Chapter 21
Chloe woke up and had no idea where she was. The bed felt like hers, with its soft cotton sheets and comfy mattress, and—yep—the yellow patchwork quilt, caramel-colored floorboards, and bedside table piled high with cookbooks and romance novels all looked like hers, too.
The insanely sexy, still-sleeping firefighter with his tree trunk of an arm wrapped around her rib cage and his (okay, wow) impressive AF hard-on pressed against her ass? Yeah, that was the part turning everything into super unfamiliar territory.
Very warm, very enticing, very, very tempting unfamiliar territory.
Chloe took a slow breath as she recounted everything that had happened last night.
The party that had been a massive success, with everyone laughing and celebrating and close, like the patchwork family of relatives and friends they were.
The way Tyler had put words to the want she’d been feeling all night, claiming to be no angel, then taking off her dress and taking her breath away as he’d proved it.
The heartbreaking truth he’d confessed to her afterward as they’d curled together with each other, limbs and breath tangled in the dark.
God, that truth. Her whole chest had ached for him when Tyler had told her what his father had done to both him and his mother, at the emotion he’d so clearly kept locked down for so long.
But that ache had turned into something else, raw and sharp, when he’d told her that Martin’s betrayal was the reason he’d never allowed himself to feel anything other than fleeting physical pleasure.
That he didn’t know what to do with the way he felt for her, and Chloe hadn’t even hesitated, because even though she’d tried to fight it, too, she felt the same way in his arms. Good. Safe. Right.
Chloe had meant what she’d said. Tyler was a good man, with a good heart, and the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to protect it.
She and Tyler had stayed there, pressed together on her couch, his lips at her temple and her hand over his heart as they’d drifted off to sleep.
At some point, when even the streetlights beyond her blinds had softened into barely a glow, her couch had become too unwieldy for the both of them to spend the entire night on.
But rather than finding his clothes and slipping away to sleep in his own bed, Tyler had wordlessly taken the hand she’d offered him so they could pad down the hallway and tangle back together in her bed.
They’d had slower, yet equally intense sex before finally sliding back into sleep, and even though Chloe had never woken up in his arms before, she couldn’t imagine anywhere else she could possibly want to be.
Which, before, would’ve made her think she was in the deepest of deep trouble, but now only made her feel like maybe she was exactly where she belonged.
“Hey,” Tyler whispered against the back of her neck, her heart beating like butterfly wings as he punctuated the word with a brush of his lips.
“Hey,” she breathed. She wondered briefly if she should offer him coffee, or maybe the spare toothbrush she kept stashed in her medicine cabinet in case her niece asked for an impromptu sleepover at Auntie Chloe’s.
Was there protocol for what to do after a night of shockingly intense sex with your older brother’s best friend who you weren’t supposed to be catching feelings for but were absolutely, completely catching feelings for?
Without moving, Tyler said, “Stop overthinking, Ferguson.”
She laughed softly, the tension in her chest knocked loose. “How did you know I was overthinking?”
“Because we’ve met,” he said, laughing back. “But also, because I was doing it a little bit, too.”
Well, that got her attention. “You were?”
“Yeah. I’ve never woken up next to anyone before.”
Given Tyler’s track record, along with what he’d told her last night, that wasn’t entirely surprising, yet it still brought an “oh” past her lips. “I haven’t, either,” Chloe admitted. “It’s kind of nice.”
“You are determined to reduce my ego to ashes and embers, aren’t you?” he asked, and she snorted into her pillow.
“If you still think I’m not a huge fan after all those orgasms we gave each other last night, then I can’t help you, buddy.”
“You may have a point.”
After another minute of enjoying the warmth of Tyler’s arms around her, holding her close, she begrudgingly got up to brush her teeth, then left the spare toothbrush on the bathroom counter as she moved down the hallway to make coffee and feed Gary.
Chloe took a bag of bacon cheddar scones from the freezer, popping two into the microwave before pouring coffee into a pair of mugs she’d pulled from the cupboard.
“Breakfast,” she said, sliding half the spoils over the small kitchen table a minute later as Tyler made his way in, dressed in last night’s jeans but nothing else. Lord, she should probably at least try to build some kind of immunity to those abs, otherwise, she was going to be useless.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a long, grateful draw from his mug. Gary lifted his head from his food dish to give Tyler some spectacular side-eye before hissing his disdain and retreating to his lair beneath her living room chair, and Tyler arched a brow.
