Maggie nodded but didn’t say anything else as she left the room.
Walking out of the room, she ran right smack into Drew. “What are you doing up here?”
“Making sure you’re okay. You’ve been up here a while.”
She glared at him before pulling him into the room across the hall so that they could talk in private.
He shut the door, leaning his back against it as he watched her. He’d never before seen the nervousness on her face or the fear. “You look worried.”
“I am.” She let the professionalism she had to uphold as a lawyer fall. “This is some bad shit, and I’m not afraid to say I’m a little scared.”
Drew knew he couldn’t let her be alone. He wanted to take her in his arms and make it better, show her that he knew how to protect her, that he’d grown up. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but she stopped him.
“You know, sometimes in high school I was here.” She didn’t elaborate on if she’d stayed or if she volunteered. “One day, I was feeling reckless, and I went into that closet over there,” she pointed, “and carved our names into the wood with a heart around them.”
That surprised the fuck out of him. He pushed himself off the door and walked over to the closet, turning the light on. “I’ll be damned.” He looked back over at her. “You never cease to surprise me.”
“Does it surprise you that I don’t want to be alone tonight?” She gazed up at him, her eyes clear as he’d ever seen them.
There he saw the fear, the way she’d just made herself vulnerable by showing him this, was so she could ask him to take care of her. He pointed down the stairs. “Go get in your car and drive to my house, I’ll follow you. Tonight you make whatever calls you need to make from there. That way if someone is tracing you, they come to my front door, not yours.”
They stared at each other for what felt like forever before she nodded. Relief was evident in the way her shoulders sagged. “I’ll see you there.”
Chapter Fifteen
Drew didn’t dare let the taillights of Charity’s car out of his sight as they made their way to his house. There had been many times in his life where he had a bad feeling or a sense of foreboding about something. He’d never had one so heavy as when he’d come up the stairs and she’d leveled him with her gaze. He wasn’t even sure what had prompted it. He and Dalton had been shooting the shit, the way they had all day long, but looking at the house, he felt a need to go to her and get her out of there. A need to protect her from some unknown harm he felt was going to come to her. They pulled into his driveway, and he sped around her, motioning for her to follow him.
They continued past the house and towards a barn, where he stopped and got off his bike. Opening the door, he yelled at her. “Pull it inside, but be sure and grab everything you’ll need out of it.”
She nodded at him so that he could see it through the windshield of her car. Drew didn’t follow her; he didn’t want to turn his back on anything right now. He waited patiently until she stepped outside, carrying a bag.
“I have it all right here.” She motioned to her bag as she glanced around. “Is everything okay?”
He grabbed her around the neck with his arm, pulling her into his body as they walked to his bike. “I don’t like being out in the open like this, we’ll be safe once we get to the house,” he assured her. “But I didn’t want anyone to see your car if they did a drive-by.”
They hopped on the bike, and she held on tightly as they made their way to the carport. “Go on in,” he told her as he parked and helped her off.
He watched as she went inside, and then he did a cursory check of his land and home. There were cameras where they needed to be, and he texted Travis to ask him to make sure the house was watched all night. When he verified that nothing seemed out of place, he went through the same door she had entered and went searching for her.
“You good, Char?” he asked as he made his way towards the living room, figuring that was where she had gone.
She turned around from where she was peeking out the window. “Yeah.” He could tell she was nervous.
“You’re safe here,” he assured her, walking over to where she stood.
For the first time in a long time, he took her into his arms and gave her a protective hug. It immediately transported to a simpler time.
Charity wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her nose in his chest, and inhaled deeply. It was the scent that was uniquely Drew. She knew without a doubt she was safe here. He would move mountains to make sure she was protected and safe.
“Thank you for being here for me,” she whispered.
He rubbed his chin along her forehead, and she loved how the scrape of the beginnings of the beard felt. It felt as if she were in a cocoon of warmth. It had been years since she’d let her guard down enough to enjoy a man’s arms like this.
“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to keep you safe,” he whispered back to her.
She gripped the back of his cut with her fingers and pulled so that he took a slight step back from her. Charity tilted her head up so that she could see him. “I don’t feel safe with anyone but you. For years I’ve gone through life not able to let my guard down—with anyone, but the minute I come back here and you get me alone, you have it, Drew.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, or what we’re going to have to face, but I know I will keep you safe. I don’t care what I have to do in order to make sure you come out of this untouched, but you will.”
Reaching up on her tiptoes, she lightly brushed her lips to his. He was hesitant at first; she could tell because he didn’t take control, and maybe he wouldn’t because of how different things seemed, but she wanted to feel close to him, she wanted to feel alive. Finally he allowed her entrance, letting her set the pace as her tongue swept against his. When they broke apart, both of them were breathing heavily.
“I don’t want to scare you away.”
The words sounded as if they were ripped from deep within his throat.
