Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Bad mistake. Super bad. Horrible, tragic, huge mistake.
But when a hero walked straight out of a woman’s memories—dreams and fantasies—you had to be ready to seize the moment. Or, in this particular instance, be ready to seize the hero. And she had.
Avalon had practically crawled across the bar counter. She’d nearly torn his white t-shirt as she hauled Beau closer. And her mouth was currently planted hard to his. And he was…
Doing nothing.
Standing there. Still as a statue. And just as hard as one, too.
She should retreat. Pull back. She’d made a serious tactical mistake. But she just hadn’t expected to walk into this warehouse-turned-bar and find her hero waiting with those sexy-as-sin eyes. Dark and deep eyes that Avalon swore could see straight into her soul. Eyes like his know every secret I possess.
And he wasn’t moving.
“Uh, boss?”
It was the guy she suspected to be the real bartender.
Beau still wasn’t kissing her in return. She should retreat and try to pull up her tattered pride. Clearly, Beau was not even mildly interested in her, and she needed to calm the hell down. It was definitely not appropriate behavior to jump your hero when you saw him. Her bad.
But before she could pull up her pride and make her embarrassing retreat, his big, powerful hands flew out and locked around her waist. One swift move had her completely over the bar top before she could even gasp. Her lips did part, and in that instant, his tongue plunged inside as he took over the kiss. Beau’s strength was incredible, super sexy beyond belief, and she found herself curling her arms around his neck and holding on tightly as she enjoyed what was quickly becoming the absolute hottest kiss of her life.
He didn’t kiss gently. No subtle seduction. He tasted her like someone who’d been starving for years. Stroked and thrust and his wicked, wicked tongue had her moaning and arching closer.
What are you doing? Slow down, slow down! Her internal warning to herself. She should slow down. Not rub against him so much. Not moan so eagerly into his mouth. So what if this was the man who had saved her from the fire? The man she’d spent her teen years and adult life longing for? The man her therapist had once told her could never, ever possibly live up to the image she’d created of him?
Screw all that.
This. Is. Beau. Her Beau.
“Uh, boss?” A throat cleared.
Beau’s mouth reluctantly lifted from hers. Her breath heaved in and out, and her rapid heartbeat had her chest nearly shaking. Or, heck, maybe it was shaking. Her entire body shook.
Her feet weren’t even touching the floor. He still held her up. If possible, his gaze had gone even darker. Avalon knew desire when she saw it, and it was sure as sin raging back at her from the depths of Beau’s dark and deep gaze. In that instant, he looked at her as if he could eat her alive.
Go right ahead.
“You, ah, have that meeting coming up soon, remember?”
She should look over at the man speaking. And she would. Eventually. At the moment, her gaze was too busy being stuck to Beau. “You remember me.” Her hand slid down and over his right shoulder. Just to be sure. And…
Yes.
She could feel the faint ridges of his scars beneath the thin t-shirt.
“It would be better for you if I’d been able to forget.” Rumbled. Beau lowered her until her feet hit the floor.
Avalon sucked in a breath. Then another one, deeper this time. Did Beau understand just how sexy his voice was? Deep and dark. It was the kind of voice a woman could imagine coming from the hottest part of the night…
As the man thrust deep and hard into her and sent them both racing to oblivion. The kind of voice made to say naughty, wicked things.
Her tongue swiped over her lips, and she swore she could still taste him.
“Do you always go around kissing every man you meet?” Beau asked her.
Was that anger in his voice? Her brows rose. “Considering I met a serial killer yesterday and chose not to kiss him?—”
Beau’s eyes narrowed.
“Because he was absolutely terrifying and as close to a demon on earth as I think you can get,” she continued determinedly, “then, no, I can say with utter certainty that I do not, in fact, go around kissing every man I meet.” A pause. “You’re special.” Incredibly so. Special to her. “But I believe you already know that. Or are you going to pretend that you don’t recognize me?” Her hand slid over the scars beneath his white t-shirt. A careful caress. “Because these scars say you do.”
He backed away, fast.
Her hand was left hanging in the air, and her body suddenly felt very, very cold.
The nearby bartender cleared his throat. He seemed to do that quite a bit.
“The meeting is delayed,” Beau snapped. “Tell Saint that we will catch up again soon. The past decided to step up and explode in my face tonight.”
Was that what she’d done? Explode? When she’d kissed him, desire had certainly exploded within her. But Avalon didn’t exactly like the way Beau had worded things. She hadn’t exploded in the man’s face.
