Officer Next Door (Lock and Key)

by Ranae Rose

  “Don’t we all?” he asked, shrugging off her words. He knew she hadn’t meant anything by mentioning the nurse – she didn’t need to explain.

  “You know…” She was still looking at him, her apprehensive expression tinged by another emotion he couldn’t quite identify. “You shouldn’t feel guilty, but I understand why you do. A few years ago, back in DC, I used to have these neighbors who fought all the time. A couple. They were really loud, and it just about drove me crazy, but I learned to ignore it as best I could.”

  He stopped listening to the news anchor and devoted his full attention to Alicia.

  “I was living in an apartment then, and we shared a wall. One night they had a really big fight and I turned my TV on so I could sleep through it. The next day I saw the woman – her face was black and blue. I knew as soon as I saw her trying to hide the worst of it with sunglasses that he’d hit her.

  “She hadn’t had those bruises the day before. And you know what? I felt awful for just ignoring their fight. I wished I’d called the police the night before – maybe I could’ve stopped her from getting hurt.”

  “It’s not like you knew,” Liam said.

  She shrugged. “No, but I should’ve played it safe – I should’ve called the police. That poor woman was afraid to do it herself – I know because I tried to talk to her about it later, and she freaked out. No matter what I said, she refused to involve the police.”

  Liam’s curiosity got the best of him, even as his blood simmered at the idea of a man beating up a woman. “What’d you do the next time it happened?”

  “There was no next time. After I spoke to her, she told her boyfriend what I’d said, apparently. He came up to me in the parking lot one day and yelled at me—”

  “He what?” Liam’s blood turned to hot lava, and he sat up straight, feeling the lingering fatigue leave his body. It was a totally useless emotion, but he instantly wanted to go back in time and to DC to kick the guy’s ass.

  “He got in my face and tried to intimidate me. Told me to mind my own business. Actually…” Her face turned red, so that she looked slightly sunburned again. “He did intimidate me. I was afraid he was about to get violent and he wouldn’t leave me alone, so I pulled out my pepper spray and let him have a face full of it. He shut up after that and they moved out of the complex almost immediately.”

  Liam shook his head. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I want to kick that guy’s ass. Good for you for defending yourself, though.”

  Strangely, Alicia smiled. “That’s sweet.”

  “What is?”

  “That you want to kick my old neighbor’s ass.”

  Liam was so pissed imagining the scenario she’d described that his mouth was dry. “Sweet is hardly what I’d call it.”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t hesitate to break out my pepper spray again if I ever found myself in a similar situation, but you know… It’d be more satisfying to be able to kick someone’s ass if needed, I have to admit.”

  “You could always learn some self-defense,” he suggested. “Not that I’d recommend street brawling as a first resort with any strange men who give you trouble.”

  Since she insisted on staying alone, teaching her a few basics seemed like the least he could do. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be something, a small concession to the aching desire to protect her.

  Alicia rolled her eyes. “Please – you’ve seen me fall down my own steps, what is it, twice now? I think I’ll stick with carrying pepper spray in my purse.”

  “Too bad. I was scheming to offer you some free self-defense lessons as an excuse to spend time with you.”

  She grinned, and the blush coloring her face intensified. “In that case, I accept – if the offer’s still good, that is. Just as long as you don’t expect me to actually be any good at it…”

  Her smile was bright and she actually seemed kind of excited, if a little embarrassed.

  Liam’s dick twitched against his jeans zipper. Maybe it was weird that the idea of teaching someone to hurt another person had him half-hard, but the idea of touching her – the realization that she was eager to spend time with him just for the sake of it – practically had him bursting out of his jeans.

  “Why don’t we start now?” Not only did he want to help keep her safe, but he wanted to keep her smiling, to distract her from the morbid news. “I’ll teach you how to throw a punch.”

  “Okay.” She stood, looking pretty, delicate even, in her denim shorts and striped tank top. It had thin straps that showed off her shoulders, and it was all he could do to tear his gaze away from them and meet her eyes. She didn’t look very threatening, but she sure was beautiful.

  “Stand like this,” he said, sliding one foot back and raising his arms in demonstration. “Move that foot back a little more, for stability. That’s good.”

  He didn’t want to look away from her long, slender legs. At least, not until he realized she was looking right at him with bright hazel eyes, waiting for the next step.

  “Here,” he said, reaching for her, barely resisting the urge to run his fingers over her bare shoulders. “Hold your hands up a little higher, like this. And never, ever tuck your thumbs inside your fists – you’ll break them if you punch that way.”

  He waited while she adjusted, positioning her perfect body the way he told her to.

  “That’s better. Now, when you actually throw the punch, you want your whole body to be behind it – it’s not just your arm doing the work. So you’ll move your leg like this and pivot on your foot…”

  He demonstrated, throwing a jab into empty air.

  “Okay…” She watched and imitated. “Like that?”

  “Almost. Except…” He stopped breathing as he laid hands on her arms, moving them so that her fists were higher. “Don’t forget to protect your face, because chances are the other person is going to be hitting back.”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  He was just about to pull his hands away when something happened – a shiver worked its way through her entire body, subtle but there, causing her arms to tremble lightly beneath his fingertips.

