by Cynthia Eden
He forced himself to take a long, deep breath. That breath didn’t calm him worth a damn. “The senator was dead, but I needed to make sure that Ethan understood exactly where he stood with you. With us.”
Her eyes closed. “Did you kill him?”
“I didn’t set the bomb in that car.” He could say that with absolute honesty.
After a tense moment, her eyes opened. Her confused gaze was on him. “I’m just a woman you had sex with. Drake says there are plenty of us.”
There was only one Claire.
“Why would you go all the way down there? Why would you—”
He had to touch her. Noah wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You’re not like anyone else. You never could be.”
Her breath caught.
“I went down there because I needed to see him. He’s the bastard who ruined your life. The one who put the fear and the shadows in your eyes.”
When her eyes widened, he nodded grimly. “Yeah, baby, it’s still there. It’s always there. You look out at the world as if you’re just waiting for people to strike out at you. You’re beautiful…and you’re scared, so scared. He did that to you.” His hands slid down her arms. Down, down to her wrists. His fingers curled over the scars. “He did that,” Noah repeated.
“I did it,” Claire fired back, her words surprisingly strong. “I let him into my life. I’m the one who picked up the razor, I’m the—”
“Stop it!” His fury erupted.
Claire tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her.
“He’s a sick, twisted freak. He locked onto you, and he was going to do anything and everything in order to keep you with him.”
“He was in jail,” Claire said with a shake of her head. “He couldn’t—”
“He had photos of you all over his cell.” He hadn’t intended to tell her, and if that asshole PI hadn’t shown up…She never would have known. “He was as obsessed with you as ever. He had plans, Claire.” Plans that won’t ever happen. “He was counting down the days until he would be free, and then he would’ve come for you again.” Noah knew that Ethan would have killed her.
His fingers were caressing the skin along her wrists. Claire wasn’t speaking. She was so stiff and still.
“I wasn’t going to let Ethan hurt you. I went down there to tell him, to let him know that you weren’t alone. If he came after you…he’d find me in his path, and I would kill him then.”
Her lips trembled. “How can you talk about taking someone’s life so easily?”
“Because Ethan Harrison wasn’t a man. He was a monster that needed to be put down.”
She tugged against his hold.
“I didn’t do it, Claire.” But he would’ve. And maybe that was what she feared the most. What he was capable of doing. Noah let her go. “I didn’t kill him, but that’s just because someone else beat me to the punch. If he’d come after you, if he’d tried to hurt you…” It was better for her to see him exactly as he was. No lies. No masks. “I would have killed him in an instant.”
She stood before him. Her eyes too wide. Her face too pale. “I don’t want you to be like him.”
Fury poured through his blood. “I’m not.”
“I knew he had a darkness inside, I knew it from the very beginning, but I wanted him anyway.”
“Claire…”
“You have a darkness, too. I can feel it. I want you, Noah, more than I’ve wanted anyone, but you scare me, too.” Her hand raked through her hair.
“I know.” But she’d wanted him despite her fear.
And he just—wanted her.
“More than that…” She licked her lips. “I’m scared of the way I feel with you. Like the control I have, the life I’ve got…I could lose it all.”
“I’m not going to let you lose anything.” Why couldn’t she see that he wanted to protect her? To help her? “I didn’t kill him,” Noah said again. “But I would kill to keep you safe.” He backed away from her. “I want you. And you need to decide…you have to decide, if you want me, too.” The rest had to be said so he forced himself to add, “You have to decide if you want me more than you fear me.” Noah took another step back.
Claire wrapped her arms around her stomach.
“And when you do decide, you come find me.”
Then, before he gave into the primal urge to touch her, to take her, to make her see what they had…Noah turned away from Claire. He went upstairs to his bedroom. The rage he felt had his hands shaking.
Claire shouldn’t have learned about his trip to Alabama. He’d screwed up. He’d be more careful next time.
