by Aly Martinez
“I’m not naked and…I didn’t think anyone else was up.”
He blinked and I swear the night dimmed with his lids.
Cocking his head to the side, he repeated more slowly this time. “In…the…dark, Cora?”
“The lights on the third don’t work. They haven’t in at least a year.” Careful not to release my blanket, I used a single finger to point up at the ceiling. “I’ve changed the bulbs, but I think it’s electrical.”
“Shit can happen to a woman when they’re alone and in the dark.” It wasn’t a threat; if anything, it sounded like he was trying to offer me a fatherly warning. But I’d lived in that building long enough to know it was bullshit.
“Shit can also happen to a woman when they’re in a group and in broad daylight. Company or time of day isn’t exactly a factor.”
Suddenly, he became unstuck. Long strides carried him toward me. It would have been a really good time for nature’s fight-or-flight to kick in.
But that was the thing: I wasn’t afraid.
I didn’t know Penn. Where he had come from? Why he was truly there? What he was capable of? So call me naïve or just plain stupid, but he didn’t scare me.
Not after that day in the bathroom with Savannah.
Not after everything he’d done for Angela.
Not after everything he’d done for me.
I’d met a lot of bad men in my twenty-nine years, and Penn Walker was not one of them.
He stopped in front of me and rumbled, “Time of day might not be a factor, but this fucking neighborhood is.”
He was not wrong. The two other complexes on the street had been broken into so often that it seemed like they were on a weekly rotation. But a Guerrero had owned our building from the very first brick, which made it clear to the criminal population that we were untouchable—at least from the outside world. The monsters we worried about had their own set of keys. They were the same monsters who hated me, beat me, and had me locked away more than once, but they would have murdered an entire city if anyone else had laid a single finger on me. It was the only perk of being Guerrero property.
“Trust me, Penn. No one would be brave enough to take a stab at me.”
Out of nowhere, his face paled and a tortured combination of pure masculine beauty and soul-crushing agony crashed over him.
I knew that look of pain all too well. I usually saw it in the mirror though.
After shuffling over, I placed my palm on his chest. “Jesus, Penn. Are you okay?”
“Don’t do that,” he choked out as though my hand were wrapped around his throat and not resting over his heart.
I made a move to pull it away, but before I had the chance, his eyes slammed shut, his face drew up tight, and his large palm came down over my hand, pinning it to his heaving chest. “Shit, don’t do that, either.”
Okay. So no touching. And no not touching. Got it.
I searched his face for answers but came up empty. Though, after the last twenty-four hours, one could assume… “Is this about Angela?” I asked, wishing I’d had the courage to ask the real question. Is this about Lisa? Whoever she may be.
“No.”
“What about—”
He gave my hand a squeeze. “Cora, shhhh.”
Ooookay. So no talking, either. Not exactly my forte, but I’d give it a try.
For about thirty seconds.
“You can talk to me. I’m a great listener.” When he didn’t reply, I tacked on, “Please.”
Popping his eyes open, he winced. “You gotta stop sayin’ that.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“But you’re not.” Releasing my hand, he flew away as if I’d been holding him hostage. The loss of his warmth was violent, and the cold night’s air assaulted me.
He started to pace. “I can’t do this,” he huffed in pure and utter defeat. “You have to stop this bullshit with me.”
I blinked slow and incredulous.
I had to stop this bullshit with him?
I glanced around the empty hallway as if I could discover the answer to my question before I was forced to ask it. “What exactly is this bullshit you think I’m doing?”
He refused me eye contact as he cut two fingers through the air to indicate my body. “That. Right there. You gotta stop.”
Curling my lip, I looked down at myself. I was covered—for the most part. “Oh, right. Because I totally planned this. I somehow sensed that you’d be in the breezeway, having a nervous breakdown, so I quickly threw on a blanket, teased my hair into sleep knots, and then raced out here. Damn it. You caught me.”
He gripped the back of his neck. “I’m not saying you planned it. I’m just saying you have to stop. I’m begging you. Just put on some clothes and stop walking around in the dark. It’s not safe.”
I wrestled the blanket up. “In my experience, Penn, if a man wants something, a pair of pants and a light bulb won’t stop him.”
“What?” he snapped in a harsh tone that suggested he had very much heard me. And then he moved with long and heavy strides, advancing on me.
My stomach pitched, and a hum in my veins became deafening.
Gentle as a pillow, he collided with my front. His hand found my hip, firm but without the first hint of pain. Dipping his head low, he brought his mouth to my ear and asked, low and ominous, “In your experience?”
Heat rolled off him in waves, chasing a thrill down my spine and sparking my every nerve ending to life. “Oh, wow,” I whispered, closing my eyes. It had been over a decade since I’d felt that spark for a man.
“Answer me, Cora.”
Like a wanton fool, I swayed into him. “It’s a lesson we all learn.”
His hand tensed and he shook his head, his jaw ticking as though he were chewing on a curse. But he said no more.
And I couldn’t bring myself to break the static silence.
