Savin' Me (A Heat Wave Novel)

by Alannah Lynne

  Even though his arm was still draped around the blonde’s shoulder, his body shifted toward the stairs and his gaze locked on to Kats. His message was loud and clear. I’m coming down; stay right there. But she couldn’t talk to him right now. Not without coming across as a schizophrenic lunatic who said one thing, but constantly thought and did another.

  Okay, she wouldn’t just come across as one, she was a lunatic.

  And she was leaving.

  She found Seth standing with a group near the door. Grabbing his forearm, she rudely broke into the conversation. “I’m sorry for the interruption, but I just remembered something else I have to do.” He looked confused, but she sensed Erik closing in, so she rushed on. “Thanks for the invite, maybe I can come next week.”

  Before Seth had time to respond, she tossed her empty glass on a side table and bolted for the door. She was halfway down the block when she heard Erik call her name. She kept walking, as if she hadn’t heard. As if she didn’t want to stop and have him explain it away as a simple misunderstanding. As if the suffocating squeeze in her chest didn’t have her on the verge of collapsing on the sidewalk.

  The tears she’d been holding back for weeks began to drip onto the front of her blouse. Dammit. Once the dam broke she wouldn’t be able to stop until she’d cried herself dry. She swiped a hand across her cheek and willed the tears to stay at bay until she reached the safety of her apartment.

  She trudged up the stairs to her apartment, opened the door, and slipped inside. Too emotionally exhausted to care about putting her things away neatly, she dropped her purse on the floor, kicked off her shoes, and shrugged out of her clothes, leaving a trail in the hallway as she slogged to her bedroom.

  Without bothering to pull back the covers, she flopped sideways across the bed and slid the floodgates open. It was a much-needed, past-due cleansing. She grieved the loss of her job in Charlotte. She wept for the friends she’d left behind. She ached with the stabbing betrayal of knowing her best friend had been the cause of it all. She allowed the gasping sobs to carry away the fear that she’d never be good enough in her parents’ eyes and the pain of endlessly trying to prove her worth. And she screamed into her pillow and beat it in frustration for the unrequited feelings she had for Erik. The stupid, ridiculous feelings that would never lead to anything but a broken heart.

  As the tears slowed to a steady stream, she pulled the pillow tight to her chest, gripping it like a life preserver, and succumbed to the heavy emotional exhaustion.

  The next conscious thought came as she jerked awake with a start, uncertain what had awakened her until the next round of heavy pounding broke out. Someone was trying to beat the door off its hinges and didn’t seem inclined to quit. She pulled on her robe and cautiously made her way her way through the living room to the window overlooking the landing.

  The pounding stopped, and she found Erik standing on her stoop, hands on his hips, looking around. He was probably trying to figure out where she might be since her car was parked in the lot. Suddenly, as if hearing her on the other side of the door, he turned and resumed pounding. “Kat, open the damned door. I’m not going away until we talk.”

  She pulled the clips from her hair and threaded her fingers through it, futilely trying to tame the wild mess. She ran a hand over face and felt the puffiness in her cheeks and around her eyes. She must look like hell, but she knew Erik meant what he said. He wouldn’t go away, and she couldn’t muster up enough give-a-damn to care about her looks.

  What he expected to find, she didn’t know, but he couldn’t hide his shock when she opened the door and he got a good look at her. “Shit.” Before she even blinked, he’d pushed through the doorway and bundled her in his arms.

  This was exactly what she’d wanted since seeing him in the gazebo a week and a half ago. With her head resting against the solid wall of his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her, it would be so easy to sink into him, absorb his heat and the essence of who he was, and let the rest of the world melt away.

  But she took a step back, pushed beyond the embarrassment of her behavior, and looked him in the eye. His eyes glistened with emotion, and the tenderness softening his features made her stomach lurch while her breath caught in her throat.

