Chapter 10
Peyton
I looked out of the Porsche at the houses going by.
Apprehension had filled me the moment I saw my door broken in, and learning of Frankie’s past only made it worse. I’d been living next to this guy, and I’d been clueless. I was definitely not staying there tonight.
As I’d packed up clothes, my body had tingled where I’d pressed up against March and almost told him the truth. Even now, my body remembered.
He’d accused me of worrying that I wouldn’t be able to control myself around him. He had no idea how spot-on that accusation might be.
Was it fair that I couldn’t indulge myself in a fling with him? No, but rules were rules, and mine were meant to keep me breathing. Even after a shitty day, I had to stick to my rules. Rules keep me safe.
At some point, the cops would catch the Strangler and I would be able to let my guard down.
I’d be able to go back home, restart my career, reengage with my patients—in short, I’d be able to live again.
I’d even be able to date, if I had the time.
That day couldn’t come soon enough for me.
I’d been a prisoner to my very real fear for too long.
Listening to Frankie’s past had been a jolt to my system, but the most terrifying thing was knowing that my entire reserve fund was now gone and pawning Nana’s earrings was my only remaining way to leave town if I had to.
Since there wasn’t any sign that my pursuer had found me, I wouldn’t yet take that break-glass-in-case-of-emergency step.
I turned to March. “Thank you. I mean, for last night and for letting me crash with you tonight.” I hadn’t offered a word of thanks since leaving the condo, and he’d done so much for me and vowed to do more. None of this was license for me to have bad manners.
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t have anything else planned for tonight,” he joked.
At least, I thought it was a joke.
“Well, I really mean it. You’ve been very helpful and supportive.
” The words sounded hollow as soon as I said them.
He’d saved me from being terribly hurt last night by those two muggers.
Bile rose in my throat as an image of the knife Shorty had wielded last night forced itself to the fore.
“Let me try that again. What I mean is, thank you for saving me. The knife… It could have been… I might have… Just, thank you.” Why the hell was I so tongue-tied?
He braked for a stoplight and put a hand on my forearm. “You’re welcome.”
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
He returned his hand to the wheel as the light changed to green. “I think a kiss would be about right.” He nodded. “Yeah, a kiss.”
“You’re such a flirt,” I shot back. Deflection was my best defense. Maybe in the movies he watched, a kiss would be sufficient. In the books I read, things wouldn’t end with a kiss, and that was something I couldn’t risk. No men.
“So I’m growing on you?”
“Not even a little,” I lied. “I have a no men rule, remember?”
“So you said. Does that mean you’re refusing to repay your debt? Saving your life isn’t that big a deal? Is that it?”
“You’ll have to come up with something else. No men means exactly what it sounds like.” I couldn’t allow any attachments—not to a man, but not even to a close girlfriend.
Olivia’s face popped into my consciousness, and I cringed. She’d worked with me at the sandwich shop in Atlanta, and we’d quickly become close. Because she’d moved from Indiana to Georgia to escape her abusive ex, she’d quickly accepted my reluctance to talk about my past.
After I fled the city, I learned her body had been found in the woods. The police speculated she’d ventured into the wrong part of town to buy drugs. I knew that was misdirection by the Strangler. Olivia didn’t do drugs. She didn’t even drink anything stronger than wine.
Beyond that initial report, there was no news of the once-vibrant friend I’d known, and my no-friends, no-attachments, no-men rule was born. I couldn’t bear the thought of another person dying because of me.
March smiled. “For now, I’m holding out for the kiss.”
His words brought me back to the present. “Read my lips.” I exaggerated the words. “No men.”
“I dare you to tell me you don’t view my persistence as a positive trait.”
That brought back memories of his tattoos. Yes, March was a man with a strong sense of right and wrong.
“I’m always in favor of doing the right thing,” he added.
Rules, Peyton. Remember the rules. “You have to think of another way I can repay you.”
“I can’t think of anything right now.” He shrugged. “I guess you’re just going to have to go through life remembering that you owe me.”
I groaned. “Think harder.”
Studying him as he drove, I decided I’d gotten extremely lucky to have March with me the last two nights. He was just like Serena and Duke had claimed, a good and honorable man—one I owed my life to.
If only we’d met two years ago.
“This is it.” He pulled into the driveway of a quaint little duplex in Santa Monica.
After getting out of the car, I pointed at the motorcycle parked in front of the garage. “You ride that?”
“When I get the chance. Want a ride?”
“No way.” After a friend in high school had fallen off one, they scared the crap out of me.
He shrugged and then opened the door to the house. This time, he motioned for me to enter first. “I’m renting from the lady next door.”
Inside, it was more tidy than I would have imagined, but otherwise it was clear that a man lived here.
Front and center, opposite the black leather couch, was the bachelor-standard monster TV mounted on the wall.
The other furnishings were simple black leather and oak.
No throw pillows, nothing frilly or fancy for this man.
He followed me in and dropped the bags near the door.
The kitchen was more modern than the house, with a granite island and countertops surrounding very nice stainless steel appliances and a large six-burner cooktop.
He came up behind me.
I froze, feeling his body heat, and afraid I’d made a mistake in agreeing to be in his vicinity. I’d survived just fine with him nearby at work, but there, we were never this close—separated by feet, not inches.
