by Susan Stoker
He hated hearing the uneasiness and fright in her voice. He was moving back toward Logan’s truck even before she’d finished speaking.
He turned, keeping his arm around her waist, taking a lot of her weight against his own larger body, and headed for the car. They didn’t say a word, but Blake was happy for the moment to have her whole and relatively unscathed in his arms.
He opened the back door of the truck and helped Alexis sit. “Scoot over, Lex, I’m sitting back here with you.”
She didn’t protest and slid over, giving him room to get in next to her and shut the door.
Logan had them moving before he could fasten his seat belt. Blake clicked the belt over his lap and reached for Alexis. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his side. One of her arms made its way behind his back against the seat and the other reached across his chest and clamped down tightly over his right shoulder. She buried her head into the side of his neck and shivered nonstop in his arms, as if it was thirty degrees inside the truck instead of a comfortable seventy-five.
“Where am I going?” Logan asked from the front seat.
The original plan had been for them to drop Alexis off at her downtown apartment, and to meet up with her at Ace Security the next day, but Logan could see as well as Blake that she was in no condition to be left alone.
Blake turned his head and kissed the top of Lex’s head and murmured, “I’d like to take you to my place, sweetheart. If you can wait that long. I have a huge shower and tub. You can soak as long as you want.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, so Blake continued. “If you can’t wait, that’s okay. We can go to your apartment. But I’m staying with you either way.”
“Your house,” Alexis stated, her warm breath wafting over the sensitive skin below his ear.
Blake reached up, took hold of the hand that she had against his neck, kissed the palm, then put it back where it’d been. He put his hand over hers, holding her to him. “Thank you for letting me be with you tonight, sweetheart.”
She nodded against him.
“Close your eyes, relax, we’ll be there soon,” he told her softly. “I’m so proud of you. I don’t know any other woman who could’ve done what you did in there tonight. You’re never doing it again, but I’m proud as fuck of you.”
He thought he felt a small snort of laughter come from her.
“Seriously, Alexis,” Logan piped up from the driver’s seat. “You were able to get all of the men’s faces on the camera, and I can’t believe they didn’t seem to be bothered with your presence when they talked about the jobs they had lined up. Murder for hire is a big fucking deal. I think there are at least four crimes that you being there tonight will prevent.”
Logan’s words caused Alexis to burrow herself even deeper into Blake’s side. He tightened his hold on her and held on as Logan continued to speak.
“With that said, your role in taking down the Inca Boyz is finished. Tonight was too fucking close. I will not risk your well-being to take down the scum who tried to ruin my wife. Got it?”
Alexis spoke for the first time since getting in the car, but didn’t lift her head. “Yeah. I get it. I have no desire to ever see or talk to any of those people again.” She shuddered against Blake. “I’m glad I did what I did, but I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to do this for a living. It’s a good thing we’re on the same page, otherwise you would’ve had my resignation letter on your desk first thing in the morning.”
Logan snorted from the front seat. “Freaked out and still throwing sass. I like her, Bro.”
“Like I give a shit,” Blake told his brother, relaxing a fraction when he heard Alexis’s soft chuckle against him. He did care what his brother thought, but he was equally relieved that Lex was “throwing sass,” as Logan called it.
“That doesn’t mean I want to stop helping you with the surveillance at the courthouses and other tamer stuff,” Alexis warned, her voice muffled by his shirt. “I’m pretty good at the social media stuff too—admit it.”
“You are,” Blake told her without quibbling. “You’re way ahead of me in that department. I can write code and program shit, but searching for keywords and spending time on Facebook is akin to torture for me.” He liked the fact Alexis was hinting about sticking around. He’d been half-afraid that she wouldn’t want anything to do with Ace Security, or him, after the intense night she’d just had.
They continued down the interstate toward Castle Rock for several minutes with no one saying a word. Blake thought Alexis had fallen asleep, when she murmured, “I don’t have an overnight bag with me.”
“I’ll make a quick stop at the twenty-four-hour drugstore,” Logan said easily, overhearing her remark. “We can get you whatever toiletries you need to tide you over.”
