“In a way it was. We couldn’t rely on Olivia; we only had each other. I thought a mixed martial arts event was more important than Sara on our birthday. If I’d shown up when I was supposed to, that motherfucker wouldn’t have touched her.”
“Who killed her? Why?” Kat couldn’t imagine.
“Lee Foster. He rented a room from the family she’d been placed in. Turned out later that child services didn’t know that, but there’s a lot of shit they don’t know or didn’t care about. Foster came in, found Sara alone. He probably tried something and she rebuffed him. But she was small, like our mother and… Fuck.”
Not knowing what else to do, she just held on and showed him that he wasn’t alone.
“Once he was caught, he swore he didn’t kill her. That they’d had consensual sex and he’d left only to come home after I found her. Said she was a little whore, would do anyone.” Fury vibrated in his voice.
Kat slipped beneath his arm braced against the window. The agony swimming in his gaze ripped her chest open. Dry eyes shadowed with fourteen years of grief, guilt and rage. Gripping his face in her palms, she didn’t care that he’d see her tears. “Foster murdered her, Sloane. Not you.”
“It was her birthday. She got excited about that shit. I was too tough to care, but Sara…” He rubbed a hand over his face. “She didn’t even know I’d saved up money and bought her that necklace and stuffed dog. She always wanted a damn dog. Because a dog would love her no matter what.”
“You loved her. You still love her. That counts. A lot.” It had to. But what about their mother? “Where was your mom? Didn’t she come to see Sara and you on your birthday?”
Sloane’s gaze drifted to the window. “Olivia’s boyfriend didn’t want teenage kids. That’s how it usually went. Whatever guy she shacked up with didn’t want us, and she’d dump us in foster care. Then when her latest Prince Charming turned out to be a toad, she’d take us back. It never ended, not until that night.”
Her heart ached for two lost children. But now she understood why her elitist overachieving parents hadn’t scared him off. He’d seen worse. So much worse.
Expected it, really. How could a man as generous as Sloane, a man who protected Kat from threats, think he couldn’t love?
Sloane leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers. “You’re crying.”
How could she not? “Yes.”
He wiped her tears with his thumb. “For Sara?”
Surrounded by the night and washed in moonlight, she didn’t have the ability to withhold or shade the truth. Didn’t want to. “For both of you.”
He stared at her, the desolation in his eyes competing with confusion. “Why me?” His voice sounded baffled. “I didn’t die.”
He had suffered. “I think part of you did,” she said softly. The part that trusted in love. Their mother had been some kind of serial dater of losers that she chose over her own children. Then Sara left him when she died. Oh sure, it was irrational, but Kat knew all about irrational fears, and she was willing to bet that deep down, Sloane didn’t want to love anyone else and have them leave him too.
Well, he loved Drake, his mentor. But Sloane probably didn’t look at it that way. And wasn’t Drake going to leave Sloane? So that only cemented his beliefs.
Sloane’s whole plus-one arrangements made a sad kind of sense now. He controlled the situation with a deal, not trusting emotion or fate.
It broke her heart. He deserved more. She caressed his jaw, trying to erase the stark loneliness etched into his features. “Come to bed. See if you can rest. You can sleep in after I go to work in the morning. I’ll leave you a key to lock up.”
His face softened, and he pulled her into his arms. “You’ll let me hold you?”
Kat pressed her cheek to his chest, feeling his heart’s slow, steady beat. His skin against hers created a low comforting hum, not sexual, but something much more powerful and vulnerable. Every breath they took together seemed to bind them tighter. “As long as you want.”
Chapter Eight
Kat sat in the passenger seat of her car. It was before five a.m., and Sloane looked insanely hot in a pair of workout shorts and a tank as he drove her Hyundai Santa Fe. He had no right to look that good on maybe three hours sleep, four tops. “You could have slept in and had Ethan pick you up at the condo later.”
“Not if Dr. Dickhead is back in town. I’m taking you to work, making sure you get inside and lock the door.”
