Chapter Ten #2
Because he couldn’t lose her. In those days, her laughter…
it had been vital for him, pulling him out of the quicksand of memories of his last camping trip with his father.
Her sunny smiles and ready humor had been the rope he’d used to escape the maws of depression, hand over hand. She’d made breathing—existing—easier.
He didn’t know what he would have done or how he would have survived those years if Sassy Colton hadn’t decided he was worthy of being her best friend. He’d have protected her with his life. That hadn’t changed.
Protect her…protect this…this incredible, life--affirming cord that keeps us together. That keeps me together. At all costs.
Nick made himself open his eyes and take hold of the fabric and zipper.
It took him a full minute—hell, maybe a year?
—to loosen one from the other without shredding the delicate linen overlay of the dress.
Sixty seconds of smelling the rosewater heart notes of her shampoo and the natural fragrance exclusive to her.
The scent of her soap had changed in twenty years, but those subtle, warring tones of sweet honey and warm musk hadn’t.
He took a long step back when the zipper was free. “I didn’t rip it,” he said, moving away from her. Fresh air. He needed fresh air and distance.
“You’re a lifesaver.” Her laugh tripped through the room, a high-pitched bell. She aimed her heartbreaker smile over her shoulder at him. “Thanks.”
He shoved his uninjured hand into his pocket and balled it into a fist. “I’m going to step outside,” he said.
“Everything okay?” she asked as he roved determinedly in the direction of the door. “You didn’t hurt yourself?”
“No,” he assured her. “Just… I need a walk before dark.”
“I can go with you.”
He had to bear down to keep from barking I’m fine at her. It wasn’t her fault his entire body had rebelled against his better judgment. “I’d like to leave Riot here,” he said instead. “Can you keep an ear out for him? He’s resting and I don’t want to wake him.”
“You know I will.”
He did know. His heart chugged against his sternum in awareness as he lingered at the door. “Just so you know… I’m not going to take any more muscle relaxers.”
“But—”
“I need you to listen,” he added quickly. “I can’t go down that road again. Not after what happened last night.”
“I doubt whoever tried to break in will come back for a second run.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. When he finally got up the courage to meet her gaze again, he saw that truth hit home.
“You don’t know what this person is capable of.
It could have been random and, in that case, yeah, the bastard’s long gone.
Or it could have been targeted. Someone almost ran you over yesterday.
The incidents could very well be linked. ”
Her brow knitted. “Who would come after me like that? There’s no reason—”
“No one in their right mind would hurt you, Sassy,” he said, keeping his voice soft. It was true. She was the most compassionate, incredible person he knew. “But we can’t assume whoever tried to break in last night is in their right mind.”
Her throat moved on a swallow.
He wished he didn’t have to deliver hard truths. For a stolen moment, he thought of ways to make the apprehension on her face disappear. It would be easy…so easy to cross the room to her again and…
He shut down that train of thought before it went off the rails, meeting Rogue’s unbroken stare. The cat dropped her chin and glared like she knew exactly what he was thinking.
He stepped back, out into the hall. Away. “I won’t be long.”
* * *
This time, Sassy didn’t dream of the sun on her face. The warmth came from another source altogether. Another body.
He wasn’t just warm. He was hot, his skin damp against hers.
There was nothing between them. Nothing dividing them or holding them back.
Her blood raced. She felt like molten wax. Instead of fleeing the flame, however, she was melting toward it.
His body fit to hers, pieces finding each other, fitting seamlessly…like they’d done this dozens of times before. He moved, rocked, against her. She rocked, moving with him, coming apart in slow, steady increments.
She wasn’t afraid of the free fall. Not when he was there to catch her.
She wasn’t afraid to fall at all.
She came awake all too quickly, gasping for air.
Rogue yowled in alarm, running for cover as she sat up.
In the light from the parted door of the attached bathroom, she saw herself in the mirror, a wild woman with drenched skin, mussed hair, eyes alive and gleaming, the sheets a tangle around her hips.
The alarm clanged against her eardrums, and she swiped a hand out for her nightstand, desperate to bring the racket to a halt. She jabbed at the screen until the noise stopped. Breathing hard, she stared at the images on her phone until they started to make sense.
It was the grayscale feed from the back of the gallery.
She groaned, realizing that the security system had tripped again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” This was the final straw. She was going to call the security company and chew someone out until they figured out why it kept waking her in the middle of the night…
A flash of white charged across the screen, too fast for her eyes to track. She fumbled the phone, her already racing heart tripping in her ears. The languid remnants of lust fell away fast as terror took hold.
