Pieces of Me

by Walker, Shiloh

  “How can I be safe if I don’t?”

  The hand in my hair spasmed.

  His eyes squeezed shut.

  Then, he crushed me against him and I couldn’t do anything but stare out over the water while his chest heaved against mine. “I asked you once…” he said after almost ten minutes. His voice was ragged, edged with a growl and it sent a shiver down my spine. “I told you I wanted him dead in a ditch. I asked if you wanted him to be. Shadow, I’m having a hard time not making that into a reality right now.”

  I smoothed my hand up his neck, along his close-cut hair. “And if you get caught, what then?”

  He leaned back. “I’d be damn sure not to get caught.”

  And judging by the look in his eyes, he knew what he was talking about.

  “No.” I shook my head, said it again, “No.”

  It was more important for me to have him there. He had somehow become too important to me.

  “No.” His eyes closed. A hard shudder went through him. Seconds ticked away. I could almost feel the slow, inexorable passage of time. When he looked back at me, the expression in his eyes was harsh, raw. Demanding. “Then trust me.”

  “Trust you?”

  He pushed my skirt to my thighs. A second later, there was a jerk at my hips and he lifted me up.

  “Trust me.” He reached between us and then he was naked, the length of his cock bared and pressed against me. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  Sensation jolted through me and I whimpered as his fingers sought me out, stroked me. It just took that, and I was ready. His eyes on me, a quick tug, and I was hungry, starving for him, wet and aching. “You might not always be here,” I said, my voice shaking as he tucked the head of his cock against me.

  “Yes.” His eyes bored into me, practically daring me to say otherwise. “I will. Take me, Shadow.”

  I gasped as the fat head slid inside me. “You…” He was so hot. “You’re not wearing a rubber.”

  “I know. You take the pill.” He paused a moment, letting me think.

  Slowly, I nodded. “I have to. Um…female reasons.”

  “Then unless you want me wearing one, we don’t need it.” He hesitated for another second. The hand in my hair slid to my face, cupped my cheek. “You’ll be safe with me.”

  Those words, such a promise. Of so many things.

  I let myself slide down against him. Such an intimate, deep connection. His hands caught my hips under my skirt. His mouth pressed to my neck. “Shadow.”

  I shivered. He trailed one finger along the crevice between the cheeks of my bottom and I stilled, my eyes seeking his face. “Stay with me,” he ordered, taking my mouth as he started to move within me.

  There was no question of that. Not this time. Driving so deep inside me, stretching me, so hot, and I felt so much more—he was like silk stretched over iron and each stroke was a delicious, shuddering little tease. Too much, far too much sensation, and I was lost.

  Lost…and I was perfectly fine with it.

  As he came inside me, bringing me to climax, his mouth caught mine and my climax was a desperate cry against his lips.

  Safe. And with him.

  Two things I desperately needed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had a week of bliss.

  Maybe the locksmith looked at me as if I were crazy when I told him the exact kind of locks I wanted on each door, but the look faded fast when he looked at Jenks, standing so close behind me.

  Something inside me whispered that I was rushing things, and logically, I even understood that.

  But I couldn’t go back home, not yet.

  I’d tried, for one night.

  And I’d panicked every time I heard a loud sound.

  I’d never feel safe there again.

  Detective Barry had told me that my ex-husband had an alibi for the night my home was vandalized. So shocking. The alibi? A former friend of mine, Lesil Holland. She was his administrative assistant and they had been otherwise engaged. Barry had a dry tone in her voice when she told me that, and I had a feeling she was using the exact tone Lesil had used when the woman had given the alibi.

  Lesil could have lied.

  She could have done so easily.

  And none of it mattered.

  I’d expected nothing more, really.

  What did matter? I had a place where I felt safe and now there was a series of locks that I could actually trust. The French doors were a problem, but Jenks promised me they were solid and strong and he was going to look into having an alarm system installed that would trigger an alert if windows were broken. I could work with that. And he was home at night. During the day, I could work outside where there were people and if there were people, I was safe.

