Chapter 12 #2
“Oh, this isn’t a game, Emmett.” Janie’s chuckle was deeper and even sexier than before.
“You want me to trust you to keep me safe; I need you to answer my question. True or false.” She took another small step toward him.
“You wanted to kiss me that day in your office, when we were looking at the pictures on your shelves.”
He didn’t like to play games, but he also wasn’t a liar.
“True.” He swallowed hard. “But that was also when I told you we couldn’t—”
“True or false. You would’ve kissed me that night at the safe house if that man hadn’t broken in.” Janie’s blue eyes remained on his as she brought herself even closer to where he stood.
Emmett’s pulse spiked, his hear beating a wild pace inside his chest. “True,” he admitted.
But he didn’t stop there. “I also want to rip that shirt from your body, lift you into my arms, and press you against that wall right over there.” He pointed behind her.
“And I want to take you the way I’ve fantasized about doing from the moment we first met. ”
The tiny gasp that escaped when she sucked in a breath was a clear-cut tell that his confession had taken her by complete surprise. But in the span of his very next breath, Emmett watched as Janie recovered with impressive speed.
“Why don’t you, then?” She moved in closer. “If that’s really what you want?”
“You know why.”
Didn’t she know he was trying like hell to be good?
“Client. Right.” Janie followed this up with a small grin. “It’s okay, Emmett. I promise I won’t come after you for sexual harassment.”
“Janie . . .”
Her name was meant to be a warning, but the confounding woman carried on as if he hadn’t said a word.
“And if you’re worried I’ll write a scathing op ed in the Washington Post once this is over, don’t be.” She covered the remaining distance between them with a few additional, silent steps. “Trust me, your reputation is perfectly safe with me.”
“I do.” Another audible swallow sounded from his working throat. “Trust you, I mean.”
“That’s a start.”
Damn, she’s beautiful.
Emmett started to point out the situation hadn’t changed. Or rather that it had changed, and now she was the target. But he didn’t get the chance because she interrupted him again. And this time, her rebuttal was filled with emotion.
“Janie, we—”
“Almost died, Emmett.” She crossed her arms at her chest, the move deepening the bit of cleavage he could see. “We both could have been killed. Just like that.” She gave a sharp snap of her fingers.
“I know.” His eyes locked with hers. “I can’t tell you how sor—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.” Anger fueled the heat reflecting in her narrowed gaze. “Not for that. You had no way of knowing that man was there.”
“I should have known.” His brow furrowed with anger and regret. “If I was doing my job, I would’ve seen the security system was down.”
“You didn’t see it was down because the asshole who took a shot at me didn’t want you to see.
That’s what Blake said, right?” Her hands dropped to her narrow hips.
“I heard you guys talking on the phone when you got home the other night. He said the alarm didn’t go off because he’d somehow rigged the system. ”
“Doesn’t matter.” Emmett gave a stark shake of his head. “My job is to protect you. I let myself become distracted, and you were put in danger because of it.”
“Bullshit.”
The blurted curse word caught him by surprise. “I’m sorry?”
“I put myself in danger the second I decided to look into Amy’s disappearance. And I didn’t hire you to protect me I hired you and your team to help me find her. Which, you did.”
“And in the process, you’ve become the new target.”
“I’m well aware,” she shot back. “But if you really want to apologize for something, how about for shutting me out?”
“Shutting you out?” he parroted the ridiculous thought.
Only it wasn’t ridiculous. It was the absolute truth. And the woman who appeared to be wearing nothing but his shirt had just called him out on his shit.
Emmett wasn’t used to being confronted about his habit of keeping the women he spent time with at a full arm’s length. Probably because those encounters were very few and far between.
It had been several months since he’d been with anyone, and even then, those experiences were always consensual one-offs. A way to blow off some steam with no regrets and zero strings. And it had worked out just fine for him and his partners.
Until now.
Until her.
Somehow, in the span of less than two weeks, the intriguing journalist from Missouri had wormed her way deeper and deeper inside his hardened heart. He hadn’t intended to let his carefully constructed walls down. Not for Janie or anyone else.
Truth be told, Emmett wasn’t sure he’d even realized it had happened. Now that it had—now that he’d begun to truly care for her—he couldn’t help but feel he was too far gone to think about walls.
It wasn’t as though he’d consciously chosen to let himself to fall for the brunette beauty. But even now, all he could think about was how badly he wanted to pull her into his arms.
“I’ve been following up on leads,” he explained away his noticeable absence from the apartment these past few days. “I’ve been trying to find the people responsible for Amy’s death and the attempt on your life so you can stay alive.”