Something was outside the gallery. Something big.
Or…someone.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, frustrated by the state of her sticky clothes.
“This is ridiculous, Haseya,” she lectured herself as she shrugged out of the damp tank top and shimmied out of her pajamas.
Quickly, she grabbed a change of clothes off the dresser where she’d folded them but hadn’t yet tucked them into the appropriate drawers.
Layering a loose boho blouse underneath a pair of paint-specked overalls, she shoved her feet into her garden boots, ran her hands through the unkempt reams of her hair and stomped out of the bedroom.
Rogue followed in a stealth belly glide across the carpet, chasing the loose, frayed cuffs of the overalls.
Moonlight streamed through the windows and transoms of her living room, illuminating the still, dark figure in front of the back door.
Sassy let out an errant scream.
Everything happened at once. The silhouette at the door jumped, yelped and barked, cowering from the door and racing behind the couch, where blankets thrashed, someone shouted and stood.
Before Sassy could clap her hand over her heart to stop it from leaping out of her mouth, Rogue joined the fray, releasing a terrified screech and bolting toward the thrashing, blanketed shape.
Claws rent fabric as she climbed a leg, a torso, a face into the hair of the figure before leaping for freedom and retreating into the darkness of the kitchen.
Sassy had the sense to flip the light switch, spotlighting the scene.
When she saw Nick emerge from the blankets, her jaw dropped.
Rogue had left scratches across his cheek, neck and naked chest. What came out of her mouth wasn’t exactly as she’d intended, but all the same, she shrieked, “What are you doing here?”
He eyed her through a web of pain and incredulity. “What do you mean, what am I doing here? We said good-night not three hours ago.”
“I meant…” Oh, no. The scratches pebbled with blood. They were deeper than she’d thought. She waved wildly at the couch. “I gave you a bed. What are you doing sleeping out here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, hissing as he fingered the slice across his pectoral. “Riot kept sniffing at the door.”
Sassy eyed the back door warily. She thought of the darting shape in the camera view of the security feed at the gallery and held up the phone clenched in her hand. “I’m sorry. The alarm tripped at the gallery again and I—”
“What?” he asked, dropping the blanket at his waist to reveal the gym shorts he was sleeping in. They hugged his hips as he closed the gap between them.
Her body was still tingly. She was still warm in places. Too warm. And she could remember every detail of the guilty dream she’d been having of him and them and… He looked good kissed by moonlight.
Riot nosed against her knee and whimpered. She reached down to pet him, glad to divert her attention on someone…anywhere but Nick’s marble slab of a chest. There was definition there. He wasn’t a gym rat, so it wasn’t overdone. But he looked trim and fit and strong and she was…thirsty.
Water. She’d drink a big glass of water.
“Did you see anything?” he asked, toggling the image to replay the footage from the last ten minutes.
“No.” She thought of the quick, white flash of movement and swallowed. “Yes. Maybe.”
“Where’d you put my truck keys?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I’m going to check it out,” he said, taking her phone with him to the guest room.
She made the mistake of following him. By the time she raced through the door after him, he was down to his boxer briefs. She swiftly turned away, hissing through her teeth as her thighs clenched. Gritting her teeth, she said his name.
“Yeah?” he asked distractedly.
“You can’t drive. The doctor hasn’t cleared you yet.”
“He thinks I’m on muscle relaxers. I’m not.”
“You’re down to one hand. Can you really drive with one—”
“Yes.”
Dear God, he was stubborn. She heard the rasp of a zipper and revolved slowly on the spot. His jeans were on, thank goodness. The panels of his red-and-blue-plaid shirt hung parted over his torso. When he began to rush past her, she stepped into his path.
He drew a sharp breath, fighting exasperation. “I’m going, Sassy. Someone needs to check it out. It’s either going to be me or I call the cops again. Take your pick.”
Silently, she tugged the two halves of his shirt together. Leaving the top button undone, she threaded the others through their corresponding holes, trying not to notice how warm the line of his torso was or the fact that he was breathing heavily…just as he had moments ago in her dream…
Banishing visions of skin, she finished buttoning him and stepped back. “You can’t go out in the cold like that,” she told him.
His shoulders lowered. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“We’ll both go,” she decided.
He hesitated for a moment before glancing down at Riot. “He can watch the house.”
“I have one condition.”
“What’s that?” he asked as he pocketed his wallet.
She raised a stern brow. “I’m driving.”