“And I’ve got a T-shirt you can wear,” Blake told her. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Alexis said. “Sounds good. But I’m going to want my own stuff as soon as we can swing it. A girl can’t live in her boyfriend’s clothes forever.”
“You could always eschew my clothes and walk around naked,” Blake teased, wanting to get her mind off what had happened, and what could’ve happened, to her.
As he hoped, she laughed, a more natural laugh this time . . . less forced. “In your dreams.”
“Fuck yeah,” Blake whispered. “You’ve starred in my dreams every night for the last month or so.”
Before their banter could go any further, Logan asked, “Do you think you’ll be up to a sit-down with Nathan and the task force tomorrow afternoon?”
“It’s too soon,” Blake protested immediately, but Alexis shook her head against him and loosened her hold on him for the first time.
“No, it’s fine, Blake. It’s better if I get it over with. You’ll both be there, though . . . right?” Alexis added, the uneasiness creeping back into her tone.
Blake answered for his brother. “Damn straight.”
“Then it’s fine. It’ll be fresher in my mind.”
“How about dinner afterward with Grace and Nathan?” Logan asked. “My wife has been bugging me to set something up with you. She’s dying to get to know you better.”
“She has? I thought she couldn’t stand the sight of me,” Alexis said absently. “After what happened with her and my brother, I figured I’d be the last person she wanted to hang out with, even if I was dating her brother-in-law.”
“She doesn’t have a lot of friends,” Logan said, not sounding concerned, meeting her eyes briefly in the rearview mirror before turning his concentration back to the road. “Felicity and Cole, they own Rock Hard Gym in town, and that’s about it. Her parents were assholes and didn’t really let her cultivate any relationships. She was impressed with your tenaciousness and defense of your brother. That kind of loyalty doesn’t go unnoticed.”
“Then I’d love to,” Alexis said quietly. “I don’t have many friends myself. I’d be thrilled to get to know her better.”
“Then it’s settled,” Logan stated easily. “I’ll set it up.”
“You hungry?” Blake asked.
Alexis shook her head against his shoulder. “God no. I don’t think I could eat anything right about now. I just need to get clean. Then I’ll see how I feel.”
“Okay, sweetheart. We’ll be home soon.” Home. It had been a long time since Blake had actually looked forward to going back to the small house he’d lived in growing up. It held a lot of awful memories. Memories of his mom hitting not only him and his brothers but his father too. Ace Anderson had been abused by his wife his entire life, and his mom had eventually taken his life.
Thinking about the violence he’d experienced at home brought his thoughts back around to tonight. Alexis had been too close to danger. He’d seen through the hidden camera how the gangbangers had taken the other women to the back of the house. He’d heard the casual way they’d discussed the bedroom skills, or lack thereof, of the women they’d just screwed. He’d
listened to the way Chuck had spoken to Alexis, had heard him kissing her . . . his Alexis. He couldn’t see everything that had happened—the bastard had been standing too close to her for the camera to record what exactly he’d done—but he had no doubt it had been bad. Lex had sounded uncomfortable and freaked out.
He needed to erase that.
To make her feel clean again.
And he couldn’t do that until she was safe in his house.
So he wanted to be home. Now.
Thirty minutes later Logan finally pulled up to the house. He and Nathan had only been inside twice since they’d returned to Castle Rock. The four walls held too many ghosts for them to ever feel comfortable again.
Blake knew it was odd for him to want to live there, but it had been cathartic in a way. He’d shown his mother that she couldn’t control his emotions anymore. He’d thrown out all her clothes and belongings and was slowly going through the boxes and boxes of papers that had been left in the small office.
Tonight, he’d take another step in purging the negative energy Rose Anderson had left behind. Alexis would sleep in his bed, in the same room his mother had shared with his father. But this time there would be nothing but love and tenderness. Not the hate and aggression of the past.
“Will three o’clock work for tomorrow?” Logan asked before Blake exited the car.
He considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, that’ll let us sleep in, then decompress before the meeting. You want us there an hour early to discuss how we want the meeting to go with the task force guy?”
