by Lexie Ray
“Sorry about that,” Tyler said, grinning.
“You owe me a new pair,” I said, arching an eyebrow at him.
“I’ll pay my debts, don’t you worry,” he said. “Now, let’s talk business.”
Distasteful business. I had to keep reminding myself that I’d hired Tyler as a private investigator. I’d never lose sight of my endgame—to be reunited with my son—but Tyler was a delicious distraction until that day came.
“I’m worried about your personal safety,” he said. “Ben did this in full sight of the public.”
“So it was Ben,” I said. “Ben, personally.”
“I saw him throw the brick and tried to follow him for a while, but the traffic was too much,” Tyler explained. “And I needed to make sure that you were all right.”
“You big softie,” I teased.
Tyler snorted. “I don’t feel good about you staying in your apartment anymore,” he said. “We’re going to go there now and pack a bag—and get your evidence—and then you’re going to be staying with me.”
That was it. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, it seemed.
“What’s the problem, Ms. Crosby?” Tyler asked, those blue eyes shimmering for all they were worth.
I looked at him, memorizing his strong jaw, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the shadow of whiskers on his cheek and chin.
“I don’t know anything about you,” I said truthfully, “but you want me to come live with you for, oh I don’t know, indefinitely.”
“Until we eliminate this threat,” Tyler said.
“I don’t know you,” I repeated.
“What do you need to know?”
“Why did you leave the FBI?”
I was sure he wasn’t going to tell me with the way that his face stilled, the mask that I’d been getting to see under more and more firmly in place.
“If I tell you why, will you stay with me?” he asked. “I need to keep you safe.”
The way he said it made me feel like he needed it for reasons beyond solving the case, but I could’ve been trying to read too much into the simple statement.
I nodded.
“I left the FBI because I botched a case,” Tyler said. “There was a hostage situation, a gunman with a mother and her young child. I pushed the gunman too far, certain that he was going to break, and he did—just not in the way I wanted him to. He snapped and shot both subjects before shooting himself. My superiors reviewed the case, told me what I should do to make improvements, and sent me right back out in the field. It didn’t feel right. I wanted to be punished, I guess. I felt as guilty as hell. So I resigned. Retirement didn’t really suit me, though, so I became a private investigator.”
“So when you say not to bring bombs and machine guns to the fight we’re fighting …”
“I’m speaking from experience,” he finished.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Not until you’re safely at my place,” Tyler said. “Let’s go.”
He drove us in his car to the apartment even though it was close enough to walk.
“In case we need to go somewhere fast,” he explained, pulling it into a loading zone and putting his emergency blinkers on.
I packed a bag with some work clothes, pajamas, and comfortable clothes, then added all of the evidence collected thus far into a folder, being sure to slip in the latest note from the brick. I zipped up my bag and looked around at my apartment. It seemed vulnerable somehow, and I couldn’t envision myself spending another night alone in it.
“Ready?” Tyler asked. He’d been pacing the entire time, alternating between peeping through the door out into the hallway and peering out the windows that looked down onto where his car was parked.
“As I’ll ever be,” I sighed, letting him take my elbow to hustle me out of there.
Tyler drove erratically at first, going around the block several times before straightening out his path. Just when I thought we had to be getting close to his home, he switched tack, doubling back on the path we’d just traveled.
“Are you lost?” I asked.
“Nope. Just making sure we don’t have a tail,” he explained.
My blood chilled. If Ben could put a brick through my boutique window in the middle of the afternoon, I could only assume he’d go through other lengths to get to me, including having me followed.
“And do we?” I asked, looking at Tyler for any betrayal of what he was feeling.
He glanced at me and gave me a sure smile. “We’re fine,” he said. “We’re going to my place, now, I promise.”
His place was an amazing condo with an unbelievable view of the city. It was sleekly modern, spare, but clean for a bachelor pad.
“You should’ve told me about your place sooner,” I said, looking out the enormous windows on the twinkling lights of the city. “I wouldn’t have hesitated to move in.”
Tyler laughed. “This is only until we can neutralize the threat against you,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m not great at roommates.”
“Can I ask that other question now?” I reminded him.
“Ah. I thought you’d forgotten about that,” he said. “Go ahead, I suppose.”
“Why’d you decide to take on my case?” I asked.
“I told you,” he said, smiling easily. “Pretty women are my weakness.”
“Flattery,” I scoffed. “I’ll take the truth, please.”
“You’re a pretty good detective, yourself,” Tyler said. “How about you tell me.”
I hesitated, biting my lip. Did he want to know what I really thought or what I hoped for?
“You found me to be delightful and utterly irresistible and sexy,” I said lightly, planting a kiss on his lips.
“Guilty,” Tyler said, kissing me back.
I put my lips on his ears. “And you wanted another chance,” I whispered. “A second chance to make things right from when you left the FBI.”
“People deserve chances, don’t they?” he asked, looking at me.
“Everyone deserves a chance,” I said, conscious that I was echoing my mentor Carlotta’s words. “Everyone.”