  He cupped her cheek in his palm and bent his knees so they were eye to eye. “I feel like an ass for being presumptuous, but in case I’m the reason you’re upset, I want to explain. The girl you saw me hugging is Jolene, an intern. She’s leaving for Fort Bliss, Texas, tomorrow to get married. Her fiancé is being deported, and they want to get married before he leaves.” When she didn’t answer, he looked at her imploring. “Say something.”

  She wanted to say, “Damn you for being so charming.” But instead, she took another step back and crossed her arms over her waist. “Thanks for the explanation, but you didn’t owe me one.” Shrugging as if his concern meant nothing and trying to convince both of them he wasn’t the reason for her meltdown, she said, “I’ve had a lot going on, and I finally just lost it.”

  ***

  Erik studied Kat’s defeated expression as well as her makeup and tear-stained face. Seeing her in this much distress caused him to ache all the way down to his soul. He didn’t understand what she meant by “a lot going on,” but decided to get some answers. All of their previous visits together had been about work, or him trying to seduce her. It was time they had a good old-fashioned conversation.

  He shut the door, then took her hand and led her to the sofa. Not wanting any space between them, he shook his head and pulled her to him when she made a move to sit next to him. “Sit on my lap,” he said, patting his thigh. “Let me hold you.”

  She surprised him by curling up in his lap and acquiescing to his cradling without any argument. He pushed his fingers through her tangled hair, gently brushing it away from her face while her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing grew slow and steady.

  In direct proportion to her relaxing against him, the fortress walls he’d spent years building around his heart began to crack and become alarmingly unstable. The only person he’d ever loved had been Lindsey, and he’d sworn to never let anyone that close again. But now, as he sat holding Kat, he realized he was powerless to stop the rising tide.

  She shifted and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, then began stroking his chest with the palm of her hand. Her warm breath against his neck and the soft, intimate caress of her hand caused his libido to rev, his breathing to grow shallow, and his cock to stir.

  He’d told her the other night he wanted her with a ferociousness he’d never before felt. And while that was still true, astonishingly enough, he wanted something else even more. He wanted her to talk to him. He wanted to get to know her and find out what had happened since the night they met in Charlotte.

  “Baby, talk to me,” he said, brushing his fingers along her cheek. “Tell me what happened with your job. How you ended up here. And why you’re so unhappy.”

  Kat took a deep, shuddering breath. “You don’t want to know much, do you?”

  He chuckled, then sighed in defeat. All this talk would do was get him in deeper and deeper, but tonight he didn’t care. “Actually,” he said, “I want to know everything.”

  She groaned in protest and said, “I don’t feel like talking,” then set to work destroying that desire in him, as well. She licked, then nibbled a path along the exposed skin of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. His muscles tensed and he was damned tempted to agree that talking could wait.

  But this was important… and how bass-ackwards was this? She was doing the seducing, and he wanted to talk. “I’m really enjoying what you’re doing... really enjoying it. But I want you to talk to me. Help me understand why you’re so upset.”

  She sighed and slumped in his arms. “You’re turning me down?”

  He smiled and stroked her cheek. “No, baby, just postponing. Now talk.”

  “Fine.” She huffed and scooted around, making herself more comf
ortable. “You know the part about the lost promotion.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but start from the beginning and tell me everything.”

  “Fine. I worked for R&A for ten years, starting as an intern in college, and was up for the next VP opening. Simultaneously, Mark Samuelson, a client I’d been dating for about six months, had a new product ready to launch. Mark’s biggest competitor beat him to it by launching a similar product a month earlier. I’d just broken off the relationship with Mark and because of the timing of that breakup and false information he received, he accused me of leaking information to his competitor.”

  She swiped her hands across her forehead, like she had a headache coming on. He considered telling her she didn’t have to continue, but he wanted to know what happened. In addition to wanting to understand her, he also believed talking it out might help her.

