Blaze: A Small Town, Nerdy Girl, Opposites Attract, Protector Romance (Ghost Ops Book 1)

Chapter 30

She’d messed up.Emma dragged in a breath and took a sip of her now cold tea. Why had she pushed him? He was angry with her, and she couldn’t blame him. They weren’t besties, or lovers, or even in a relationship. She had no right.

And yet her heart throbbed at the idea he wasn’t willing to share his pain with her. She’d told him things about her life she hadn’t told anyone else. That he wouldn’t do the same hurt.

It shouldn’t, but it did.

“He’s not your boyfriend,” she muttered. “You don’t want a boyfriend anyway.”

Emma got up and took her cup to the kitchen, washed it out in the sink, and set it on the drying rack. The sky was starting to lighten outside. The wind howled because it was the beginning of March. A profound sense of loneliness invaded her heart.

If she were still in Chicago, it’d be a lot colder out. There’d probably be snow, too. And if she couldn’t sleep, like now, she’d grab her bag and go to the gym.

She couldn’t do that because she wasn’t leaving the building alone, but she could go down and use the treadmill in the office. The front and rear doors of the building were locked. It was safe.

She chewed her lip, thinking. Blaze wouldn’t like it, but she really needed the physical exertion to clear her head, to ground her. Her life was upside down, again, and she felt like she was going to come out of her skin if she didn’t do something.

Emma hurried to her room, rummaged through her suitcase, put on her workout gear, and grabbed her phone. Blaze had given her his spare key for the time she was staying with him. She locked the door behind her and slipped it into the hidden pocket on her leggings.

The building was quiet, and the hall was dark. For a moment she wondered if she should go back inside Blaze’s apartment and stay there. Her heart hammered in her chest as she listened for movement, but there was nobody waiting for her.

Simon wasn’t superhuman. He needed sleep like everyone else, and she knew his patterns. Unless he’d changed them, he stayed up until midnight or one, then slept until about eight. He wasn’t waiting in the dark on the chance she’d emerge alone.

Emma went down the stairs and opened the office with her key, then locked that door behind her and entered the small room at the back of the building where the treadmill was located. Her dad had a television above it so he could watch videos while he walked.

She grabbed the remote, punched the On button, and signed into her YouTube account, paging through options until she found a video on baking she hadn’t yet watched. With the droning of the woman’s voice explaining how to knead bread, Emma turned up the speed of the treadmill until she was walking at a good clip.

It’d been too long since she’d gone to the gym regularly, and she knew she had to start back easy, no matter how much she wanted to crank that sucker up and run until she collapsed.

Frustration snapped at her as her feet slapped the belt. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be.

Simon was in her hometown, disrupting her life, threatening her parents with that break-in, invading her childhood bedroom, and threatening her with a bound and gagged doll—and Blaze wasn’t quite the easygoing nice guy she’d thought.

There was something going on with him and Chance. Probably with the entire group of them. Who went shooting at ten o’clock at night, got shot, sliced, and then insisted very strongly on not going into a doctor’s office for treatment because she might report the gunshot?

Somebody with secrets, that’s who.

Emma shivered. Was she really that terrible a judge of character?

She’d thought Blaze and Chance were the good guys. Still did down deep.

But what if she was wrong? Just because they were helping her didn’t make them good. A man didn’t have to be abusive toward a woman to be a bad guy.

Emma punched the speed higher. She was tired of not having it figured out, tired of people being different than she thought they were.

It was supposed to be easy. The only problem she’d been supposed to have was settling into Sutton’s Creek again, dealing with patients who’d known her when she was in diapers or when she’d gone to high school with them. She’d expected that part to be difficult, to have to work to make people trust her.

There’d been a family physician in Sutton’s Creek for two generations. That doctor had always been male, and now she was there, a small woman who’d left home years ago and hadn’t been around to put people at ease before she took over.

Emma hiked up the speed until she had to break into a run. Her heart throbbed as sweat ran down her face and between her breasts. The woman on-screen talked about punching the bread down.

Emma wanted to punch something.

Simon’s face. His arrogant, lying, stupid face. Her life had fallen apart because of him.

Emma growled and punched the speed higher. She was sucking wind, her limbs ached, and she felt like she would fly off the treadmill any second. She wasn’t ready for this much speed, wasn’t in shape for it.

There was a sudden pounding on the door. She lost her balance and stumbled. The emergency brake clip popped off the treadmill as she fell. The machine died. The sudden stop propelled her forward until she sprawled across the controls, her arms wrapped awkwardly around the bars at the sides.

The pounding continued.

“Emma! I know you’re in there. Open the fucking door.”

It was Blaze’s voice. Not Simon’s.

Thank God.

“Just a damn minute,” she yelled between breaths.

She managed to lever herself upright again. Her right arm hurt where she’d pressed all her weight on it. The pull on her tendon was sharp.

Great. Fucking great.

Emma stumbled to the back door on rubbery legs and unlocked it. Blaze loomed in the entry. He was blazing mad. She might have giggled at the pun if he didn’t look so utterly dark and serious.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he growled.

She hobbled back to the room and picked up a towel to rub over her face. The woman on television was kneading the loaf now.

“I was thinking I needed exercise.”

Her shirt clung to her, wet with sweat, and her heartbeat was still erratic.

He’d stalked into the room behind her. His gaze slid over the treadmill, the television, then back to her. “You aren’t supposed to leave the apartment without an escort.”

Frustration pounded in her brain, her temples. “Look, it’s five in the morning, the front and back doors are locked, and you get alerts on your phone if they’re opened. I didn’t go out, I simply came downstairs—and locked myself in, I might add. I did everything safely.”