Not with him looming over me, touching-not touching-impossibly close-but-worlds-apart. And definitely not while I was floating in the most blissful pool of erotic anticipation.
As I was lost in sensation, rational thought wasn’t firing in the right direction, but there was nothing logical about the way my body responded to him.
With every inhale, his chest brushed against mine.
And, with every exhale, his breath seductively danced across my skin.
“Unlearn it,” he ordered. “In your experience.” He bent lower, his lips only fractions of millimeters away from sweeping my ear, and repeated, “Unlearn it.”
“Okay,” I panted, unsure of what exactly I was agreeing to and too entranced to care.
He stared, his eyes ticking back and forth between mine, until he finally spoke in a pained whisper. “How do you do this to me?”
“I guess that depends on what you think I do?” I asked, praying it was the same all-consuming heat he caused in me.
His eyes fluttered closed. “If I could answer that, I’d know how to block you out.”
My skin tingled as I pushed the envelope of what I thought he might allow. Cupping his cheek, I whispered, “Or you could just let me in.”
He groaned at the contact, a mixture of torture and desire. And then he leaned against my hand, agony etched across his face. “You have no idea what you’re asking from me.”
“No. I don’t. But that’s the beauty of getting to know someone.”
“And there’s our problem,” he mumbled before his lids flashed open and the man who had ignited me disappeared. He backed away, the cool air once again parting us, but it was the emptiness blazing from his hollow orbs that carried the chill. “Don’t try to get to know me, Cora. I’m not a puzzle you can figure out or a broken lamp you can put back together.” He patted hard on his chest. “This thing living inside me. It fucking burns. And if you get too close, I swear to God, it’s gonna light you on fire too. I will not be responsible for that.” He took a giant step toward me and seethed, “I cannot be responsible for that.”
My head snapped to th
e side. “Who asked you to be responsible for anything?”
“You did. The longer you stand there looking like that. The more you stare at me when you think I’m not looking. The more you smile and laugh. Every single minute that you are around me, you are making me responsible for that fire taking over your life too. So I am begging you. Drop this bullshit with me. Because, God’s honest truth, I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do it for both of us.”
I blinked at him, hating that I was so transparent but downright gleeful because… “You feel it too?”
He scoffed, those heavy, blue eyes coming back to mine. “I’ve known you two days and I’m drowning in it, Cora. So, yeah. It’s safe to say I feel it. But, right now, I really need you not to.”
He was drowning in it.
He was drowning in it.
He was drowning in it.
I didn’t even know what it was. But I felt it. And he was drowning in it.
“You’re afraid I’ll get burned?” I whispered, more than likely smiling.
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “You’re a strong woman. You could probably handle the heat. But if this goes anything like my past, what I’m afraid of is that, when that fire inevitably finds you, I’ll still be in the ocean, gasping for breath and completely helpless, when all it would take is a single drop of that water to save you.”
Oh. My. Gahhhhhhhhhh.
What did that even mean, and why did it awaken my entire body?
I stared at him, a warmth traveling through me.
He stared back, the picture of desperation.
My heart pounded.
His jaw ticked.
The muscles at his neck were taut.
My breathing was labored.
“I don’t want you to drown,” I whispered.
“And I don’t want you to burn. So, please, let’s just agree that this goes nowhere. I work here. You work here. End of story.”
I swallowed hard, unsure if I could promise him that. Penn was the first man who’d sparked anything inside me since Nic died. I couldn’t honestly tell him that I didn’t want to explore that.
Maybe it’d fizzle out.
But maybe it wouldn’t.
But, in my world, where pain, filth, and fear were a way of life, why waste the possibility of finally feeling something incredible?
So, for that reason alone, I replied, “Lie. Okay. End of story.”
He arched an incredulous eyebrow. “Lie?”
I shuffled toward the stairs. “I said okay, didn’t I?”
He eyed me with suspicion. Rightly so. But it wasn’t my problem that he didn’t understand how Truth or Lie worked. I’d clearly stated that I was lying. He could hardly be mad about that.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on one of the girls.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t bullshit me. What did you mean by ‘lie’?”
I held my blanket tight as I gingerly took the steps one at a time. “I said okay. What more do you want?”
“Maybe the truth,” he said, following me down.
I kept going. “Lie. I told you the truth.”
He kept following. “Why the hell do you keep saying ‘lie’?”
I ignored his question and carried on to the second floor. Giving him another lie wasn’t going to help my case.
Once we got to Jennifer’s door, Penn must have realized he wasn’t going to get a straight answer, but he didn’t turn around and march home the way I’d expected.
For the next five minutes, he silently stood guard at the side of the door while I forced Jennifer out of bed, gave her a once-over, and interrogated her about her night.
When she had convinced me that she truly was fine, Penn walked me back up to the third floor and stopped in the breezeway, much the way I’d found him.
Full circle—only this time, I knew how amazing it felt to be in his arms and that he was drowning in the same it that had been consuming me.
My heart lurched as he took long strides toward me. Unfortunately, he veered away from me at the last second, bent at the waist, and retrieved my long-since-forgotten—and more than likely broken—phone before offering it my way. “Go inside. It’s cold out here.”