Kat tensed. David was supposed to be back this weekend. Would he try to talk to her again, or leave her alone?
“I’ve put Ethan and John’s phone numbers in your cell.”
“When did you do that?” Grabbing her cell from her purse, she thumbed through the numbers. Yep, there was his driver, Ethan, and his friend, John Monroe.
“When you were in the bathroom.” He slid her a look. “Does it make a difference?”
That he was invading her life like a steamroller? “It’s my phone. I don’t go through your phone.”
His tat flexed over his biceps. “Did I say I went through your phone, Kitten?”
That soft voice just sharpened her anxiety. She was tired, and she was pissy, particularly since she was thinking about him leaving in the morning. No training with him. No sleeping with him. No fighting with him. No having intense, mind-blowing orgasms with him. No watching him come apart for her. It bugged her, and that sucked. But starting a fight with him wasn’t going to accomplish anything. “Why are you putting your friends’ numbers in my phone?”
“You have any trouble with Dickhead while I’m in South America, you call Ethan or John.”
That right there? Steamrolling her life. “We’re not doing this.” She snapped her head around to face the windshield and squeezed her fingers around the warm, silver travel mug cradled between her thighs. “I’m not going to depend on you. David is my problem. I will handle him.”
His silence flooded the car.
Kat refused to back down.
Clenching his fingers around the steering wheel, he said, “You’d rather I put a team of bodyguards on you?”
Incredulity blasted through her. “Are you trying to scare me or threaten me?”
He shot her a glare. “I’m going to be out of the damned country. You will be out of my reach. And right now, I’m not liking that shit. Not one bit. You got a dickhead ex—who I suspect has fucked with the wrong people and you already got caught up in that once. It is not happening again. It is not.” His teeth snapped together, and every muscle and tendon swelled to hulking menace.
The air whooshed from her lungs. A faint buzzing rattled her hearing. Not a panic attack, but shock. That sense of being thrown clean off a cliff and not knowing what was beneath her. “I—uh…” What?
“On top of that I’ve got reporters on my ass, spilling more potential misery into your life. So, baby, you can do this the easy way and tell me you’ll call Ethan or John if Dickhead or anyone bothers you, or I will put a team on you. Choose.”
She didn’t know what to do. Or say. Or think. “I could just call Diego or Kellen.”
“You can after you call Ethan or John. Your friends love you, but my friends are better trained. So you call both if you need to. Or you get protection.”
“You’re not acting rational.”
“You do that to me. Live with it.”
“You’re scaring me, Sloane.”
“No, I’m not. You are never scared of me. Ever. You should have been scared last night. I pinned you to the bed in a damned nightmare. You should have been scared then.”
“I was. A little.”
“Not enough to give me space when you should have. Nope, you came trotting out there, wearing my shirt. My goddamned shirt.”
“You’re acting crazy.”
“Fully aware of that, baker girl. Because you make me crazy. I could give you the world. Cars. Boats. Jewelry. Hell, I could buy you houses. You want Sugar Dancer to be a success? Baby, I can make it happen.”
She was so confused, angry, almost sick with the idea of it. “I don’t want those things from you.” Not like Paloma and the others. As they pulled into the Sugar Dancer parking lot, she felt a sense of propriety and pride. She wanted to build her business herself.
“It’d be better if you did. Then we’d have a deal.”
“We have a deal.” Didn’t they?
“That deal?” He parked the car and turned his head. “You blew that deal all to shit last night.”
Wait. Pain clawed at her lungs, making her gasp. “You’re breaking up with me because I wore your shirt?”
“Kat, no. Jesus Christ.” He sucked in a breath. “No. I can’t let you go. It would be best if I did. Best for you. But I can’t. You came to me wearing my shirt. You cried for my sister.”
“Sloane…”
“You let me hold you and I’m not letting go. Knowing you’re protected is the only way I can get on my plane tomorrow and go do what I have to do.”
Something was wrong with her heart. The way it was slamming around, cutting off her air, getting too damned big, couldn’t be right.
