by Katie Reus
First, she needed a shower to wash the dog smell off her. Then, she was going to hunt Axel down. Whatever happened between them after that, happened.
Chapter 12
—Old ways won’t open new doors.—
Hadley stood in front of Axel’s doorway for a long moment, contemplating the sanity of her decision. What the heck was she even doing here? Okay, who was she kidding? She knew exactly what she was doing.
She was drawn to him in a way she didn’t completely understand, but she also wasn’t going to fight it too much. Not until she heard more from him about his history. Because he’d held back at her place when talking to everyone. Now they’d be alone without her big brother to interfere.
Finally, she lifted her hand to knock lightly but the door swung open. She nearly stepped back at the sight of him, all broad-shouldered and ridiculously sexy. “Hey,” she murmured, feeling awkward.
“I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to knock or if you were going to leave.” His expression was neutral and she hated that.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “How did you know I was out here?”
He pointed down. “Saw the shadow of your feet. And I assumed it was you.” He stepped back to let her enter.
Fighting the nerves dancing in her belly, she stepped into the nicely furnished bedroom, unsure exactly where to start.
“How’s the dog?” he asked.
“She’s good, and I’m pretty sure that Skye has officially adopted her. Or she will if we can’t find her owner.” Hadley still thought the dog’s new name was ridiculous and hoped Skye changed her mind.
He simply nodded once and stood there looking slightly unsure of himself.
“Can we sit on the bed to talk?” She was feeling off-balance and she wanted to be as steady as possible. Sitting was better than standing.
“Oh yeah, of course.” He stepped back and motioned toward the big king-size bed. A thick-looking quilt with little blue stars was slightly rumpled, but he hadn’t pulled it back. And he was wearing lounge pants, a T-shirt and his laptop was open on the bed. So at least she hadn’t interrupted his sleep.
Sitting down, she said, “I just came here to ask you some questions but don’t feel obligated to answer anything.”
He didn’t sit on the bed next to her, but instead leaned against a nearby dresser. He reminded her of a caged lion as he crossed his arms over his broad chest, all the muscles in his forearms pulling tight. “Even if I know you won’t like the answer, I’ll be honest.”
She pushed out a breath, trying to gather her thoughts. “Why did you come to see me in person? I mean, why come tell me in person, especially since you kind of know Brooks and you didn’t know me at all.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m honestly not sure I have an answer. You looked so sweet in the picture of the file I got on you. I just needed to tell you in person. I wanted to meet you,” he muttered.
Oh. Well, that was certainly honest and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. “But you didn’t tell me. Instead you asked me on a date.” To her surprise he looked down then and made a sort of grunting sound. So she pushed up from the bed and stood in front of him. “Why?” she pushed.
“Because I find myself fascinated by you,” he murmured.
She wasn’t sure why he was but she found herself fascinated by him too. “The feeling is mutual.” Her voice was a whisper now. And when she swallowed hard, the sound felt overpronounced in the quiet room. “So why are you still here helping me?” she asked when he didn’t respond.
“Because I want to see this through. I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Do you feel like telling me how you ended up in your profession now? What happened after that first…job you did?” She was still trying to wrap her head around all of it.
He shoved out a breath. “I don’t feel like telling you, but I will. Come on, let’s sit together.”
The sexual tension between them seemed to skyrocket as she sat next to him on the edge of the bed. Being so close to him—on a big, welcoming bed—was messing with her senses.
“After I did what I did, I was feeling lost, I guess. I’d put out a few resumes, looking to do contract work overseas, and received a couple offers. Jobs with good pay and benefits. Then someone from my past reached out to me.” He cleared his throat once. “Someone who was pretty sure I had killed Williams. Couldn’t be certain, but this individual said that if I was looking for similar work, he had a job for me. And that it paid well. At first I balked, because there was no way I was getting into that kind of life. I knew he wasn’t looking to set me up because…”
Axel cleared his throat.
“This guy lives in shades of gray. Then he sent me the contract. The contract was for a piece of human garbage who had slipped through the legal system a dozen times. Had killed at least eight people. I won’t give you his list of crimes because they’re revolting, but someone wanted him dead and they were willing to pay. So I took the job. Then I took another one, and another one. It got easier with each job. This individual, the one who sends me contracts, is sort of like my handler but not quite. He sends me jobs he knows I’ll take. He’s a facilitator, I guess you could call it. But what I do is illegal, there should be no doubt about that.”
“Did he send you the contract on me?” she asked.
He nodded once, looking at her as he answered. “He sent it because he knew I would do something about it. He got it by mistake because you are not the kind of target we ever take.” Silence stretched between them for a long moment.
She tried to think of something to say, for a way to respond, but kept coming up blank. How the heck could she even respond to that? Thanks for not…what? Gah.
Axel stood abruptly. “Look, I understand if you want me to just leave. I’m—”
“No, that’s not what I want at all.” She reached out and grabbed his hand on instinct, not even sure why she was doing it. Liar, liar. She wanted to touch him, simple as that.