“I’m going to get your son for you.”
“I know you are.”
We kissed, long and deep, leisurely and without the frenetic energy we’d had for each other up until this point.
We had time to enjoy each other now.
“Let me take you on the tour,” Tyler said, slipping my skirt off my hips. “The living room.”
“Gorgeous,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.
Tyler dragged me into the next room, kissing me and slipping off my ruined panties.
“The kitchen,” he mumbled, fondling my bare ass.
“A vision,” I said, drawing circles on the skin of his bare chest.
“The office,” he said, relieving me of my shirt.
“I can see how you get lots of work done in here,” I said, yanking off his pants.
“And the bedroom,” he said, wrestling my bra off of me and falling into the bed as I got him tangled up in his boxers.
We laughed, wriggling together, intertwining our limbs and kissing. I looked into those blue eyes and lost myself. I didn’t want to be found again.
“Tyler …”
“Don’t,” he said softly. “Don’t.”
His gentle plea gave me pause. I’d wanted to tell him how much of a comfort he was, how thankful I was that he was here to give me a safe place to stay, that I didn’t know what I’d be doing without him by my side.
And that I loved him. There was that, too.
He pushed into me softly, driving any thoughts I had flitting around in my mind out with his cock. My pussy was getting downright used to him, molding around his dick and drawing him deeper. We laid side by side, Tyler spooning me, entering me from behind, the angle of his member inside of my wet pussy absolutely blowing my mind.
The position allowed him to explore my body at his leisure, rubbing his hands o
ver my breasts, playing along the lines of my smooth stomach, leveraging my hips around his easy thrusting. It was less like sex and more like a union, both of us taking comfort and pleasure in each other, unhurried, nowhere to go, nowhere to be but here, in this moment.
We built the pace slowly, Tyler controlling it but me responding. A couple of times, I backed us up on purpose, slowing down to a previous pace to draw out the pleasure, the utter closeness of our coupling.
“Tease,” he breathed in my ear, making me shiver.
When we reached a blistering pace, one neither of us could slow even if we’d wanted to, we came at nearly the exact same time, within seconds of each other, crying out, unabashed, our climaxes rolling over us in irresistible waves.
“I love you,” I sobbed, not sure why I was crying. “I love you, I love you.”
Tyler’s touch was gentle but firm. Still in the treacle of afterglow, he pulled out and rolled me over, looking at me.
“Hush,” he said, wiping the tears from my face. “That’s enough. You need to rest now. You’ve had a long day.”
“I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it,” I said, trying to dry my eyes. “But I do. I love you.”
“Baby, I’ve seen so much,” Tyler said. “I’ve seen the very depraved depths of the human soul. I can’t—I can’t love anyone. I’m too damaged. People are too damaged.”
“Do you think I’m damaged?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Depraved?”
“Absolutely not. Where are you—”
“Then what?” I asked. “What’s to keep you from accepting my love? From admitting that you care for me, too?”
He shook his head. “I just can’t,” he said. “There’s too much at stake. That professional distance we talked about the first night we met?”
“There never was any,” I said. “Not even from the beginning.”
“I just can’t help myself around you,” he said, fascinated with some point around my lips, unable to meet my eyes. “I want you more and more with each passing day. But you’re in danger, and I have to make sure you’re protected.”
“I always feel safe when I’m with you,” I said.
“Then let me protect you,” he said. “I can’t afford distractions. A distraction might mean your life or, God forbid, that we lose a way in to get your son.”
“I’m not trying to distract you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Tyler heaved a sigh and drew me into his warm embrace, surrounding me on every side with muscles. He kissed the top of my head.
“Don’t be sorry for how you feel,” he said. “This is my problem, not yours. You’ll stay here as long as we need to. I’d like to have you here. I was just joking about the roommate thing. Mostly. You should know that I have disgusting habits, such as leaving dishes in the sink.”
“I think that’s something I can cope with,” I said, sniffling and smiling.
Over the next few weeks, Tyler escorted me to and from work and accompanied me while I ate. To stave off any suspicion, he encouraged me to tell anyone who asked that he was my boyfriend. It was a fun game to play, even if it wasn’t truthful. I had no idea what Tyler was to me. I’d hired him, so he was my employee. I trusted him, so he was my confidant. We shared a bed, so he was my lover. He was all that, and somehow more, even if we couldn’t admit it to each other.
While I was safely at work with plenty of customers around and my two assistants, Tyler worked. He spent long hours in his home office, poring over documents or scrolling through pages and pages of scowling faces on his computer.
When he was done for the day, or at least grudgingly satisfied with whatever point he’d reached, we’d make love, or go out to eat, or order in. We fell into an easy schedule, almost as if we’d been doing this all our lives. Tyler and I were completely compatible, and we made each other happy. It was almost as if we were really dating—even though, I had to constantly remind myself, he wasn’t capable of feeling anything for me beyond physical attraction.
