by Lacey Thorn
“Where’s all her money going?” Bare mused.
“Exactly,” Gilly agreed. “I can see the money leaving her account. It goes through several different channels then just disappears.”
“You can’t find it?” Bare asked, completely surprised. There was little Gilly couldn’t find if he wanted to.
“Yet,” he said. “I’m still digging. It had to go somewhere. Eventually, I’ll find it.”
“This will destroy Paisley.” Bare said aloud the words he was thinking.
“No,” Gilly disagreed. “Maybe, it would have a year ago. Hell, even a month ago. But I saw strength in the woman I met today, the same one who showed up on my doorstep. I’m not saying she won’t take a hard knock if it turns out her mother had anything to do with this, but I don’t think she’ll crumble. Not this time. And I think the reason is standing here with me.”
“I can’t shield her from this,” Bare said.
“No, but you can be there for her, just like you have been for the last five years.”
Bare turned and walked back to the monitors. “She asked me to help her learn to live again. Today. After lunch.”
“That’s great,” Gilly said from behind him. “I know you’ve been waiting for that.”
“I wanted to give her time. Take her out. Show her all the things she’s been missing out on. See her smile. Hear her laugh. Share kisses. See if we have a shot at something more than friends.”
“So do that,” Gilly said. “Though I never thought of you as the romantic type.” He slapped Bare on the back and chuckled.
Bare grunted. He wasn’t feeling romantic at the moment. He was feeling cavemanish. He wanted to throw Paisley down on the first flat surface—or against a flat surface. Hell, any surface would do at the moment. He wanted to fuck her until neither of them could stand. It was a moment years in the making, at least in his mind.
“We’ll keep her safe,” Gilly said.
Bare nodded. “I promised Paisley dinner.”
“I’ve already got it cooking,” Gilly said. “Made stew. All I need to do is put the bread in the oven.” He headed toward the stairs. “You coming?”
“I’m just going to watch the monitors for a minute,” Bare said. He knew Gilly had them wired with alarms. His cousin just shrugged and walked upstairs. Bare figured the man knew he needed some time alone to get himself under control.
He’d leave it all up to Paisley. He wouldn’t pursue her the way he wanted to, but he wouldn’t turn her away either. If she came to him, he’d give them both what they needed.
Chapter Six
They’d finished dinner hours ago, and still, Paisley paced her bedroom, arguing with herself. She felt like a teenager all over again, the way she was debating her actions. She wanted to go across the hall, sneak into Bare’s room and slip into his bed. No, she wanted more than that. She wanted him to hold her, make love to her. Scratch that, too. She wanted him to fuck her into oblivion. It was as if once she’d made the decision to step out from behind her past, she couldn’t wait. She’d let the past hold her back for too long.
She would always love Lance, would always mourn the child they should have had, but she was finally coming to grips with the fact his death didn’t mean hers as well. That was why she’d decided to go out this week instead of staying cooped up as she always did. She was tired of having only her grief to keep her company. And now that she’d felt Bare against her, his touch and his kiss, she didn’t want to go back. She wouldn’t. No, she couldn’t.
She grabbed the silk robe Bare had packed for her and slipped it over the matching gown she wore. Both hit her mid-thigh.
“Live,” she whispered aloud. She was choosing to live, and Bare was just across the hall. Too close for her to deny.
She eased her door open and looked both ways before tiptoeing over to Bare’s door and slipping inside. His room was dark, but she made out the shadow of the bed across from her. She stood for a minute, allowing her eyes to adjust until she saw his shape under the sheet. Her breath caught in her throat, and she ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips.
She cautiously crossed until she stood over him. His dark-brown hair was sleep rumpled, the perpetual five o’clock shadow darker and thicker on his face. She wanted to touch him. She even reached out her hand but stopped before she gave into the urge. Instead, she ran her gaze over the tattoos adorning his perfect body. She wanted to trace them, with her tongue. God, it was as if her libido had awoken with a vengeance.
“Are you going to stand there staring at me all night?” Bare asked without moving a muscle, eyes still closed.
She cleared her throat. “I might.”
That got one eye open. “Or you could crawl in here with me.” He lifted the cover on the other side in invitation.
Paisley moved around the bed, dropping her robe to the floor as she did and slid onto the mattress with him. He immediately pulled her to him, curling her into his embrace. She turned onto her side, resting one hand on his chest and propping her chin on it.
“I wasn’t sure you’d welcome me here,” she admitted.
He lifted a brow at her, his hand running up and down her side, stopping briefly on each pass to cup her hip. “You’re more than welcome.”
“Are you worried?” she asked softly, trying to read the flickering in his eyes, but Bare gave away nothing.
“About you getting hurt again?” he asked. “Not physically. I’ll kill anyone who even tries to lay a hand on you. Emotionally?” He sighed.
“You can’t protect me from my emotions,” she admonished. “Only I can do that. I meant what I said when I told my dad that my mom can’t hurt me anymore. What?” she asked, seeing something in his gaze that gave her pause.
“I debated whether or not to say anything to you,” Bare said. “But bottom line is it’s your life. You need to know.”
