Love Is In the Air Volume 1

by Susan Stoker

  “Anytime,” I returned and reached for the door.

  “Oh, there won’t be any more times.”

  I looked over my shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” I goaded her lightly.

  Her nostrils flared adorably. “I like to think I can take care of myself.”

  “And I’d like you to know that I’ll be there whether you can or can’t.”

  She balled her unbound hand and then shrugged. “Well, of course you feel that way because it’s your job.”

  I should’ve walked away. That very fucking second, I should’ve nodded and strode through the door and not looked back. It was the right—it was the appropriate—thing to do.

  But goddamn, she made me want something that ached to live—to speak—just a little outside the lines. Like she’d woken some kind of protective... possessive... beast inside me. And it wouldn’t walk away without her knowing one thing for certain.

  “Nothing about saving you, Addison, was part of my job,” I ground out, hoarse and heavy. “In fact, I don’t think any fuckin’ thing I feel about you has to do with my job.”

  4

  Addy

  Yeah, Zeke might be my twin, but he didn’t know me at all if he thought I was just going to lie down and play dead.

  Literally.

  My lips pursed, holding back the string of angry accusations I wanted to level at the blockhead. I didn’t say any of them because I loved him—because I knew he loved me, and he’d done what he thought best.

  But what was best wasn’t hiding me away when my ex was probably kidnapping another woman while we played it safe.

  I knew the truth and with knowledge comes responsibility. If he didn’t want any part of it, fine, but I had a responsibility to all those women—past, present, and future—to bring Mitch Arnell’s crimes to light.

  I tore open the first box of hair dye. The new me needs blue hair was what I’d told my brother when I’d asked him to bring me some from the drug store. Pulling out the contents, quickly scanning over the instructions.

  They wanted to fake my death—great. Then it looked like Mitch was going to get a visit from my ghost.

  I mixed the two containers together, swirling the dye with the white additive until it turned a purple-ish blue. Rolling my shoulders back, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror of the small hospital-like room at Covington Security. Being annoyed afforded me some modicum of privacy from my brother... and from that too-handsome Viking who was never far.

  Almost two weeks in this place and he seemed to be everywhere I looked. A guardian Viking. Unlike Zeke, who always pushed to know how I was feeling or what I was thinking, Ace tended to let me sit in silence—like he knew some demons needed to be fought in thought and not with words.

  I’d learned to ask him any questions about that night because he always answered me with curt truths. Completely unguarded. Zeke, on the other hand, tried to protect me with each answer, with every insistence to not turn on the news or try to access the internet.

  My brother looked at me and only saw the woman they’d pulled—barely breathing—from the burning limo. He only saw a sister he needed to protect, and the way he did that was by sheltering me from the truth.

  Ace handed me the truth, let me process it how I needed, but all with the stoic silence of a sentry who’d take rigid steps to protect me if I thought about doing something stupid.

  And the truth was that Addison Williams was dead.

  I might be alive, but the woman I was before was definitely gone. The woman who believed in her fairy tale. The one who believed every lie that came out of a man’s mouth just because he was handsome and pretended to do good and promised her the world. The one who believed the stupid drummer in her chest whose beat led her to follow the path of a pretty pretender.

  That Addison Williams was dead.

  This one... the one I was about to create... was never going to follow that delusional drummer again.

  I squirted the hair dye along the part on my scalp, and the first measure of relief coursed through my veins. Using the comb I found underneath the sink, I dragged the dye through my hair, massaging it onto all the strands, and ignored the pain it caused in my bandaged ribs.

  My confidence picked up steam for the first five minutes, until I realized that dying my own hair was a lot harder than I anticipated—especially with one arm in a sling.

  I could take it out, but—

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I looked up with a squeak, meeting Ace’s steel-gray eyes and unamused expression.

  Guess Zeke hadn’t mentioned my latest personal request.