“Still charming, I see.”
“Don’t take it personally.” Chloe shrugged. “He only tolerates me because I feed him.”
A corner of Tyler’s mouth worked upward, no doubt to precede a smartass comment about how only she would rescue the grumpiest cat in the entire shelter, but the merry chime of her cell phone interrupted the conversation.
Chloe’s pulse sprinted in her veins at the ringtone. Addison. “Sorry. I should—”
“Yeah, of course,” Tyler said, helping her search for her phone, unearthing it from the floor beside the couch and passing it over just before the call rolled over to voicemail.
“Hey! Addison, hi,” she said, cradling her phone to her ear and trying her best not to sound like she’d been up half the night having supremely hot sex. “I’m surprised you’re not still sleeping after—”
“Chloe.” Addison’s tone, serious and low, had her on instant high alert.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to call so early,” Addison said, probably to soften whatever was coming next.
But Chloe didn’t do soft when it came to anything that would likely stir up her emotions. She wanted to rip the Band-Aid off and feel what she needed to feel, even if that meant drawing blood in the process. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.
This time, Addison didn’t pull any punches. “I just got off the phone with Sinclair. The DNA analysis came back, and there have been some significant developments in the case. Can you meet me at Tara’s office in an hour?”
All the air disappeared from the room, and shit. Shit, Chloe couldn’t breathe. “Should I get Esme?” she managed.
“Tom’s already on his way to pick her up,” Addison said. As if on cue, Chloe’s phone vibrated with an incoming text, followed quickly by two more in rapid succession, and nothing about this could be good.
“Addison,” Chloe started, but she refused to bite.
“There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s too much to explain over the phone, otherwise you know I would.
Right now, Esme is safe. I promise. And we’ll answer every single one of the questions I know you’re dying to ask when you get here.
But right now, I’ve got to go do my job, okay? Please trust me.”
Chloe’s stomach whirled with dread, but she nodded and took a shaky breath. “Okay. I do. I’ll be there in an hour.”
She ended the call, steeling herself. She needed to be tough. To stay strong and deal with whatever Addison was going to tell her, no matter how scary. She would not break. Nope. She’d get dressed, head downtown, and protect Esme. In that order.
But Tyler was right there beside her, steady and calm, and instead of giving him a quick “sorry, gotta go”, she reached for him instead.
“Hey, I’ve got you,” he said, his arms moving under hers. “You can talk to me when you’re ready, but if you need a minute, just breathe.”
Comfort spread through her, letting her find her center, and after a few seconds, Chloe pulled back, mostly reset.
“The DNA analysis came back. Addison didn’t want to get into it on the phone, but I don’t think it’s good news.”
“Esme’s okay, though?” Tyler asked, and shit, her texts. Chloe checked her phone, and sure enough, all three were from Esme, each a variation of “what’s going on, please talk to me.”
Her heart sank. “She’s safe, but damn it. I’m sure she’s freaking out. Tom’s on his way to go get her. We’re all meeting at Tara’s office in an hour.”
“Okay,” Tyler said, thankfully not wasting any time. “I can try Nat to see if there’s been any update on the arson investigation while you text Esme back, then I’ll pack up breakfast to go if you want to take a quick shower before we head out. Does that sound good?”
Chloe’s lungs worked on an inhale, then she nodded. Whatever the news, she’d figure something out. They’d figure something out. “Yes.”
While she knew all minutes were technically created equally, each sixty seconds, just like the ones before it and the ones after, the next hours’ worth seemed to pass in a blink.
Tyler hadn’t been able to uncover anything new on the arson investigation, although, having seen the destruction firsthand, Chloe wasn’t honestly shocked.
Whatever these developments were, they had to pertain to the DNA and the murder itself.
She’d followed up her text to Esme with a few more to try to keep her calm(ish) while Tyler drove downtown, and—at his quiet but immovable insistence—eaten one of the scones she’d pulled from her freezer, and by the time they’d arrived at the Remington Courthouse complex, fifty-eight minutes had passed since Addison’s call.