“I’m not interfering in your life. I just want to know you’re safe. I can’t breathe unless I know there’s someone looking out for you when I’m not there. John and Ethan. You need help, you call one of them. Call Diego or Kellen too. I don’t care, that’s your decision. Just promise me you’ll call John or Ethan at the first sign that there might be trouble.”
“I… Okay.” He made it sound so reasonable. And insane. And terrifying. “But we need to stick to our deal. Plus-one. I’m just your plus-one.” Her skin prickled beneath his heavy regard.
“That what it felt like to you in my arms?”
No, more like falling in love. Staring down at his hand holding hers, his longer, thicker fingers gentle around hers, she couldn’t lie. “No.” The whisper hurt because her heart was just so damned swollen.
“Me either.”
“I’m scared. This can’t be real.”
“I’ve never had anything that felt this real. Ever. “
She jerked her head up, their stares colliding. Felt the impact right to her bones. Powerful awareness stretched between them, and Kat actually felt herself pulling back against it, trying to fight the magnetic pull of Sloane. “So what do we do?”
“I go to South America. You film your commercial-grade trailer. We talk on the phone, and I bet we both convince ourselves this isn’t real.”
A bubble of relief popped, giving her room to take a breath. Right. Things had gotten emotional when Sloane shared what happened to Sara. They’d separate for five days or a week and get perspective. “This thing will fade. We just got a little too intense.” Kat opened her door and eased out. Once she tested her weight on her leg, she looked up.
Sloane stood there, six-and-a-half feet of some serious beefcake spilling out of that tank top and shorts.
“You’re going to the gym now?” It was early and he’d barely slept.
Settling his hands on her shoulders, he touched the pads of his thumbs to the bared skin over her collarbone. “Changing the subject?”
“Yes.”
He grinned at her. “A run then the gym.”
“Drake says you train like a demon.”
“I retired from competitive fighting, not the discipline. I like training. It keeps me sharp.”
Totally plausible, but she dug deeper. “You really don’t want to do that pay-per-view fight thing that Ronnie T. Devonshire talked about? Caged Vengeance?” Did he miss it the way the other retired fighters seemed to?
He eased one finger over her brow. “That really bothered you?”
What could she say? It made her stomach turn and twist. Made her chest hurt. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You don’t know how good I am. Maybe it’s time I showed you. I have DVDs of my fights. Or you can come watch me spar.”
She shuddered. “I don’t want to see you bloodied and hurt. No matter how good you are, there’s always someone who could get a lucky shot, or who might be better. You’re the one that said part of the reason you quit is you’d been lucky not to sustain a serious injury but your luck could run out.” She looked up to the sky breaking with the lightest edge of pink dawn. “Sometimes the sounds of hitting triggers something.”
“Flashbacks?”
Lowering her chin to face him, she nodded. “Yeah. Flashbacks.” Not only was she tired of her issues, she didn’t have the right to tell Sloane what to do. “I need to go to work.”
He tucked his hand around her nape, leaned in close and kissed her.
Kat melted into it until he groaned and lifted his head. His eyes blazed. “We stop now, or I’m not going to just walk you to the door, I’m coming in.”
* * *
Sloane glanced at the text message confirming that his plane was ready and had the necessary clearances as he headed into his kitchen at the butt crack of dawn Monday morning.
“You’re still going through with this.”
Drake sat at the massive granite island. The pendant lighting didn’t soften the way cancer ravaged the man, making him look closer to seventy than his mid-fifties. The former UFC championship fighter had once carried two hundred plus pounds of powerful muscle. But the man on the barstool was so thin, his bones likely rattled against each other when he walked. His skin had a sickly cast to it. Only his eyes hadn’t changed. They were still hard and determined. Drake had been the one constant in Sloane’s life since he was fifteen years old.
Now Drake was dying.
Sloane took down a mug and shoved it beneath the coffee machine. He functioned normally, but inside he could barely breathe as his guts twisted and writhed with black fury and helpless rage at the disease killing Drake. It was easier to focus on what he could do—kill the bastard who’d raped and murdered Sara. “The plan is set. Lee Foster will be one of the amateurs chosen for the Caged Thunder Pros vs. Amateurs Event.”
