I light a match under the unwelcome thought that if I were standing eyeball to eyeball with A.J. with this kind of tension, I’d never want it to end.
“That’s me.”
Eric nods, glancing at the barista like he’d like to remove the poor guy’s spleen. His voice drops. “Listen . . . can I call you? Maybe we could just talk a little more?”
When he looks up at me, his eyes are dark.
Though I’m wearing a sweater, I rub my arms for warmth against a sudden chill. “Sure,” I say, nodding. “Okay.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear like he used to do, one of those intimate gestures lovers make when they’re in public. As his thumb brushes my cheek, I notice the man standing across the street beside the bus stand, staring in through the windows of the coffee shop.
Sunglasses obscure his eyes. His hands are shoved into his pockets. He’s tall and broad, motionless as a statue, until one hand reaches up to pull the hoodie he wears farther down over his forehead.
By the time Eric turns to follow my stare, A.J. is gone.
Sweating and gasping, I wake at one a.m. the following morning from an intensely erotic dream wherein I was being ravished by a man in a hoodie who’d broken into my bedroom in the middle of the night.
If my mother knew I was having fantasies about the very thing she warned me about, I’d be cut out of the will.
In the boy shorts and ratty, sleeveless ZZ Top T-shirt I wore to bed, I pad barefoot to the kitchen, not turning on any lights, and stand in front of the open refrigerator door, chugging orange juice from the big plastic jug. I know I’ll never be able to get back to sleep.
That damn dream was the sexiest thing that’s happened to me since . . . well, since ever.
I groan softly, trying to forget the way the stranger pinned my arms to the pillow above my head. How he tied my wrists to the headboard with a pair of my own pantyhose. How his mouth felt on my skin. How his rough voice murmured all kinds of filthy things in my ear as his big hands groped me, fondling my breasts, pinching my nipples, sliding against the wetness between my legs—
Gah! I really need to get laid.
Frustrated, I toss the juice back into the fridge and slam the door. Yawning, I scrub my hands over my face. I check the clock; I’ve got three hours to kill before the alarm goes off.
I could get dressed and go to the flower market now. It opens at eleven p.m., so getting in would be no problem. Plus all the best stuff goes early. Instead, I find myself wandering restlessly around the apartment in the dark, my thoughts drifting.
Until I stop dead in front of the living room window. My skin prickles.
“This is getting to be a thing,” I murmur in disbelief, staring down at the man pacing back and forth under the streetlight across the street. I always thought having a stalker would be an incredibly creepy experience, but then again, I never thought I’d know exactly who my stalker would be. That shaves an edge off the creep factor, leaving me more fascinated than frightened by this new development in my life.
Even at a distance, A.J.’s agitation is clear.
He paces in long, even strides. He flexes his hands open, then closes them to fists. It appears that he’s muttering to himself. Every few feet he turns abruptly and goes back in the opposite direction, starting the whole process all over again.
Without thinking about what I’m doing, I turn on the lamp beside the window, flooding the room in light.
A.J. stops pacing. He looks up at my window. I stare down at him, waiting, hands shaking, heart racing, wondering if I’ve just made a terrible mistake, while simultaneously not caring if I have.
After a lifetime of holding my breath, I watch as he slowly steps off the curb and crosses the street.
When he’s out of view around the front corner of my building, I run to the front door. I press my ear against it, straining to hear any sound. The elevator was fixed a few weeks ago, so now I can’t hear steps on the stairs, but I do hear the cheerful ding as the elevator stops on my floor and the doors slide open.
It’s a few excruciating moments before heavy footsteps begin to move toward my door.
They pause just outside. My heart feels like a trampoline with a dozen fat ladies jumping up and down on it. After a moment, A.J. says my name. His voice is barely audible. He knows I’m standing here.
I take a deep breath and open the door.
He dwarfs the doorway. He’s in faded jeans, boots, the signature black hoodie that shadows his face. His hands, trembling, hang at his sides. His eyes burn a hole right through me.
