by Sarah Grimm
Blood hammering, Justin could only nod. Reluctantly, he released his hold on Paige, who immediately turned away and retrieved her sunglasses from the table. She slid them into place.
He had the strongest urge to call her on it, to question who exactly she was hiding from, him or his partner.
“Brennan’s back and looking for us,” Allan stated as he slipped past Justin and lifted the case off the table.
“Right.” Justin followed his partner to the door, stopped before following him out into the hall. He needed to get back to work, back to the job and away from Paige. He needed to focus his thoughts and couldn’t seem to do that when she was near. But they hadn’t settled this, hadn’t solved anything.
Hand on the doorknob, he glanced over his shoulder in her direction. “It’s not safe to stay at your place. Paige?”
“I know. I know I can’t stay there.”
“You should be fine for the next few hours. I’ll pick you up after work. Six o’clock.”
The seconds ticked by, ten, twenty, before she replied softly, “Six o’clock.”
* * * * *
Paige’s stomach rolled painfully as she stood before the building that had been her home for the last two years and felt a sense of dread spread through her at the thought of entering. Her body ached with fatigue, sorrow, and a sense of violation stronger than the rest of her emotions combined. In her right hand, she held the cell phone she’d replaced on her drive back from the police precinct, in her left, the key to the side door of her building. In her heart, she held the knowledge that she would never again feel the sense of homecoming crossing the threshold used to offer her.
In the years since her move to San Diego, she’d made the place hers. Her home. Her success. The building before her, nothing more than a converted warehouse to others, was so much more. It housed her dreams, her hopes and fears. Within these walls, she’d known laughter and tears, loss and acceptance, and recently, the thrill of a job well done. It represented everything she wanted, all that she needed.
Until evil crossed its threshold, infesting its walls like cockroaches.
When the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, Paige knew it wasn’t the taste of cold fear on her tongue that caused it. She didn’t need to see the curious looks she drew to know people watched her. The charred curbside to her left and the yellow tape caused quite a stir amongst the people who lined the sidewalk. Busy with the comings and goings of the businesses surrounding hers, they watched her now, as they had before. Unlike any other time, today she found she preferred their stares to the cool interior of her building.
Pressing trembling fingers to her temple, she fought against the urge to look over her shoulder. She wanted to be strong, to close the distance between her and her building and slip inside, shut the door behind her and keep reality at bay. But she no longer had that option. Her steel doors were not enough to keep the man chasing her out, how could she hope they would ever keep the world out? How could they ever keep her safe again?
The squeal of brakes as a panel truck pulled to the side of the road spun her on her heels. Filled with a heightened sense of extreme caution, she watched, throat dry, as the driver swung his door wide and dropped to the curb before her. Eyes to the sun, she couldn’t make out his features, even with her dark-tinted sunglasses.
“Ms. Conroy?”
What the man lacked in height, he more than made up for in width. He had the build of a fireplug; round and solidly muscled. Ill-ease skittered along her spine, weakened her knees. In his hands he held a clipboard, the pages of which rustled when the wind picked up.
“Are you Paige Conroy? I got an order here to replace your front window.”
Her gaze left him to lock onto the name on the side of the truck. She read and re-read it. Was that the place she’d called? Uncertainty crawled over her. With her state of mind over the past few days, she couldn’t recall.
“Lady?”
His hand tucked into his pocket, reaching toward something just out of her sight. Her breath backed up in her lungs. Her muscles bunched and tightened.
The creak of hinges in need of oil echoed through her mind and drew her gaze back to the truck. A second man stepped onto the street. Nausea cramped her stomach painfully. Fear left a cold, metallic taste in her mouth.
“Marv, we got the right place or what?” the second man asked.
A click to her right brought her head around faster than was intelligent in her weakened state. Paige’s world spun once and then blessedly stilled. She expected to find a pistol aimed at her middle, a knife, anything but a silver ballpoint pen.
She blinked with surprise.
“Lady? Is your name Paige Conroy or not?”
Mortification threatened to drown her. Taking a deep breath, she willed her heart to slow. “Y-yes.”
“Thanks be for small favors,” the man mumbled under his breath. He raised his voice, aimed his words at the man still beside the truck. “This is the right place.”
As the second man began to unload the truck, the first shoved the pen in her direction. “Sign here,” he instructed gruffly.
Tears of humiliation threatened. For a minute there, she’d been so afraid, she thought she could actually choke on the feeling. Paige took the pen he offered, relieved when he held the clipboard in place for her. The state she was in, just signing her name to the authorization form felt like more than she could handle. Her hand shook. Her teeth began to chatter.