“You’re not going to,” Charity assured, clasping her hands tighter against him. “But I think there are a few things we need to work out before we tumble between the sheets again, and tonight is not the time to get into this.”
She watched as he leaned back from her and licked his lips. “I think you’re right, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help you.”
“Oh, Walker, I never said you weren’t going to help me.” She grinned up at him. “In fact, I very badly need your help. No offense, but I need the mind of a criminal.”
His cheeks heated. “If anybody said that to me besides you, I’d probably beat their ass, but lucky for you, I understand what you mean.”
She smiled sweetly up at him.
“C’mon.” His large hand tapped her ass. “Let’s go grab some dinner and then use the huge kitchen table that my mom insists I have to look into whatever it is you got.”
Charity took a deep breath. They could do this; they really could do this.
Chapter Sixteen
“I had Travis pull up everything he could within the police reports that indicated a home invasion in the last two years.” Dalton produced a binder full of printed paper. He and Mandy sat across from Drew and Charity. The pizza that sat in front of them growing colder as they looked through the gathered information.
“There’s a lot more than what I remember being reported in the news,” Mandy mused as she examined the amount of paper shoved into the binder.
“A whole fucking lot more,” Drew agreed. “Taking a quick glance at it, I think this initially started about eighteen months ago.”
“That long?” Charity questioned. “It’s gone on this long and nobody’s thought to look for consistencies?”
Drew leaned over, putting his arm around Charity’s neck. “I have a feeling Dixon isn’t sloppy and he’s not dumb. Chances are he got a little too comfortable with his wife and began talking about it. Now she’s ready to pin his balls to the wa
ll, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he goes down.”
Charity silently wondered what caused someone to do that…what inner voice told them they’d had enough? Was it living in fear? Was it knowing that your partner was hurting other people and that he could potentially kill someone? At some point did you become immune to it?
“You’re quiet.” Drew hugged her closer. “Are you okay?”
She licked her lips. “I’ve handled a lot of cases, over half of them family law, and this one is the one that gives me a bad feeling.”
It gave him a bad feeling too, but he couldn’t tell her that, as she’d told him earlier in the night, he was her safe spot. In order to keep her safe, he had to make her believe he was fearless.
“We got this.” Dalton grinned at her from across the table.
Her voice was soft when she answered. “I hope so.”
An hour later, Drew and Charity were alone again. It had been a long day for everyone, and they were dog tired. Mandy and Dalton had left with the promise they’d be back in the morning, ready to work.
“You’ve been quiet,” Drew mentioned again as the two of them went through the house checking locks and making sure everything was in its place.
“I wasn’t lying earlier when I said this case scares me. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because Dixon seems to be a ghost for the most part. There’s not a lot of information about him, and he wants it that way. In my experience, those guys are the most dangerous. Not knowing what I’m up against makes me uneasy.”
It made him uneasy too, but he didn’t want to put voice to those words. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you, nobody’s gonna even touch you. I swear that to you. You’re under Heaven Hill’s protection. None of us will let anything happen to you.”
“In my mind, I know that. I know that not many people want to cross any of you, but that doesn’t help the thoughts. I’ve never been the type of woman who was scared by this stuff, but the fact that he’s been doing this for almost two years and he’s never been suspected worries me.”
It worried him too. Did he purposely have people looking the other way so that he could do whatever it was he wanted?
They made their way upstairs and to his bedroom.
“I can sleep in the spare room if you want me too,” he proposed. “But this room is the safest and I want you here.”
This wasn’t even a thought in her mind. “No, I want you with me.”
His heart did a weird jump thing that it hadn’t done since he was a teenager. Charity had been the key to that when he was younger, and apparently she was the key to it now. “Then I’ll be here with you,” he promised. “I’m gonna go take a shower. You’ll be okay?” he asked.
She was vulnerable and fragile. He could see that by looking at her, and he didn’t know when it happened. Maybe it was talking to Maggie, maybe it was bringing her to his house and making her hide her car, or perhaps it was them figuring out that Dixon had been doing this much longer than they’d assumed. At some point, she’d lost her bravado.
“I’ll be fine,” she smiled at him, too brightly.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re safe here, sweetheart.”
She leaned her forehead into his lips, fighting back tears that threatened to fall. “I know.”
Charity watched Drew’s retreating back, and as soon as he closed the door to the bathroom, she let the shakes flow through her. Never in her life had a case made her more freaked out. She told herself it was a multitude of things, but this was all too familiar to her. A woman stuck in a marriage with a child she couldn’t leave because she was scared. Before her mom had left her dad, that’s where she and Jasmine had been.
It wasn’t easy for a woman to leave a man, it was expensive. Especially when there was no credit, and the man held all the purse strings. That was the main reason her mom had become a stripper at Wet Wanda’s. It was cash, and it was good money. It had provided for them when nothing else could. It was after her mom got off stage, when she started accepting “dates” and letting the men come to the house – that Charity had hated. She didn’t want that life for Skylar—she wanted to get them in Witness Protection, nail Dixon to the wall, and help this mother and daughter have the kind of life that she hadn’t.