  His massive frame completely filled what was left of the mirror—and the doorway. Cut and carved from the hardest stone, I had to continually bury the seed of curiosity to see the rippled muscles with the fabric of his clothes only partially disguising them.

  “Dying my hair,” I replied like it was a normal out-patient procedure.

  “Purple?”

  “Blue.” I notched my chin higher and squirted another blob on my head for good measure. “Is that a problem? No one said dead people couldn’t have blue hair.”

  I watched his jaw tic, slow and steady like the beat of a warrior drum, holding the rest of him in line.

  He wasn’t as easily provoked as Zeke; then again, he also wasn’t related to me. I’d like to think that meant he didn’t hold the same kind of concern that my brother had, but that would’ve been an even harder lie to swallow than the one we were perpetrating about my death.

  This man cared.

  He cared in a way that made my toes curl and my skin ripple with goose bumps.

  He cared like it was his only job—his only desire. And, while most might be flattered or at the very least pleased, I was annoyed. I didn’t want any man in my life who wasn’t related to me to care like that... to make my body respond like it did.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I asked when he didn’t reply, squeezing the bottle of dye to add more onto my scalp only this time, with the way I had to tip my body to the side and turn to try and see, all I managed was to do was squirt a blob of blue goo onto the white tile floor. “Shit.”

  I yelped when the large body behind me moved swiftly and suddenly close to me.

  Ace reacted before I had a chance, reaching forward—around me—for several paper towels from the dispenser. I sucked in a breath—a deep breath of rich, masculine spice of grapefruit and ginger. Damn, why did he even have to smell good?

  But when he crouched down to wipe up the mess I’d made, his broad shoulders spreading even wider and his shirt pulling tight over the muscled ridges of his back, that was when my knees went a little weak, and I reached for the sink for some added support.

  Was there nothing too small that this man wouldn’t do to help me?

  It had to be aggravating or it would’ve been attractive. And there was no way in hell I was getting involved with another man. Not now. Not after this. That part of me needed to die in that limo, too.

  I gave my head a little jerk, sending a few more droplets of dye splattering on the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said quietly and returned to staring at myself in the mirror, trying to contort my position so I could get to the rest of my hair.

  Grunting, the mountain of a man rose up and tossed the dirtied towels into the trash.

  “How can I help you?”

  My gaze snapped to his, surprised by the question. I set the bottle of dye on the counter and let my arm fall to my side. “Arrest Mitch. Find those women. Make sure this never happens again.”

  The beat in his jaw returned. I knew I’d asked for the impossible.

  “We’re trying, Addison,” he replied tightly, and I fought down the urge to tell him to stop calling me by my full name. “But hard to prove when there’s no body. And no body means no crime.”

  My chin dipped, bile rising in my throat.

  I hated Mitch. I hated him with every bitter b
reath I had to take.

  “If I had just seen... just opened my eyes a little sooner, a little wider—” I broke off with a small cry, feeling cold liquid splash on the back of my head. It only took a second to see Ace had grabbed the bottle of dye and put some on my head. “What are you doing?”

  “Helping you,” he declared, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing ridged forearms laced with prominent veins that made my mouth water.

  But it was the scabbed slashes decorating his skin that made my heart stumble in its pace.

  He was always helping me. Saving me. And he’d have the scars to prove it soon.

  The thick tips of his fingers speared against the back of my scalp and jerked me back to reality. Whatever protest I had crumbled on the tip of my tongue when he went beyond spreading the dye through my hair and massaged my scalp in the process.

  Rage and hate were heavy emotions to carry and, tempted with a minute to let them go and just relax, I gave in.

  I didn’t close my eyes even though the lids grew heavy—that would be too intimate. Instead, I watched the man who’d saved my life—faked my death—and then proceeded to shelter and care for me over the last several days while he rubbed blue hair dye through my hair.

  With his bare hand.

  “You should’ve put gloves on,” I murmured thickly, seeing his fingers start to stain from the dye.