Sad as it was to admit, I was used to that kind of contact. It was exactly what I felt toward my customers at Mama’s nightclub. Even with the regulars, I never let myself feel more than physical attraction toward them, even if one of them said cute things or the other always tipped me incredibly well.
It was sad, but effective. I tried to close off my feelings toward Tyler and accept the fact that he could never feel anything for me. It was hard, but it felt necessary, even if it was messy and ugly and didn’t seem to do a damn thing about how attracted I was to him.
Besides that, everything was just fine. Tyler said we were building a case, my boutique was thriving so well that opening a second location was becoming less of a dream and more of a necessity, and I was spending every waking moment with a gorgeous man whose every part belonged to me … except his heart.
Yes, everything was fine until three months later, when my apartment burned down.
Chapter Eight
“Hello?”
“Oh, Shimmy. Oh, thank God.”
“Jazz?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m staying with a—with a friend,” I said, sitting up in bed and feeling groggy. Tyler had disappeared to parts unknown; his condo was silent. “What’s going on?”
“It’s your apartment,” Jasmine said. “It burned sometime last night. The firefighters—they said that if there had been somebody in the apartment at the time of the blaze, they wouldn’t have survived.”
“Shit,” I said, rubbing my curls and suddenly, nastily awake.
“You’ve got to introduce me to your friend,” Jasmine said. “I’m going to give him a big kiss on the lips for saving your life.”
“Did they say what started the fire?” I asked, getting out of bed and setting out my clothes.
“No,” Jasmine said, “but it was a total loss. Did you have anything important in there?”
“Just a good portion of my wardrobe,” I said, eyeing my clothes critically. I’d just been downsized. “Nothing that can’t be replaced.” As long as I had my evidence, the heart necklace around my neck, and Tyler, I was going to be okay. I knew that we were getting closer every day to getting my son. And then life really would be perfect.
“Are you going to come down here to see the damage?” Jasmine asked. “There’s an insurance lady here asking about you.”
“Lord, I bet she’s sick of me,” I said.
“Sick of you?”
“Well, about a month ago, somebody put a brick through the display window of my boutique. And now this. I hope she doesn’t think I’m trying to pull something.”
Jasmine was quiet for so long I was afraid I’d dropped the call.
“Shimmy, are you okay?”
I didn’t want to worry my friend. She had a lot on her plate already.
“Everything’s going to be just fine,” I assured her. “Don’t you concern yourself about it.”
“I can’t help but worry about you,” she said. “I know you’re doing everything you can to get your son back. I just want you to be safe. Take care of yourself so that your son has his mommy, okay?”
“It’s only a matter of time until that day, Jazz,” I said, smiling to myself. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
I got dressed and ready with still no sign of Tyler. Where was he? I punched his number into my phone and waited as it rang and rang.
Nothing. His voicemail popped on and I ended the call.
I couldn’t be expected to stay here if my apartment was a smoldering ruin, could I? There was business I had to attend to.
I caught a cab down at street level and directed it to my old apartment. Without all the twists and turns that Tyler had taken that night, it was practically a ten minute commute between our homes.
I was thankful to see that the apartment building was still standing. I would’ve felt incredibly guilty if anyone had been harmed because of what I had going on in my life.
I spoke
to my insurance agent about what paperwork we’d have to complete in order to start recouping my losses.
“I’ve gotta tell you, Ms. Crosby,” she said. “You’re the unluckiest person I’ve ever met. First your store, then this. Are you sure someone’s not out to get you?”
The last statement was intended as a joke, but it made me shudder. Being here made it real, seeing the scorch marks out of my window in the building. I realized that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be here.
“Right?” I said, laughing. “I’m going to have to get a bodyguard or something.”
If my bodyguard knew where I was, I would be in big trouble.
I turned back to peer up at my scorched apartment and he was there, standing in front of me as if it had simply taken me this long to see him.
“I tried to call you,” I said as he glowered at me, trying to head off his ire.
“And I tried to return your call,” he said, pointing at my purse. I retrieved my phone and saw that it had four missed calls, three voicemails, and a text message—all from Tyler.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I guess you’ve heard about my apartment.”
“I guess I have,” he said, no less furious.
“And I guess we’d better be going.”
“You guess correctly,” he said, hustling me to his car, his eyes darting around the crowd of people milling about the crime scene. He got me into the passenger seat and shut the door before jogging around to the driver’s side and hopping in. His eyes never left the crowd, looking at faces even as we started driving.
“Were you followed here?” he demanded, glancing at me as we got onto the street.
“No—I mean, I don’t think so,” I said, cringing. “I took a cab. Nobody knows I’m staying at your place. Oh, except Jasmine, but she doesn’t know who you are or where you live.”
“It was stupid to come here,” he said, splitting his attention between the street in front of him and his rearview mirror. We started with the loopy driving, cutting down an alleyway at one point, to ensure we weren’t being followed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But Jasmine thought I was dead and I had to talk to the insurance lady again.”