“Know what?” Paisley asked.
“Gilly did some digging, into the attack that night.”
“The police did a thorough investigation,” Paisley said. “They left no stone unturned. Still they found nothing.”
“I’m not saying Gilly discovered who attacked you that night, but he did say it appeared to be a professional hit.”
She swallowed, her mind working through what he was saying. “You think someone hired that person to attack me?”
“Or Lance,” Bare said.
She shook her head. “Lance didn’t have any enemies.”
“Everyone has enemies,” Bare countered. “Was anything different that day? Any changes in routine?”
She didn’t want to remember. Wasn’t that why she was here, in Bare’s bed? So she didn’t have to relive the past over and over again? She saw the concern in his gaze and went back to that day anyway.
“I left early from the studio. I wasn’t feeling well, hadn’t been for weeks. So I went for a drive, stopped at an out-of-the-way market where no one even noticed me and bought three pregnancy tests. I headed home, took them and waited for Lance to get home from the set.”
Bare squeezed her closer, somehow sensing she needed his touch to ground her to the here and now. “What would you have normally done?”
“I would have been on set for another few hours, reading through scripts for the next day, checking in with wardrobe, stuff like that.”
“Then what?” Bare prompted.
“Gym,” she said. “I spent my days in a bikini. That meant eating right and maintaining my body with a rigorous gym routine. The camera isn’t kind. I’ve put on twenty pounds since I left.”
“And you’re still too skinny,” Bare grouched. He glanced down at her, and she swore she saw uncertainty in his gaze. “Do you miss it?”
She shook her head without delay. “No. I never wanted to be an actress. That was my mom’s dream.”
“What was yours?”
“Writing,” she admitted. “I planned to entertain the world in a completely different fashion.”
“Have you done any since you’ve been here
?”
“Just journaling. My attempt at working through the grief and pain.”
“It must have helped,” he said. “You’re here.”
She nodded. Maybe, it hadn’t been the best way, but it had been hers, and it had helped. Grief was different for everyone. For some, five years might seem like forever, for others not nearly long enough.
“After the gym,” he said. “Did you head home then?”
“After I stopped to check on Vivian. It was my way of trying to keep track of what she’d planned. I’d stop by, make sure she hadn’t booked me into anything I wasn’t comfortable with. It was a bone of contention for Lance. He hated Vivian, hated the way she dictated my every move. He wanted me to cut ties completely with her. He knew she tied me in knots.”
“Smart man,” Bare said.
“He was,” Paisley admitted, and though her heart ached at the thought of Lance, it didn’t paralyze her as it had so often in the past. Then her mind went beyond Lance and locked onto what Bare was trying to get her to figure out.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have normally been home, but the attacker was on the stairs when I saw him. He knew I was there.”
“So maybe he was watching the house. Or someone told him you’d be there,” Bare offered, watching her with a hooded gaze.
“What are you saying?” Paisley asked, but Bare didn’t say anything else, letting her figure it out for herself.
She pushed away from his chest and sat up in bed beside him. “My mother is a lot of things, but even I don’t think she’d be capable of murder.”
“Sounds like she had a good reason for wanting Lance out of the picture,” Bare said.
“Still, murder isn’t her style. Too messy. She would have found another way. Framing him for having an affair. Framing me for having an affair.”
“Can you think of anyone else who would have been motivated to want one of you gone?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, everyone loved Lance. Everywhere we went, people gravitated to him. He was that type of person. Warm and inviting. Affectionate and happy. You couldn’t be around him and not smile.”
“Were any of those people upset you were going to marry him?”
“Probably every female he met,” Paisley said with a smile. “And half the men. But enough to kill?” She shook her head again. “I can’t see it.”
“We’ll just have to keep our eyes open then. I won’t let anything happen to you again.”
“We don’t even know this person will resurface. They’ve been content to leave me alone for five years. I don’t believe for an instant they couldn’t have found me if they wanted to. Especially if Gilly is right and the attacker was a professional.”
Bare sighed. “You could be right. All this concern could be for nothing.”
“My dad will still worry,” she said.
“He will. We all will. Your dad. Tuck. Me. We all remember what you looked like in that hospital bed. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens again.”
“Who did you lose?” Paisley asked softly and saw the surprise in Bare’s gaze. “Sometimes, I glimpse shadows in your eyes.”
Bare sighed. “Come here,” he said and patted his chest again.
Paisley lay back down beside him. He tugged her closer until her head lay where he wanted it, his fingers stroking through her hair. They stayed that way for a long moment, long enough for her to think he wasn’t going to share with her, but he did.
“I was married right out of high school. We’d dated since our sophomore year. Everyone expected it. She knew I planned to join the military and said she supported me. Then I had my first tour away from her. Twelve months. It was hard for both of us, but harder on her. That became our pattern. I’d volunteer for these tours—Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa. She’d become withdrawn and resentful. I wasn’t there for her.” He glanced down, and Paisley saw the hurt and pain in his eyes. “She said I loved my job more than I did her.” He blew out a long breath. “And she was right. The last time I returned, she’d started drinking. She was… God, it was awful. I called her parents, told her to go home. Then I left again. Just packed up and left her.”
