by Pam Godwin
“That’s a bullshit answer. For the past year, I’ve spent damn near every day with you, a lot of that time on the mats, letting you pound in my face and pick apart my weaknesses. I trusted you with my training. I trust you with this job. But beyond that? I don’t know, Cole. Because I don’t fucking know you.”
Cole handed him another Bud Light, sat in the chair across from him, and took a long draw from his bottle. Then he stared at him. Drank again. More staring.
At last, he leaned back and closed his eyes. “I fell in love many years ago.”
“With a stripper?”
“A belly dancer. She floated up to me on the street like a damn angel emerging from a mist. Her smile… Fuck, it was so blinding it stopped me on my motorcycle and leveled my entire world.” His leg bounced. Then stilled. “I asked her to marry me. Then I chose my job over her.”
“The secret agent job?”
“Don’t call it that.” He cracked his eyes open, glaring through the slits. “I was sent out in the field for a while. Mistakes were made, and I was forced to fake my death to protect her. By the time I cleaned up the mess, quit the job, and returned home to her, she’d fallen in love with my best friend.”
“Ouch.”
“She’s happy. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“I don’t believe that. I’ve seen the wedding ring you wear on the chain under your shirt. A woman’s ring. She’s inked on your arm, and unless you’re hiding a health problem, your dick still works. You’re still a man. But I’m guessing you haven’t had sex with anyone since her.”
“There isn’t a woman out there who comes close to the one I had.”
“Trust me, Cole. You have to let go and move on. If you’re afraid of falling in love again—”
“I will always love her. End of.” Cole steadily met his eyes. No defensive anger. No emotion at all. “My refusal to bed random women has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with self-control.”
“I get it. I fucking lived it.” He softened his voice, recalling his own pain and the celibacy that accompanied it. “Caroline was only fourteen when she died. As innocent as it sounds, I saved myself for her. Then Van happened. A fucking traumatizing way to lose your virginity. He and Liv forced me to perform sexual acts, but I didn’t willingly touch a woman for the first time until much later. Those were some dark years.”
“What changed?”
“I was so goddamn lonely that I went out one night and got laid. Just like that. I don’t even remember her face. Doesn’t matter. It was the intimacy that I needed. It pushed me out of the dark.” He met Cole’s eyes. “You’re making a regrettable mistake if you condemn yourself to loneliness for the rest of your life.”
Cole’s gaze slid toward the back bedroom and locked on something out of view.
Tomas couldn’t see around the corner, but he knew she was there. His neck stiffened. “Eavesdropping again, Rylee?”
“Leave Cole alone.” She shuffled into the room, looking ragged and filthy and breathtakingly gorgeous. “He’s not like you.”
Cole winged up an eyebrow.
Tomas tensed as she looked at the front door, scoped out the kitchen, and returned to the door. She reeked of desperation. To find food. To run for her life. Neither was an option until she spilled her secrets.
“Go take a shower.” He guzzled down the second beer.
“I want to hear what the psychologist has to say about our conversation.” Cole nodded at her. “Go ahead, Rylee.”
“I didn’t hear all of it.” She rubbed her arm where she’d removed the IV and stole another glance at the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
Cole wasn’t on board with Tomas’ plan, but he didn’t twitch a muscle to interfere. At least, not yet. He simply observed her, waiting.
When no one spoke, she stepped farther into the room, positioning herself closer to the front door.
Would she run? Tomas counted on it. What he hadn’t expected was her blatant disregard of his presence. Surely, she felt him glaring at her, daring her to look at him.
After a moment of deliberation, she lowered her head.
“Everyone handles a broken heart differently.” Her shoulders twitched, her eyes shifty and tired. “Some people only love once, and if they lose that love, they never look for it again. They find other things in life that stir their passions. Like their work. Their hobbies. Or throwing themselves behind an important cause.” She peered at Cole through her lashes. “You don’t waste your time with hookups because you don’t do casual relationships. You had the real thing, and there’s no replacement. You’re a one and done kind of guy. But a word of warning, Cole. Fate might not be done with you.”
“I fucked fate to hell, darlin’.” Cole traced a finger along his bottom lip, his voice taking on a menacing edge. “Believe me. That train crashed and burned.”
“Okay, but if you’re wrong, if love comes for you again, it’s going to blindside you and knock you on your ass. You’ll deny it. You’ll fight it with every breath in your body. But having already experienced it once, you know it’s a fight you can’t win. So maybe, if and when it happens, give yourself a break. Don’t fight so hard.”
“Is that your professional opinion? Or personal experience?”
“Professional.” Her brows furrowed. “Or personal. Both, I guess.” She lifted her gaze, struggling in the effort to drag it across the room, pushing it toward Tomas, and finally, finally, she met his eyes. “You told him my husband cheated on me?”
He stared right back, giving her nothing, even as his blood flew through his veins. It wasn’t her words that affected him. It was everything she didn’t say.
Censure blazed in her glare, fury so hot he felt it flare against his chest. She abhorred him, scorned him, and found him severely lacking. Perhaps that was what struck him the most. Her burning disappointment.