“I don’t care if you locked it, you aren’t supposed to step out the door without letting me know. What would you have done if that’d been Simon at the door just now?”

She spread her arms, then winced at the pain sizzling through her elbow and down her arm. “It wasn’t, okay? It was you?—”

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

She rubbed her tendon, feeling angry and confused all at once. “I slipped when you started pounding on the door like a maniac. The clip came undone, and the treadmill stopped.”

He had the grace to look contrite. Sort of.

“I’m sorry.”

She huffed. “I’m not an idiot, Blaze. I judged the situation safe and acted accordingly.”

“Jesus,” he growled, shoving a hand through his hair. She refused to dwell on how his muscles flexed with the movement.

He was a jerk. A hot, sexy jerk who didn’t trust her to make her own decisions or to talk to about what bothered him.

He knew so many things about her, personal things, and all she knew about him was that he’d had a crappy childhood and he’d been in the military and experienced combat at some point. She only knew that because his body told a story he couldn’t deny.

The rest of it? Blank.

“What you don’t seem to understand,” he said, still growling, “is that when I tell you not to leave the apartment without me, that’s exactly what I fucking mean. I can’t protect you if I’m not there. If I don’t know you’re going out. You hurt your arm—what if it was something worse?”

“It’s not worse, and I wasn’t going out.”

He closed his eyes a second before glaring at her. “Out the door, Emma. The one that encloses my apartment. I think you know that’s what I meant.”

She reached for the glasses she’d taken off and pushed them on her face. Her skin was starting to cool, the sweat chilling her body. “I need a shower.”

“We aren’t done discussing this.”

She whirled on him. “Oh yes, we are. I’m done. My arm hurts, I’m sweaty, and I want a shower before I have to go to work.”

“Fine.”

He shot a glance at the television, his gaze still dark. She could see the visible effort he made to rein in his temper. As if he could tell that continuing to insist they talk about this wasn’t going to work out the way he thought it would.

She was practically nuclear she was so angry. She snatched up the remote and stabbed the Off button.

“You into baking?”

It was an attempt at civil conversation. And she was having none of it.

“None of your business. You don’t get to keep your secrets—of which there seem to be many—and ask me to spill mine. I’m done telling you things. As you pointed out, we aren’t besties, and this isn’t a relationship. You decided to help me with a problem, which I appreciate very much, but I’ve told you all you need to know about that situation. Nothing else is relevant.”

His eyes sparked. Might have been anger. Might have been chagrin. She decided she didn’t care.

“You’re right,” he told her. “But you still need to follow my guidance about your personal safety. That means no leaving the apartment without me.”

Her temper flared. It wasn’t just that he was telling her what to do. It was how easily he agreed with her. He didn’t fight back or say he was wrong. He just agreed.

Like the time they’d spent together was nothing but a job for him even though he’d held her tenderly when she’d needed it, kissed her like a man starved, and called her Sunshine.

His empathy, his understanding, his vow to keep her safe—it all meant nothing. He was utterly disconnected from her as a person, and it hurt. She could be anyone and he’d do the same.

Rory. He’d hold Rory, call her babe or Sunshine, and keep her safe. It wasn’t personal at all.

Emma lifted her chin, angry at herself more than him. For believing she was special when really he was just a man who hadn’t pushed her away when she’d escalated things.

Kissing him. Lying across him half the night. Hugging him when she wanted comfort.

Seeing meaning where there was none. It was humiliating.

“I want my apartment back. The police have Simon’s description. They’re patrolling more often, the locks are sturdy, and we’ve got security cameras with alerts. You’ve taught me how to defend myself and I know better than to go anywhere alone. But not being able to walk downstairs in a locked building without your permission is too much control, and I won’t do that again.”

“Emma.” Her name was a growl.

“No, Blaze. No. I won’t be treated like that ever again. Not by you or anyone.”

He shoved a hand through his hair. It was spiky and sexy, and she hated that she noticed. Hated that it sent a current of desire throbbing to life inside her.

“All right.” He blew out a breath. “I’m not trying to control you, Emma. Keeping you safe is a job, and I know how to do that job. I think you need to stay close to me until Simon is in custody, but if you want to go back to your place, I can’t stop you. I advise against it strongly, though. I think it’s the wrong move after last night.”

She trembled inside. She hadn’t forgotten the doll. How could she? It was on her mind all the time, even when she tried to think of other things.

Part of her wanted to cave in and stay with Blaze. It was the easy choice.

But another part rebelled. She’d been in this place before, a place where a man slowly squeezed the fight from her, bent her to his will. Trapped her.

Blaze wasn’t Simon, but she needed her own space back. “It’s what I want. You’ll be next door, and I won’t change how I do things. I’ll still wait for an escort. I’ll let you know my movements. I won’t be alone except in my own home.”

He looked pissed, but then he schooled his features into a carefully blank expression. “If that’s how you wanna do things.”

“It is.” She glanced at her watch. “I need to get ready for work. I assume we can go upstairs?”

“We can. I go first, same as usual, got it?”

“Yes.”

He strode to the door, then hesitated with his hand on the knob. “I get that you’re pissed at me, and I don’t blame you for it. I like you, Emma. But anything deeper—I can’t. It’s better for us both this way.”

Heat flooded her. Embarrassment or anger, she wasn’t sure.

“What makes you think I want more from you? I’ve had enough of men for a while, thanks. No offense.”

His lips flattened, but he nodded. “Not offended. Glad we got that straight.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll talk to Chance when he wakes up. You can stay in your apartment tonight.”

“Awesome.” She smiled her fake smile and nodded at the door. “Can we go now?”

He yanked open the door and strode into the hallway. She stopped to lock it then followed him up the stairs. It wasn’t until she was in the shower with hot water beating down on her that she let the first tear fall.