“What happened?” Paisley asked.
“She was killed in a head-on collision with another car. She was the drunk driver. She killed herself and the two people in the other car, teenagers, who had their whole lives ahead of them.”
“Oh, God,” Paisley moaned, hugging herself to him. “I’m so sorry.”
His fingers tightened against her for a minute then relaxed as he continued stroking through her hair. “It took me a long time to stop blaming myself. I was a mess when Jamison and Tuck took me in. Tuck looked me right in the eyes and said I was just a body in search of a grave.” He shook his head. “Those words hit me hard. He helped me realize I had no control over what she had done or hadn’t done. Bottom line was they were her choices to make, not mine.”
“So you left the service after it happened?”
“I did. Blamed it for everything. Leaving turned out to be a good thing though. Otherwise, I’d probably have gotten myself killed and come home in a box.”
“How did you meet my dad?” Paisley asked and was relieved to see a grin tug at Bare’s mouth.
“Bar fight.”
“With my dad?”
Bare laughed. “Caught him square on the jaw when he tried to break up a fight between me and another guy.”
“Oh my God! I can’t believe you hit my dad.”
“Me, either. All I can say is I was stupid back then.”
“So what happened?”
“Next thing I knew, I had five guys on me while Jamison just rubbed his jaw and stared me down. I thought I was a dead man and didn’t even care. I think Jamison saw that in me. He turned his head and asked Tuck what he thought.”
“What did Tuck say?”
“'He’ll do. Just nodded and said I’d do. Asked if I had a place to stay. I think I told him to fuck off or something. Shit, I was three sheets at least by that point. Your dad told me paybacks were a bitch and punched me so hard I swear I saw stars. Woke up the next morning with a jackhammer going off behind my eyelids and a swollen jaw. Your dad packs a solid punch.”
“I’m sure he does,” Paisley agreed and shook her head. “And they took you in?”
“Just like that,” Bare said. “They saved my life that day. Gave me a new direction when I was floundering and desperate.”
“I’m glad they found you,” she whispered and turned her cheek to place a soft kiss on his chest. “Do you still blame yourself?” she asked just as quietly.
He was silent again, and she wondered if he felt the weight of that question the same way she did. Sometimes, she felt so guilty. Guilty for living when Lance hadn’t. Guilty for being unable to protect herself and her unborn child. Guilty for existing in a world where they didn’t.
“No,” Bare finally answered. He rolled so she was on her back and he rested his weight on one arm, the other reaching out to rub across the silk of her gown where it rested on her belly. “Do you blame yourself?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
“Ah, Paisley,” he said, moving his fingers up to trace across her cheek. “You survived, and for the past few years, that’s all you’ve done.”
“I know,” she agreed. “It’s not enough anymore. I want more. I need more.”
“You deserve more,” Bare stated. “I can’t imagine any man who loved you would want anything less for you than a life filled with love and happiness.”
She nodded, and a tear slipped down her face. He swiped it away with his thumb.
“Thanks for being here,” Paisley told him. “You’ve been a great friend even when I didn’t realize it.”
“I’ll always be your friend.”
“But you want more?” she prompted, needing him to say the words again before she took the step she contemplated.
“Yeah,” he agreed in a rough tone. “I want to
be much more than friends. But I won’t rush you. I’ll be here, beside you, in any way you need me, for as long as you need me.”
“If I asked you to hold me tonight while I sleep, would you?”
“I’ll hold you and chase all the nightmares away,” he vowed.
“And this?” She moved her hand to slide her fingers along his erection.
Bare caught his breath and jerked his hips back. “You know I want you. I won’t hide it from you. Touching you, tasting your kiss. My body is going to react. I’ve wanted you for a long time. Sporting wood around you is nothing new, but I’ll survive.”
He laid back down and held his arm out to her. “Now, come here, and let me hold you while we get some sleep.”
“I’d rather you do something else,” she whispered, turning toward him. She slid to her knees, rising and shifting until she straddled his lap. There was no missing the way his eyes widened when she sat on him. She centered her heat over his shaft, enjoying the way it felt pressing against her with so little clothing between them. It took all she had not to rub against him. “Touch me, Bare. Make love to me.”
Chapter Seven
Bare gripped her hips and pressed up into her, making them both moan. One touch and his dick was ready to explode. He saw the tight points of her nipples pressing against the silk of her gown. He wanted to suck them through the material, wanted to rip off her clothes, lay her down and lick every inch of her. And he would, as soon as he could breathe again.
“Touch me,” she begged again and lifted her hands to cup her breasts, thumbs flicking over the swollen tips. “I ache.”
“Christ,” he muttered and sat up so fast she grabbed his forearms in alarm, nails sinking deep as she clung. Yeah, he wanted to feel those sharp points scratching his head while he ate her hot little pussy—soon. Then, maybe, she’d use them on his shoulders and back while he pounded his cock into her. Fuck! He had to stop thinking and start doing or this would be over far too quickly.
“Are you sure?” He forced the question up from his throat, desperately afraid she’d change her mind, despite the hunger in her eyes. Jesus, it would kill him.