In a gravelly voice, he says, “Tell me to leave. Tell me to go away and shut the door in my face.”
Before I can change my mind, I reach out, grab the front of his sweatshirt and gently pull him into my apartment.
He stares down at me with those burning eyes, his face hard. “One last chance. Tell me to leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Without looking away from me, he swings the door shut behind him with a flick of his hand. We stand for a moment, tension thick between us, until he says, “Bedroom.”
That single, husky word wreaks havoc throughout my body. I swallow, licking my lips, hesitating, but A.J. shakes his head.
“Too late, Princess.” He bends and sweeps me off my feet, into his arms.
This is a move that I, who reached my full height of five foot ten in junior high school, never would have thought possible. It takes a man as large and strong as A.J. to make lifting me look as easy as lifting a piece of paper from the floor. Along with being surprised and thrilled, I’m deeply impressed.
Also impressive are his shoulders, which I’m now clinging on to for dear life, because he’s walking across the living room.
He doesn’t need to ask again where the bedroom is; it’s pretty obvious. I’m hyperaware of every movement of his body, of the sound of his breath, of my own shrieking nerves. He pauses just outside my open bedroom door, and sets me gently on my feet.
“Invite me into your bedroom, Chloe.”
Trying not to faint becomes my top priority. “I . . . um . . .”
He takes my chin in his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Invite me in.”
God, he’s hot. Smoking, crackling hot, and also incredibly intimidating. I can’t tell what expression he’s wearing. It fluctuates somewhere between murder spree and kid on Christmas morning. When I lick my lips again, he watches the motion of my mouth and tongue with an almost predatory look, his eyes flashing in the shadows.
I whisper, “Come in.”
His lids briefly close, then his eyes go right back to roasting me alive. Satisfied, he nods, brushes past me, and goes directly to my bed, where he stands looking down at the rumpled sheets. In one swift motion, he pulls the hoodie off over his head, and drops it to the floor.
He’s not wearing a shirt underneath.
Now I’m gaping at his ripped, tattooed, naked upper body. Someone turned on the heat, because it flashes over me like I just stepped out of an air-conditioned room into a tropical rainforest. He looks over at me.
“Get in bed.”
Normally I’m not one to take commands from men. Or from anyone else, for that matter. But A.J.’s voice weaves a wicked spell over me, one I feel helpless to resist. Oddly, irrationally, I trust him. So that takes care of my brain. As for my ovaries, they’re partying like it’s 1999. Parts of me I didn’t even know I had are clenching, aching, nervously twitching in anticipation.
Never before has a man had such an effect on my body. If he told me to jump out the window at this point, I’d seriously consider it.
I climb into bed, sit against the headboard with my knees drawn up, and pull the sheets up to my chin. Wide-eyed and breathless, I stare at him. My mind goes a million miles per hour. Starlight and lightning bolts fly through my veins.
Shucking off his boots, he holds my gaze. Without removing his jeans, he slowly peels back the sheets. He slides in bed next to me, and, with one arm wrapped ar
ound my waist, pulls me from my sitting position until I’m lying flat on my back next to him. He whispers, “Roll on your right side.”
I do. He slides an arm beneath my head, tightens the other one around my body, pulls his knees up behind mine, puts his face into my hair, and inhales. A delicate shudder runs through his chest.
We’re spooning. Holy Jesus, A.J. is spooning me.
I can’t breathe. I’m having some kind of cardiac event.
“Take a breath,” he murmurs against the back of my neck. My lungs obey him. After a minute or two I can feel my toes again.
I’m too wired to say anything. My thoughts are too scattered. All I can do is lie in my bed with his arms around me, and feel.
And lord, do I.
I’m aware of everything, from the way the material of his jeans feels against the backs of my bare legs, to the way his warm breath stirs the hair on the nape of my neck. I feel my pulse in my throat. I feel his breathing, his chest rising and falling against my shoulder blades, the heat and solidity of his body, flush against mine.