“Good idea, yes. I’ll tell Grace to meet us there around five. We can go to dinner after we’re done.”
“Want me to call Nathan?” Blake asked.
“No. I’ll do it. You take care of Alexis,” Logan said.
“You guys do know I’m sitting right here, right? I can hear you. And I don’t need taking care of,” Alexis protested.
“Most days you don’t, but tonight you do,” Blake told her without hesitation, “and more importantly, I need to do it.” He opened the door, not giving her a chance to utter whatever witty comeback she was sure to have, climbed out, then offered her a hand to help her out of the car.
“See you tomorrow,” Logan called out to his brother. “And again, good job tonight, Alexis. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, holding on to Blake’s hand firmly as she stood up next to the car.
Blake put his arm around Lex and held on to the plastic bag of items Logan had picked up for her from the pharmacy earlier on the way home. He again took most of her weight as they made their way to the front door. “How badly are you hurt?” Blake asked.
“I’m okay,” Alexis told him. “I landed hard when I climbed over the fence. My ankles are throbbing and my lower back hurts, but I think after I take a hot shower and get some aspirin, I’ll feel better.”
“Mmmm,” Blake murmured, pissed all over again. “I’ll get some painkillers for after your shower. You can take them to hopefully stave off more pain in the morning.”
She agreed, and he unlocked the door to the house, holding it open, allowing Alexis to walk inside in front of him. She looked around and whistled low. “Holy cow. It looks great, Blake. You’ve made a ton of changes since the last time I was here. I almost can’t recognize it as the same house I stayed in a few months ago.”
She’d last been there while Logan and Grace were holed up in her apartment, after Grace had been kidnapped by the Inca Boyz. Blake hadn’t thought much of Alexis then; he was too suspicious of her because of everything that had happened with her brother. He’d been shocked when she’d shown an interest in working for Ace Security and even more surprised when she’d actually been good at it. Once he’d seen how hard she worked and how much she wanted to help others, he began to wonder what else he’d gotten wrong about her. It was then he’d slowly started to see her as more than a coworker and more as a beautiful woman he’d like to get to know better.
“Yeah, as you can see, I knocked out the wall between the living room and the kitchen to open it up. Then I had all the carpets ripped out. The hardwood floors are a bit chilly in the winter, but I love the way they look.”
“The couches are new too, right?” Alexis asked, her eyes taking in the warm space.
“Yup. Come on. You’re about to drop. You need to get clean. I think you’ll really appreciate the bathroom remodel.” Blake took her hand and headed down the short hallway toward the master bedroom. There were two more bedrooms on the other side of the house, a fact all of the brothers had been thankful for when they were growing up. The more space between them and their mother, the better they’d liked it.
It wasn’t the first time he’d held Lex’s hand, but it felt just as good this time as the last. He’d had her in his arms, and he’d kissed her, but it was almost just as intimate to feel the skin of her palms and her fingers intertwined with his own. It felt small and petite in his, and unfortunately was ice-cold. It wasn’t that chilly in his house, so he knew her chilled skin had to be a result of her state of mind.
She’d gone out of her way to seem unaffected by everything that had happened tonight, but it was pretty obvious that her nonchalance had been an act. She was freaked out by everything that had happened that night, and he hated that. Hated that she felt as if she needed to build a wall between them and not let him see how she was truly feeling. She’d hidden behind a false front long enough.
Blake led her through his bedroom and straight into his bathroom. He hadn’t been sure what he’d wanted when he’d first consulted with an interior designer, but the woman had done an amazing job. The room was light and airy. On the floor were light-brown slate tiles, which could be heated with a switch of a button. Along one wall stood a long counter, with two sinks that had cost an arm and a leg. They were brass and looked like raised bowls. The brown concrete countertop blended well with the color of the sinks. Behind the counter on the opposite wall was a huge shower, big enough for two people, with two showerheads and two controls.
