies.”
“I know. But you need to try.”
Bree simply nodded her head.
Jase put his hands on Denise’s shoulders and moved her to the side. He took her place and embraced Bree. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She rested her head and stared at Denise. “I know, intellectually, it’s not my fault. It doesn’t stop me from feeling responsible for those women’s deaths.” What-ifs ran through her head. What if she’d broken it off with Chad sooner? What if she’d made a scene and turned him down when he proposed? Would any of this be happening?
The alarm beeped, and she groped for the snooze button. Jase leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “How many times are you going to hit snooze?”
She snuggled deeper under the covers. “A co
uple.”
“I’m going to get in the shower then.” He dropped another kiss on her shoulder.
Bree rolled over. “Why are you getting up?”
“I’m going to follow you to work.”
She watched his tight, naked butt walk toward the bathroom. Wait. What? She rose to her elbows. “Why are you following me to work?”
“Because a murderous psychopath is stalking you.”
“Jase—”
He stopped in the doorway, turned, and braced his hands against the doorframe. “Don’t argue with me about this, Bree. I’m following you as far as the gate.”
What was the question? Her strength left her and she dropped down to the bed. The alarm started beeping again, and she turned it off. There would be no snoozing with that full frontal image burned onto her retinas.
He was angry. No…he was afraid. For her. Something unfurled in her chest and she rubbed the heel of her hand over the spot. She looked at the half-closed door, catching a glimpse of his naked back as he turned on the water. The least she could do was thank him for looking out for her.
She grinned and threw back the covers.
Jase gripped the top of the car door and pulled it open for her. “You’ve got your cell?”
“Yes.”
“Call me if you see anything suspicious. Or anyone suspicious.”
She threw her bag onto the passenger seat and sighed. “Jase, I know you’re worried, so I’m trying to see this overprotectiveness as cute rather than annoying and overbearing.” She set her hands on her hips. “But I swear to almighty god, if you don’t stop talking to me like I’m an idiot, I’m going to punch you in the balls again.”
He stepped closer, but kept his hand on the door. “You like my balls.”
She tilted her head back to maintain eye contact. “I do. So it would be a shame if I couldn’t use them because they had to be surgically extracted.”
He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. “I don’t like that you can’t carry your gun on base.”
“I promise to be safe. I know how to maintain situational awareness. Okay? I’ll check my six.”
He grinned and kissed her. “It’s hot when you talk tactical. Do me a favor? Text me when you leave work.”
Stitched Up Heart (Combat Hearts Book 1) Page 17
