Chapter 9 #2
Hardly anything. Bull. In all the time he’d known her, she hadn’t ever touched the scar.
But now, with the events of this night, her fingers kept fluttering toward it.
He understood. She’d deliberately trained herself not to touch it, not to draw attention to the scar because she’d wanted to bury that night and the fear it had caused in her.
If she’d touched the scar too much, people would have noticed.
People like him. And questions would have been asked.
His secretive Emerson didn’t like it when she was the one asked questions.
Too bad, sweetheart. I have a boat load of questions I’m going to ask, and you will tell me everything.
Because he had to know every detail about her.
If someone was threatening her—and he was certain that someone was, in fact, after Emerson—then knowledge was what he needed so he could stop the creep dead in his tracks.
“I want to see what happened to you,” Gray repeated. His hand carefully brushed back her hair. The chandelier overhead provided plenty of light as they stood in his den. A place filled with one hell of a lot of personal mementos.
Emerson’s home had been empty, but his place…
it was his refuge. Filled with items that he’d carefully selected over the years.
Nothing random. Everything special. If a book made it onto his shelves, it was because that book was a keeper.
Something he’d read and reread over and over again.
The things he kept always had great value to him.
But, like Emerson, he hardly ever invited people inside his home. Only a select few crossed the threshold. His Marine brothers. His family.
Emerson.
Her head tilted to the side. “You probably can’t see the scar. It’s been years…”
He could see it. About an inch long. A little white line on her golden skin. His index finger brushed lightly over the scar. He found himself leaning toward her. “What happened?”
“A slice from a broken piece of mirror.”
His back teeth snapped together. That was exactly what he thought had happened. “Who did it?”
Her hands rose. Pressed to his chest. Not to push him away. Not to pull him closer, either. Just to touch him.
He felt her touch rock through his entire body. Her scent wrapped around him. Sensual. Jasmine. And still somehow—innocence.
“I-I never saw his face. I was seventeen.”
Seventeen? What the actual hell?
“I was at my mother’s home.”
Her mother’s home? Shouldn’t that have been her home? What an odd way of phrasing things. Gray filed that telling descriptor away, for the moment.
“I’d come home for the weekend. I usually stayed at a boarding school, but we had a three-day weekend.
I didn’t think anyone else was there. Just me.
I walked into my bedroom, and I realized the mirror on my wall was broken.
Cracked and missing chunks, and I backed away, and as I did…
he came up behind me.” She swallowed. “He put the piece of broken mirror against my throat.”
His muscles locked.
“I was terrified. I could feel him behind me. He was so much bigger. And he…” An exhale.
“I fought him.” Flat. “I’d been trained by my mother’s security staff.
When he tried to push me forward, toward the door, I fought him.
I kicked and twisted and used my elbows, and I got away.
” Her gaze rose to lock with Gray’s. “I felt the mirror cut me. I didn’t care.
Blood dripped down my throat when I ran.
I got out of the bedroom. I rushed down the stairs.
I didn’t look back, not once. I was too afraid he’d be right there.
On my heels, slicing at me with that broken mirror.
I got to the front door, and I ripped it open, and—my mother was there.
My mother and her head of security, Owen Porter. ”
His fingers slid over the small scar once more.
She shivered.
“They didn’t catch the bastard,” he said.
“They didn’t catch the bastard.” Her lips pressed together, as if she was trying to hold words back.
He didn’t want her holding anything back. “Emerson?”
Her hands curled and fisted against his shirtfront. “I can do the undercover job. Don’t let this change anything. I can do it.”
“I have zero doubt that you can do any job, and I don’t see why it would change a single thing.
” But it had changed things. He was lying to her.
It had changed things because… I don’t want to let you out of my sight.
I want to protect you. I want to destroy the bastard who scared you. Correction, I will destroy him.
Her lashes flickered. “Do you mean that?”
“Why would it change anything?”
“My mother and Owen didn’t find an intruder that night. There was no sign of a forced entry, and my mother’s home had a top-of-the-line security system.”
Just like tonight. No sign of an intruder, and he didn’t set off the security system. “Just means the guy is good.” Which was bad.