She didn’t say anything at first. Instead Janie slowly filled her lungs with a long, cleansing breath. Letting it out slowly, she kept those almond eyes on his, her next words exposing the full truth of the story he’d just given and not just the part that helped his case.
“This is the longest you’ve been alone in the same room with me since you brought me here that night. And when you are here, you act like I don’t even exist.”
“That’s not true.”
Was it?
“No?” Janie jumped right in with a list of reasons her argument was valid. “You refuse to look at me. You barely speak to me. And you’ve pawned me off onto Gwen and the others like a child in need of a babysitter while you go off to ‘follow your leads’.”
She’s even sexier when she’s pissed.
“I really have been working.”
The disappointment that fell over her reached into his chest like a giant fist squeezing his heart.
“So close,” she whispered sadly. “You know, it really is a shame. You and me?” A breathy sigh escaped from her slightly parted lips. “I really think it would’ve been great.”
She held onto his stare a moment longer before turning and walking away. He watched her go, his feet feeling as though they were encased in two tons of concrete.
Stop thinking for once, and go after her, you idiot!
For the first time maybe ever, Emmett allowed himself to stop thinking and simply feel. The second he did, those blocks of imaginary concrete crumbled around him, and he was finally free.
In a rush, he went after her, reaching out to grab hold of her hand. Not forcefully, of course, or in any way that might cause even the slightest amount of pain.
“Don’t leave.” He kept a gentle hold on her hand.
Janie stopped moving and turned his way. “Emmett?”
“I don’t want you to go.”
She stared back at him with a beseeching stare. “Then tell me truth about why you’ve been pushing me away.”
You can do this.
He was a Marine for crying out loud. He’d literally looked death in the eyes and survived more than once in his forty-two years. Emmett would take a bullet for the woman without so much as a moment’s hesitation.
But this? He’d spent his entire life believing this was the kind of thing that made men like him weak. But as he stood with her hand in his and those incredible blue eyes pleading with him to be completely honest, he realized he’d give her the moon if she asked.
I’ll give her any damn thing she wants.
“I was scared.”
There. He’d said it. Now all he could do was wait.
“Scared?” Janie’s brows dipped together in a crinkled V. “Of what?”
Just tell her.
“I’m scared of losing you.”
Her features softened with a shimmering stare that held no hint of pity, and for that, he was thankful.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she whispered, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m fine.”
“And I’m damn grateful for that, but . . .”
“But what?”
Emmett drew in a steeling breath. “Everyone I’ve truly cared about has died. My mom. Fellow Marines.” His throat worked a hard swallow. “I already told you about my dad.”
“I remember.” She nodded. “You said he was an alcoholic?”
“The asshole may technically still be breathing, but the alcohol took him years ago. So yeah.” He gave one shoulder a shrug. “Aside from my team, I’ve lost everyone else I truly cared about.”
“I’m not everyone, Emmett.”
He gave her a half-hearted grin. “I know that ,sweetheart.” The endearment slipped out. “Trust me.”
“I do.”
In that very moment, something profound happened, though no one knew it but him. Emmett was standing there, staring back at the most incredible woman he’d ever known. Emotions unlike any he’d experienced in the past took over, and he let the rest of himself go.
“I don’t know what this is that’s happening between us,” he told her. “But I’ve never felt anything like it before. And when that shot rang out, for a second, I thought . . .”
“Emmett—”
“It was only for a split second, and it sounds stupid because there wasn’t even a single drop of blood, but—” His voice cracked. “For one terrifying second, I thought you’d been hit.”
“You didn’t lose me, Emmett.” Janie brought her free hand to one side of his face. “I’m right here, and I’m fine.”
“I’m supposed to protect you. It’s literally my job.”
“Okay, then.” She shrugged. “You’re fired.”
Wait, what?
“I’m fired?”
Another shrug. “If the job is the reason you don’t want to be around me anymore, then I’ll just hire a different bodyguard until we can find Amy’s killer.”
“The hell you will.” Emmett pulled her body flush with his.
Janie smiled, letting her palm fall away before bringing it to a rest against his chest. “There he is,” she whispered softly. “I’ve rather missed my stoic protector.”
A deep chuckle bubbled free before he could stop it, but then he shook his head with a sigh. “What are you doing to me?”
“Best guess? The same thing you’re doing to me.”
“You can fire me, but I won’t stop looking for the threat against you.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to kill them.” He needed to get that part out of the way now.
She didn’t so much as flinch. “I know that, too.”
Emmett wasn’t sure who moved first. It could’ve been him, or it may have been her. One minute, he was laying it all out on the table for her to see, and in the next—
His lips were on hers.