His fingers curled around her wrist. Right over her tattoo, and he had to feel the sudden leap of her pulse. “Come with me.” A curt order.
Her free hand flew back and grabbed the bag she’d dropped on the bar before she’d, ah, gone over it. In a fit of passion and all that.
This is not me.
But, sometimes, she didn’t know exactly who she was.
Beau was tugging on her, the young bartender was gaping, and she couldn’t very well turn and run away. Not when she’d come in the bar in order to get answers. And I found my hero waiting for me. She sent Beau a bright smile. “Since you asked so nicely…”
He growled.
Growls weren’t sexy. She’d certainly never found them to be. Until now. Dammit.
Beau stalked back toward a narrow hallway. Then turned into an office. His hold on her never wavered. With quick steps, she crossed the threshold. He slammed the door shut and used his grip to immediately haul her against the wall.
Where he proceeded to cage her with his muscled body.
Oh, boy.
Her breath heaved. Her hands rose to press lightly to his chest. Yep, lots of muscles. Incredible power. And the way he was glaring? She might have been afraid were it not for two important points.
Point one. She spent her days and nights talking to the most sadistic serial killers out there. As far as she knew, Beau was no killer. He was a bar owner.
Point two? He’d saved her life when she’d been a teen. People who saved you didn’t typically turn around and hurt you. At least, she certainly hoped they didn’t.
“What the hell kind of game are you playing?” Beau gritted out.
Her brow furrowed. “What makes you think I’m playing?” The kiss had been dead serious. Way better than her teenage fantasies. Should she mention those fantasies? Tell him how many times she’d thought of him over the years?
One day, he’d been recovering in the hospital.
The next…
He’d been gone. And no one had any clue how he’d vanished. She’d been left standing there, holding a bouquet of silly flowers that she’d bought for him, and Beau had been nowhere to be found.
“You waltz into my bar…”
Right, his bar. Which did bring her back to the serial killer problem she faced.
“And you come straight to me. You kiss me.” He glared. As if she’d committed some horribly vile offense.
She waited and restrained herself from pointing out that he had kissed her back. After a tense moment or two.
A muscle flexed along his jaw. What a jaw. Square and covered with a light layer of stubble.
“Avalon.”
The way he said her name sent a shiver over her. She realized that she was supposed to respond. She wasn’t normally one to stay in silence. Fast retorts were her specialty. But never in a million years had she expected to find her hero that night. “Ah, that was…an incredible recap,” she finally told him. “Top notch.”
His eyes narrowed even more. “I don’t play games with bored debutantes.”
“Oh. That hurts.” It actually kind of did. Sure, he didn’t know her, but…still. “First, I’m not bored. I don’t get bored. I find ways to amuse myself. I’ve always thought life is too short to waste being bored.”
“So what am I? Your latest amusement?”
Not at all. “You’re the man I’ve been searching for since I was a teenager.”
Yep, that shut him up. He looked down, seemed to realize he was, in fact, caging her tightly. Hotly.
“So…” Her voice came out rather like an invitation. Whoops. Oh, well. “Either kiss me again or give me some space. It’s a little hard to think clearly when your past comes racing back at you,” Avalon told him. She meant those words. He had completely thrown her off. Because when she’d known him before, LeBlanc had not been the last name he’d given at the hospital. So she’d walked into the bar, expecting to gear up for a question-slash-grilling session with the owner and staff. But when she’d spotted him through the crowd, her world had turned upside down.
Of all the bars, what are the odds that I find him? Now?
“You don’t want me to kiss you again.” His eyes were on her mouth.
“What makes you so sure?” Her right hand rose and pressed to the stubble along his jaw. “I was the one who kissed first a few minutes ago. You were the one all stiff and cold. Took a bit to thaw you out. But I finally managed to get the job done.”
Lightning fast, one of his hands rose and curled around her wrist. “This is the last warning I’ll give you. Don’t play with me.”
His hold was tight, but not at all painful. As if he had complete control of his strength. Good to know.
Then he let her go. Backed away. Paced to stand behind the desk. He didn’t look at her but focused instead on the small window that looked out over the water. The bar had a prime location right next to the river. And the interior of the warehouse had been beautifully revamped into a trendy bar. Every tourist in a hundred-mile radius would want to visit. Correction, they did visit. There had been a line stretching outside full of people eager to get in LeBlanc’s. She’d had to bribe a bouncer in order to slip inside. LeBlanc’s was currently the place to be.