As if she’d come here expecting to find something dramatically different. She must’ve read something into his emails that wasn’t there. Maybe she thought if a man was stupid enough to write the details of his criminal life to a dead girl, he was stupid enough to fall in line with her agenda.
Well, she could shove her disappointment up her ass, because he wasn’t that guy.
“Some people have more aggressive ways of dealing with a broken heart.” She addressed Cole, but her eyes were all for Tomas. “Like standing on the edge of a bridge and welcoming death. Or writing emails and pouring out their regrets. Or hate-fucking every willing body they come in contact with.”
Hate-fucking? That was what she thought he did? Or was she projecting her own issues? That would explain a lot.
“Are you having hate-sex with your neighbor?” He leaned forward, his posture rigid.
“God no.”
“How many have come before Evan Phillips?”
“Not nearly as many as you parade in and out of your bed.”
“Give me a number.”
“Rot in hell.”
“You know mine. In fact, you know every detail of my sexual history. I want yours.”
“I’m not giving you shit.” She backed toward the door, clumsy and nervous. She wouldn’t get far.
“You want to eat? Give me the names of your lovers. Timelines. Descriptions. You’re going to tell me who you’re fucking, everyone you’re connected with, and what they know about my friends and me.”
“This again?” She took another backward step. “You already know about Mason and Evan. You know my occupation and where I live. Whoever that Paul guy was, I don’t know him. He’s connected to you.”
“Then why was the tracker on your truck? Why was he watching you for six months?”
“I guess you should’ve asked him instead of dumping him in the desert with me. I told you everything I know about that, and I hope you figure it out. But I can’t help you.”
She reached for the door, but he was already moving.
“Don’t do this!” She fumbled with the handle, breathing heavily and
whimpering in her struggle to escape.
He pressed a hand on the door above her head, forcing it shut. “Get in the shower. You stink.”
“No! I’m leaving!”
“Have it your way.” With little effort, he flung her small body over his shoulder and carried her toward the bathroom.
Her little fists bounced off his back, the rest of her bucking ineffectively as he crossed the short distance. As his gaze intersected Cole’s, they shared a look, but he didn’t know what it meant.
Disapproval? Indifference? Definitely not encouragement. It didn’t matter so long as the man didn’t interfere.
In the bathroom, he turned on the shower and dropped her beneath the cold spray, clothes and all.
She yelped and clawed at the shower curtain.
He caught it before she tore it down and shoved her back into the tub. “Do that again, and you’ll be showering with no privacy.”
“Fuck you.” She spluttered in the downpour of water, slipped on her socked feet, and scrambled up again, pressing her back against the shower wall.
Wet cotton and denim clung to her stunning figure. Strings of dark hair stuck to her face, and her silver eyes glinted with ferocity, sharp as honed steel and enthralling beyond reason.
Rylee Sutton was devastatingly sexy when she was mad.
“The soap is behind you.” He leaned against the vanity, his jeans too painfully tight to contain his reaction to her. “Use it.”
With a feral smile, she snatched the bar of soap and hurled it at him.
The soap bounced off Tommy’s chest and fell to the floor with a dull, anti-climatic plonk.
Rylee stared at it, her heart pounding in her throat. “That would’ve hit harder if I weren’t starving to death.”
“Then I should feed you.” His tone scraped, stinging her nerves. “Just to ensure that the next thing you throw leaves a mark.”
“Why are you such a jerk?” She shivered even as the spraying water started to heat and form a cloud of steam between them.
He blocked the exit with his sheer size, wearing a hateful scowl, dark jeans, and a black muscle-hugging shirt. Mist collected on the fabric in a blurry shine, making him look otherworldly, like an angry, avenging warlord.
If he expected her to take a shower while he watched, he could fuck right off.
“Move.” She stepped over the bathtub ledge only to be shoved back in.
Indignation warred with fatigue, and the latter won out as she staggered and fell on her butt.
“Goddammit!” She staggered back to her feet and swayed. “Let me out!”
The hollows and slashes of his sculpted cheeks, the twisted sneer of his mouth, all of it carved a cruel expression in his unbearably handsome face. But his looks were overshadowed by the dispassion in his steady, golden eyes. Didn’t matter what she said. He had a plan for her, and it wouldn’t be merciful.
His gaze took a tour along her soaked clothes as he drifted closer, so close she detected fumes of beer on his breath. The piney, masculine aroma agitated her hunger and stirred other things she refused to acknowledge.
She met his eyes. “I’m not stripping in front of you, motherfucker.”
His lip curled, and he leaned back. “You’re old enough to be my mother, and that’s a hard pass.” He tossed the soap into the tub and yanked the shower curtain closed between them. “You have five minutes to undress and clean off the blood.”
His nastiness penetrated, leaving a toxic, coiling pain in the deepest chambers of her heart.
“If I don’t?” she asked.
“I’ll do it myself, and neither of us will enjoy it.”
So he’d rather insult her than see her naked. Fine. That was preferable. She could handle spiteful words, even if they hurt.
It was time she stopped thinking of him as the boy she’d connected with ten years ago. That kid was gone, and this man was beyond saving.
She only needed to save herself.
