Kiss Me Slow (Top Shelf Romance Book 1)

by Tijan

  “Whose blood is that?” The question tumbles from me as I take a step backward and Jase stands up tall. My hands grip the doorway and my fingers leave a trail of blood.

  There’s a look in his eyes I will never forget when my gaze finally reaches his.

  A darkness I haven’t seen before and the fear that accompanies it is all-consuming.

  In sharp spikes, the chills take over and I take another step back. Out of the bathroom and away from him.

  That piece of my soul that was warning me before… it wasn’t about the blood, it was about Jase. I know it to be true when he takes another step forward, so much larger than mine with his hands raised and he tells me to calm down.

  If I could speak, I’d tell him he’s crazy to think I should calm down. If I could speak, I’d scream at him, demanding he tell me what he’s done.

  But I can’t. Every syllable catches in the back of my throat in a way that feels like I’m choking.

  “Let me get a shower and we can talk,” Jase states calmly, the savage look in his eyes just barely dimming.

  My head shakes, all on its lonesome and I turn and run. As fast as I can, I run away from him.

  “Fuck,” I hear him mutter as I bolt to the door, sweeping myself around it and crashing into the hall wall. I don’t stop running, even though I don’t hear him behind me.

  Thump, thump, thump, thump. My heart pounds faster than my heels, ushering me away.

  As I reach the door, I hear him call out. With my hand on the scanner, I turn around to see him with a pair of sweats, walking toward me, not running.

  Maybe he thought that would keep me from leaving. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t be threatened or I wouldn’t be scared.

  But he was wrong.

  So fucking wrong. The second I swing the door open, I hear him scream my name and start running. I slam the door closed knowing he’ll have to use the scanner too. It’s another second I have ahead of him. Only seconds.

  Run!

  I scramble to my car and to find my keys. With terror raging through me at Jase getting his hands on me and forcing me back inside, at not knowing what he’ll do to me or what he’s capable of, I shove the gear into drive and reverse out of the driveway. I’m senselessly speeding away with the sight of him swinging the door open the moment my car hits the gate. Crashing it open and denting the hood of my car.

  Even as I scream, I keep my foot on the gas, not caring about the damage, just needing to leave as quickly as possible.

  I need to run and never stop.

  Run far away and not look back.

  The car jostles as I go over a curb and then another, my tires screaming as I race out of the long drive and backroads to get to the busy streets.

  My gaze spends too long in the rearview, waiting for his car to show. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t keep me from tearing down the road.

  My grip is hot, my pulse fast. I need to get the fuck out of here.

  It’s only once I’ve gotten onto the main road and I’m minutes away from my home that I let myself think of anything other than the need to go faster.

  How could I love him? How could I want to love him?

  Thoughts run wild in my mind, fighting with each other to be heard. There’s a pounding in my temple and I don’t even realize when I’ve run the red light until a car beeps their horn at me.

  Fuck! I have to veer to the right to miss hitting the SUV. A wave of heat flows over my skin, far too hot as my tires squeal and I barely keep my car on the road.

  That doesn’t stop me. I keep going. I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I need to go faster. I need to get away.

  With my chest heaving, I catch sight of the blood. Oh my God, the blood.

  I need to get it off. I need to get this off. Bile climbs up my throat and I have to swallow it as I pull into my driveway. It’s a reckless turn but I don’t care. I need to get inside and get this off.

  Get this blood off of me. Get Jase Cross off of me.

  It’s all I can think about as I slam the door shut to my car and run to the porch. The gust of cold air brings with it the white mist of an incoming storm tonight.

  My hands are still shaking as I search for my key and that’s what I’m staring at when I hear Officer Walsh’s voice. “Bethany?”

  The surprise and shock make me scream and drop my keys. They bang as they hit the ground and I stay perfectly still.

  “Fuck.” The word is spoken faintly as I stare back at him on the other end of my porch as he gets up from the chair. Like he was waiting for me.

  I know my expression is one of fear and guilt, a doe-eyed woman caught in the act of something awful and I can’t change it as our gazes lock.

  “Is that blood?” he asks, standing straighter, but with his hand behind him as my feet turn to stone and refuse to move.

  “No,” I lie and his head tilts as his hand pushes his coat back and his fingers rest on his gun.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I spill the words out, pleading with him to understand. My pulse rages and I can barely stand up straight. Fuck, no. How did this happen?

  “Tell me everything. I can help you,” he urges, but it doesn’t sound sincere.

  “You have to believe me. It’s not me. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Tell me whose blood that is.”

  “I don’t know,” I practically shriek.

  “It is blood then?” he questions. Immediately, I feel caught. I feel trapped. The bite of the air creeps in, cracking the heat that’s consumed me.

  My lips part, but instead of giving him words, all I can do is swallow as my vision becomes dizzy.

  “Tell me everything, Bethany; what happened?” His question comes out harder this time and he takes a step forward. I instinctively take a step back and my back hits the wall of the house.

  With a trembling voice I whisper, begging him to let me go. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I don’t know.”

  My inhale is ragged as he takes another step closer and I have nowhere to go.

