by Nicole Snow
Fuck. It’s so real I can almost taste her, wet on my tongue.
Drenching herself with the heat and hunger I know I can coax past that shyness...
Yeah.
When I think of that, when I think of what could have been if we’d had normal lives and grown into ourselves side by side, realizing what we’d been ignoring for years...
I almost want to be that man again.
That man I can never be, when if I touch her, if I take her, if I discover for myself just how sweet and tight the depths of her body could be, I know what happens next.
Not think. Not imagine.
Know.
I’ll defile her.
I'll ruin her.
I'll leash her heart and her mind and her sweet, sweet cunt to every piece of me, and I'm a maniac who won't let go.
It’s not like she could ever look at me with that kind of trust for real, anyway, no matter how many little longing glances she throws my way, glances that tell me she expects better from me.
It’s not hard to tell she still fears me as much as she wants me.
She should.
I’ve given her plenty of reason.
Still, it's hard to remember that when the blood throbs lightning in my temples and my cock, and I’m five seconds away from dragging her into my lap and finding out what it’s like when we kiss for real.
This time without any damn spectators.
I regret that last thought a split second later. An imperious little rap interrupts us, knocking against the doorframe leading out to the deck. Reb jumps from the surprise, and I'm almost right behind her.
Milah.
She's standing there, looking smug, her little pouting petulant fit apparently forgotten. In fact, she almost looks triumphant as she tosses Kenna a sour look, then shoulders past her.
Ducking her head, Kenna retreats a step, hugging that journal to her chest like a shield. I push to my feet.
More interested in positioning myself as a shield between them when Kenna looks like a kicked puppy, but Milah doesn’t give me the chance. She inserts herself in my path, raking me with a once-over that feels so possessive it makes my skin crawl, turning a saccharine smile up at me with her lips pursed, as if inviting a kiss.
I don’t even get to ask her if she’s made up her mind yet before she’s already baby-lisping at me.
“Good news, Landy. I’ve decided,” she purrs, “that you can still be my good boy.”
My eyebrows fly into my hairline. A growl rises up the back of my throat.
There’s a fuck that stalled on my lips, but she keeps talking, tossing another of those victorious, cruel looks over her shoulder at Reb.
“I heard everything,” Milah says. “Girlfriend? I knew it couldn’t be true.” She smirks. “Did you think I'm stupid? Like those ratty, shit-flinging tabloids all say? Fun fact: nobody lies to Milah Holly.”
Then her slender hand – with nails that feel like claws that could easily dig hard where they don’t belong – cups over my erection. It immediately withers, my gorge rising, but she doesn’t even seem to notice, her smirk widening. “This will be mine by next week, Landy, and there’s nothing your fake girlfriend can do about it. I'll suck it, jack it, whack it, ride it, and love it allll I want – and you'll damn well enjoy every splendid second.”
My eyes flash to Kenna. There's a raging, almost violent look in her eyes I've never seen before. I'm expecting her to physically assault my very crazy, disgusting, self-absorbed client, and I'm almost ready to let it happen. Deal with the fallout.
I’m under half a breath away from shoving back from Milah as violently as I can – doing the damage so Kenna doesn't have to – when she pulls back herself, freeing me from that nauseating hand.
I'm fucking furious. Lungs heaving black smoke. It couldn't be more obvious, but she’s completely blind to it. Another proprietary look that I guess is supposed to be sultry, seductive, and then she’s sauntering away, leaving me alone.
Alone, because Kenna’s gone.
And it’s suddenly important that I tell her I’m not into Milah.
I could never be into Milah, because Milah Holly's the most entitled asshole I’ve ever seen. A universe apart from a shy, pretty girl trying so hard to pretend to be grown-up, just so I’ll finally see her as the woman she is and not my best friend’s bratty little sis.
So fucked. That's what this is. Don’t even know where to start untangling it.
I only know that I can’t do this.
No Kenna, no Milah, none of it.
I’ve got to step back, reassess, get my head on straight. This sideshow is messing up everything, especially after the talk I had with Dallas.
I fling myself through the deck doors and toward the stairs, already digging out my phone and thumbing through my address book for Milah’s agent’s number.
This job is off.
Getting grabby with me like that goes too far. Not in the contract. You don’t fucking do that to anyone when they've made it crystal clear their skin's crawling.
But before I can hit the Call button, my phone vibrates in my hand.
Skylar again – holding things down at the office today while I'm not there. I pause on the stairs, sighing, then take the call and lift the phone to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, boss.” Skylar sounds out of breath, and I can hear something that sounds like boxes being shoved around. Probably dragging crates of surveillance gear. We've got a few new toys recently, and Milah's next show was supposed to be their trial run. “Everything's set. Thought you'd want to know. We've done the leg work and tactical assessment at the arena, but we’ve got a problem.”
I drag my free hand over my face. “We always have problems. What is it this time?”
“Crown Security.” She pauses tactfully. “Don't shoot the messenger.”
Fair disclaimer.
My gut feels like a rock. “What the fuck is Crown doing? Skylar?”