  I had a week of what was almost paradise, for me. I even managed a few days where I only checked those locks twice after Jenks left each day at two. He was gone from two until almost nine, working, Monday through Friday, and I managed to get caught up and even get some stock covers done. Then I went to upload them on my site and I couldn’t.

  What was worse…when I went to log in, the site was locked to me.

  My heart lunged up into my throat and I automatically went to my website to make sure it was up and a scream rose in my throat at what I saw.

  Swiping out with my arm, I knocked the MacBook from my lap and watched as it crashed to ground. Limbs lose and shaking, I clambered to my feet and stumbled away.

  I recognized myself.

  Others probably wouldn’t, but I did.

  The skinny arch of my spine, bent over.

  He’d used an infrared camera or whatever it was that allowed one to take pictures in the dark. Was that how he had always found me so easily?

  I didn’t know.

  I was naked, bent over. A puddle of something wet, dark and shiny spread out from under me and I shoved the back of my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming.

  How had he gotten to my website?

  I grabbed my phone, called Seth.

  He’d helped me set it up, still helped with updates. If anybody could help, it would be him.

  “Son of a fucking bitch!” Seth snarled as he slammed a fist against the table.

  I flinched.

  Marla wrapped an arm around my shoulders and rubbed her cheek against my hair.

  “He has to get it down,” I said, my voice shaking.

  It had been three hours. I didn’t know how much longer I could handle it, seeing that image, knowing others had seen it.

  “He will.”

  Silence fell once more, broken only by the ratta tat tat of Seth’s fingers flying over the keys and his short, terse sentences as he spoke with tech support. He used local places for everything and that made some of it easier. It also meant that somebody might be able to connect that broken, pale form on my website to me.

  “Yeah…yeah…” Seth paused. “Got it.”

  A few seconds later, he hung up the phone and then hunched over the keyboard. While he was banging away, the first of the series of locks on the door unlocked.

  He didn’t look up.

  Marla and I did.

  Jenks stood in the doorway.

  The silence that fell was one of those awkward, almost heavy silences. So heavy, I’d think we couldn’t lift it. My throat burned and ached as I huddled against Marla, her arm a comforting weight around my shoulders.

  Jenks slid his gaze over to Seth, lingered there before coming back to me as he came inside and shut the door at his back. “What’s going on?”

  Marla looked at me as I straightened up. I had to handle this. Even as she opened her mouth, I knew what she was going to say. But I had to do this. Shaking my head, I said, “No.”

  Seth shot a look over his shoulder at me, then Marla, his gaze barely glancing over Jenks. “Marla, leave her be. She can handle this,” he said. Then he went back to the computer. Or started to. His gaze bounced past Jenks, then came back, hesitated.

  Jenks looked at hi
m, stared.

  Something about that look made my belly draw tight, but I didn’t have time, or the soul left inside me, to panic about whatever had Seth looking like that, and the heart-destroying image I’d seen on the computer.

  My legs felt clumsy beneath me as I shoved upright. I don’t know if gravity had increased or if I was just that tired, but it was so hard to stand there, so hard to look at him as I asked Seth, “Is it still up?”

  I felt my friend’s eyes on me as he said softly, “No. I got it down right before he walked in. I’ve…” He paused.

  I looked over at him, waited.

  “There are screen shots.” His brows dropped low over his eyes as he stared at me. “You don’t need to show him, Shadow. Just tell him.”

  “You said it yourself.” My voice shook as I reminded him. “I can handle this.”

  His angry, ugly curse blistered the air as he shoved his hands through his spiked hair, dyed black as the night. Then he tapped a few keys and brought the images up. “There.” He jerked his chin up and stood, glaring at Jenks.

  Something angry and tight stretched out between them. I didn’t know what it was, couldn’t understand it, and it didn’t matter. I’d deal with that later. After…after this. What the hell.