When he moved back, I could take a breath and went over to check out the fridge’s contents.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You have a lot of…options.” It wasn’t stuffed by any means, but surprisingly for a bachelor, it contained real food, including vegetables, rather than the standard twelve-pack of beer I’d imagined.
“You expected a guy who can’t cook proper food and lives on frozen pizza and microwave dinners?”
I was sort of guilty of that. “No. I just don’t want you to go to any trouble. I have simple tastes. How about we order pizza? It’ll be easier.” He was already taking me in, and it seemed like an imposition to cook a meal from scratch.
He opened a drawer and passed me a takeout menu from a pizza joint.
“Pepperoni, and we each choose two additional toppings,” he said.
I wanted mushrooms and onions.
March chose olives and extra cheese.
Forty minutes later, I’d unpacked a few clothes for tomorrow in his spare bedroom and now sat across from him with a hot pizza between us.
His eyes held mine for a few seconds before he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Just fine. Don’t I look okay?”
“You look good to me.”
I couldn’t take the double meaning, so I headed back to the fridge. Maybe he hadn’t meant for it to be suggestive. I was probably reading too much into everything.
“Time to eat, Angel. Where are you going?”
I opened the refrigerator, where I’d seen some soda, a bottle of wine, and a few beers. “What would you like to drink?”
“Ginger ale.”
Once again, the big SEAL surprised me. I would have guessed he was a beer drinker with the way military guys were portrayed in the movies. I brought over two ginger ales and popped the tops.
He pulled pizza slices apart and slid one onto my plate. “Sooner or later, you’re going to want somebody to talk to. We all do.”
“Right now, I vote for later.” I lifted my slice and bit into it.
He let the subject go as I devoured two slices, and he finished off three. Finally he took another swallow of his ginger ale. “What I really meant when I asked how are you feeling—” He hadn’t let it go. “—was about your day of being mugged and then burgled. It’s a lot to have to deal with.”
It was too damned much to deal with. “You forgot losing my bike too. I’m processing.”
“That backpack meant a lot to you, didn’t it?”
He was more observant than I gave him credit for. “I don’t have a lot of things. But there’s nothing I can’t deal with.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
We couldn’t keep going down this road, so I stood. “You need to tell me if I’m all right. Z, Y, X, W—”
“Stop,” he said.
“One, two, three, four,” I intoned as I repeated my heel-toe balance exercise.
After a few steps, March jumped up, grabbed my arm and turned me to face him.
“Hey. I’m walking here.”
“Talk to me.”
I couldn’t help but look up into his eyes.
“Let it out.”
I inhaled a large breath. “I’m stronger than you think.”
He held my biceps. “I have no doubt.” Then, he pulled me in for a hug and rubbed up and down my back. It seemed to be his thing, the back rub.
I stiffened and pushed against his shoulders. It took a few seconds, but his touch eventually broke through my defenses, and I stopped resisting. Melting into him, I closed my eyes and breathed in his woodsy scent. Why did he have to smell so good?
He rubbed a tense section of my lower back. “That’s better. Just relax.”
His warm, hard chest reminded me how long it had been since I’d been held, how long it had been since my breasts had pressed up against a man and felt his chest expand with every breath.
His hand roamed up my back to massage the base of my neck. “You don’t have to shoulder it alone, you know?”
I hummed my appreciation as tension gave way under his touch.
He shifted us left and right, causing me to adjust my balance. “Want to know a SEAL secret?”
Right now, in his strong arms, I felt weightless and more serene than I had since leaving Boston. That made me cooperative. “What?”
“We don’t operate alone. We always operate in teams. Our strength is in the way we support each other to accomplish the mission. I can help. You can tell me what it is you’re afraid of and lean on me.”
I snuggled against him, ashamed of how I’d treated him. Finally, I looked up. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s me. I will when I can. Can you accept that?” As we swayed, I realized it had become a dance.
He’d coaxed me into slow dancing with him. Everything about the way he held me and the way we moved was intimate. Too intimate, but also too comfortable to pull away. He’d somehow shifted me from my constant fear to a place of comfort I hadn’t known since before I’d run.
I owed this man so much. Fuck it. I can handle this. I looked up into his warm eyes and took the step. “I can’t stand owing you.” I pressed my lips to his.
He kissed me back like a man starving. His tongue demanded entrance to my mouth, and the kiss devolved into the struggle for control I’d expected from a high-testosterone male like him.
I gave myself over, as I’d been afraid I would. His grasp on me tightened, and a hand went to my ass. I took advantage of the support and jumped up to wrap my legs around him.
Every second of the kiss broke a personal record for intensity. He was like the elixir of life I needed to survive.
He walked us over to the wall and pressed me against it. I gyrated my heat against the hardness of his erection, all the while running my fingers through his hair and holding him to me.
A palm to my breast lit the afterburner of my desire. I’d been right—just like my novels, a kiss with this man had ended up much more than a simple meeting of the lips.
His woodsy scent invaded my nostrils. He tasted like pizza and sin with a promise of ecstasy.
“Ruppert?”
March broke the kiss and looked toward the door. “Mom?”