“They thought it meant…I did it.”
His jaw nearly hit the floor. “What?”
She dropped her hands. Took a step back. Another. One more. “I didn’t. I didn’t smash the mirror in my bedroom that long ago night. I didn’t injure myself because I wanted attention or because I wanted to be a victim.”
What the fuck? Her mother had thought that crap?
“I’m not delusional.”
He sucked in a breath because he understood exactly where this was going.
“I’m not,” she repeated with harder intensity. “My attacker that night was real, even if I’m the only one who saw him. And he was real tonight. I didn’t smash those mirrors.”
A curt nod. “Never thought for even a second that you had.”
“My mother made sure that incident never got out when I was seventeen. She was so sure I’d made it all up.” An exhale. “I never told anyone other than my mother and Owen what happened. Not until now. Not until you.”
“You’re seriously saying that an assault on a seventeen-year-old was swept under the rug by your senator mother? The bastard could have raped you, could have killed you, and she did nothing? ”
Emerson flinched.
Gray knew he needed to calm the hell down. He also knew that his rage wasn’t going to be cooling anytime soon. This is Emerson.
Her gaze had fallen to the floor. “She was afraid I was like him.”
“ Eyes on me, Emerson.”
Her stare whipped up.
Calm the fuck down, Gray. Yes, he knew that he should get a grip. He also knew that wasn’t happening. His control was as cracked as those mirrors. “You aren’t your father.”
“I don’t have delusions,” Emerson whispered.
“No, baby, you don’t.”
She wet her lower lip. “You just called me baby.”
Yeah, he had.
“Are you getting into your—our—cover story? That why you’re suddenly using an endearment?”
He could lie, say yes. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“I don’t know.” Her gaze started to fall away.
“On me, Emerson. Eyes on me. ”
Her stare collided with his.
“You’ve got a stalker,” he told her.
Slowly, she nodded.
“You’ve known he’s been in your life for a while, haven’t you?” Rage slithered within him.
“Since I was seventeen. He’s been in and out of my life since then. Doing small things.”
Trying to make you think that you were slipping into the same delusions that claimed your father? He locked his jaw. “How often does he leave you messages saying that you’re going to die?”
Her breath shuddered out. “That was new.”
“Was it.” Not a question. You should have told me what was happening. But he was figuring things out. Fast. The prick followed her all the way to Briar. Like that wasn’t hugely problematic. As problematic as say, threatening to kill Emerson. Damn red spray paint on the motel room wall…
The paint had been a warning for him to get away from her. Leave. Why? Because her stalker thought Emerson belonged to him?
The hell she does.
And when Gray had stayed close, the guy had gotten mad, stepped up his sick game, and smashed her mirrors?
“He’s trashed my room before. Broken valuables.”
And it made sense. Shit. He’d read her wrong. Gray reevaluated. “That’s why you don’t have anything personal at your place. Because he just destroys what matters to you.”
Her chin lifted.
“You didn’t go to the police?” Keep the rage back, Gray. Hold it in check. “I get your mother wanted to cover up the first attack, but when the prick stayed around, you never told the authorities?”
“I did. When I was in college. Then med school. In college, the campus police told me it was just a prank. Probably some frat guys having fun.”
He growled.
“In med school, I, um, hired a PI. My mother wouldn’t hear of me making a public charge, so I went on my own to the PI.
He didn’t find anything. Never figured out who’d come into my room and destroyed everything.
” A soft sigh. “I’ve contacted other local cops over the years.
See, something always happens, wherever I go.
Sooner or later. He’s been a ghost, always dodging me, leaving no trace, and it’s not like you can get a restraining order against a ghost.”
He needed to breathe. Hard when he just wanted to fight. “Name.”
“Excuse me?”
“What was the PI’s name?”
“Daniel Stewart. He was in Boston.”
Gray filed the info away. He would be reaching out to the PI. “How many times has this shit happened in your life?”
“Hard to say…because sometimes, he doesn’t destroy things. Sometimes, I’m pretty sure he just slips inside, and he takes things.”
“Fucking fuck, Emerson! ” The rage just exploded.
