by Jami Alden
“Not the best time of year to visit,” she’d said, tilting her chin to the rain as she’d handed Alyssa a to-go cup of thick, black coffee. “Most people come in summer or spring.”
“I like it now,” Alyssa had replied. “It’s quieter.”
A couple loggers had given her a once-over as she’d moved to the door, looking not at her but through her. But as soon as she’d stepped out into the downpour, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she was being watched.
She gradually increased her speed, and the tires of the borrowed Mustang hugged the slick pavement as she took a sharp curve. No one was behind her, she assured herself as she glanced in the rearview and saw nothing. Still, she shifted the car into fourth and increased her pressure on the gas, eager to get back to the house and behind a heavy-locked door.
She smoothly guided the car up over a rise and around another curve. Headlights appeared in the rearview mirror, and her heart leaped to her throat. Big, silver, like an unmarked police car, it loomed behind her.
It’s nothing. Lots of people drive on this road.
She pushed the Mustang harder, gripping the wheel with one hand as she downshifted with the other to navigate a sharp turn. The lights disappeared, and her heart rate slowed. She gave another glance in the mirror to make sure the big silver car was nowhere in sight as she turned into the cypress-lined lane that led to Raj’s beach house.
She parked under the wood-shingled carport and pulled the hood of her shell up over her head. As she swung her legs out of the car, she could hear the roar of an engine over the steady drum of the rain.
It was the big silver car, headed straight for her. And she didn’t feel an ounce of relief when she saw Derek’s angry face behind the wheel.
Derek pulled the Marauder up beside the Mustang, skidding to a stop in the gravel and mud. He jumped out of the car, impervious to the rain as he grabbed Alyssa’s arm.
“Watch it!” she yelled as coffee spurted through the lid on her coffee.
“What the fuck are you thinking, driving like that in weather like this? You trying to kill yourself?” Truth be told, if it had been anyone but Alyssa, he would have admired the way she’d put the Mustang through its paces and negotiated the twisty coastal highway.
She glared at him through the sheets of rain. “I wouldn’t have had to drive so fast if you hadn’t been riding my ass.” She ducked around him to look at his car. “That’s not your car. What, did you rip off a cop?”
“I like the Marauder for long drives. More leg room.” Plus, other drivers tended, like Alyssa, to mistake it for an unmarked police car, and hence got the fuck out of his way. “What the fuck were you thinking, taking off like that?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation,” she said, shoulders squared, chin tilted up stubbornly. The effect was ruined by her nearly blue lips and the subtle quaking under her jacket.
He shook his head and steered her toward the wooden staircase that led up to the front door. “Let’s get inside. You look like a drowned rat.”
She gave an offended huff but let him guide her to the door of the rambling wood shingle house that sat perched on a bluff overlooking the churning Pacific.
She unlocked the door and shucked off her jacket. She dropped it in a pile on the floor before toeing off her shoes. Derek grabbed it off the floor and hung it on a hook to dry before following her into the house. “So, tell me, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I’m going crazy, okay? I needed to get away.”
“Go to a spa like everyone else,” he said flatly. “Or, better yet, go to rehab.”
“I don’t need rehab,” Alyssa said through clenched teeth as she tossed the house keys on the coffee table. “You have no idea what it’s like. Constantly being watched. Having the press report your every move, printing stories that you’re a drugged-out skank.”
Derek felt his anger soften at the slight trembling in her voice and tried to restore his anger’s edge, reminding himself of how she’d made him look like a fool.
She padded across the carpeted floor of the great room to a set of sliding glass doors. She pulled back the curtains, filling the room with feeble gray light. Derek did a quick scan of the house. It was not the kind of place he would have expected Alyssa to choose as a retreat. Though large, with a spectacular view of the waves crashing through the sliders, the furniture and fixtures were dated. It was comfortable but far from the luxury digs he would have expected.
“Not to mention someone is slipping me drugs and making sure I make an ass of myself in public.” She shot him a glare. “Not that anyone believes me, of course.”
His jaw tightened, wishing she would do them all a favor and admit the truth. As cover stories went, someone slipping her drugs without her knowledge was about as lame as you could get.
Alyssa tossed her cell phone on the kitchen counter and turned to face him, her arms folded across her chest. “I just needed a few days to breathe, you know? Get away from being watched and monitored and commented on. Try to figure out why someone would want to drug me,” she said with a pointed look. “Can you understand that?”
Her eyes were wide and pleading. Derek had to admit to himself, however begrudgingly, that he could see what she was talking about. Still, she’d brought this on herself. “You can’t spend your adult life courting attention and expect it to turn off whenever you want,” he said bluntly.
Her full mouth pulled into a tight line. “How did you find me so fast?”
Derek nodded at her phone. “GPS locater. I slipped it in yesterday. Kinda like I knew you’d try something like this.”
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Isn’t that illegal?”
Derek shrugged. “Your uncle demanded I keep close tabs on you. I do whatever’s necessary to get the job done.”
As quick as it had appeared, her annoyance was gone. She sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, her entire body slumping with defeat. “I suppose you called him as soon as you figured out where I went.”