He yanked out the wallet he’d taken from the PI. Scanned the information inside. And, two minutes later, Noah had Trace on the phone. “Are your agents still working the break-in at the Hamlet?” Noah demanded when Trace came on the line. Claire’s stay at the Hamlet…it seemed so far away, but it had just been days ago when he’d discovered her trashed room.
“Another middle of the night call…” Trace growled. “Shit, man, keep normal hours and—”
“Ethan Harrison is dead.”
That shut Trace up.
“The car he was in exploded today.”
“You sure he was in it?”
“Drake was there. He’s the one who confirmed the kill.”
The faint sound of rustling and then the click of a door eased over the line. “What the hell is going on?” Trace demanded. “First the senator, and now the bastard Ethan?”
“I don’t know what’s happening. I want you to find out.” Trace had a slew of agents at his beck and call. “Start your hunt with a private investigator, a man named Sloan Hall.”
“And why should I start with him?”
“Because the Harrisons were paying him to watch Claire, and the SOB was just here at my place in the Hamptons. If I see him again…”
“Got it,” Trace said. Silence stretched over the line, then Trace cleared his throat. “Noah, you don’t sound quite like yourself.”
Noah glanced down. There was a faint tremor in his fingers. “Did Skye ever look at you as if you were the monster she should fear?”
“Uh, look, Claire’s been through a lot and…”
“And that’s a no, right? Because the woman you want isn’t supposed to look at you that way. She isn’t supposed to be afraid of you.” His left hand fisted.
“Skye isn’t Claire. After what she’s been through, Claire has to be afraid—”
“I don’t want her afraid of me.” But he knew that people didn’t always get what they wanted. Especially…
When she has a reason to be afraid.
“I’m taking over this case,” Trace told him. “I’m coming in personally to handle it. Not just my agents. Me. I’ll be on the next flight to New York.”
“No. You stay with Skye, I—”
“I’m coming in,” Trace said again. “I don’t like this scene. First Senator Harrison, then his son? It reeks of a set-up. Kill the senator…”
“In order to get a shot at the son.” Noah had thought the same thing.
“It’s personal.” Trace sighed. “And an attack against Ethan Harrison isn’t personal without it being connected to Claire Kramer.”
That was what Noah feared.
“You need to keep her close.” Trace’s voice had hardened. “Dammit, man, I owe her, too, and I don’t want anything happening to Claire—”
The door opened behind Noah. He turned.
Claire was there, standing on the threshold of the room.
“Nothing will,” he swore.
Nothing…but what she wanted to happen.
***
Sloan Hall swiped at the blood that kept gushing from his nose. He’d never expected Noah York to come after him like that. Suits weren’t supposed to attack.
They were supposed to run.
He yanked out his phone. His bloody fingers smeared across the screen as he dialed his client.
Ethan Harrison is dead?
&nb
But…Ethan wasn’t the one who paid his bills.
The phone was answered on the second ring. “This isn’t a good time.”
Sloan recognized the boss’s voice immediately.
“Yeah, well, I hear that’s because your brother’s dead,” Sloan said, words coming fast because he was afraid the guy was about to hang up.
Austin Harrison had never seemed to care much for him. Austin had paid him, but only because he’d been ordered to do so. The senator had run that family with a drunken fist.
“Word travels fast…” Austin murmured. “I figured the news shows would run with the story. They always enjoyed my family’s pain.”
“Wasn’t the news.” The blood wouldn’t stop coming. “It was Noah York.”
Silence. Then… “You’re still on the job?”
If the job was Claire Kramer… “Not anymore. As of twenty minutes ago, I’m done, got it? The bastard attacked me!” He put his left hand to his nose. That shit hurt. He might have to go see a doc.
“Where are you?”
