But she broke the spell a moment later when she bent back over the table, her fingers flying over the folders. Okay, well, he’d warned her. Whatever she’d been able to move in front of the door wouldn’t slow Finn down much. He put his shoulder against the door and shoved. The table scraped across the floor, and as soon as the opening was wide enough, Finn slipped inside.
She straightened, looking even more irritated now. “I have to check one more place.”
He shook his head. “No way. Let’s go.”
“Officer, I understand what you’re doing. But I promise you that I’m not going near the fire. I just need to—”
Enough of this. Finn stalked over to her, put a hand around her upper arm, and turned to remove her from the sound booth. And the building.
She dug her heels in, though, pulling against his hold. “Hey, you can’t—”
“Oh, yes I can,” he told her calmly, careful to keep his eyes off her body. The heat from her skin had immediately soaked through the thin robe, and Finn felt it traveling from his palm up his arm. “I’ve given you several opportunities to cooperate.”
“You’re arresting me?” she asked.
“Are you doing something that you need to be arrested for?” he asked, moving her toward the door, even with her resisting.
“No! I need to get something. It’s very important. It belongs to a friend of mine. It’s irreplaceable.”
“Ma’am,” he said calmly, “don’t make me carry you out of here.”
He really didn’t want to carry her out. That would involve touching a lot more of her. And the fact that she was barely clothed would become even more of an issue. As it was, he was far too aware of not only her body heat and how much skin was on display, but that the scent surrounding her was definitely lemony. And it was completely inappropriate to acknowledge how badly he wanted to take a really big, deep breath.
“You can’t give me two more minutes?” she asked.
“Absolutely not.” Finn took a risk and glanced at her. Then he gritted his teeth against the sheen in her eyes. It wasn’t as if he’d never had someone cry when he was trying to get them to do something they didn’t want to do. But sometimes it got to him and sometimes it didn’t. This time it did.
She pulled against his grip and leaned all her weight into fighting the forward motion across the room.
Well, shit. He’d kind of figured it would come to this, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to touch her more. Still, it didn’t look as if he had a lot of choice. Reminding himself that he was a professional, he bent and hooked an arm behind her knees, looped the other around her back, and lifted her.
She gasped, and for a moment she didn’t fight. And he thought maybe the hard part was over. But as he headed out the door, trying to ignore how warm and soft and fucking lemony she was, she started to wiggle.
* * *
“Knock it off.”
Sophie frowned up at the cop who was carrying her out of the theater. Carrying her. Out of her theater. “You can’t force me to leave.”
“The fuck if I can’t.”
Of course he could. Obviously. And she’d known going back in had been a stupid, risky thing to do, but she’d thought she’d known exactly where the script was.
She had to get that script.
Angela had finally finished it. And it was amazing. And it was handwritten on pink notebook paper with purple ink. And somewhere in the theater that was possibly burning down.
Sophie squirmed in the cop’s arms again. It was the only copy in the world. There was no way Angela could rewrite it if it burned. It had taken her over a year to write it in the first place.
The arms holding her tightened, and with a sigh Sophie gave up trying to get loose. The cop was far bigger and stronger. And under any other circumstances, she would have enjoyed being this close to him. A hot guy carrying her away from danger? Oh yeah, that was good stuff. If only carrying her from danger wasn’t also carrying her away from the most beautiful script she’d ever read, written by the woman who was the closest thing to a mother she’d ever had.
Sophie tamped down the swirling emotions that threatened to take over. She needed a plan, not panic. And if she was going to be carried away—literally—she might as well enjoy it. While she came up with what to do after he put her down.
She looked up at him. The cop had dark hair, cut very short, and dark eyes. With the lack of light, she couldn’t tell the exact color, but she felt their intensity. He had a strong jaw, because of course he did—just like all the great save-the-day heroes. He also had wide shoulders, large biceps, and big hands. Nice big hands.
She was acutely aware that she was pressed up against his solid, very warm chest. And that one of those big hands was curled around her thigh. Her bare thigh. Which reminded her of what she was wearing. Or what she wasn’t wearing. In act two she was in the bra, panties, and robe—until she slipped out of the robe just as the curtain came down. She’d been in the dressing room, about to pull her dress on for act three, when the alarm had gone off. She was smart enough to know that you got out when a fire alarm sounded. But as soon as she’d determined where the fire was and that the firefighters were on it, she’d truly thought she could slip back in, grab the script, and get out again without anyone knowing. No harm, no foul.
She’d kind of forgotten about her lack of clothing. As crazy as that sounded. She certainly wasn’t the type to run around in barely-there clothes, and definitely not in her underwear. It was the theater that made her forget the real world. And the wig. Sophie lifted her hand and touched the wig of straight black hair that covered her own blond waves. She really did love wigs and costumes. They allowed her to do all kinds of things she wouldn’t normally do.
The cop started for the front doors of the theater.
“Wait!”
He frowned down at her. “What?”