In order to do that, she knew she was going to have to get hold of not only herself but her emotions. To get hold of herself, she needed Drew, and she needed him in a bad way. She needed to feel the protection; she needed to feel the safety in his arms. Throwing caution to the wind, she took off her clothes and headed towards the shower.
The things they had to talk about—be damned. Sometimes the best talking was none at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Charity quietly made her way into the bathroom. One thing hadn’t changed and that was that Drew liked his showers hot. Steam hung heavy in the air, making it harder for her to see. Walking over to the door of the shower, she breathed deeply and opened it.
“Char?” Drew asked as he wiped the water and soap from his eyes.
She knew the moment he saw she was naked as the day she was born because his eyes changed. A desire she hadn’t seen in years revealed itself there. His hands fisted at his side as the water rained down on him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice rough.
She nodded, taking the step into the shower, feeling the cold tile against her feet. When his arms snaked out and pulled her against him, she squealed.
“You better be completely sure, because once this happens, Char, I’m not going back. We’ll work whatever we have to out, but I’m not getting a taste of you again and then letting you go. Not going to fucking happen.”
She shook her head, closing her eyes as she buried her face in his neck. “I don’t want you to let me go,” she admitted. “If I pull away, I want you to hang on for dear life and make me stay.”
He growled deep in his throat as he turned her, grabbed her hands, and pushed her up against the wall. “Is that what you wanted ten years ago?”
Her eyes were still closed, and she wasn’t answering.
“Open your damn eyes, look at me, and answer me. Is that what you wanted ten years ago?”
It was embarrassing because she had been all about getting out of Bowling Green and making a name for herself, being someone besides the stripper’s daughter. If she answered this question truthfully, she would be laying herself bare to him in a way she had never done before, but there was a part of her that couldn’t lie to him. “Yes, I wanted you to do that as much as I didn’t want you to do it.”
“I won’t ever again,” he vowed as he pushed her arms up over her head. “Hold on, baby, because I’m going to show you just how much I missed you, and how much I need you in my life.”
Charity moaned as he shoved her hands up over her head, holding her wrists in one of his hands. This Drew was much different than the one she’d known before, and she was excited to get to know how he’d changed. The position she was in arched her back, thrusting her tits out at him.
She trembled as his other hand ran down her side, stopping at the curve of her left breast, using his thumb to tease the hard nipple that jutted out at him. She moaned, feeling the flicker of his finger down through the core of her body.
“Feel good?” he asked, bending slightly so that he could take the other nipple into his mouth.
She moaned deep in her throat, flexing her fingers against his hand. “Yes!”
Best thing she’d ever felt, to be honest. Grown-up Drew had learned a thing or two. His tongue was hot against her skin, his teeth nipping hard enough to give a bite of pain with her pleasure. After the bite of pain, he used his tongue to soothe it and then sucked hard enough so that his cheeks hollowed out.
“Fuck, Drew.” She pushed her head back against the tile wall of the shower, trying to feed him more of her flesh. She clamped her thighs together, trying to get some relief.
“Mmmm, I know.”
He groaned against her flesh, removing his mouth from her breast and trailing it down her stomach before kneeling before her. This time, he was on his knees.
“Oh God.” She realized for the first time he’d let go of her wrists, and she plunged them into his hair.
“Be a good girl, open those thighs and hook those legs on my shoulders,” he told her, his dark eyes meeting hers.
This was something they hadn’t done before, one of the only things they hadn’t done, if she were honest, and she nearly came just thinking about it. Doing as he asked, she waited, barely breathing, for the first touch of his mouth against her sensitive flesh.
“Don’t drop me,” she begged, because she felt weightless and she wasn’t sure he could hold her.
“I got you, baby; I’ll never drop you,” he promised as he dug his fingers into her thighs, opening her up for him.
“Jesus,” she breathed as she felt the first touch of his tongue. It circled the engorged nub of her desire, nipping slightly.
She was in both heaven and hell at the same time. On the one hand, she wanted this to go on forever; on the other hand she wanted this orgasm so badly she could taste it. Tugging on his hair, she pulled him deeper into her heat. When he added two fingers into the mix, pumping deep inside her body as he continued circling her clit, she thought she was going to die.
“Oh my God,” she moaned, breathing heavily. “You’re going to kill me,” she closed her eyes tightly, biting her lip, as she pushed her ass against the wall, trying to get closer to his mouth.
Drew never let up, never stopped what he was doing. In fact, he dug his fingers deep into her ass cheek with the hand he was using to hold her up before he reached back and gave it a hard smack. Charity detonated against him, her whole body shaking, and her voice hoarse as she let him push her over the edge.
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