  Jenks walked across the floor, his steps oddly rigid, his spine tense. One hand hung at his side, curled into a fist. He stopped in front of the monitor and then he whipped his head around, stared at me. “What the flying fuck? What is this?”

  “That was me,” I said , my voice wooden. “Three years ago, give or take. Some time before the tornado.”

  His eyes went icy. A muscle bunched in his jaw. “How?”

  “I…” My voice broke. Looking away, I managed, somehow, to get the words out even though it felt like my heart, my soul, was dying, shriveling away inside me. “He must have used some sort of infrared camera. That was me, that was how I looked when I got to the hospital. Skin and bone, maybe a week or two away from death. He took pictures of me like that. And he kept them.”

  “How did you get them?” he demanded.

  I looked back at them and then turned away. “Seth?”

  “Somebody hacked her website,” Seth said, his voice hard and lined with iron. “Everything is gone. I’ve got it backed up on my hard drive at home, but instead of the portfolios and everything we spent months setting up, there’s just this.”

  He flipped the screen off and stormed away, moving to stare out the window a few feet away from me, his body vibrating with fury. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Seth…”

  “I’m sorry, Shadow.”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my brow to the glass.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Fuck that. I designed the site, set up the security and somebody got through.” He spun back around and glared at the computer on the other side of the room. He looked at it as if he thought it might come alive and devour us.

  Personally, I thought that might be the easier way to go.

  But death by monsterized computer equipment didn’t happen in the next few minutes and I had to watch as Jenks bent over the computer, his hands braced on the desk, that muscle still pulsing in his jaw. He scrolled through the screen caps, including the ones where Seth had taken shots of the IP number and everything else he could track down.

  “They have no idea who requested the password reset?” he asked after almost five minutes.

  “No, genius,” Seth bit off, his voice sour. “If they did, I could be a lot more useful.”

  Jenks slowly lifted his head, turned and stared at Seth across the long, gleaming expanse of polished wooden floor.

  Seth jerked his chin up and crossed his arms over his chest, glared right back.

  “Seth.”

  He looked over at me, the moment shattering around them. I had to fight to keep from sucking in a breath as the tension in the room ebbed away and the testosterone levels returned to something resembling normal. “What?” he bit off.

  “What did the tech people say?”

  Some of the fury drained away, replaced by frustration and he turned back to the windows, staring outside. “It was an online request. They’ll get us what info they can, but whoever requested the password had the security info and nothing set off the red flags. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if anything had triggered any alerts.”

  “Stefan isn’t a computer person.” I felt as though somebody had reached inside and tied me into knots—hot, tight painful ones. I wanted to crawl away somewhere and hide. I wanted to run. I wanted the floor to open up beneath me and just swallow me whole. Fear, humiliation and horror washed over me in awful waves.

  Hands came up and covered my shoulders.

  I tensed, the urge to jerk away from Jenks grabbing me hard.

  He must have sensed it because he crowded up against me and wrapped his arms around me, one bracketing my upper arms, the other coming around my waist. In the back of my mind, a wild, terrified voice started to scream as memories broke free.

  I focused on the dying rays of the sun as it sank into the water, the rays of gold and orange turning the waves to fire. I wasn’t trapped in darkness. This wasn’t Stefan. The scents that surrounded me were of musk, man, the ocean and the sun. I wasn’t choking on the overpowering scent of sandalwood—some customized cologne Stefan had always worn. That cologne had come to signal despair. I wouldn’t find myself shoved to the floor, pinned down and battered, beaten, violated yet again.

  Breathing through my teeth, I looked down at his arms. Slowly, I lifted one hand, stroked my fingers along his arm.

  Some of the tension I felt in him relaxed.

  “You don’t think it was anybody but him, do you?” he asked, his voice low. Seth heard, but Marla, still a good fifteen feet away didn’t.