  An answering frisson zipped through his body. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Fine, I just… Does it seem a little cold to you, all of a sudden?”

  “No. Just the opposite, actually.” He couldn’t lie. He felt his little self-defense lesson veering into decidedly intimate territory as tiny bumps popped up all over her arms, raised flesh that made him long to run his hands delicately over her skin, reading her body like braille.

  “You’re really not cold?” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, meeting his eyes.

  “No. But… Damn.” He felt it then, all of a sudden – an undeniable chill that seemed to have settled into her skin, faster than he could blink. “You’re freezing, and it’s got to be at least 70 degrees in here.” The central air was running, but still – it wasn’t that cool inside the house.

  She shivered again, and he reacted in reflex, flattening his hands against her body, covering her shoulders with his palms and trying to rub some warmth into them.

  She sighed, and the sound shot straight through him, prompting him to realize exactly what he’d done. A voice somewhere in the back of his head told him that he’d crossed a line, touching her that way when he was supposed to be helping her, but that was before she arched back against him, letting the back of her head touch the center of his chest and rest there.

  He kept his hands on her shoulders, let her lean up against him, her breasts thrust forward as her spine bowed and she released another one of those long breaths.

  “You okay?” he asked again, because presuming that she’d melted against him in a fit of lustful bliss seemed like a dangerous game. Before he reacted – and damn, he wanted to react – he needed to be sure.

  She nodded, but her teeth clattered together, and when he tore his gaze from her breasts – her nipples were hard and easily visible beneath her cotton
tank top – he saw that her lips were blue. Actually blue, as insane as that was considering that it was May in coastal North Carolina.

  “Shit. Alicia!” He stopped rubbing her shoulders and held onto them firmly instead, afraid she’d collapse at his feet. “Do you have some sort of medical condition I don’t know about?”

  He didn’t know what kind of condition might make someone go ice cold and turn blue despite the heat, but the way she felt and looked wasn’t normal – wasn’t right, and that scared him shitless. “Should I call 911?”

  Holden shattered the silence that followed his question with a deep whine. Liam looked down and saw the little dog lying at Alicia’s feet, ears pinned flat against his skull, eyes wide. He kept whining, getting louder with each passing moment. His reaction leant a sharper edge to Liam’s fear – if even the dog thought something was wrong, what the hell was going on?

  “No!” Alicia straightened, no longer leaning against him for support. “I – I’m fine. Really.” She was still shivering so violently that her teeth crashed together, chopping her words into stunted syllables. “I’m not – not sick, or anything like that.”

  “Then what’s going on?” He used his hold on her shoulders to turn her, so that she faced him. Her pupils looked a little large, but her eyes were clear – that seemed like a good sign.

  “I don’t know. I’m just so cold…”

  “You’re scaring the hell out of me,” he said. “Your lips are blue.”

  She shrugged, the motion multiplied by the shivers that kept wracking her body. “I really don’t know why I’m so cold. I’m in perfect health, as far as I know – I promise.”

  As relieved as he was to hear that, he wasn’t sure if he bought it. Healthy people didn’t just turn blue and start shaking for no reason.

  “Hold on a second – I’m going to check the thermostat.” He guided her down the hall and to the couch in the living room. He left her sitting there as he crossed the room, intent on making sure he wasn’t the one who was delusional about the temperature.

  Sure enough, her house had been cooled to a comfortable 70 degrees. The number reflected on the thermostat felt right to him – there was no way it was any cooler. In fact, he was sweating lightly, though that may have been due to the panic that’d nearly seized him a few minutes ago. Normally, he didn’t think of himself as someone who was quick to freak out – after all, he dealt with the state’s worst criminals, day in and day out. But when Alicia had fallen against him and started changing colors…

  He still felt the almost-panic deep in his chest, a sensation that made it feel like someone was holding his heart in their fist, squeezing. At 33, he figured he was a little too young to be a likely candidate for a heart attack – luckily.

  “It’s 70 degrees,” he said, settling on the couch beside her. “Are you sure you’re not sick?”

  She shook her head, sitting with her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, hugging herself. “I feel fine, other than these chills. You know how it feels when you get a fever… Well, I don’t feel like that.”

  “Still, I can drive you to the hospital, if you think you need to get checked out.”

  She shook her head. “Definitely not. I’m fine.”

  Her voice was steady now, but she still seemed … shaken.

  “You sure?” He pushed, because if she was afraid something was really wrong, he didn’t want her to feel like she had to hide it from him. “It wouldn’t be a big deal. Better safe than sorry.”

  “No. Thanks, though.”

  “No problem. Just to be safe though, maybe you should make an appointment with a doctor in the morning. You just moved anyway – you’ll have to get established with a new primary care provider at some point. There’s this office in—”

  She managed to laugh, even with her teeth chattering, and her laughter cut him off, stopping him mid-sentence.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Her eyes were full of light when they met his. “You really like to worry, don’t you?”