“The freaking Hamptons, and guess what? I hate the place. Claire’s screwing her rich psycho, he’s muttering about his parents dying on a boat, and I’m just wondering how much you’re gonna be paying me for my pain and suffering.” Make this work. Salvage something, Sloan. “Because if I have to do it, I’ll go to the media. I’ll let them know just how messed up the Harrison family became. Stalking that woman, getting all those pictures…day and night.”
There was a murmur of voices in the background. What was happening? It sounded as if Austin had a dozen people around him.
Sloan’s hold on the phone tightened. Had Austin just said, “detective” just then? Hell, had he already been replaced?
“I have to go,” Austin told him. The guy sounded way too curt.
“What you have to do is deal with me!” Sloan was getting desperate. And his nose kept throbbing and bleeding.
“I will. I’ll see you, very soon.”
The bastard hung up on him.
Sloan glared down at the phone. “You’d better,” he snarled. “Because I haven’t been paid enough for this shit.”
***
“Mr. Harrison?” Gwen Lazlo said as she cocked her head and waited for the guy to end his phone call. “I’d really appreciate a few minutes of your time.”
Austin Harrison slowly turned toward her. There was no grief on his face. If anything, she’d say the guy showed signs of…relief.
His gaze—a glittering green—drifted over her. “I’m sorry, Detective Lazlo. For a man like me, business doesn’t seem to stop, not even for death.”
She barely controlled an eye roll. “Look, I don’t have jurisdiction down here but—”
“No, you don’t.” His stare drifted behind her. They were in his house. Some fancy southern mansion with too many white columns, and people were milling all over the place. “I believe Sheriff Brady will be in charge of the investigation.”
“In charge of the investigation into your brother’s death, yes,” Gwen said, her voice sharp. And that investigation is going to take forever. Nothing was left of that car, those two poor cops, or of Ethan Harrison. “But I’m still lead on your father’s case, and I have a few questions that I must ask you.”
He blinked at her. “My father…” His laugh was rough. “Strange, isn’t it? I almost forgot about him. I just—I keep seeing the flames. Ethan was trying to talk to me, I wanted to get away from him, and then…he was just gone.”
She’d always sucked at dealing with grieving families. This guy wasn’t exactly grieving, though. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure what he was. “Did your father have any enemies?”
“Plenty of them.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “He was an asshole.”
So she’d heard, but Gwen pressed on with her questions. “Any enemies that might want him dead? That might want him and Ethan dead?”
“Ethan was in jail. He couldn’t hurt anyone in jail.” His hand dropped. “I wasn’t a good brother.”
This was not helping her investigation. “I need names. I need to know who would want your father to die like that—a shot to the head and—”
“Claire Kramer.” Her name was a sigh from Austin. “She’s the one who’d want him dead. Who’d want them both dead, but Claire doesn’t have the power to pull off something like this.”
Gwen wasn’t so certain of that. Claire’s new lover has plenty of power. “When was the last time you spoke with Claire?”
He laughed. “I haven’t spoken with her, not in years, but I know what they did.” His jaw tightened. “I know what they both did to Claire, and if anyone would’ve wanted to see my father and my brother rotting, it would be her.”
***
Her knees were shaking. Her stomach seemed to be tied in knots, and Claire was absolutely determined not to let Noah see her fear.
He tossed aside the phone that he’d held. His golden gaze locked on her.
“I am afraid of you,” Claire told him because she thought the words needed to be said.
His lips thinned. “Tell me something I didn’t know.”
A spark of anger ignited within her. “How can I not be afraid? You attacked that PI. You—you told me that you’d kill Ethan—”
“Like you hadn’t thought about killing him yourself? Come on, Claire. It’s just us. I won’t judge you for the darkness inside you.”
The darkness inside you. So he did see it. She’d wondered about that. Keeping her eyes on his, Claire admitted, “Only every day.”
His head cocked as he studied her.
“But if I killed Ethan, then wouldn’t I become just like him?” And that was the root of Claire’s terror. Ethan had been so drawn to her because he’d said they were the same. Mirror images, deep inside. She didn’t want to be the same as Ethan.
