by Tessa Bailey
A quick expulsion of laughter. “Trust me, your father is worse. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t touch you.” While Ailish was processing that surprising news, the man spoke again. “He got to you in Wisconsin, didn’t he? I found the knife. I thought you’d been stabbed, but now I’m beginning to think”—his breathing was becoming labored—“beginning to think you might have done the stabbing.”
God, she absolutely shouldn’t be feeling guilty right now. “Well, you shouldn’t have been sneaking around on my porch.”
“There’s no light out here.” There was a loud thump, as if he’d leaned against the doorjamb. “I was checking the cabin number to make sure I had the right one.”
Oh. “What do the police want now? They released me.”
“Yeah, I heard.” The man didn’t speak for a while. “Look, I’m here to talk about your options, Ailish. We need something solid on your father, and we can accomplish that through you. It would mean an end to the running. And the end to a lot of unnecessary violence in Chicago.”
A hand closed around her throat. “I can’t do that. I—whatever he’s done, he’s my father.”
“Nothing has to be decided tonight. And when the time comes, you’ll be doing the deciding.” He didn’t continue for a few, heavy seconds. “I’m not here to force you into cooperating.”
Holding the gun down at her side, Ailish glided toward the door. There was a certain way her father’s men spoke. Rough, careless. This man reminded her more of the cops who’d interrogated her. He inspired trust, even as he represented the possible end of her new lifestyle. She knew better than to be lulled into a false sense of security, however, especially by a voice alone. Opening the door and bandaging his wound didn’t pose a threat, though. Not so long as she had the gun. And her rights.
“I’m opening the door.”
“Okay.”
She settled her palm over the doorknob. “What’s your name?”
“Henrik. Henrik Vance.”
Goose bumps lifted on her arms. Something about the way he’d said his name. Like a vow that he would be giving Ailish a good reason to remember it. Beyond curious to see the man’s face, she took a calming breath and opened the door. And found herself eye level with his heaving chest.
Huge. He was…huge. Her neck craned back, further and further, to find his head resting against the doorjamb, beneath a crooked elbow. Awareness flitted through her belly when those eyes pegged her through the darkness, holding her gaze like he was in no hurry to let it go. Nighttime wrapped around the man, giving him an air of danger, but his stillness kept it from breaking loose. He appeared to be…allowing her to get used to his size. The air of a cop, minus the knowing smirk she was used to receiving.
Realizing they’d been locked in a stare-off for far longer than was normal, Ailish forced herself to look down—and saw blood spattering the top of his shoulder. “Oh God. I shot you. I shot a cop.”
Her words seemed to startle him out of some fog. “I’m only an honorary cop now. Don’t even have a badge to show you.” His eyebrows drew together. “You know, you really should have asked to see my badge.”
“You just said you didn’t have one.” Did he really just stifle a laugh? Maybe he was going into shock. Lord, that was the last thing she needed. She’d never be able to drag him inside. Not without a crane or maybe a tractor. “I think you should come inside so I can try to keep you alive.”
“I’ll come inside when you put some pants on.”
That awareness in her belly spun like silk around a fist. He hadn’t even looked down, as far as she could tell. Not once. The reservations she had about Henrik thinned. Too easily? Yes. She’d grown up constantly surrounded by men, and she’d never felt comfortable with a single one of them. Why wasn’t she more wary of this man? She would have to think about it later when blood wasn’t pouring from the wound she’d inflicted.
“Hang tight. I have some leggings…” Ailish sidestepped out of his view to riffle through the dresser one-handed, until she realized the gun was still clutched in her other hand. With a glance at the doorway, she buried the weapon underneath some underwear and quickly tugged on a pair of black capri leggings. “Okay. Come on in.”
With one big hand clapped over his wound, the guy literally had to duck under the doorframe. And as soon as Henrik stepped into the light, recognition tugged at her consciousness, like a fishing line with a wiggling catch at the end. His features were unique—not the kind one came across more than once in a lifetime. Although he was at least half African-American, his distinct brow and cheekbones reminded her of the Eastern European men who occasionally met with her father to talk business. She often found their appearance bold or sharp. This man wouldn’t have been an exception if it weren’t for the softness in his eyes, the inviting curve of his mouth.