He sat back down next to her, his expression slightly thawing. At least it wasn’t completely neutral like before. Because she really hated that.
“I’m just trying to digest everything you told me. It’s kind of a lot.”
“I know. On top of all that, I know you’re dealing with other stuff too. Like being attacked at your school. When I saw him hurt you, I lost it,” he whispered. He reached up slowly, giving her time to push his hand away, and gently stroked a thumb over her throat, where her attacker had hurt her. His touch was feather soft and it sent little spirals of awareness curling through her until it all coalesced inside her belly.
She nodded slowly at his words, trying to get her brain to start functioning while he was touching her. She hadn’t forgotten about the attack, but the truth was that it had taken a back burner since meeting Axel. Because it was impossible to think straight around him, especially when he was touching her so gently. “So…is this profession something you plan on doing forever?” Because she didn’t think she’d be okay with that. No, she knew she wouldn’t.
He shook his head as he dropped his hand. “I think I’m done.”
“Seriously? Just like that?”
“If you ask me to quit, I will.”
She blinked once. “I don’t even know how to take that.” They didn’t even know each other. Why would he do that?
“There’s not a lot you can ask me that I wouldn’t do,” he said softly, surprising her as he linked his fingers between hers.
Heat bloomed inside her, a volcano spreading out to all her nerve endings. Oh yeah, she’d completely lost her mind because she really didn’t want to leave his room at all tonight.
“Do you think I could stay here with you tonight?” she whispered, feeling a little crazed and a lot turned on by him.
She was pretty sure she surprised him if the way he went completely still was any indication. She swore he even stopped breathing.
But he nodded and his eyes went molten
hot.
* * *
Axel wasn’t sure what Hadley was thinking, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell her to leave. Not now, not ever. When she stared at him with those big brown eyes, with no recrimination—and he’d been so certain she’d hate him after he told her who he was and what he did for a living—he wanted to hold her close and never let go. But just because she wanted to stay the night with him didn’t mean she wanted anything physical.
And he was okay with that. “Will you give me a few minutes?” he asked, rising from the bed. Because if he didn’t put some distance between them, even for a few minutes, he was going to start kissing her senseless. And soon enough he’d be inside her.
She nodded, her cheeks all flushed and sexy as he headed to the bathroom. He wanted to brush his teeth and, okay, he needed space. To get his head on straight. There would be no sex tonight.
For reasons. Good ones. He just couldn’t think of any that mattered when he knew that she was in his room, waiting on his bed. That soon he could have her spread out under him, his face between her legs.
He had to stop himself right there. By the time he got his body under control and stepped back into the room, he found her on his bed, his laptop on her lap.
She flushed when she saw him. “I saw the camera feeds of my house and got curious.”
“You can use my computer for anything you want.” His whole life was about secrets, but he didn’t want to have any from her. “I was just scanning through the feeds to see if I missed anything.”
“It’s kind of weird that you had cameras at my place.”
“Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry for violating your privacy.”
“Considering why you did it…it’s okay.” She slid the laptop onto the bed next to her, so he took it and set it aside.
Then he slid in next to her and was surprised when she cuddled up next to him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Hell, maybe she didn’t want sex, so his “no sex” rule was a moot point anyway. She probably just didn’t want to be alone. Not with everything going on.
Her entire life had been turned upside down and he could be a support for her. He wanted to be.
“Tell me more about your family,” he said quietly, putting an arm around her, glad when she curled into him even more. He hadn’t had a lot of peace in his life, but holding her like this soothed something inside him.
“Well, you know my mother died.”
“Yeah.”
“We had a very complicated relationship. If she was alive, I don’t know how I would deal with the lies she told me.”
“Lies?”
Hadley sighed softly. “I don’t even know if she would consider them lies, but she told me that my dad was an asshole, that he wouldn’t want me in his life. That he’d never gotten over his first wife, the one who died. That’s Brooks’s mom.”
Axel was silent, just letting her talk.
“According to Brooks, and even according to my dad, he wasn’t the best father to Brooks growing up. He wasn’t abusive or anything, just kind of absent, drowning in his own pain. And that’s between us,” she added, shifting slightly so she could look up at him.
He nodded once. “Whatever you tell me stays between us.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then continued as she laid her head back on his chest. “My mom moved us to the West Coast when I was really young. She was…oddly competitive with me. I didn’t really understand it until I hit about fifteen. She was hypercritical of my appearance and now I can see that she simply hated getting older and took out her issues on me. She worked out four hours a day—yes, four—and was constantly worried about how she looked, what she ate or how many wrinkles she had. That kind of stuff, it never really mattered to me, probably because of her obsession with it. And the thing is, she was gorgeous. I mean, simply stunning.”
Even if Axel hadn’t done some digging on his own, he would have believed it because Hadley was too. It didn’t matter what she wore, nothing could hide her beauty.
And even if it sounded cheesy in his own head, a lot of that had to do with who she was on the inside. She’d made them stop to save a dog on the side of the road when her own life was in danger. She always seemed to be thinking of others and he could admit that he was already addicted to her.