“How about the side door?” she asked. Maybe if she was cooperative and sweet, he’d let her down. And maybe relax a little. And then leave her alone once they were outside.
Then she could slip back into the costume shop, the only other place in the building where the script might be. She’d gone in through that room, but it hadn’t occurred to her to stop and look there. Angela had given it to her in the sound booth, saying it was finally done, but Sophie knew that Angie had sneaked it back and had been tinkering with it over the past couple of days. No matter how many times Sophie assured her that the script was wonderful, Angie was having a hard time letting it go.
“Why the side door?” he asked, but at least he’d stopped walking.
That was good. That was very good.
“Less attention. I don’t want to freak anyone out when they see me with the big, bad cop.”
He sighed. “If I was so big and bad, you’d be in handcuffs right now.”
Sophie felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her unexpectedly. Handcuffs, huh? Well, okay then. She cleared her throat. She must still be channeling her character Beth, Sophie decided. She wasn’t a handcuffs kind of girl—not in the bedroom and definitely not in the back of a squad car. She liked things peaceful and easy and very vanilla. She saved all her drama for the stage.
Well, she tried to, anyway. She worked really hard at it, in fact. The more boring things were in her real life, the happier she was.
So she needed to get away from the hot cop, convince him she was going to be good so he would leave her alone…and then be sneakier about getting back in here. This didn’t need to be any more dramatic than it already had been.
“Please.” She ran her hand up his chest, tapping into her flirtatious Beth on purpose now. “I’m sorry I was giving you a hard time. I know you’re just trying to keep me safe. Can we please go out the side door? I don’t want my friends to be worried.”
His dark brows pulled together, and his jaw tensed.
She’d always been excellent at reading people. Her father had taught her all about body language and tells. It had been impo
rtant in his…work.
Sophie almost rolled her eyes at even thinking of that word for Frank Birch’s way of going through life, but then she pushed all thoughts of her father and his cons out of her head. She’d left her dad and his shenanigans behind her a long time ago. But she’d never been able to stop studying people and figuring out their buttons. And it seemed that her hand on this guy’s chest was pushing one of his.
“Your friends should be worried about the fact that you thought coming back in here was a good idea.”
She ran her hand over his chest again, noting the hard muscles and the way he swallowed as she did it. She might be doing it to figure out how to get on his good side, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it. “Please,” she asked again, softer.
His gaze snapped to hers, and for an instant every plan and idea deserted her and she just stared up at him. Whoa. She had absolutely no urge to get away from him at all in that moment.
“Where’s the side door?” he finally asked.
She thought maybe his voice was a little gruffer now. She pointed. “That way.” But she didn’t look away from him.
Finally he was the one to break the staring contest. As he looked in the direction she’d indicated, Sophie mentally shook herself. Holy crap.
“Fine, we’ll go out the side door. But you’re going back to the front with the rest of the crowd, got it?”
She nodded. “Sure. Of course. But we can’t go out together.”
He sighed. “I have no idea why I’m going along with any of this, you know.”
Sophie bit back a smile. She thought maybe she knew. He was attracted to her. Attraction made people do crazy things. And he was rescuing her from a potentially dangerous situation. He was feeling protective of her, or at least responsible for her. So she was getting her way with him. That made her feel a little tingly.
He started toward the side door, and Sophie wondered if he’d noticed that she’d stopped fighting him. That was why he’d picked her up. And as much as she liked being in his arms, she needed to get her feet on the ground before she had a hope of losing him and sprinting for the costume shop.
“You can put me down,” she said. “I’m not struggling anymore.”
The hand on her thigh squeezed slightly. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“So…you don’t have to carry me.”
He glanced down at her. “You think I didn’t notice how quick you were to get sweet and friendly?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “So you don’t trust me?”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Lady, you ran from me, hid from me, pushed a table in front of a door to try to keep me out, and fought me every step—right up until you realized you couldn’t win that way.”
So she’d gotten agreeable too easily. Noted. She frowned. “Well, none of it slowed you down a bit. Why would I keep fighting once you picked me up?”
He hit the horizontal door handle with his hip. “It wasn’t that you stopped fighting that made me suspicious. It was that you got all…soft.”
They stepped out into the night as he said that last word, and Sophie was hit by the darkness and the gruffness of his voice all at once. Suddenly the moment felt very intimate.
She looked up at him, his face in shadows now. “Soft?” she asked.
“Yeah. You were feisty as hell to start. Then you went soft and sweet.” He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking the first is the real you. So I’m not trusting the soft and sweet, thank you very much.” He descended the four steps as if carrying another person around didn’t require an ounce of extra effort.
Sophie had no idea what to say to his observation.
Soft and sweet. That’s what she wanted to be. But that was the part he didn’t believe. Which was strange on two levels. One, she’d perfected being soft and sweet. For years she’d played the nice girl, the shy girl, the pleaser. Because that made people like her. Especially the women. The trusting, single or widowed, childless women her father had targeted, seduced, and married so he and his daughter had a place to live and someone to take care of them. Frank had blatantly used his sweet, young, motherless daughter to make them trust him and his whirlwind courtships. “Be sweet, Soph,” “Let her fuss over you,” “Tell her you love her.” Sophie could still hear his voice telling her to be a good girl or they’d end up back out on the street.