But she wasn’t there for the atmosphere or the great booze. “I have questions.”
His shoulders stiffened. “I was at the right place at the wrong time. I went into the fire. We both came out. End of story.”
“It was actually the right time for me,” she corrected. “Just so we’re clear. If you’d been a little later, I would have been dead.” That window had not been opening fully. Would she have broken the glass the way he had? Crawled out and grabbed that old drain?
Fallen and broken so many bones…
He looked back at her. For the life of Avalon, she could not read the expression on his face. So she kept talking. “My parents were at a charity ball that night. I was alone. Someone moved that bookshelf in front of my door. I couldn’t get out because it was too heavy for me. I shoved and shoved, but it wouldn’t move.” Did he have any idea what it was like to know that you were trapped and would be dying? “The window was jammed. I couldn’t get it higher than a few inches?—”
“Nailed. Not jammed.” Groused.
Her shoulders lifted. Fell. She took a step toward him, then caught herself. “You remember me.”
“Hard to fucking forget.” His hand rose and rubbed along the back of his right shoulder. “Got a permanent reminder that I see every single day.”
She flinched.
His hand dropped. “That’s not what I—dammit, you should not be near me. You should not be in my bar.” His brow furrowed. “Why the hell are you in my bar?”
They’d get to that, later. First, “Where did you go? You left the hospital. You only stayed a few days. You weren’t healed. You were still wearing a cast, you had so many broken bones, and your shoulder was covered in burns. You needed medical treatment.”
“I got treatment. Just someplace else.”
“I looked for you.” Her quiet confession. “I couldn’t find you.”
He slowly turned to face her fully. “You were better off without me.”
Not something she would ever believe. “They never caught the arsonist.”
His lips thinned. “But your parents got guards for you. You never went anywhere without a bodyguard until the day you graduated high school.”
“H-how do you know that?” The faint stutter showed her surprise.
His gaze cut from her. “I know a lot of things about you.”
She took a slow, gliding step toward him. “Then you have me at a disadvantage, Beau LeBlanc. Because I know next to nothing about you.”
“It’s my real last name.”
“And the one you gave me before wasn’t? The one you gave at the hospital wasn’t? Why would you lie about it?”
He didn’t blink. “Why are you here?”
Fine. “I’m here because someone left Everett Thomas handcuffed and unconscious and put a bow on him so that he could be a present for local cops. I’m currently trying to find that someone.” And, important question, was she staring directly at that someone?
He laughed. “Why would I give a shit who did that? From the stories I read, Everett was making a run for it. Cops were too slow. If he hadn’t been stopped, another woman would probably be dead. Several women.”
Yes, quite possibly. “This wasn’t the first time a dangerous killer was detained in such a manner.”
“Do tell.”
His mocking tone had her jaw hardening. “The cops have kept the other details from the press. Not like they want everyone knowing a vigilante is targeting killers.”
“I’m still not seeing a problem.” He scraped his hand over his jaw. “And I’m not seeing why this involves me. Now, our walk down memory lane was certainly hot and entertaining, but I do have places to be. Got people to intimidate. Lives to ruin. You know, the usual.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” She couldn’t quite get a handle on him.
“No, I’m being dead serious.”
And he looked like he was. “I talked to Everett yesterday.”
“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” Before she could respond, he shook his head. “Don’t understand why you want to be around any of those bastards.”
“You…” She cleared her throat. “You know what I do for a living?” If he knew, that meant he’d been keeping tabs on her, didn’t it?
His grin flashed. It was the first time he’d smiled at her. And, as someone who had what she thought of as a pretty good smile—one that worked well at disarming people—his grin absolutely floored her. Mostly because there was only one way to describe his smile.
Killer.
Slow, sensual, the grin spread across his face and had her heart rate kicking up. It was the kind of grin that would, oh, make a woman want to drop her panties. Yeah, she’d just gone there. His smile counted as being sexy as sin. Twice as hot. And she found herself lifting a hand and fanning herself.
Mid-fan, she stopped. Fisted her hand. What is happening here? So, yes, she had an, um, crush. A very long-standing crush. But she did not need to be overreacting to a handsome man’s smile for goodness’ sake.
He slowly eliminated the space between them. And even though she’d faced off against more twisted killers than she wanted to count, Avalon found herself almost retreating from the man who’d saved her life.
His hand lifted. His fingers curled under her jaw. “Why do you like playing with killers?”
“I’m not playing with them. I’m getting answers.”
His grin slowly faded. “Liar.”