I feel his erection, straining against his zipper, digging hard into my bottom.
But he makes no move to do anything other than lie with me, and breathe me in. After a while, I get past the sheer shock of the situation, and begin to relax.
His lips moving against my skin, A.J. says, “Good.”
I want to ask questions. I want to grill him about why he’s here, what he wants from me, and what the hell happened between us at his home, but I don’t. I understand instinctively that we’re on his timetable. This is his game, and, if I want it to go further, I have to play by his rules.
The Spanish Inquisition isn’t in those rules.
The arm he’s thrown over my body is heavy, but the weight is pleasant. Though the bedroom light isn’t on, there’s a bit of illumination from the living room, and I can see the tattoos on his forearm and knuckles. Hesitantly, I touch his hand. When he doesn’t react, I slowly trace the outline of a small tattoo with the tip of my finger.
It’s a flower. On one of the petals is the letter A.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
My finger freezes. He’s asking about my mother? “Elizabeth.”
He doesn’t wait a nanosecond to ask his next question. “Your father?”
“Thomas.”
“You have a middle name?”
“Anne. With an e.”
“And your brother is Jamie.”
“Yes. James.” I know A.J. saw him at my shop, but he was never introduced as my brother. Or introduced at all, for that matter.
“Any other siblings?”
“No.”
“Grandparents living?”
“Two. My mom’s mom. She’s a British countess. Countess Chloe Harris of Wakefield, West Yorkshire. I was named after her.”
He pauses. “That explains a lot, Princess. The other one?”
“My dad’s dad, Walter.” I tell him the luau pig story about why I don’t eat meat. There’s an even longer pause.
“I’m a vegetarian, too.”
There are no words to convey my astonishment. While I’m busy putting my eyes back into my head, he adds thoughtfully, “I read Diet for a New America by the Baskin-Robbins ice cream heir when I was seventeen. I’ll never forget the stories about how slaughterhouses treat the animals. How they die. I never touched meat again. I couldn’t bear to think of being part of all that suffering.”
My heart dissolves around the edges. But A.J. isn’t done with giving me the third degree.
“How long have you owned the flower shop?”
I clear my throat, still recovering from what he’s just told me. “Three years.”
“You want to be a florist since you were little?”
“I always wanted to do something creative. And I knew I wanted to work for myself. I started working at Fleuret during high school and fell in love with it. When I graduated college, I bought the store. It’s hella hard work but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. It’s just . . . mine. It’s all mine. And no one can take it away from me. If it fails, it’s because I didn’t work hard enough, or smart enough. I can never be fired. That’s important to me: to stand on my own two feet. To make my own way. To never be at someone else’s mercy.”
My unplanned confession seems to satisfy him in some profound way, because he nods, and makes a masculine sound deep in his throat. After a moment of silence, the questions resume.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Just under a year.”
It goes on like this. He asks about where I went to school, how long I’ve been friends with Kat and Grace, what my favorite food is, my favorite color, my favorite place to vacation. He asks what TV shows I watch, and if I’m a reader, and what kind of music I like other than eighties rock, bang, bang, bang. It’s like he’s trying to pack a year of getting to know me into one night, like he can’t exist for another moment on the earth without finding out everything he can about the woman he’s wrapped around.
And I love it.
The one line of questioning conspicuously missing is about Eric. I know he saw us together at Starbucks, but he never brings it up.
When, after what seems like an hour of the third degree on every other subject, I try to turn the tables and ask A.J. why he moved into that abandoned hotel, he cuts me off with a curt “No.”
I turn my head. “No?”
His exhalation is low. He sounds exhausted. “I’m not here to talk about me.”
I swallow. Be brave, Chloe. Just ask him. Do it. I whisper, “Why are you here?”
This is when I feel—I actually, physically feel—his erection twitch. The damn thing is chomping at the bit! My heartbeat skyrockets.
He says, “Because I haven’t slept in six weeks.”