  “I wish I didn’t have to do this.” Pulling out the cuffs from behind his back, he tells me, “Bethany Fawn, you’re under arrest.”

  A Single Touch

  A Single Touch

  Book 3

  From USA Today bestselling author W. Winters comes the conclusion to the breathtaking, heart-wrenching romantic suspense trilogy, Irresistible Attraction.

  Sometimes you meet someone, although maybe meet isn’t quite the right word. You don’t even have to say hello for this to happen. You simply pass by them and everything in your world changes forever. Chills flow from where you imagine he’d kiss you in the crook of your neck, moving all the way down with only a single glance.

  I know you know what I’m referring to. The moment when something inside of you ignites to life, recognizing the other half that’s been gone for far too long.

  It burns hot, destroying any hope that it’s only a coincidence, and that life will go back to what it was. These moments are never forgotten.

  That’s only with a single glance.

  I can tell you what a single touch will do. It will consume you and everything you thought you knew.

  I felt all of this with Jase Cross, with every flicker of the flames that roared inside of me.

  I knew he’d be my downfall, and I was determined to be his just the same.

  A Single Touch is the third and final book of the Irresistible Attraction trilogy.

  A Single Glance and A Single Kiss must be read first.

  Prologue

  “Past is a nice place to visit, but certainly not a good place to stay.”

  - Anonymous

  Bethany

  My calculus grades are slipping. The large red D scribbled in Miss Talbot’s handwriting stares back at me. One look at it shoves the knot in the back of my throat even deeper down my windpipe. My bookbag falls to the floor in the nursing home with a dull thud as I whisper the word, “fuck.” With my hand rubbing under my tired eyes, I let out
a heavy sigh and stare at the ceiling in the hallway.

  There’s no way I’m going to be able to stay in college if I don’t pass. There’s no coming back from this. My grades didn’t slip like this last year when Jenny was here with me every day at four o’clock on the dot. I only have one more year to go, but this class is a core requirement. I’ll never need to know how the hell derivatives work in order to be a nurse, but I can’t fail this class. I can’t fucking fail.

  “Bethany?” The soft voice belongs to Nurse Judy. She told me exactly how she got her degree and that I could do it just like she did. She’s the reason I changed my major sophomore year to pursue a nursing degree. Just as she creeps into the long hall, I shove the test into a notebook while stuffing it into my worn leather backpack, listening to the sound of the zipper rather than what she’s saying.

  I’ll fail calculus, lose the scholarship that’s paid for more than half of my college education, and be left with even more debt and no degree to show for it. Perfect. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Other than work a nine-to-five at whatever minimum wage job I can get. If they’ll even hire me.

  “Did you hear me?” Nurse Judy coaxes me out of my downward spiral and it’s then that I see the worried look in her dark brown eyes. “Your mother had a relapse.”

  “A relapse?” The confusion leaves a deep crease on my forehead.

  “We don’t know what caused it, but she’s with us, Bethany. Mentally aware.”

  “Aware?” All the air leaves me with the single word.

  “She woke up, not knowing what happened during the last three or so years. But she knows time has passed. She knows you and your sister have been on your own and that she has Alzheimer’s.”

  “I don’t understand how that’s possible.” Fear is something I never expected to feel in this moment. I’ve had so many dreams come to me in the middle of the night where my mother would be lucid. Where she’d tell me it was okay, that she was back now. Back for good and that she remembers everything. They were only dreams though. It’s only ever a dream.

  I can barely swallow as I stare past Nurse Judy and walk forward without conscious awareness. “Is she okay?” It’s the only thing I can ask. I can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up one day to have lost years of time. To wake up and find your children look different and everything’s changed.

  The oddest thing in this moment is that I hope she still loves me. I just want her to love me still.

  Even if I’m failing. Even if I’m no longer her little girl. It’s been years since she’s been lucid and this is what I want most of all.

  “She’ll be better when she sees you,” is the answer Nurse Judy gives me. With each step, I know I’ll always remember this moment. It’s like something flipped a switch in my head and a voice gives me reassurance. This moment will never leave you. This moment will define you.

  “Are they here?” my mother’s voice calls out. Echoed in her voice, I can hear the strain of past tears. “Did they get your messages?”

  My answer drowns out Nurse Judy’s as I round the corner to the living room in the home, my steps picking up pace just as my throat tightens. “Mom,” I croak.

  She’s frail and thin, as she was yesterday and the day before. Somehow I thought when she came into view, she’d look like she did the last time I held her hand and she asked me again who my sister was.

  She had her makeup done perfectly although she didn’t need it. Mom used to say she’d never grow old. Even joked about it that day as she brushed her blush up to her temples. That was the day we took her to the hospital. She’d forgotten who my sister was and it took me a long time to realize she’d forgotten who I was too. She thought I was her best friend from high school, the girl she named me after. A girl who had long since died.

  My mother squeezes me harder today than she did back then and the tickle in the back of my throat grows impatient as I hold my breath and squeeze her back just as tight.

  I don’t cry until her body wracks with sobs against mine. “Sorry,” she tells me. “I’m so sorry,” is all she can say over and over.