  He chuckled, the sound causing a small riot of flames in the lower parts of me. “Not the worst thing this hand has seen.”

  I swallowed hard. Whatever his story was, it had to be a deadly one. The weight those shoulders carried so adeptly didn’t come from experiences that were light on the soul.

  “Why blue?” he asked after a few beats of silence.

  I shrugged, the oversized tee they’d given me to wear sliding off my free arm’s shoulder, revealing the gradient of burns and bruises underneath. At least I didn’t have to wear the sling anymore for my shoulder.

  “I always wanted to go blue. Never did because it wouldn’t have been appropriate for Mitch.”

  He nodded slowly, working more of the dye into my hair while my words sank in. “Know this isn’t your fault, right?”

  I winced. “Until he’s caught, it is.”

  He pressed harder against my scalp. “Don’t do this to yourself, Addison—”

  “Stop calling me Addison,” I broke in with a rush. “Please.”

  It wasn’t me. Too formal. Too reserved. Too much the woman I’d become while attached to Mitch—which was why I’d always been Addison to him.

  “Don’t do this to yourself... Addy,” he repeated slowly, tasting the new intimacy of my nickname on his tongue.

  I told myself I imagined the fresh wave of heat that rolled off of him or the way his touch on my head changed to something more tender... more wanting.

  “You don’t know me,” I asserted firmly. Therefore, he had no right to tell me what to do.

  Metallic eyes caught mine, glinting with pained anger. “I know what it’s like to blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  My pulse thrummed, wanting to know more but knowing I couldn’t ask. Asking would be on the other side of a line that was quickly and deeply being drawn with every moment we spent together. On one side, cordial familiarity. On the other, whatever the magnetic pull between us would lead to.

  So, I looked down, peeling the gloves off my hands since I had no use for them anymore. My eyes drifted shut, feeling the supports of his fingers frame my scalp and tip my head so he could dye the other side.

  “He’s having a memorial for me next Friday; I saw it on the news,” I said, my throat thick with vitriol. “A memorial for the woman he killed.”

  There was a TV in my room and, when my guardian jailers weren’t watching, I couldn’t stop myself from searching out coverage for what happened.

  “Addy—” His tone was low and sharp with warning, his eyes scanning me for signs of rebellion.

  Signs I drew an unsteady breath to hide.

  I glared at him, reaching in front of me to grip the edge of the sink. “I know,” I said through clenched teeth. “There’s nothing I can do about it... it’s just... disgusting.”

  Anger rolled through me, the kind I kept trying to bottle up because I had no choice. I had to be okay with this situation. I had to be okay with the exchange of my life for... my life.

  But sometimes it wasn’t okay. Sometimes the pain I felt inside—the furious failure mixed with burning betrayal was too much.

  “He betrayed me, Ace,” I shot at him with a scathing tone he didn’t deserve. “He betrayed everything I felt about him. Everything he led me to believe about him. Every good thing we were doing together.”

  His hands stopped their movement on my scalp, meeting my eyes in the mirror for a single, raw second.

  I hated how he saw it. Even more than Zeke—more than my own twin—he saw the anguish that tortured me.

  Meanwhile, Zeke did what he did best, he jumped in and tried to fix the situation with every kind of patch under the sun—everything to try and keep me focused on the future... one that didn’t involve putting an end to my past.

  I was going to move back in with him into our grandparents’ old house. We were going to start our own business to help the kinds of women Mitch sought to use. We were going to do right where Mitch’s plans had gone so wrong.

  All good things—all good plans. And I loved my brother for them. But just because he could blindly look past what happened for the simple fact that I’d made it out alive, didn’t mean I could do the same.

  I shuddered, a warm grip settling with gentle firmness on my shoulder. It was the kind of touch to get lost in. The kind that was so strong and secure, there was no other choice but to let it hold my worries for just a single moment and savor its heat.