The knowledge that she was going to break down pushed her to close the distance between her and her side door. It took three tries before the key slid into the lock. By the time she stumbled into her building, the first tears wet her cheeks. She barely made it to the top of the stairs before her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor in a heap.
* * * * *
He found her sprawled at the top of the stairs. Literally at his feet. Had the unlocked side door not triggered caution in Justin, he likely would have tripped over her prone form.
“Paige?”
Throat tight, her name escaped as no more than a whisper of sound in the too-silent room. He visually searched for a wound, for a breath he was unable to discern from his height. He drew his weapon.
“Paige?”
The absence of walls left him with an unobstructed view of what lay about him. Or, more importantly, what wasn’t about him. A laundry basket lounged in the recliner to his left, towels folded neatly and stacked to its rim. A half-full coffee mug and black cordless telephone sat propped upon the center cushion of the couch, a pale green afghan pooled on the floor before it. Bright sunlight illuminated it all, leaving no shadows, no monsters, no threat to Paige’s physical being at all. Just Paige, lying inert at his boots.
Satisfied that no threat hovered, Justin squatted at her side. With only the slightest hesitation, he used his free hand to push aside the collar of her blazer and press reassuring fingers to her carotid artery. Her pulse beat strong and steady. Relief cut like a knife.
He draped his forearms across his knees, Glock hanging loosely in his right hand. It took a moment to catch his breath.
She was asleep. Not wounded or dead, just drained. The knowledge that she had run out of steam didn’t surprise. The fact that she appeared to have barely made it up her stairs before sleep claimed her, did.
Her face angled toward him, a few strands of her hair stuck in the black tips of her stitches. Her right arm cushioned her head, her left arced away from her body, keys inches from her slackened hand. Justin trailed his fingers across her brow, brushing the hair away from her eye. He traced the line of her jaw. Her lips parted and her breath brushed across his knuckle as he followed the shape of her mouth with his thumb.
Good God, she was beautiful. And strong, stubborn, driven—things that he never imagined he could find so alluring. Still teasing himself with the feel of her beneath his fingertips, he trailed his hand down her throat toward the gentle swell of her breast above the neckline of her blazer. His
palm itched to continue on, to cup her. He wanted his hands on her, wanted his mouth on her.
He fought back the urge by reminding himself that Paige had wants of her own. She wanted her life back. The life she had before St. John’s murder, before the threats and the fear. The life she’d had before him. It would do for him to remember that.
Instead, he chose to recall the taste of her. Her throaty moan of approval as his mouth had taken hers. The way her body had strained against his, seeking release, a release she craved as badly as he. Emotion pulled at him, threatened to drown him. Scared the hell out of him the way those photos had just a few hours ago.
He hadn’t known a man could want like he did. He wanted her even though she made him wish for things he’d never even considered, things he wasn’t certain he even believed existed. He wanted to risk, to reach for that ever-elusive something that snaked through him whenever she set those green eyes on him.
Damn, but just admitting that to himself made him wonder if he’d lost his senses completely. He’d been trained not to risk. In his line of work, risk could get him killed. Yet ever since that fateful evening some six months before, the feeling that he was missing out on something in life ate at him.
Her eyelids eased open. He went from staring into her sleep-softened face to staring into the endless green of her gaze. A smile curved her lips, lit her up from the inside out.
“Justin.”
He didn’t know which he liked more, the way she said his name, or her smile. His pulse kicked into high gear. Desire sucker-punched him in the gut. “Were you expecting someone else?”
She sat up slowly, her fingers moving to his jaw. Her gaze slid to his mouth as she traced his smile, dipped her thumb into his dimple. “Hmm…your smile is incredible.”
“Is it?” He held perfectly still, worked to draw oxygen into his suddenly deprived lungs as she eased her body closer and closer. Her thigh pressed against his, her breasts brushed his chest.
“So is your mouth,” she murmured, her voice like a caress across his flesh. Leaning into him, she used her teeth to nip at his lips, following the sharp bite with a swipe of her tongue.
Leave her alone, the voice of reason whispered, but he ruthlessly shoved the thought aside. Blood pounding, mind reeling, he settled his left hand at her waist, slid it up to cup her breast through her jacket and captured her moan with his mouth.
She met him stroke for stroke, her mouth eager. Desperate. Hungry. Her fingers slipped through his hair, then raked down his back, sending a sharp arrow of lust through his gut. She grasped his hips and molded her body to his, straining against him until time and place lost all importance and Justin could think of nothing past peeling her clothes from her body and driving his flesh into hers. Again and again.