The thing was, she had loved them. All five of them. She’d loved having them fuss over her. The sweetness hadn’t always been an act. At least she didn’t think it had been. Though she would have done and said anything to stay in any one of those homes.
And now, all these years later, without her father using her to manipulate people, she wanted it to be real. She wanted to be kind and generous, to have people actually trust and love her without all the acting.
But this guy thought the feisty side was real. That was…annoying.
They got to the sidewalk, and the cop stopped. Sophie quickly shook off all her suddenly introspective thoughts. Where had that all come from? She thought she’d pushed all of that down deep a long time ago.
He let her legs go, her feet swinging to the ground. Then, when she was on her feet, he let go of her completely and stepped back.
Too bad. The thought flitted through her mind, completely unwanted. But it was colder when she wasn’t pressed up against him. She wrapped her light robe around her body and crossed her arms. “Well, thanks, I guess,” she told him.
“For saving your life? You got it,” he told her with a grin.
And she felt her pulse stutter. That grin. Thank God he hadn’t given it to her inside the theater, because now she really wanted to be nice and sweet to him. He could have her soft and sweet all night.
Sophie mentally slapped herself. And what was that? She wasn’t the type to go all mushy for big muscles and a great smile. She was way too cynical for love-at-first-sight or even lust-at-first-sight feelings. That stuff wasn’t real. You couldn’t know a person within a few minutes of meeting them, and you couldn’t trust someone you didn’t know. Hell, you couldn’t trust a lot of the people you did know.
“Yeah, for that, I guess,” she said with a shrug. Act cool, take it easy, let him relax.
Of course, she knew there was no way he was going to leave her on the sidewalk so close to the building. He was going to escort her across the street and behind the barricades. Fine. She’d go along. She’d be easy to get along with, do whatever he said, act contrite even. The sooner he turned his back, the better. Guys like this—the take-charge types that cops needed to be—liked when people just went along with whatever they said.
He seemed to kind of like your feisty side too.
Sophie told the stupid voice in her head to shut the hell up because that wasn’t helping at all.
They stood just looking at each other for another long moment. It might have been that each was waiting for the other to say or do something first. But Sophie thought it felt a bit like they were both stalling.
Stupid! Get your ass back in that building! She cleared her throat and shifted her weight on her feet.
He nodded, about what she wasn’t sure, and said, “I’m going to need you on the other side of the barricade.”
Right. Duh. She knew that. “Okay,” she said agreeably. Maybe too agreeably. He’d already said he didn’t trust her soft and sweet side. So she added a frown and a “whatever.”
She turned on her heel and walked toward the front corner of the building, mentally planning how to get to the edge of the crowd without her friends seeing her. Because the hot cop was right that they’d be concerned about her going back into the building. Especially Angie. She’d freak out if she knew Sophie had gone back.
Sophie wasn’t the type to risk her life for a thing. She knew very well that things came and went. Hell, people and relationships and feelings all came and went a lot of the time too. But the script was special. Besides, she didn’t have time for a lecture from any of her friends or fellow actors. She needed to
get back inside.
“Hey.”
The low, deep voice immediately made her turn. “Yeah?”
“Sorry about whatever you were looking for. But, you know, I had to get you out of there.” He seemed to actually mean it.
Sophie shrugged. “It was stupid for me to go back in.” That was honest, at least. She knew that it had been a risk. Not a huge one. She wasn’t an idiot. If the fire had been anywhere near where she’d needed to search, she never would have gone back in. But she knew that any of the other cops or firefighters would have done the same thing he had. And she was glad he’d been the one to come after her. Being held against him for a little bit had been nice.
“It was,” he agreed. “But I get it.”
Sophie’s eyebrows went up. “You do?”
“Sure.”
He didn’t strike her as the nostalgic type. But what did she know? She’d just met him. And he pegged you as feisty right away.
“Why did you say you think feisty is the real me?” she asked. Stupidly. She couldn’t stand around chatting. Plus, who cared why he’d said that? She was never going to see him again. And her feisty side was going to have to stay pushed way down deep anyway. She got that from her father, and she was staying far away from any and all Frank Birch influences now and forevermore.
“You were panicked and in a dangerous situation,” he answered. “People tend to be the most real in those moments. No time to filter your thoughts or actions. Just instinct and adrenaline.”
She nodded. That was all probably true. Though she was so programmed to put on a show that she wasn’t sure adrenaline and panic got to her the way they did to most people. She was shocked by how sad that thought made her.
“Are you okay?” the cop asked, stepping forward.
Sophie pulled herself together. She needed to stop talking to him for multiple reasons now—he was pushing her buttons too. She straightened and gave him a smile she knew looked totally sincere. She’d practiced it and used it since she was six. “Yep. I need to get back out front so you can go back to work.”
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