She didn’t want to kill. To destroy.
Claire never wanted to become so obsessed with one person that she let everything else slip away.
She couldn’t quite read Noah’s expression. Claire took a tentative step forward. “What’s the difference between love and obsession?” That one question had haunted her for so long.
Noah didn’t answer her.
“Have you ever been in love, Noah?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but Claire laughed, realizing what she’d just foolishly asked. “Of course, you haven’t. You’re the man with a new lover every night. You don’t want to love.”
“Love leads to pain,” Noah said.
Claire nodded. “I was told once that you were in love when you needed someone so much that you couldn’t bear to think of the world without that person, that you couldn’t live without that person being near.” She wet her too-dry lips. “I think that’s obsession. A need that dominates you. Consumes you. A need for one other person. A need that makes you do…anything…to possess that person.”
He was as still as a statue before her.
“Ethan thought he loved me, but I don’t believe Ethan could love.” Time to confess all. “I don’t think I can love, either.” She’d just been getting by, in a void, for so long. Watching the world. Hiding from herself.
From everyone.
“Do you think you can love?” Claire asked him.
His eyes glittered. “Do you want me to say that I love you?”
“No.” Because she wouldn’t believe him if he did. “You don’t. You want to fuck me. I think you want to protect me, because you and Trace—” The slightly bitter laughter slipped from her again. “You both hold yourselves responsible for Sara’s death. You’re trying to make amends somehow to me.”
“I do want to protect you.”
But you don’t love me.
“I’m asking if you can love, Noah.” And it was so important to her. “Love or obsession…what is life about to you?”
His gaze slid from hers. “I think there’s a thin line between love and obsession.”
Her breath whispered out.
“I already feel obsessed with you,” he said, his voice gravel-rough, “but you know that, don’t you?”
Yes.
“I won’t ever hurt you,” Noah told her. The words were stark. “I need you to believe that.”
Not her. She didn’t think he would physically hurt her, but what about someone else? She’d been so wrong about a lover before. Trusting Noah completely seemed an impossible task.
“I’m not like Ethan Harrison. Anything that happens between you and me…it happens because it is what you want to happen. It’s about what you need.”
She needed him. She needed to feel like any other woman. “I didn’t date again after Ethan. Didn’t go to prom or any parties in college. I stayed as far away from men as I could get.” She was trying to explain, and Claire was afraid he just wouldn’t understand her. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if what I’m feeling for you is normal and—” Right. She swallowed and finished, “Or if it’s wrong.” Claire had whispered like the shameful secret it was.
Her eyes lowered. She was staring at the lush carpet, and she saw his legs moving toward her.
“Ethan told me that I was just like him. That I consumed him. And at first, I felt like he consumed me, too.” There was so much pain in those memories. “I feel the same way with you.”
His fingers slid under her chin. He forced her head to lift, but her gaze darted over his shoulder.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
Slowly, afraid to see his gaze, afraid of what would be in his gaze, she did.
“How do you feel when you’re with me? Tell me…exactly.”
“I want to let go.”
A furrow appeared between his brows.
“I want to stop playing it safe. I want to not care what happens beyond the pleasure that you can give me and the pleasure I can give you.”
That furrow smoothed away. His eyes heated.
“I want to let go,” she said again as their eyes held. “I want to burn instead of always being cold. I want to claw your back. I want to buck against your hips. I want to scream.”
“All you have to do is ask.”
It wasn’t that simple. “I have no control. I lose myself when we’re together, and I-I just want more and more.” More of his heat. More of the pleasure. More of the pretense that she wasn’t broken beyond repair.
“Ask, Claire,” he growled out that command.
“Can any obsession be healthy?” Because she felt obsessed with him. “Do they all have to end in fear and darkness?”
“I’m not him.”
He and Ethan looked different. Night and day. But that same, dark intensity was there, just beneath the skin.
Only Noah isn’t twisted.
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