  That caught him off guard. Like it? Hell no, he didn’t like worrying that there might be something medically wrong with the most beautiful woman he’d ever met – a woman he still planned to take to Wilmington. And to bed, if she was up for it.

  “I’m not a worrier,” he said. “I’m just being realistic.”

  She kept laughing. She also reached down to pat Holden, saying something reassuring. Liam couldn’t help but notice that her hand shook as she did so.

  “Look,” he said, “this isn’t normal. I think you should reconsider staying here alone tonight. Call one of your friends—” he winced as he said it, unable to help thinking about how much safer he could keep her “—or stay at my place.”

  He hoped desperately that she wouldn’t argue this time. He had two damn good reasons why she shouldn’t be alone, and he didn’t know what he’d do if she was too stubborn to see them.

  “Well…” She looked thoughtful, then almost pained as another chill shook her, violent.

  “Okay,” she finally said, when it had subsided a little, “but only if I can bring Holden. I wouldn’t want to leave him alone in the house.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Deal,” Liam said, barely repressing a sigh of relief. “You need to get some stuff together before we head over?”

  “You want me to come over right away?” She turned her gaze toward the window.

  It wasn’t dark yet – not even close, actually. Still, Liam didn’t like the idea of her sitting alone in her house, shaking so hard her teeth were knocking together.

  He didn’t like the idea of her crossing the property line alone either, especially at night. They lived on a forested rural road, after all. Though he certainly hoped they weren’t, one or both of the Levinson brothers could be lurking among the pines that stretched for acres behind their houses. Who knew how far the felons had gotten by now, especially the one who’d suffered a bullet wound.

  “If you want to, we could both head over to my place now and order a pizza,” he offered, hoping she’d take the admittedly lame bait.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. Maybe all the talk of criminals and ghosts had scared her worse than he’d realized.

  “Let me just put a little bag together with some toiletries and clothes.”

  He waited in the kitchen while she gathered her things, shivering lightly as she went. The worst of the chills seemed to have passed, but he watched her carefully, just in case. Holden kept him company, sniffing his shoes with the kind of enthusiasm only a dog could muster. Liam bent to scratch him between the ears and was rewarded with a display of furious tail wagging.

  The mutt wasn’t much of a guard dog. A part of Liam would’ve felt more at ease if Alicia had chosen a tougher breed. Maybe a Shepherd, or a Rottweiler. Or some sort of bulky, burly junkyard dog that’d scare the shit out of anyone who dared to so much as knock on her door.

  He could see why she liked Holden, though. Small, friendly and admittedly cute, he was the quintessential lap dog.

  “Come on, boy,” Alicia said when she emerged wearing a fresh change of casual clothing and carrying a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, “we’re going for a little walk.” She attached a nylon leash to his collar, then paused as if waiting for Liam to lead the way.

  He did exactly that, scanning the not-so-distant tree line as they approached his house. As soon as they reached the inside, he made sure to lock the doors before he pulled out his phone. “You like ham and pineapple?” he asked.

  “Pizza?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ve never tried it.”

  “Really – you’ve never had a Hawaiian pizza? Well, let me introduce you to what you’ve been missing out on.”

  She set her bag down on the counter. “Sounds good.”

  He called and placed the order. After the short conversation, he slipped his phone back into his pocket. It was then that it really hit him: he had an entire evening and night alone with Al
icia stretching ahead of him.

  The thought sent heat tearing through him, and the sight of her standing in his home only increased it. Though he wanted nothing more than to protect her, the desire to peel her work outfit right off of her was a close second.

  “What do you usually do when you get home from work?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Watch a little TV. Read. Have a snack. Anything to relax and unwind, really.”

  “Well, the pizza should be here in half an hour. Want to see what’s on?” He nodded toward the living room.

  “Sure.”

  They retreated to the living room, where she sank down onto the couch and wrapped her arms tightly around her body. A telltale spasm in her jaw told him that she was still cold.

  He reacted without thinking, leaning down to pick up his uniform shirt from the floor. “Here,” he said, and draped it over her shoulders.

  “Thanks.”

  She wrapped it tightly around her body and wore it like a shawl. Was it weird that Liam liked the look of it against her skin, even if she was just using it to keep warm?

  As he admired her, he remembered how disgusting his shirt had been when he’d peeled it off, damp from a long day spent in the sun. When he looked closely now, he could see the dried sweat stains.

  “Let me get you a blanket, or a sweatshirt or something,” he said. “That shirt of mine is disgusting. Sorry – I grabbed it without thinking.”

  She looked down at his uniform shirt like she was surprised – like she couldn’t smell the sweat that had dried into the fabric. “It’s okay. I appreciate it anyway.”

  “And if you want to wash up, I understand – you know where the shower is, I’m sure.”

  Studying her face, he saw that a surprising amount of color had returned to her complexion.

  “I might just take you up on that. Not because I think your shirt is gross, but because a hot shower sounds too good to pass up right now.”

  Minutes later, she’d closed herself in the bathroom with her little overnight bag, leaving him alone in the living room with her dog – Holden, she’d called him. The mutt curled up on one end of the couch, and Liam went back to watching the news.