“Working with us, apparently.” Skylar's soft voice has a rare wry rumor. “An arena this big is way too huge for us, Landon. Milah’s team made that call, not us, but it’s not wrong. They over-sold her show. So, we’re handling the VIP area and the stage with Milah herself, but Dallas and Crown are going to handle out-perimeter security.”
Fuck. My. Life.
If I could somehow stop my fists from wanting to slam into the nearest surface, I'd admit it’s smart. Sensible.
It also pisses me off, and leaves me in a bind. I have to stay on the job now, just to save face in front of that asshole.
If I’m honest with myself, though, I’d have stayed on anyway. I’m not the only one affected by this job. I might have enough money to keep myself square for a while, but I’d be stiffing my crew out more than half their pay on this job if I had to compensate it out of my own pocket instead of Milah’s fees.
I can't do that to them.
Doing the right thing, right now, means dealing with goddamn Dallas.
I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath, then continue down the stairs. Where did Kenna go, anyway?
“We’ll make do. It’s just one job. Play nice with the guys from Crown. Their shitty boss isn’t their fault.”
“You're taking this well. I'm glad.” Skylar actually laughs, which makes me blink. Then she grunts. “Crap, yeah, gotta go. Sorry. Riker needs a hand, heavy lifting.”
“Don’t do anything to get me reported to OSHA, Pixie.” She's anything but a soft little fairy, hence the name.
I hang up after another of her laughs, which brings a smile to my face, knowing everything she's been through the past few months.
Then I stop at the foot of the stairs and glance around, raking a hand through my hair. My house suddenly feels too large. I feel too helpless in it.
Feels empty, too.
Like I'm the only one here.
My old military sense tingles. Just like I have an uncanny sense for intruders, I also know when there's no one else around.
How does she do that? She’s practically a green-eyed little cat, disappearing without a sound.
Maybe she’s out at the beach house again, digging for more of her stuff in the wreckage.
For some screwed up reason, I hope that's where I'll find her.
I head outside. It takes a second to register that her Prius isn’t in the driveway anymore, but I don’t think much until I see the note tucked under my Impala's windshield wiper.
Blue paper. I already know it’s from her, because those blue Post-It notepads were always her thing in high school, books and notebooks bristling with them tucked inside and full of random scribbles.
Any hint of nostalgia from that memory is gone when I see what the note says, tugging it out and unfolding it between my fingers.
I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Goodbye, Landon.
I won’t say anything. I promise.
And I promise I never told anyone. Believe me, or don't. Your choice.
You’ll always be safe with me.
-Reb
Every inch of my body prickles with a cold sweat.
Safe. That's what she said.
More than the gut-punch at knowing she’s gone, it’s that single word that hits so hard. I know what she saw in my journal.
The darkest part of me, a part of myself I still haven’t reckoned with, a part I’ll never unload until the day I can find and confront my father’s killer, and find out if I have the strength to take another man’s life when he’s not an enemy combatant determined to kill me if I don’t end him first.
And Reb, little Reb...
Has been fucking protecting me all these years.
She isn't lying. I'm not sure if she's ever told a serious lie in her whole damn life.
I’ve hated that she saw that part of me. Hated that she knows what I’m capable of. Hated like I didn't know I could, knowing she’s been protecting me.
It's like I'm underwater. Lungs heavy. This crushing feeling bleeding inside me.
I can’t let her leave like this.
I have forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours till the end of next weekend, and my life belongs to Milah Holly and Dallas Reese.
Forty-eight hours to find that little cat of a woman, drag her back here, and set things right between us.
I rush through the next half hour. Put out extra food for the cats, make sure Milah hasn’t overdosed in some weird corner of my property, and lock up the house before I toss an overnight bag in my car and peel out.
L.A. isn’t a long drive, but she’s got a head start on me. I’m going to find Kenna.
We’re going to talk about this.
About what she saw in my journal.
About that kiss.
About everything.
And then, willing or not, I’m bringing my little Reb home.
11
Seeing Stars (Kenna)
The great thing about having a big brother is that he’s always willing to be a big brother, oversized puppy that he is.
And when I showed up at his doorstep all wet-eyed and sniffly, he didn’t even ask questions. He just hugged me tight, took my bag, and settled me down in the guest room with a pint of Rocky Road and his Netflix password.
His wife, Melanie, is just as kind and doting, inviting me out for a spa day and just hugging me cheerfully when I say maybe not today.
Today, I just want to be alone, and try to lose myself in the story I’m failing to write.
I don’t want to be me, right now.
I’d rather live in someone else’s head.
That’s why, stomach full of Rocky Road, I’m perched at the red-painted picnic table in Steve’s back yard. It’s quiet out here under the dappled shade of the trees, save for the distant shouts of someone’s kids at the playground down the street.
Steve’s settled so quietly into suburban life, with his sprawling house and fenced-in, manicured yard. He’s such a good guy, and the kind of hero I’d never write about. Or maybe I’m just not that into the Prince Charming type.
Maybe I should try to be.