Chapter 13
—Good things take time.—
Hadley wasn’t sure what possessed her to open up so much to Axel, but she was just laying it all out there. If he could be honest about what he did for a living, she could be honest about where she came from and who her family was.
“My mom would do kind of weird stuff,” she continued, cringing a little as she said all this out loud. “Like whenever I had friends over she tried to be their friend or flirt with boys from my class. Pretty gross stuff, if I want to be blunt. The overt flirting is why I stopped bringing people over finally. Honestly, I know kids have it way worse. My mom was dysfunctional, and…okay, she didn’t really care if I had food to eat, but I think that had more to do with her viewing food as an enemy.”
“Jesus,” Axel muttered.
She let out a small, humorless laugh. “Yeah, it was kind of messed up, but I will say, the only thing she ever let me do was horseback riding. Once she saw how good I was, she wanted to put me in competitions and she actually paid for lessons and encouraged me in her own weird way. She kind of treated me like a show pony and she loved showing off how good I was to her friends, but I didn’t care because it was the one thing I loved.” Hadley didn’t think of her mom often. Or she tried not to. So it was weird to be talking about her now, but also kind of therapeutic.
He continued rubbing her back softly. Then he said, “So what’s it like now that you have a family? A bigger family, I mean. One who seems to support you.”
Pushing up, she sat next to him so she could look at him while they talked. Being cuddled up with Axel was heaven, but she liked looking into his blue eyes. “It’s different. Especially since all of Brooks’s friends treat me like a little sister. I really like it. Actually, I love it, but I found that I have to draw some boundaries with them because they seem to think I’m fifteen and not twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two,” he muttered.
She pinched his side. “You’ve always known how old I am.”
“Yeah, but it makes me feel ancient right now.”
Axel took one of her hands in his, linked his fingers through hers, and she melted a little more.
“So, tell me about your mom,” she said. “You only said that you guys weren’t close.”
His expression went carefully neutral so she decided to lay her head back on his chest, sensing that looking into his eyes made it harder for him. He shifted, wrapping his arm around her again, and she just wanted to burrow into him. She hoped it would be easier for him to talk with her lying this way, without feeling like he was being scrutinized.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she murmured, resting one hand on his chest. Even if she was really curious. Because she wanted to know everything about this man, everything that made him tick. He’d already opened up to her in such a huge way, she wouldn’t push anymore. Not tonight anyway.
He slid his hand down along her side and hip until his big hand was more or less grazing the top of her butt. Holy hell, that shouldn’t get her worked up, but it made her wonder if he planned to do anything else or if cuddling was the only thing on the menu for tonight. Some of her friends from school would have no problem making the first move, but she wasn’t feeling brave right now. After the other night, after the way she’d stroked him off, she wanted him to make the move this time.
His fingers flexed once against her hip, sending a rush of heat through her. The man was huge all over. She could clearly see the outline of his erection, but he seemed content to simply lie there with her.
“I want to tell you about my past too. I have no idea who my father was, and honestly, I don’t think my mom knew either. She was sort of like your mom, I
guess, trying to recapture her youth, or just hold on to it. She liked to party and she didn’t mind leaving me home alone. If it hadn’t been for a neighbor, I wouldn’t have eaten most nights. We lived in this shitty little trailer, so I was what you would consider white trash. I didn’t really understand that until I hit middle school.”
He was silent for a long moment and she gently kissed his chest, hating the thought of him going hungry. He was quiet for a while and she thought he might be done.
“She partied too hard one night and went home with the wrong man,” he finally said. “The guy killed her.” His voice was completely devoid of emotion.
Stunned, Hadley pushed up so she could look at him. “Axel, I’m so sorry.”
He lifted a shoulder, the sheets rustling with the movement. “It was a long time ago. I was sixteen then. So I was put in the system for a couple years, and got pretty lucky. I only lived with two families, and they weren’t great but they also weren’t abusive. I think it’s because of my size. They pretty much left me alone, cashed their checks, and I got to finish school in the same school district I’d lived in with my mom. Trust me, I’ve seen a hell of a lot worse.”
She was sure that he had, given that he’d worked for the FBI. Shifting up closer, she brushed her lips over his, only intending a chaste kiss, but he immediately deepened it, his tongue teasing her mouth open in the most dominating, possessive way.
And she melted into him, unable to resist this sexy, wonderful man who’d come to Redemption Harbor simply to protect her because of a file he’d read. She was coming to terms with what he did for a living, but she still wanted him.
Desperately. And she wasn’t sure what that said about her.
She started to climb onto him, straddling him, but found herself flat on her back underneath him instead. He made a sort of sexy growling sound as he plundered her mouth, his huge erection pressed against her belly.
Heat flooded between her thighs as she thought about what he would feel like pressing into her. She’d already heard him come, knew how intoxicating it was to see and hear a man like Axel lose control, and she wanted him to do it with her now. Wanted to know him in the most intimate way possible.