Drake shook his head. “It’s not going to work.”
“The hell it won’t.” Sloane had left nothing to chance. Including his rear naked chokehold that he’d use to kill Foster. He trained with a man renowned to be the best in a specific version of that chokehold three or four times a year in Brazil. He made sure he had business there as well to cover his tracks. “Foster is going to pay for what he did to Sara.”
Drake’s eyes shadowed. “It won’t change anything but you. You’ll still carry the memory of finding her, still feel like you failed her, only then you’ll know you’re a murderer too. And that changes a man.”
Sloane tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m not you.”
“No. You’re better than me.”
Sloane dropped his chin. Surprise jerked him straight. “What the hell are you talking about?” Drake had begun Fighters to Mentors and ultimately had saved dozens of kids no one gave two shits about.
Drake’s thin shoulders sagged. “You stopped. I didn’t. That day when you caught Foster running out of the house and started on him, you stopped.”
Sloane couldn’t get his head around this. “You pulled me off him.” If Sara hadn’t invited Drake to have cake with them as a surprise for Sloane, nothing would have prevented him from killing Foster. A flash of pain branded his chest at the memory of Sara doing that for him, even though he’d have scoffed and acted like it was stupid.
Drake leaned his arms on the counter. “Evie begged me to stop. I can still hear her screams. But after what her father had done to her…” Drake cut his eyes away, looking into his past. “He broke her hand and I lost it. Didn’t care that she was screaming. She never forgave me.” Regret dragged at the dry, loose skin of the older man’s face.
Sloane rubbed at the spot where his nose had been broken a couple times. “You don’t regret it for the man you killed, but for his daughter.”
“I took away her father. Yeah, he was a brutal asshole when he drank, but he was still Evie’s father. I lost the woman I
loved that day.” Drake turned back to him. “Just like you’ll lose Kat if you do this.”
That slammed him like a roundhouse kick to the chest. Kat had had enough violence. Just the thought of watching his old fights upset her. His baker girl had a soft heart. Not only that, she touched him where no other woman had. The way she’d come to him, wearing only his shirt, and coaxed him into talking about Sara.
Jesus. How did a man resist a woman who saw him the way Kat did? He fisted his hands in an involuntary gesture—an instinct to hold on to Kat. Would this thing between the two of them burn out? How many times had his mother sworn she’d found true love with her latest Prince Fucking Charming—so sure she would even toss her own kids aside for it—only to have the whole relationship crash and burn in weeks or months?
He had a few weeks left until the fight. Which gave him time to find a way to…what? Hide it from her?
Don’t lie to me. Just don’t lie. I can deal with this as long as you tell me the truth.
Kat’s words echoed in his head.
Sara’s murder haunted him.
Sloane shook it off. There was only one choice. He’d spent years planning, and now the plan was in motion. There was no going back.
Foster had to die.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday afternoon Kat wiped sweat from her face and chest, then chugged the rest of her water bottle. Catching her breath, she couldn’t find the energy to grumble that Sherry Moreno didn’t have the decency to look as wiped as Kat felt. Glancing at the wall-mounted clock, she was surprised it had been an hour-and-a-half session. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to hate you when I get out of bed in the morning.”
The other woman shoved her towel into her bag, then rose to her full height about an inch shorter than Kat. “Did you hate me Monday?”
She winced, remembering Sunday’s late-afternoon sparring session. Sherry took her martial arts seriously. “I plotted your murder.” Kat tossed her empty water bottle in the trash. The private training room in Sloane’s gym was starting to feel as familiar as her bakery, except Kat wasn’t hiding here as she once had in Sugar Dancer’s kitchen. No, here Kat trained to live not hide. Her aches and pains were welcome reminders that she was getting stronger. “But I was in too much pain to carry it out.”
Possession (The Plus One Chronicles) Page 8