  Slowly, Ace turned me to face him, keeping one hand twisted in the dyed strands of my hair until we were face-to-face. Pale blue steel eyes lent their strength to mine and from there to every spot where we were connected, it felt like a thousand tiny electrodes, zinging energy through the air.

  “And that’s on him, Addy,” he growled at me. “Not on you.”

  I didn’t want it to happen. I didn’t want to think I could feel something like this. So strongly. So soon. And I didn’t want to feel it.

  But when I tried to turn away, he moved his other hand into the blue of my hair, dying skin that was already scarred from saving me with the color of my transformation. Like he was determined to be a part of my life moving forward, no matter how I tried to go it alone.

  And he held me there, facing him—facing the kinds of things I didn’t want to feel because it tore open an already open wound. A wound that left me vulnerable to the kind of blindness and betrayal I’d barely just survived.

  Trusting someone. Leaning on them. And, God forbid, loving them.

  “If it’s on him, then why doesn’t he get punished?” I demanded, the force of my words propelling me closer to him. Close enough to see the subtle vibration of the tattoos that decorated one side of his skull—tribal designs with small dates attached to them.

  Maybe that was what I needed—a memorial etched in my skin of all the women I’d failed. All the ones Mitch had taken because I’d been too blinded by what I thought was love to realize. Maybe I needed my own version of the scarlet letter, so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

  I bit back my instinct to ask and swallowed down the need to know, instead letting fire coat the words from my lips. “Why am I the one who has to quietly play dead while he literally capitalizes on my demise?”

  “Because it’s better than actually being dead.” His low voice slipped through gritted teeth, the heat of his breath caressing my lips. “Jesus Christ, Addy, don’t miss the forest for the trees.” His hands slid deeper into my dye-drenched hair, tipping my head back and holding me captive. “If you don’t lay low, he’ll have you killed before you ever get close to catching him—to punishing him.
To righting his wrongs.”

  “I know that,” I snapped, my body thrumming. My heart picked up to a rapid pace and, standing so close to him like this, with nothing but a shirt and bandages between us, I felt the way my body betrayed my sincerity, my skin aching with the need to be touched, my nipples pebbled until they hurt.

  My body wanted someone to prove that it was safe to trust myself to another... but my mind fought for the complete opposite.

  A strained cry bubbled from my lips. “So, why doesn’t it change how I feel?” I demanded like he had an answer.

  He should. For someone who was always standing there, steady and strong, waiting to provide whatever I needed, he should have an answer for this.

  “Because,” he rasped, his head drifting down closer to where his words weren’t the most dangerous thing about his mouth. “The hardest thing in life is to watch your villain play the victim so fuckin’ well.”

  I sucked in a bitter breath, truth stinging my lungs like the most shocking cold.

  “But that’s what he’s going to do, and you can’t fall for it,” he commanded. “You can’t risk it all for one battle when it will cost you the war.”

  I was angry. Like a pot boiling up and hitting a lid with no place to go. I wrenched my face from his grasp, leaving his blue-stained hands suspended in front of him, knowing the insane urge I had to take my frustration out in a vengeful kiss was one more action I would come to regret.

  “I need to wash this out,” I told him, inching toward the small shower and turning on the water.

  “Addy—”

  I shivered at the way he said my name. I’d thought the way he used my full name was uncomfortable, reminding me of Mitch. Now, my error was obvious. The way his voice rumbled over the short nickname was nothing but dangerous—dangerous in the way it reminded me of all the things I thought I could have.

  Like a good man with good morals.

  “I don’t need any more help, Ace,” I interrupted him, refusing to look in his direction.

  The low noise that erupted from his chest invaded the space like thunder. “I will never stop helping you... never stop being there for you when you need me, whether you believe it or not,” he promised roughly. “I will never stop saving you from everything and anyone who tries to hurt you, Addy. Even if the person trying to harm you is yourself.”