A few things happen in quick succession following that statement. First, I’m doused in cold disappointment. He’s here to sleep? As in, sleepy-sleep, nighty-night, sweet dreams, and see you in the morning kind of sleep? Huh. Not what I would have guessed. Especially because of that rocket ready to blast a hole out of his pants.
Which, my inner slut points out with a wink, hasn’t deflated an inch since he got here.
Second, my brain latches on to the fact that it was six weeks ago that I went to his house. Am I the reason he hasn’t slept in all that time?
Eerily reading my thoughts, he says, “Yes. Since that day.”
I’m at a loss for words. I’m thrilled, confused, turned on, worried, and a little weirded out. This is so far beyond my normal experience with men, I simply have no idea what’s the best course of action.
But my heart knows. Instinctively, my heart guesses what he needs from me. I understand why he came, and it’s not just because he needs to sleep.
He needs to escape. And the only way he can escape what gnaws at him is to surrender to it.
I take a deep breath, let it out. I don’t understand what drives him, what reasons he’s both so repelled by and attracted to me. Perhaps I never will. He doesn’t seem inclined to share.
What I do know is that I like having him here. I like his heat. I like his smell. I like the sound of his voice and the way he moves, the way he looks at me like he’s starving. I like the sheer size of him, cradling me in his strong arms so I feel completely safe and secure. I like his tattoos. I like his husky laugh. I like the way he looks at the world, in acceptance and forgiveness, without judgment or fear.
I like the way he protects and cares for Bella. The way he cares about a bunch of faceless animals he’ll never even meet, enough to change his eating habits for a lifetime.
He’s fascinating to me. He’s also a total enigma.
I ask, “Can I have one question?”
His arm tightens around my waist. Against my skin, his lips curve. He’s smiling.
“One.”
Chewing my lower lip, I think. There are too many to pick just one. Why do I make you want to die? Who is the dead woman in
Russia? Why do you never look into a camera lens? Are you going to keep stalking me? Is it you who’s leaving the origami birds? What’s up with the damn hoodies?
Instead I blurt, “Are you a spy?”
There’s a moment of silence, until he starts to laugh. The sound is something I’ll never get used to. I wish I could listen to it forever.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I smile into the dark. “Very funny. Answer the question.”
He shifts his weight, adjusting his arm so that his left hand lies flat against my belly. He pulls me closer to his body, sealing any gaps between us, until we’re fused from top to toe. His bare feet tangle with mine. He lowers his mouth to my neck, to the place where it meets my shoulder, opens his lips over my skin, and bites me, just hard enough to sting.
His voice husky with want, he says, “The answer is no. Now stop talking because it’s taking every ounce of strength I have not to tear off your panties and your stupid ZZ Top T-shirt and fuck you, Chloe Anne with an e, until we both come so hard we pass out.”
I bite back a moan. A shiver of desire runs through my body, followed by blossoming heat. My nipples are so hard they could cut glass.
Apparently my brain also decides it’s time for a nap, because I breathlessly ask, without a hint of hesitation or shyness, “You want to fuck me?”
His answer is a low, dangerous growl. His hand on my belly spreads wide. His fingers dig into my flesh.
I can’t help it; I arch against that hand.
His reaction is instantaneous. His entire body stiffens. His arm becomes an iron band around my waist. His right hand fists into my hair. He hisses, “More than I want my next breath. But I won’t. I never will, you understand? Never.”
That hurts so unexpectedly, I suck in a breath. I feel like I’ve just been punched in the stomach. “Why not, because I won’t charge you for it?”
My bitter dig only seems to make him sad. The tension drains from him. He releases his grip on my hair, and gently combs his fingers through it, fanning it over the pillow. “No, Princess,” he whispers. “Because I’m not that goddamn selfish.”
I lie there in silent misery for a few seconds, blinking back tears. I don’t know what he means, and I’m too mad to care. Right now, I just want him to leave so I can rub one out, cry into my pillow, and call it a night.
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