  “Of course, I hadn’t leaked the information. And because I hadn’t, he couldn’t produce the necessary proof. The R&A board cleared me and allowed me to keep my job. But because the whole incident had become such a scandal, they couldn’t move me into an upper management position. They felt it would make the clients nervous, and they gave the job to my best friend, Angie.”

  She stiffened in his arms and her face reddened. Reluctantly, he let her go as she scooted off his lap and onto the sofa beside him. She grabbed a pillow and tucked it close to her chest before continuing. “Angie started acting differently around me. At first, I chalked it up to her being busy with the additional workload. Then one night, while having dinner with my grandfather, all the pieces of what happened fell into place.”

  Erik wanted to continue touching her, to try to soothe her pain, but didn’t want to risk her not finishing the story. He angled himself so he could drape his arm along the back of the couch and gently played with a strand of her hair.

  “While Granddad and I were eating, Angie and another woman came into the restaurant. The woman looked familiar, and I spent the rest of our dinner rattling my brain, trying to figure out who she was. That night as I lay in bed, tossing and turning, it came to me.”

  Erik cleared his throat and put the brakes on thinking of the various ways he could have made use of her tossing and turning.

  “The woman was Mark’s sister-in-law. I knew right then what happened, but I wasn’t willing to make unsubstantiated accusations. I didn’t have the ability, or the heart, to find the proof on my own, so I hired a private investigator.”

  She paused and glanced at him. The tears glistening in her eyes were like powerful sledgehammers, assaulting his fortress walls.

  “The investigator confirmed my suspicions and produced the proof I needed. Angie met Celia, Mark’s sister-in-law, at the athletic club. Celia was lonely because of how much time her husband spent at work, so the two became fast friends.

  Because her husband is not only Mark’s brother, but a co-owner of the business, Celia knew about the new product launch. Angie gained her friendship and trust and then, while Celia was crying on her shoulder, Angie took notes and learned all she could about the new product.”

  “This Angie’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she is.” Kat smiled sadly. “Anyway, Angie knew things weren’t great with me and Mark, and she urged me to break things off with him. I guess she wasn’t as worried about my emotional health as I thought. Her only concern was timing it perfectly, so that I’d end up looking like the bad guy. She took her information to the competitor.” She gave him a sardonic look. “For a nominal fee, of course. Made sure everyone knew I had knowledge of the new product and then dropped hints to Mark that I’d sold him out.”

  “Shit.” Not the most intelligent comment, but it was the best Erik could manage in the heat of the moment. He wanted to strangle Angie and could only imagine how Kat felt.

  “In the end, Angie was fired and I proved my innocence. But too much had happened. I wasn’t ever going to get another chance at a promotion there. My non-compete kept me from getting another marketing job within a two hundred and fifty mile radius of Charlotte, which eliminated all of the agencies in Atlanta and most of the ones in North and South Carolina, as well as Tennessee and Virginia. Riverside isn’t outside of the boundaries, but they didn’t feel threatened by a small agency like SMG. I think they were relieved to see me go.” She shrugged. “So here I am. Sorry you asked?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. I’m damned sorry for all that happened to you, but I’m really glad you’re here.” He ignored the flash in her eyes, uncertain if it was panic or interest, and sifted through the strands of hair lying across her shoulder. “Do you like working in advertising?”

  “What?” She jerked in surprise, then shifted her gaze away and squirmed around a little.

  “I know it’s a strange thing to ask, but…” The question had been knocking at the back of his mind since they toured the plant. The way she’d been drawn to the commendations on the walls and the light in her eyes as she talked about working at the humane society and the women’s shelter that night at dinner made him wonder if she wouldn’t rather do something else with her life. The only time she’d shown that same spark toward her job was when she’d presented him with the idea of teaming up with Kevin to promote the Coastal Preservation Association. “Is advertising really what you want to do? Are you excited to get up in the morning and go to work?”

  She pressed her lips together and stared out the window. After a long pause, she quietly said, “No. I want to do charity work.”