“I haven’t told him yet.” And he had yet to come up with an answer why.
She looked up at him, hope glimmering in her face. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could not tell him. Just for a couple more days.” She folded her hands and brought them to her chest, almost as if in prayer. “Please,” she said. “Just for a couple days. After everything that’s happened, I need some time to get my head together.”
He swallowed uncomfortably, stunned at how tempted he was to give in. When he didn’t answer, she stood up from her chair and stood in front of him. “Please,” she said softly and took one of his hands in both of hers. The heat of her palms jolted through him. His skin warmed under her touch, the heat spreading through him as he looked down into her face. “Hold my uncle off for a little longer, and I swear I’ll come home day after tomorrow.”
He was struck by how vulnerable she looked, her eyes old and tired in her otherwise youthful face, pleading with him to give her a reprieve.
He was sinking. Sucked into the vortex of those big green eyes. He knew what he needed to do. She was a job. A task to perform. A person he was hired to keep out of trouble, even if it meant going against her wishes. He’d already compromised himself and his company by waiting this long to come after her.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say no.
“Okay, but just until day after tomorrow.” He couldn’t believe the words actually passed his lips, even when her eyes lit up with delight and relief.
She grabbed him in an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you! Thank you! I can even meet up with you on my way home so it really looks like you caught me.”
Derek tried not to notice how good her rain-damp hair smelled when it brushed against his face or the softness of her tits pressing through the thick knit of her sweater. Fuck, what had he gotten himself into? “I’m not going anywhere.”
Alyssa stiffened, released her hold on his shoulders, and took a step back. “Why would you want to stay?”
“Want has nothing to do with it,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you sneak off again.”
“I won’t! I promise I’ll be back on Thursday, but you can’t expect me to relax with you here.”
“It’s a big house. Ignore me.” But he could feel the warmth of her small, tense body, even from several feet away. Even in a house this size, he wouldn’t be able to ignore her.
She arched a light brown eyebrow at him. “You really think that’s possible?” Her gaze slid down his body. Sexual heat poured from it like a caress, and he felt it the same as if she’d reached out and stroked his cock. “Suit yourself,” she said, straightening to her full height and turning away. He watched, mesmerized, as the dim gray light from the window haloed her. He couldn’t see a single curve of her small body through her bulky outfit. But wool and canvas had never looked so sexy.
The reality of what he’d agreed to started to sink in. Two days alone with Alyssa. Alone in an isolated beach house, with no one around to see what they were up to. Alone with a spoiled woman child who twisted him up in knots.
Fucking idiot. Screw the deal. He should load her in the car and haul her ass back home, no matter what he’d agreed to.
But he was a man of his word. He’d given her two days reprieve. Surely he could control himself for that long, no matter how bad she got to him.
She wasn’t there. Martin Fish stood on the corner across the street from Alyssa’s house, glaring as the door closed behind a mousy brunette. Even though he couldn’t make out her features, he knew the jean-clad butt was about two sizes too wide to belong to Alyssa.
His head pounded, and his vision blurred. Fuck, he needed a bed. And a drink. A woman in a trench coat tapped by on high heels, giving him a wary look and a wide berth as she passed.
He didn’t give a fuck that he looked like a degenerate, having come straight from the airport to Alyssa’s house. He didn’t care about his wrinkled clothes or the jungle stink that still clung to him. He just wanted to get to Alyssa.
But she wasn’t fucking there. He’d heard the photographers lining the sidewalk outside her house say they hadn’t seen her since yesterday, not even a glimpse of her moving around the apartment. Disappointment had flooded through him, combining with fatigue to make him slump to the sidewalk. Just in case, Martin had hung around for hours, waiting for her to appear so he could seize an opportunity to talk to her. But the only person he’d seen going in or out was the fat ass.
He rubbed at his tired, gritty eyes, and as he turned, he caught his reflection in a window. Lean and gaunt in his jeans and canvas jacket. Hair lank and flattened to his head with rain. He looked dirty and disreputable, like a homeless person.
He realized, in a jolt of clarity, how close he’d been to fucking this all up. Did he really think he could get past her entourage and security to get to her? There was an article this morning about her uncle hiring some bodyguard to watch her. Martin wasn’t thinking right. No way anyone would let him get close.
There was a better way. Play this right, and Alyssa would come to him.
Blood. It was everywhere. Down the stairs like a torrent. Slicking the floor of the marble entryway. Alyssa struggled up the stairs, pulling herself along the banister as it rushed past her, threatening to sweep her away in a thick red flood. The gamey metallic odor filled her nostrils as she continued down the hall. The blood was up around her knees now as she waded down the hall. The door to the master bedroom pulsed, haloed in white light.
She didn’t want to open it. She wanted to run away, but when she tried to turn, her feet were bogged down, sucked into thick, blood-black mud.
She opened the door, and the blood hit her like a wave, washing over her, soaking her, receding like the tide.
They were on the floor, the wound in her father’s chest still gushing, pumping like a geyser. And her stepmother across from him, her face stretched in a deathly grimace as blood poured from the wound in her head.