The image of him and Lex showering together, facing each other while they soaped up, sprang into Blake’s mind. His cock hardened, and he turned away so Alexis wouldn’t notice. The last thing she needed right now was to deal with him not being able to control his body. He wanted her, there was no doubt, but somehow he knew she needed some space to regroup, and he’d do whatever it would take to help her get her equilibrium back.
In the corner of the room was a large triangular tub with jets strategically placed around the edges. Again, he could easily imagine Alexis relaxing in that tub. The image of her bending over while he took her from behind was as clear as if it was a memory rather than a fantasy. Rounding out the bathroom, across from the tub, was the door to a small alcove containing the toilet.
Blake dropped Alexis’s hand reluctantly and went straight to the linen closet. He pulled out one of the outrageously expensive towels his designer insisted he had to have and brought it over to where Lex was still standing, staring at the room around her.
“My God, Blake. This is amazing. It looks nothing like what used to be here. It’s like it went from a Motel 6 to the Ritz-Carlton.”
Blake chuckled and shrugged. “Yeah, I had to give up some of the square footage from the bedroom, but I figured it was worth it.”
“It was totally worth it,” she agreed. Alexis’s words were reverent, but she held herself stiff, her arms wrapped around her waist as if that was all that was holding her together.
Blake put the towel down on the counter between the sinks and reached for the necklace Lex was wearing. Without a word, he pulled it up and over her head, placing it gently next to the towel behind them.
Next he slowly moved his hands to the front of her jeans. He undid the top button, which gave him some slack, and he eased his fingertips under the band. She shivered under his hands but didn’t change her defensive position.
“I’m going to remove the mic now, sweetheart. Is tha
t all right?”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. So many emotions swam in her eyes. It would kill him to leave her like this, but he would if she needed the space. Blake knew she could take care of removing the mic herself, but he needed to take care of her.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she nodded slightly.
Blake held her eyes as he moved his hands up the front of her body toward her bra. She dropped her arms from around her waist, giving him access. Without pulling her shirt up, Blake’s fingers zeroed in on the small microphone nestled in the tight, warm space of her cleavage. The bra she was wearing pushed her breasts together so high and tight, where the mic was held snuggly, that the piece of adhesive tape holding it in place was almost unnecessary.
Lex was shivering, and he could feel the goose bumps spring up on her arms, which she routinely got when he touched her. It made him feel better that she could still react to him, even as vulnerable as she was, but he didn’t do anything to prolong the moment, working quickly, but gently, to peel back the tape and remove the mic. Blake ran the fingertips of one hand over the irritated skin between her breasts, wishing it was his tongue instead.
Knowing that her feeling clean was more important at the moment than his sexual urges, Blake slid his hands back down her body and out from under her shirt.
Without taking his eyes from her, Blake placed the microphone next to the necklace, then leaned on the counter with his palms, caging her in his arms in the process. “You want a shower or bath?”
“Shower,” she said immediately in a soft voice.
“Okay. Take your time. I’ll make us something to snack on.”
“I’m not hungry,” Alexis reminded him, still speaking in that low voice. She hadn’t moved to put her hands around him, but instead had moved them to hug herself again.
“I know you’re not, but you might feel differently after you shower. I’ll get something ready just in case. If you’re still not hungry, it’s not a big deal. Okay?”
“Okay, Blake.”
Remembering how she’d pulled away from him in the parking lot, Blake was careful to keep his intentions clear, as he leaned toward her now. He aimed his lips to her forehead and kept them against her skin for a long moment. Finally, he pulled back and, still not touching her, he kept his hands on the counter behind her by sheer force of will. He said softly, “I don’t know what’s going on in that brain of yours, but know this. I think you’re amazing. I’ve never been so proud, scared, and worried all at the same as I was tonight. I’m in awe of you. You’re the most unselfish, amazing, passionate woman I’ve ever known. Nothing that happened tonight has changed my mind about wanting to make love to you until you know nothing but me . . . surrounding you, inside you.” He moved his hands to frame her face and kissed the top of her head. “Shower, sweetheart. I’ll put a T-shirt and a pair of my running shorts on the bed for you. I’ll be in the kitchen; you can come out when you’re done.”