He was, in no uncertain terms, dramatically handsome. His current status of gunshot victim made his movements stilted, but she somehow knew with confusing certainty that he usually walked with a swagger. Fluent, irreverent. Confident.
Her father always said she’d been gifted with his ability to never forget a face, and Ailish was positive she’d met this man somewhere before. Seen the way he moved. Not a doubt in her mind.
“Do I know you from somewhere?”
His progress toward the bathroom halted, just a tiny stutter, but she caught it. “No. I’ve only seen your picture in the file. Never face-to-face.”
Ailish frowned and followed him into the bathroom, where he’d flipped on the light. Hovering in the doorway, she watched him in the mirror. “Are you sure, because—” He took his shirt off. “Hhhhoshit.”
Henrik passed a glance over his shoulder. “What was that?”
“Uh.” Ailish turned and lunged for her plastic bags of supplies, lined up against the wall of the main room. “I bought a first aid kit. That’s what…I said. Band-Aids and gauze. Other stuff and…stuff.” When she sensed Henrik face the mirror again, she couldn’t help peeking up at his reflection. The man’s torso was like a rock-climbing wall. Muscles so defined, they swelled out, like they were waiting to be used as footholds. Arms like cannons. But holy hell, his butt took the mother-loving cake. The very top curved above the back waistband of his jeans, like two ski slopes made of solid male muscle. She had the sudden urge to slap his backside.
How rude was that when she’d already shot him?
“You all right down there, Ms. O’Kelly?”
“Yes.” First aid kit in hand, she sidled around his distracting form to get between him and the sink. She cringed when she saw the ripped skin of his shoulder, but decided it could’ve been much worse. It looked like she’d just grazed him, thank God. “You should probably call me Ailish. Since I shot you and all.”
His throat moved in a sensual slide of muscle, surely meant to hypnotize the opposite sex, but he didn’t look at her. Had he really looked at her since coming into the cabin? She decided she would remember that.
“Ailish, then,” Henrik rumbled. And finally, finally, his golden-brown gaze fell to her face. “How did you get that black eye?”
Alarm trickled into her blood at the transformation that overcame him. She would swear he expanded, like the Hulk, ready to burst straight out of his skin. As if she’d just received the injury, her fingers lifted to prod at the puffiness. Test the spots that hurt worse than others. “I think your bullet wound is a slightly more pressing issue.”
Ailish could actually hear the grinding of his teeth. “Answer me.”
“No.” She rooted through the kit for a bottle of peroxide and cotton. “I don’t like being ordered around. And I’m very stubborn when I feel like it.”
His breathing slowed, but he appeared quite unsatisfied with her lack of cooperation. “If you tell me who hurt you, I’ll forgive you for shooting me.”
Her chin dropped. “You won’t forgive me otherwise?”
A moment passed before Henrik shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
Ailish huffed a
breath. “I don’t know why I care.” She unscrewed the cap on the peroxide with jerky movements and threw the cap into the sink. “Don’t you wonder why you care so much about my black eye?”
“No. I don’t wonder.”
“Well.” Just what the heck was that supposed to mean? “Then I guess we can’t be friends, Henrik. It’s too bad, because you wanted to laugh at my lame joke back on the porch. No one ever laughs at my jokes. And you can’t even feel bad about it because we’re not friends.”
His expression was indiscernible. “You’re nothing like I expected.”
“What am I supposed to say to that?”
Henrik’s throat did that hypnotic muscle slide thing again, as he planted his fists on the sink and leaned forward. Close. They were suddenly so close and she forbade herself to breathe in case he found oxygen intake offensive and pulled away. “Ailish?”
“Sup.”
The corner of his mouth jumped. “If you tell me the blood on that knife I found in Wisconsin belonged to the man who blackened your eye, I still won’t be happy, but I might be able to sleep tonight.”