  “Then why aren’t you?”

  “Because I need to do this first.”

  She said it as if the answer made perfect sense, but he didn’t understand. “You need to do what first?”

  She fidgeted with the tie on her robe, causing the fabric to separate in the front and expose the swell of her breast. Which, in turn, caused his mouth to water and his cock to get back in the ball game, but he wasn’t finished talking.

  Jesus, when did he get to be such a choir boy?

  He grabbed her hand to stop the fidgeting and prevent further exposure. Stroking her palm with his thumb, he said, “You need to stop that, because I really do want to hear what you have to say.”

  She slid her tongue across her lower lip as her gaze travelled from their joined hands up his torso, lingering first on his chest and then on his lips. Her eyes turned to a deep forest green as her lips parted and her breath hitched.

  Shit. He swallowed hard as need pushed him to pick up where she’d left off with the licking. But deep in his gut, he knew this conversation was too important not to finish. He let go of her hand and ran his thumb across her too-damned-tempting bottom lip. No wonder he’d never put much effort into being chivalrous—it sucked. “Finish telling me what you meant by ‘first.’”

  “My grandfather is almost eighty, and his health has begun to fail in the past few years.” Her eyes filled with pain, and she swallowed forcefully. “He’s always been there for me and is my biggest supporter. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have him, and I have to do something worthwhile, actually accomplish something in my life, to make him proud. After that, then I can do what I want.”

  He frowned. “Why do you think your granddad wouldn’t be proud of you for doing charity work? That’s a great vocation.”

  “My mother and father are both corporate lawyers, and my brother is an accountant. I’ve always been accused of having my head in the clouds, of being a daydreamer, never being serious enough.” She made a stern face. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” she said, mimicking the hurtful words she’d obviously heard more than once.

  She dropped her gaze to the floor and bit her lip to stop the trembling. “They’ve always criticized the amount of time I spend at the animal shelter. And the women’s shelter? When I’m there, my mother says I’m spending too much time with the ‘downtrodden.’ Like those women and children asked to be victims of abuse. They’ve always made it clear I should do something more worth
while, at least in their eyes, than charity work.”

  Well, damn, Kat’s mother sounded an awful lot, and he meant awful in the literal sense of the word, like his mother. Maybe Kat would understand his hesitation to take her home. Or maybe, just maybe, because she’d grown up with someone like his mother, he’d be comfortable taking her home, knowing she could hold her own.

  “You said they said those things to you. Is that your parents, or does your grandfather feel that way too?”

  “God, no! Granddad would never say anything like that.” She blinked a few times, considering what she’d just said. Her eyebrows dipped low, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. After a long pause, she said, “He’s never, ever criticized me for anything.” Her voice was filled with awe and wonder, and her eyes reflected that she grasped what that truly meant… And how incongruous it was to her logic. “He’s the only person who’s ever loved me for just being me.”

  The deep creases in her forehead faded, and her eyes brightened. She straightened her shoulders with renewed purpose, and Erik’s chest swelled with happiness. She ran her hand down the length of his thigh, and her expression flipped from pensive to heated. “Thank you for helping me see that.”

  Her eyelids relaxed as the pulse in the side of her neck fluttered, then picked up a rapid pace. Apparently, their talk was over, the no-touching rule had expired, and it was all systems go for him to slip that robe off and take her—right here, right now.

  His heart rate increased to keep pace with hers as he ran a finger along the side of her neck, across her collarbone, and down between her breasts. She moaned softly and arched her back, offering herself to him, and then… yawned.

  Her eyes popped wide open and she threw a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. How rude.” She laughed… and then yawned again. “I’m so sorry. It’s been an emotionally exhausting evening. When I get upset, rather than deal with things, I shut down and go to sleep.”

  Erik laughed and tugged on her hand. “Come over here.” Gently lifting her onto his lap, he murmured, “I’ve got just the thing to help you unwind and put you into a deep, restful sleep.”