It wasn’t cold when you were holding me.
As if he’d heard me, he shook his head. “Jesus, you’re stubborn.”
I grinned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right. Of course not.” He cut his eyes over my shoulder, staring blankly at the brick wall. “Can you at least tell me you heard what I said earlier? It’s dangerous out here. If I were a different type of man standing in the hall tonight when you came out looking like that, things could have gone bad for you.”
If curiosity killed the cat, I’d have been on my ninth life for the day and the sun hadn’t come up yet.
“And what kind of man are you, Penn?”
He sighed, planted his hands on his hips, and answered, “Four years ago, I could have answered that no problem. Now? I have no idea anymore.”
“Maybe I could help you figure it out.”
“Christ. You’re not going to let up, are you?”
I shrugged noncommittally and repeated, “I said okay.”
“And you also said it was a lie.” He blew out a heavy breath. “Just…go inside and lock your door.”
I nodded but didn’t move.
“Cora,” he groaned, but it was definitely a plea.
For a fraction of a second, I felt guilty.
Until I remembered his hand on my hip. His breath on my neck. His chest against mine.
After that, all bets were off.
“You know. Just to be clear. I live in hell, Penn. I’m not scared of the flames.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stiffen, but never one to bask in the suffering of another, I turned, opened my door, and went inside.
When I slid the third lock into place, I heard his door shut.
Penn
“Oh God,” I breathed, putting my back to the door. My skull hit the wood with a dull thump, but pain splintered in my head, ricocheting through my body until I thought I was being divided in two.
And honestly, I feared that was exactly what was happening.
My chest ached and my throat felt like I’d swallowed a bag of sand, but it was the swirling in my gut that I knew would destroy me.
Cora fucking Guerrero.
Screwing my eyes shut, I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing I hadn’t been waiting in the hall on the off chance that Marcos had made his move.
Of course she’d come out half naked, her honey-tanned legs traveling up to bubblegum-pink panties that were damn near invisible.
Of course, when she’d touched me, it’d shredded the numbness I’d purposely constructed to keep the anger locked inside—and people like her out.
Of course I’d felt it all, right down to her fingerprints branding me through my shirt.
And, of fucking course, I’d had to go to war against my body not to take one single taste of her mouth. If she had pushed the issue a second longer, I’d have lost that battle in spectacular fashion.
Sliding down the door, I sank to my ass and whispered, “What the hell am I doing?”
“Good question,” Drew replied.
I jerked my head up and found him sprawled out across the couch, his eyes closed and aimed up at the ceiling, but a classic smile tipped his lips.
Grasping at straws, I lied, “I heard something and went to check.”
He opened his lids and swiveled his head to face me. “And you just so happened to stop to put on a jacket and boots first?”
“I was already up,” I mumbled, rising to my feet and walking away, headed nowhere in particular as long as it was away from him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“That might be because you sat in the hall all night, staring at her door.”
I ground my molars, cursing myself for not giving him the bedroom.
He knifed u
p, stretching his arms over his head. “This building is made of construction paper and paperclips. If Marcos had shown up, we’d have heard him.”
“I had a bad feeling. Okay? Get off my ass.”
“I’m not giving you shit. You’re a free man, Penn. Stare at her door for the rest of your natural life if you want. But I will say—you getting into a clench with her is hardly gonna help my case.”
Of course he’d seen. I bet his eye had been glued to that goddamn peephole like it was his job. Which…I guessed it kinda was.
“Fuck off.”
He put a hand to his chest. “I can keep trying, but we both know she’s into you, whether she’s ready to admit it or not. We’d be idiots not to capitalize on that. It’s been two days and you’ve accomplished more than I could do in two months. Why are you fighting it?”
“Please, help me. Please.”
“Because we had a plan,” I said.
He stood and walked over to me. “And plans change. Five years ago, being here was not my plan. And it sure as hell wasn’t yours.” He took my wrist, lifting my tattooed arm up as though it were exhibit A. “Adapt or die, remember?”
God, I hated it when he was right. I’d lived thirty-three years of my life without so much as the first desire to be inked. I’d worn suits to work and driven an Audi. I’d slept in a bed that had been custom made for my maximum comfort. And I’d fallen asleep each night with the sound of waves crashing outside my bedroom window.
That was all before twenty-nine minutes changed my life.
Now, I was nothing.
No one.
I had but one purpose.
And, because of Cora and the fucked-up shit she was doing to my head, I was already failing.
Tugging my arm from his grasp, I groaned and used my thumb and forefinger to rub my eyes. “I can’t adapt to this one.”
“Honestly, I don’t think you have to. The mystery-man bit seems to be her type.”
“Fuck her type.” I stabbed a shaky finger at my chest. My voice got loud as I seethed, “That woman is going to kill me.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve touched the decorative ornament hanging between your legs recently, but you’re still a man. And she’s a good woman who’s into you. Of course she’s going to kill you. That’s what women do.” He gripped my shoulder and captured my gaze. “And that’s okay.”