She nodded. “Yes, exactly. Fucking fuck. I’m sick of it. Of him. I’m sick of getting security systems that don’t keep him out. I’m sick of calling cops or getting a PI to investigate and having them turn up nothing over and over again.”
He remembered how shut down she’d been when the cops arrived. Her stilted responses. No damn wonder. She’d been through this routine too many times.
“He’s played with my life for years. All I want is to find him. To stop him.”
“Done and done,” Gray vowed.
Those incredible eyes of hers widened. “What?”
“You think I’m going to let some jackass get away with tormenting my partner? Hell, no, sweetheart. Hell, no. We’re finding him. We’re stopping him. We’re becoming his absolute worst nightmare.”
Hope flashed across her face. “You’re truly going to help me? You believe me?”
“Yes.” He eliminated the distance between them. Cupped her chin. “ Yes. ” He wanted to rage at the fools who hadn’t helped her before.
“But we have a case. The perp who is killing the couples. It has to be the priority. Not me. I can wait.”
The hell she could. “I can multi-task.” In his sleep. “You’re a priority. Know it. Understand it.” Absolutely, she was. His top priority. “Besides, it works.”
“Uh, say again? What works?”
The extra-close proximity she was about to have with him.
The way he’d be her freaking shadow from here on out.
“You’re not staying on your own until I have the jackass stalking you locked away.
He made a death threat in Briar.” Sure as shit, Gray believed the bastard had been the one leaving the spray painted messages in Briar.
“He was in your place tonight. That’s two encounters in a very close span of time.
” Talk about acceleration. And he knew that acceleration equaled dangerous trouble.
“You’ll be staying with me from now on.”
Her lips parted.
“Until we catch him,” Gray hurriedly amended. Don’t come off so strong. Tread with caution where Emerson is concerned. “Us staying together will fit the cover for our case, and it will also allow me to make certain my partner is safe. Two birds, one stone and all that.”
“He’s never left evidence behind. Not even a fingerprint. I, uh, insisted on a full scene check a time or two.”
He was sure she had. “Just means the jackass wore gloves. I’ll find him. It’s what I do. Find monsters. Lock them away.”
“I had cameras up in my places, too. He’d just disable them. No video footage of him was ever taken.”
“I’ll get him, Emerson. Believe me.” A pause. Then, rougher, “Trust me. ”
She stared into his eyes. Her lips began to curl. A smile. Slow, big, real, the smile spread across her full lips. Her expression warmed, as if a weight had been lifted from her delicate shoulders. “Thank you.” Emerson threw her arms around him and held on tight.
She was warm and soft and… fuck me, she is precious.
His arms closed around her. He was enraged that she’d been dealing with a stalker since she was seventeen years old.
And had she let the stalker intimidate her?
Change her? No. His Emerson had hauled her ass into prisons and psych wards as she faced off against monsters and tried to figure them out…
All while she’d been battling her own monster.
“Thank you, Gray,” she whispered.
His fingers dropped to her waist. Tightened. “I don’t want your gratitude.” She didn’t need to thank him for a damn thing. This was what he did. His job was to stop the predators.
Emerson eased back.
His fingers lingered on her waist.
“What do you want?” Emerson asked, voice breathless.
Oh, she was not ready for what he wanted. And he could be a gentleman—or pretend to be one—and not just act like a lustful bastard where she was concerned. His gaze cut away from her.
“Gray…”
“You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“Gray.”
He should stop touching her.
“Eyes on me, Gray.”
Surprised that she’d just tossed his own words back at him, his gaze whipped toward her. Emerson stared directly at him. No fear. Eyes so blue it almost hurt to look into them.
“What do you want?” Emerson repeated.
You. No way did he say that. He would not. Because he was not gonna make it seem like the price for his protection was sex. It wasn’t. He could want Emerson physically and want to protect her at the same time. He could multi-task. Hadn’t he just told her as much?
“Not gonna say?” she murmured. “Fine. Then I’ll tell you what I want.”
The den felt hot. Nah, he was hot.
Emerson did not look away from him. He could not look away from her as she confessed, “I want you.”
Fuck. Then… yes!
“I want you to finish what you started at my place. Kiss me, Gray.”