Wariness blew across her senses, but its presence had little to do with an honorary cop asking her about witnessing a stabbing. It was more about wanting to tell him everything she’d been through since leaving Chicago. Maybe even before leaving. She’d never had a confidant before, and his eyes were so stabilizing. Everything about him was. But she’d been raised to keep her mouth shut at all costs. “I can’t tell you that.”
Henrik inclined his head, face betraying his obvious satisfaction. “Baby, you just did.”
Chapter Three
Yeah. Despite the promise Henrik had made to Ailish, there was no way in hell he was sleeping tonight. There had been a significant part of him that wondered if the initial impact of Ailish that day in the park was all in his head. That his memory of her beauty, the husky notes in her voice, had been embellished over time to justify what he’d done to keep her out of prison.
Oh no. She actually had the nerve to be better than his memory. He’d expected quiet dignity. Or caginess. Why wouldn’t the daughter of a violent crime boss be cautious and jaded? Instead, however, she was this irresistible fucking combination of wit and innocence, rolled together in an adorably sexy package. And after fantasizing about her for months, here they were, crammed inside a bathroom, Ailish in pajamas with no bra underneath, him without a shirt. If this were one of his fantasies, his next move would be pushing her forward over the sink, tugging down those tights that clung to her ass, and railing her from behind.
This was not one of his fantasies, though, and Ailish didn’t know him from a hole in the wall. She shouldn’t have let him into the cabin without some identification, let alone be pressing her body up against him as she tended his wound. Her lips were pursed as she worked, blotting away the excess blood with breathy little apologies that made him feel like a bastard for the creative ways he’d dreamed of screwing her senseless. Yeah, she definitely wouldn’t want to be in such close quarters with a man who’d imagined her kneeling enough times to sustain permanent rug burns.
Couldn’t he have pictured her doing something innocent at least once? Knitting, picking flowers, reciting poetry…anything.
He should leave the bathroom now. Fix his own bandage and pop a few Advil. But dammit if his feet weren’t buried in concrete, refusing to carry him away from Ailish. Her scent reminded him of summertime, all sunbaked and fresh. God, he couldn’t inhale it fast enough. She had a twitch, too. It was so subtle, most people probably didn’t even notice it, but every couple minutes, her right eye did a little half wink. Like a wince, but a million times cuter.
Unfortunately there was nothing cute about his cock at the moment. Between finding Ailish gone in Wisconsin, driving back to Chicago, then immediately turning around and speeding north to Michigan, there had been scant time for stroking off, a task he’d been performing on a regular basis since the day she’d spoken to him in the park. Had it been three days since he’d found her missing? Four? Having the object of his lust so close was a recipe for disaster in his restless state. Already, moisture crowned on the head of his dick where it laid swelling inside the right leg of his jeans. He should move away now. This was a job. He’d come here to protect her, not assuage his sick infatuation.
A waterfall of red hair got in the way of her ministrations so she shoved it back over her shoulder, sending a waft of summertime into the air. “How did you find me, Henrik?”
Oh fuck. Don’t go saying my name. “We tracked your cell phone to a tower about eight miles from here. This was the closest rental park, so I took a chance. A phone call from my superior convinced them to be helpful at the front office.” His hand flexed at his side with the need to adjust himself. Don’t do it. She’ll notice. “We need to destroy your phone as soon as possible. If we tracked it, someone else could do it, too.”
“My father, you mean,” she murmured, before ripping a piece of white medical tape with her teeth, nearly wrenching a groan from Henrik. “You keep saying we. Who is we?”
“I work with an undercover squad.” His voice emerged like a growl rippling through a dark tunnel. “Sort of an unofficial branch of the police department. We’re not technically cops, we just do their dirty work.”
“And I’m considered dirty work?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Henrik said. “There’s nothing dirty about you.”
She looked up at him through a sea of black eyelashes. “You’d be surprised.”
Even though he was fully aware she couldn’t possibly have meant the rejoinder to sound sexual, Henrik’s hungry thoughts had a hard time processing it any other way. Jesus, he needed to get some air before he did something embarrassing. Or against the rules. But the depraved man on the inside, the one who finally stood in front of the woman who’d robbed his concentration for months, wanted to press her into acknowledging an awareness between them. To prove he wasn’t alone. “Some men might take what you said as an invitation, Ailish. Are you always so reckless?”