  I turned my head, met his gaze, so close to mine. I breathed in, let the familiar scent of him sooth me. “It was him. He would have paid somebody—he couldn’t do it and wouldn’t bother to learn, assuming he could, but it was him.”

  “Then there’s a trail.”

  That heavy silence returned.

  I hated it, could have screamed, just to shatter it.

  As my heart throbbed and raced like a wild thing, I had to fight the urge to pace the floors. My chest felt tight and hot. The sun was barely a sliver on the horizon now and the thought of the daylight being gone, of being wrapped in darkness once more, made my lungs go tight.

  Dimly, I heard Jenks speaking and I had to force myself to listen. He wasn’t even speaking to me.

  “Anything else you can do?”

  Seth’s lip curled as he stared at Jenks. The antipathy between them was palpable and I didn’t understand it. I needed to but it was one more thing that my brain just couldn’t process.

  “Sure, big guy,” Seth drawled, his voice heavy, all but dripping with sarcasm. Then he cut his gaze my way and his eyes softened. He dragged his hands down his face and looked back out over the water. “I’ll ramp up the security, add as many layers as I can. Maybe the tech guys can suggest some stuff. They’re going to get with me as they learn what happened anyway.”

  “What do they expect to find?” I shook my head, vaguely aware I’d leaned back against Jenks. It wasn’t unpleasant, I realized, letting him hold me like this. It was an embrace, not a prison. That wasn’t a bad thing. His breath teased the hair at my temple, his hand covered my breastbone protectively.

  “I don’t know. They can at least pinpoint where the mess started, what part of the country.” Seth shrugged “That’s not much, but it’s something. And they may be able to find more.”

  “I want more.” Jenks’ voice was hard, full of an authority I hadn’t heard from him before.”

  Seth glared at him. “Yeah, well, I’d like to tell you to suck my dick, but we know how that will go over, don’t we?” Then he looked at me.

  Jenks stiffened.

  “Don’t.” I broke away, placed myself between them. “I don’t
know what is with you two, but don’t. Okay?”

  Then I turned, stormed out of the room. Ahead of me, the bedroom loomed, the doorway a dark maw. I slapped at the wall inside clumsily until the lights came on. The soft golden glow wasn’t enough to chase away the shadows. Not tonight.

  Tonight, I didn’t know if anything would work to ease the horror inside.

  The four walls threatened to close around me and, desperate, I shoved through the French doors, throwing them open and lurching outside.

  Turning on the sconces on the wall, I stumbled over to the fire pit and managed to get it lit. The flames blazed to life, but did nothing to warm me inside.

  Time crawled by.

  It could have been five minutes since I came outside, desperate to escape.

  It could have been fifty.

  When the door opened, I closed my eyes and would have stayed that way if I hadn’t felt the weight of their stares, boring into me.

  Anger and nerves were etched on Seth’s face and Marla looked uneasy. She held his hand, but something about the way they touched had me thinking she was holding him back. Seth, one of the most easy-going guys I knew.

  “You okay here?” Seth asked, the words tumbling out of him so fast, I barely understood him.

  Jenks moved out of the bedroom but didn’t come any closer, a dark shadow hovering just outside that circle of light. My gaze locked on him and I tried to understand just what was going on.

  I didn’t know and that hot ball in my chest surged and expanded. “Why wouldn’t I be?” It came out rougher than I expected, almost ragged, and I looked back at the fire, tried to find some measure of peace.

  “You can come home with us,” Seth offered. “You won’t be alone there.”

  Marla leaned against him, her head against his arm. Her eyes met mine. “You’re always welcome, baby. You’re like a sister to me.”

  “You need to find a better family tree,” I said softly. Then I shook my head. “No. I appreciate it, but no. Stefan’s already tried to ruin Seth’s life. It won’t take much for him to decide to fuck around with you, too. I love you all too much to let him make you a target because you were kind to me.”