Because staring at this freaking Landon stand-in jumping out from my pages, larger than life, has chased me right back to the hellish dungeon of shitty, awful writer’s block.
So much for not living inside my own head, when he’s everywhere. On my mind. On the page. Burned into my body, when I still remember the look on his face – devouring, blue eyes pure wildfire – when he smirked his devil’s smirk and talked so casually about fucking. Me.
I could feel it. I could feel it like the word fuck was a sick, sweet dirty violation sliding inside me.
This thickness. This heat, parting my flesh and filling up inside me until we locked together and I couldn’t feel anything but the deep hungry thrust of his cock inside me.
My face is burning, and it’s not the summer heat. Oh, God.
Maybe I should take a dip in Steve’s pool to cool myself off. I close my eyes and thunk my head against the blank pages of my journal.
I’m not like this. Not usually.
Sure, I have dirty fantasies about imaginary men and then put them on the page. I share what gets me off with the whole world, bestselling romance author that I am.
But it’s not like me to get this hung up on a real guy and sit here numb, suffering in my clothing with my nipples aching against my bra and my panties clinging to me in a sopping wet mess. Just thinking about that moment when, for just a second, I’d have sworn Landon was ready to pull me onto his lap with those big, coarse hands on my hips while I tore my clothing off and rode him.
It's never been like this. Not even when my hormones were exploding in puberty and he was the closest thing I had to a boy idol. But back then, I was young, and sex was just a nebulous idea in dirty books or on TV after my parents went to bed.
Now?
Now I know exactly what I want, and just the thought makes me throb.
Why can’t it be as easy as it is in my books?
Smoldering chemistry. Undeniable desire. That beautiful moment when they can’t resist each other. No words, no mess, just sudden perfect need.
Everything crashing together. Knowing what they want without saying a single thing.
If only real life were so magical.
I shrug, lost in my head. Maybe falling back on that trope is why my books have been falling flat lately.
I just plotz away there for hours. Hours where the misery and frustration of failure and no income do dark wonders to calm my reckless libido.
I’m watching a ladybug trundle its way across the picnic table in the waning twilight, the sun sinking just enough for the automatic sensors to trigger the flickering string lights Steve’s strung up all around his backyard like little bits of floating embers. I can’t help but smile, as I lift my head and look up at the tiny motes of light in the trees.
Steve is such a human cinnamon roll, I swear. All goodness, comfort, sweetness. Too pure for this world.
And being around him makes me feel so much better, even when he’s not here, away at his engineering job most days.
It isn't perfect. But at least I feel...home.
At least until motion catches my attention near the fence. I jerk, tensing.
When you’re home alone in a home that isn’t your own, it only takes a millisecond to ramp from peaceful solitude to masked stalker here to kill me.
Yet when I turn, it’s not a serial killer in a creepy hockey mask climbing over Steve’s fence. It's not Mr. Hoodie, the stranger who ambushed me at Landon's place, returning for a bad re-run.
It’s someone much better and worse.
Landon.
Cold jolts through me with surprise, followed by heat roaring through with the force of seismic waves so heavy they take my legs out from under me when I try to stand. I manage to rise about half an inch before I thump numbly back down on the p
icnic table’s bench. He looks like everything that’s been running through my head since I left: wild, primitive, this dark leviathan god full of so much primal energy it practically vibrates off him.
He also looks like every heartbreak I’ve ever known.
And I can’t have him here while I’m still breaking over watching Milah crawl on him this morning, after he found those words I’d never wanted him to read, every wayward thought I’ve refused to acknowledge since I was a teenager committed to incriminating paper.
He drops down lithely from the top of the fence, then just stands there, breathing heavily, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. There’s something dangerous about him right now, something volatile, this vibrant dynamite that could go off anytime if I just light the match – yet he’s different, too.
The dark shadow, that haunted and cruel air that’s hovered over him for years, isn’t there when I look into his eyes.
We hold for long, breathless moments. My chest tightens. The silence hurts. Beyond painful.
“I...” I, nothing. I swallow, licking my lips. “There are doors, you know?” I offer weakly, my voice nearly drowned in the soundless thing building between us.
“Didn’t want to deal with Steve. Didn't need him knowing.” Low. Growling. Steady. Whatever he’s here for, he’s certain of it. He steps closer to me on prowling movements. “I came for you, Reb.”
My heart does a suicide run against my rib cage and smashes into it hard, nearly compressing itself flat. “I...what? But you –”
“Don’t want you around? Can’t stand you? Won’t ever forgive you?” Every word is a bullet fired from the cruel gun of his mouth.
Every one is punctuated by another step closer, while those penetrating eyes hold me in place until I can’t even run from the pain. “Except you’re wrong. I’ve been running away, and I won’t do it anymore. And I won’t let you, either.”
I shake my head. My pulse going so fast I’m almost dizzy, and I curl a hand against my throat as if I can force it to calm. “I don’t understand. I’m not running.”
“Bull. You ran from me today.” He’s so quiet, so calm, but that charged energy is everywhere, latent and bursting. “You’ve been running from confronting this thing between us.”