Alyssa’s mouth opened in a scream, but the sound strangled in her throat, hissing, high-pitched. She stumbled to the French doors onto the balcony. A man was there, big, hulking, his features indistinguishable. But there was no mistaking the gun in his hand as he turned it on her.
“No. Stop!” But her words were garbled, and the cold barrel of the gun pressed into her chest. “Stop it.”
“You can’t expect it to stop now.” The words, the voice, were Derek’s.
She sat up with a cry, heart pounding, body shaking in the aftermath of the nightmare. The dark was absolute, smothering as Alyssa struggled to get air into her lungs. She fumbled for the bedside lamp and switched it on.
The dim light seared her eyeballs as sharp pain stabbed her head, and nausea roiled in her stomach. The dreams about her father’s death were growing more violent, and now when she woke she always had a piercing headache. Like something was stabbing, probing at her brain, digging around as it tried to get her to remember something.
She put her head in her hands and rubbed at her temples. Despite what she’d said to the reporter, she’d been able to brush off the dreams as nightmares. Horrible, violent, but ultimately meaningless.
Then yesterday she’d received the mysterious text message from someone claiming to know the truth about her father’s death. Probably just a malicious prank, but it unnerved her just the same.
And to top it all off, Derek had shown up, blowing apart her tenuous peace. Denying her even a few days of quiet before she was forced to return home to the storm.
Ignore him. Her head throbbed. As if. Even asleep two doors down, she could feel his presence. He’d barely spoken to her all afternoon, ignoring her in favor of the books he’d found in her friend Raj’s bookshelves and, later, a movie he’d found on cable. She, in contrast, had been on high alert, every cell aware of his presence on the other end of the couch.
They were completely alone. If anything happened between them, no one would ever have to know. The thought tormented, tantalized her until she had to excuse herself before she did something really dumb like throw herself at him. Again.
The words he spoke in her dream, echoing what he’d said in the coffee place, played through her head, bringing on a fresh wave of pain. She walked on shaky legs to the bathroom, unable to shake the creepy, unsettled feel that lingered from her dream.
She rummaged through her toiletry bag, squinting and cursing as she tried to locate her bottle of ibuprofen. Finally she laid her hands on it and popped the top.
“Everything okay?”
She jumped and shrieked, sending little red pills skittering across the tile counter. She bent to retrieve them, her balance wavering as blinding pain shot through her head. As she stood up her elbow knocked into the glass next to the sink. She made a fumbling grab, watching helplessly as it tumbled, end over end, slamming against the toilet and exploding into millions of shards.
Muzzy-headed from her nightmare and stabbing headache, Alyssa stepped forward, even as Derek shouted for her to look out.
Too late. A sharp pain pierced the sole of her foot, and she started to stumble. Derek cursed and grabbed her under the arms, snatched her off her feet, and carried her into the kitchen.
He snapped on the light and set her down in a kitchen chair. “Don’t move,” he said, his face set in stern lines. “Do you know if this place has a first-aid kit?”
“Raj keeps one under the sink of the bathroom,” she called to his already retreating back. “Be careful not to cut yourself!” The overhead kitchen light did nothing to help her headache, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Can you see if you can salvage any of my Advil while you’re in there?”
He returned a few moments later, first-aid kit in one hand and her mostly empty bottle of ibuprofen in the other. She grabbed the bottle from him and shook out two pills, so eager for the relief they’d provide she swallowed them without water. Probably just a placebo effect, but the minute the pills hit her tongue she felt the pain in her head ease
.
She opened her eyes and saw him watching her. His gaze slid meaningfully to the pill bottle in her hand.
“If you need something stronger, you don’t need to fake it with Advil on my account.” He pulled up a chair across from her, sat down, and lifted her bare foot up onto his lap. He was wearing only a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, his thickly muscled chest bare. Even through her headachy haze she was struck by how gorgeous he was. She’d been with some really good-looking men, actors, performers—men who kept their bodies in perfect condition because their careers depended on it.
He lifted her foot to the light, his muscles rippling under tight, tan skin. A few scars, light streaks against his sun-darkened skin, showed through a dusting of hair that arrowed down his eight-pack abs. An arrow that led to one of the most impressive pieces of equipment she’d ever had the pleasure to encounter; Derek made the hottest men in Hollywood look like a bunch of metrosexual wusses.
So mesmerized was she that it took a few seconds for his words to sink in. “I’m not faking it with Advil. Even if I wanted something stronger for my headache, I don’t have anything in the house.”
He glanced up from her foot, the look in his eyes one of patent disbelief.
“It’s true,” she said, trying to snatch her foot back. He tightened his grip on her ankle, not enough to hurt, but enough to let her know she wasn’t going anywhere until he let her. A shiver of warmth snaked up her leg, penetrating through the pain of her headache. “Go look for yourself. I don’t have any OxyContin or horse tranquilizer or whatever else you all seem to think I’m on.”
“I was there when you got the lab results,” he said, extracting a pair of tweezers from the first-aid kit.
“And I told you I don’t know how they got in my system!” She winced as he probed with the tweezers. “Ouch! Are you trying to cripple me?”