When she arched back, pressing her pebbled nipple into his palm, he caught it between his thumb and forefinger and pinched lightly. A moan slipped from the back of her throat and she pressed even harder against him. He kissed her longer, deeper, settling his body atop hers as she melted to the floor beneath him. Her mound cupped his erection, her heat searing him through the barrier of their clothing. He pulsed in response.
Anticipation filled him, sharp, biting and blissfully painful. The sensation of her skin against his was one he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of experiencing any longer. Yet, when he shifted his right hand toward the buttons of her blazer, he realized he still clutched his Glock in that hand.
Shock slammed through him with brutal force, brought him to his feet. Damn it, he was supposed to protect Paige, not devour her. He prided himself on control, yet one touch, one stroke of her fingers across his flesh crushed his restraint. His job was to keep her safe. Instead, he’d nearly taken her like an animal, like a horny teenage boy lacking the finesse to coax her to her bed.
He bit back a curse. Pulse hammering, he turned away from Paige and re-holstered his weapon as he fought to control his ragged breathing, and the knife-sharp edge of self-contempt.
After a few moments, sanity returned and he could breathe again. Justin slid his hands into his pockets and faced her, ready to do the only thing he could do.
Chapter Nine
Paige pulled her knees to her chest and did her best to ignore the heat that still infused every cell of her body. She drew a shaky breath into her lungs and fought against a surge of embarrassment as the realization of what had just happened hit her full force.
Caught in that blissful place between sleep and wakefulness, it had seemed only natural to reach for Justin as his handsome face slowly came into focus before her. He seemed to have stepped from her sleep-induced thoughts into her reality and she was helpless to keep from testing to see if his lips were as sweet as she remembered, his body as warm.
Her memory couldn’t compete with reality.
Paige buried her face in her knees and groaned aloud. Mortification balled in her stomach at the knowledge that she’d nearly had sex with him on her floor. Thank heavens one of them had regained their senses before they’d made a big mistake. For surely their joining would have been a mistake. Cataclysmic, but a mistake nonetheless.
“Paige, I’m sorry. I—”
She held up her hand, thankful when his words halted. Uncertain she could handle words just yet, she didn’t want to hear his apology.
He believed her to be strong. She knew otherwise. A strong woman would hold to her promise to keep her head where he was concerned. A strong woman would face him, not hide. Her body still flushed, nerve endings screaming at the thought of how close she’d come to discovering the magic those calloused hands of his could work upon her naked flesh.
Oh, God! Something hot and liquid pooled in her stomach.
She squeezed her knees tighter to her chest. Grief drove her. Grief, along with a healthy dose of fear. It had to be. She’d read somewhere that sexual intimacy was the most popular way of reaffirming life. Surely that’s all she sought now, all that drove her into his arms. She couldn’t be falling for him, couldn’t trust her heart on a cop again. She was still trying to glue the pieces of her life back together after the last time.
Never again would she settle for a relationship where she was anything but an equal partner. No more secrets kept under the pretense of protecting her fragile sensibilities. No more giving all of herself to someone who wouldn’t give all of himself back. Better to be weak, to feel drawn to a man simply because he allayed her fear, than to take an active role in setting herself up for pain.
Feeling as though she had a handle on her emotions, Paige lifted her face from her knees. She focused on Justin, standing a good ten feet away from her, his mouth curled in a tentative smile. Beneath the shoulder holster molded against his ribs, his white shirt hung a bit crooked, his tails untucked. When her fingers began to itch with the remembered feel of his warm skin beneath her palms, she knew, quite certainly, that she didn’t have a handle on anything.
Instead, her emotions had a handle on her.
She felt off balance, her unease growing higher and higher with every passing hour she remained with him. No matter how strong her will, she knew going home with him would change things between them. She struggled enough against her intense attraction to him, once under the same roof, it would be impossible to resist. “I think I’m going to stay here.”
His smile faded. “Running away? I wouldn’t have thought that was your style.”
“Actually, it’s exactly my style.” At least it used to be. Running away from her problems is what brought her to San Diego in the first place.
Gathering her courage, Paige moved to her feet. She pressed her hand against her stomach where a hard ball of need remained. “I’m not sorry I kissed you. I’m also not sorry that you had the intelligence to end it.”
“About that—”
“It was a smart move. That kiss was…a mistake,” she managed over a suddenly dry throat.