Lightheaded and famished, she shook from head to toe, her fingers uncooperative and trembling as she pulled off the soggy clothes and washed her hair.
If he remained on the other side of the curtain, she couldn’t hear him. No amount of curiosity would compel her to steal a peek. Besides, he wouldn’t go far.
Even if he thought she was old enough to be his mother.
Over the past few years, she found that maturity in women warded off shallow, insecure assholes—the same way aposematism warned off predators. If he was repelled by her age, it was working.
But his jab still burned her up. She was only forty-one. Fourteen years older than him. Maybe it was biologically possible to birth a child at that age, but she didn’t know any fourteen-year-old mothers.
Why was she still thinking about this? Fuck him.
She needed the keys to her truck and an escape plan.
She needed food.
Finishing the shower in a rush, she shut off the water and grabbed the curtain. Then she slowly peered around the edge.
The bathroom was empty, the door cracked. No sound drifted in, but she knew he was out there, waiting with animosity in his eyes.
When she drove here three days ago, she saw this playing out so differently. If that rapist piece of shit, Paul, hadn’t shown up, maybe Tommy would’ve despised her less and listened more.
Or maybe he’d just sounded nicer in email, and she didn’t really know him at all.
A towel sat on the vanity, along with a clean pair of her pajama pants and an unfamiliar t-shirt. She hurried through drying, dressing, and using the toilet, left her ruined clothes in the bathtub, and stepped into the narrow hall.
Glancing toward the bedroom, she noticed the bed had already been stripped and replaced with clean bedding. Meticulous as ever, he would undoubtedly have all traces of Paul’s blood gone from his property by nightfall.
How strange to be inside this house after hearing about it for ten years. It was exactly as he’d described—dark, cramped, cozy. And quiet.
The scent of food invaded her nose. She’d guzzled water and apple juice when she woke, but the gnawing emptiness in her stomach screamed for substance.
Her pulse quickened as she entered the front room.
Tommy sprawled on the couch, a sun-browned hand hanging casually over the armrest. Steam rose from a bowl that sat on the table before him, the aroma of delicious spices pervading the air.
Chili. Out of a box, a can, wherever it came from, she didn’t care. Saliva pooled in her mouth, and her belly churned with ravenous need.
“Where’s Cole?” She tugged on the oversize shirt, fighting the impulse to attack the food.
“Out.” His gaze followed the action then lifted to hers, hard as polished gold. “Sit.”
The front door beckoned, but the chili promised instant relief.
She crossed the room and sat across from him, her eyes on the bowl.
He straightened, leaning toward the table, and grabbed the spoon.
“Let’s start with your bed partners.” Scooping a huge helping of beans and meat, he held it between them and wet his lips. “How many men have you fucked since you started reading my emails?”
For a bite of that food, she could give him an estimate. A staggering number, to be honest, especially for a woman who thought she’d married her one and only. She wasn’t ashamed of her sexual history or her voracious libido, but none of it concerned Tommy. If she told him about her past hookups, it would turn them into suspects and put them in his crosshairs.
“I’ve had one lover in the past year.” She didn’t want to look desperate, but her gaze kept drifting to the spoon, pulling like a magnet. “Evan isn’t a criminal. He knows nothing about you. There isn’t a chance in hell he’s involved in this.”
“Who came before him?”
She shook her head rapidly, frenzied in her hunger. “Tommy, please. I’m starving.”
He veered the scoop toward his mouth and wrapped his mean lips around the entire bite, humming as
he chewed.
There were a million words in the English language, but not one could adequately express how badly she wanted to stab him with that goddamn spoon.
She could try to take the bowl from him, but she was operating at a fraction of his strength and speed. If she behaved, maybe she wouldn’t have to fight him at all. Maybe he intended to share with her.
He shoveled a second helping of chili and hovered it before her. “Give me names.”
“Douchebag. Fuckface. Jackass. Mouth breather.”
The spoon slid between his lips, another bite stolen.
She saw red. “You want to know why Paul followed me here? Look at your own history, the people you’ve murdered, the women you’ve fucked, and the ruthless company you keep. That’s where you’ll find your answer.”
“I’m looking at all connections, but the most glaring one is you. The more you cooperate, the quicker this ends.” He ate another spoonful, twisting pain through her stomach.
“Who I’ve slept with has no bearing on this.”
“You have no family or friends. It seems the only people who come into your life are the ones who come between your legs.”
“That’s not true.” A hot ember flared at the base of her throat.
“Then tell me, Rylee.” He spooned more chili, eating it cruelly in front of her and talking with his mouth full. “Among your acquaintances, who hasn’t been in your pants?”
“God, you’re such a prick.”
He continued eating, watching her with callous indifference as the bowl slowly emptied before her eyes. She could almost taste the hearty beans as they disappeared in his mouth.
“My colleagues.” A prickly burn swarmed the edges of her eyes. “I don’t sleep with them, and they’re my friends.”
“Colleagues,” he echoed in an acidic tone and wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “Define your relationship with them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have any of them been to your house? Or called you on the phone just to shoot the shit? Or invited you to hang out or grab a beer after work?”
“No.” Not once. “I don’t make friends like that easily. I’m shy. Reserved.”