“Invitation for wha—” Her head came up, gaze focusing on him. “Oh. Well.” Her gulp was audible. “I guess you’re not talking about a party.”
I’m going to hell for wanting to corrupt this girl. “No. I’m not.” Deep breath. “But I should be. I should be talking to you about anything but invitations. Like your favorite pizza toppings or scary movie.”
“Pepperoni and Poltergeist,” she whispered. “But to answer your first question…yes. I am reckless. And stubborn. We’ve only been friends for five minutes and you already know my two greatest faults.”
It must have been the way she couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, but God help him, he stepped closer, careful to keep his hips angled away, so she wouldn’t feel his erection. “You forgot about dirty.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her cheeks went pink, and Henrik couldn’t help dipping his head, letting his mouth hover over her right one, just to feel the radiating heat. They flushed even pinker. “I didn’t forget, but if I tell you my third fault, you might think the bad outweighs the good. I’ve already shot you, Henrik. I haven’t really had a chance yet to put my best foot forward.”
Ailish’s logic made him desperate as hell to kiss her. He wanted to tug her chin down and get his tongue so deep, she’d moan and press her thighs together. “Put your best foot forward tomorrow. Right now, I want your third fault.”
“You won’t like it.”
His lips brushed her cheek, and she gasped. “Let me be the judge.”
This was bad. Very bad. He’d been in her presence for twenty minutes and already he inched toward breaking the rules. She was a potential asset under his protection. In his care. Touching her could jeopardize the case, his job, and the possibility of earning back his badge. His good name. Worse, she didn’t know a disgraced cop stood in her midst. She didn’t know what he’d done on her behalf. For all he knew, that knowledge would make her run screaming in the opposite directio
n. Shit, though. It just felt so goddamn perfect to be this close, to hear her breath racing in and out.
“Henrik, I’m—” Her words cut off abruptly when she stepped too close. One of her thighs rubbed against his dick, and those eyes shot wide. Henrik focused on staying very still. Focusing on not slamming her hips up against the sink and humping her pussy through the thin tights. He could come that way. So easily. God, if she knew his thoughts, she would be horrified. Any second now, she would slap him. Or sprint a hundred miles an hour from the bathroom. Right?
Wrong.
Ailish smiled.
She lifted her hands and clutched handfuls of her hair, excitement dancing across her features. “Is that for me?”
...
Ailish was an unrepentant tease.
It was her third and most heinous fault.
Junior year of high school, she’d fallen behind in her advanced literature class. Words had never been her strong suit. Numbers. She’d always loved numbers much more. Thankfully, her private school had an active tutoring program with college-aged teaching students looking to get work experience. Ailish’s tutor, Chris Nussbaum, had been on the skinny side and always wore the same green hoodie. But she’d liked him. He’d obviously liked her back, too, because he’d made his move during their third literature lesson, taking her innocence on a wobbly wooden desk while tutoring sessions continued in the next room.
The experience had been less than satisfying, but she hadn’t exactly expected to reach the Promised Land on attempt number one. Trying would be fun. Or so she’d thought. Late one afternoon, the driver sent to pick her up from tutoring had caught Ailish and Chris sharing a kiss behind the school. Her father had been informed of her budding attachment to Chris, and she’d never seen him again, except in the pictures he’d posted on Facebook of his time in Saint Anthony’s Hospital ICU. He’d credited a fall down the train station steps, but Ailish had known her father’s men were responsible.
Severe guilt caused Ailish to swear off men. But doing so had really pissed her off. She’d felt powerless. Small. Until one day she’d caught one of her father’s men checking out her butt and shaking his head in the reflection of the car’s passenger side door. A tiny ball of fire had lit in her belly. And she’d regained a little power each time it happened. She filed those hungry expressions away and withdrew them late at night when she felt restless. Knowing she’d turned a man on, starved him a little, was enough to excite her. Enough to push her over the edge as her heels dug into the mattress, as she kicked at the sheets. And as an added bonus, her actions didn’t put anyone in the hospital.