  As if she chose this. As if she wanted to forget the life she had and let the memories fade and die. That’s what forgetting is, it’s the death of the life you had. It doesn’t just kill you though. It kills everyone else as well.

  I only pull away from her for a moment, just to tell her there’s nothing to be sorry for, but the words are lost when she looks into my eyes. Her own are gray and clouded with a gaze of sorrow.

  “Mom?”

  Her expression changes in an instant. Confusion clouds her face, where just minutes ago there was clarity.

  My mother is in there, or she was, but the moment is gone.

  “Who are you?”

  “Mom, come back,” I beg her, feeling my chest hollow and then fill with agony. “Where’d you go?” I ask her, not giving into the fear this time, only the loss. “Mom!” Hope is undeniable. “I’m here, Mom; I’m here!”

  Her hand tightens on my forearm, too tight.

  “Mom,” I gasp, trying to pry her hands off of me as she refuses to look away, refuses to react to anything at all. She’s merely a statue and the realization frightens me. I turn to look over my shoulder just as I hear the front door shut from the hall. My heartbeat races. Where’d Nurse Judy go?

  “Mom,” I protest, writhing out of her grasp. “Help!” I finally call out, the fear winning.

  “Everyone I loved has died,” my mother says, and her voice is ragged. Despair and loss morph her features into one of pain and her grip on me loosens.

  Staring into my eyes with sincerity, she tells me, “Everyone you love will die before you do.” As if she’s talking to a stranger she only intends to bring pain, they’re the last words she speaks before her slender body relaxes into the chair. Her gaze wanders aimlessly as I stand there breathless from both fear and despair, knowing I was too late. That’s when I hear the quickened footsteps of my sister running into the room.

  Running to see her mother. Who’s already gone.

  Seconds pass, and I can’t look at Jenny. I brush the tears away as Nurse Judy pushes past us both, aiding my mother, whose consciousness has drifted to another place and another time.

  “Mom,” my sister cries. And I don’t blame her.

  That was the last time my sister cried for our mother. She didn’t even cry at her funeral nearly a year later. Jenny always held it against her that our mother didn’t wait for her. She held it against me too, knowing I at least got to hear Mom tell me she was sorry.

  I never told her what else our mother said. I tried to forget it. I did everything I could to kill that memory.

  It’s come back though. It refuses to die, unlike other things in my life.

  Bethany

  The clock doesn’t stop ticking.

  It’s one of those simple round clocks. There’s nothing special about the white backing and thick black frame. Tick, tick, tick. It’s loud and unforgiving. The torture of it is all I can focus on to bring me sanity as the last hours of my life fall like dominoes in my memory.

  The money in the trunk.

  “You still haven’t explained where you got the three hundred thousand dollars.” Officer Walsh’s voice is hard.

  The blood on Jase’s clothes and the look in his eyes when I came into his bathroom.

  “Or why you were covered in blood. Whose blood is it, Miss Fawn? You need to tell us.”

  Fear is what motivated me to run from him. Fear is the cause of all of this. It’s left me now, though. In its place is something more resigned.

  One long, deep breath falls from me as I stare at the painted white bricks of the interrogation room’s walls and listen to the tick, tick, tick.

  My piss-poor decisions have led to this point in my life.

  The point of waiting. I’ve fucked it up enough; I may as well just let it all fall. When Alice fell, she landed in Wonderland. I’m thinking that’s not where I’ll land, but I’m read
y to feel the weightlessness of what’s to come. I’m simply tired of fighting it.

  There’s another officer in the room. He’s younger. When I first listened to their demands for me to answer their questions, I sat here hours ago with my shoulders tense and feeling the need to curl up into a ball and hide. The young cop sat across from me, his arms crossed and his gaze never wandering from me.

  I don’t like him or the way he looks at me.

  “We’re doing a DNA test now. You think it’s going to hit, Walsh?” The other officer, Linders, finally speaks to Walsh, even if his eyes are still pinned on me. There’s a certain level of disdain that seeps into my skin every time I meet his gaze.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Officer Walsh answers. He’s staring at me too, even as he taps the stack of papers in his hand and continues, “I think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that she has names.”

  Tick, tick, the clock goes on. It’s been like this for hours in this cold interrogation room. An ache in my back reminds me how uncomfortable this metal chair is.

  “I don’t think so. I think she was hired for a hit or was hiring someone else and it went wrong.” Officer Linders speaks clearly, although his voice is low and rough. “A hit or drugs. There’s no other explanation. Who’d you get the cash from?” he asks me. It has to be the hundredth time they’ve asked about the cash. “Where did it all go wrong?”

  “I already told you,” I start to say but don’t recognize my tired voice anymore as I lift my gaze to Officer Walsh’s and then to Linders’s. “I don’t have anything to say.”

  Officer Walsh leans forward, exasperated. The metal legs grind against the floor as he repositions in his chair. “I saw how scared you were,” he says. Compassion wraps itself around every word and his gaze pleads with me to give him something. “I can help you.”

  A second passes and then another.