“Look, I’m going to make the calls, and then I’m going to come there—to the house.”
“Why?” Suspicion made me tense up.
“I’ll bring food and whatever other essentials you may need, and I just want to check on Evangeline.”
Yeah, right. It was more like he was coming here to check on me and make sure that I wasn’t dirtying up his precious little friend.
“I gotta go. Call when you have something useful to say.” And then I hung up and tossed the phone on the couch. I turned around to pace and ran right into Evangeline.
She was tousled looking, and I actually felt myself starting to sweat because she was sleepy and sexy, and I had an overwhelming need to take her back to bed and make love to her again. Only this time it would be slow and sweet.
I was totally screwed.
I could hear Sebastian’s voice in my head—the tone, the condemnation—and knew what I had to do.
“All of the blinds are closed, and they need to stay that way. Curtains too. Sebastian’s going to come by today. He’s going to bring food and supplies and whatnot. Until he gets here, just stay out of sight. Understand?” My tone was firm, businesslike, and I could see instantly that she was hurt by it.
It was the right thing for me to do.
No matter how much it sucked.
She walked further into the room and stopped a few feet away from me. “What’s going on? Did...did I do something wrong?” The vulnerability in her voice, the slight tremor, coupled with the way she looked almost did me in.
“It’s another day,” I said, softening my tone a bit. “I...I have to focus on finding the person who’s stalking you. I can’t...I can’t do this with you.”
“But last night—”
“Was last night,” I said, effectively cutting her off. “It can’t be more than that. I need to do my job so you can get back to yours.”
She took a step back. “Oh. Okay.”
But I knew it wasn’t. I knew she wasn’t used to this sort of thing. The guys in her life probably catered to her and were all about the morning after and talks of the future. Better she should realize now that it was not like that with us—and it was never going to be like that.
And damn if that didn’t disappoint me.
“You need to go and shower and get cleaned up. If Sebastian sees you like that he’ll freak out.”
Right before my eyes, she transformed. Gone was the vulnerability from a moment ago, and in its place was a hint of a tigress.
“And you don’t want him seeing that you touched his pristine little friend with your low-life hands?” She arched a brow and crossed her arms over her chest as she threw my words to Sebastian back at me.
I smirked. “Yeah. Something like that.”
I guess she liked the fact that I didn’t try to lie or make an excuse for what I’d said. She relaxed her stance a bit and took a step toward me again. “Cole, listen. I—”
“Really, Evangeline, you need to go and get ready. I have no idea how soon before Sebastian arrives.”
“But I just wanted to—”
“I have calls to make,” I interrupted and reached over and picked up my phone and strode from the room. I didn’t know what she wanted to say and if I stayed that close to her any longer, it wouldn’t matter what she wanted to say because I would have taken her again—right there on the living room floor.
No matter how pristine she was.
And no matter how wrong it really was.
Nine
Evangeline
Cole was making a last-ditch effort to be professional.
I could understand. This was his job, and he must pride himself on being good at it. Screwing a client was hardly the way to get a gold-star in the bodyguard hall of fame. So, when he backed off this morning and acted all cool and aloof, I knew exactly where it was coming from.
At first, his quick turnaround might have hurt my feelings a bit, but then I’d thought it through. Now, it was annoying, but understandable.
It didn’t discourage me at all. Sex with Cole was the best sex I’d ever had in my life, and it would be unforgivably stupid to assume it was just a one-(or four)-time thing. I wasn’t dreaming this was love eternal or anything silly like that, but what Cole and I had going was just too good to let go.
So he could pretend to be professional all he wanted. I definitely didn’t want him distracted from catching this stalker, after all. But, as soon as it wasn’t a crisis situation anymore, I was definitely going to get him in bed again.
I knew he wanted me too, so it wouldn’t be too hard to maneuver.
So I was feeling better than I had before about life in general when Sebastian came over a half-hour later. I was finishing getting dressed when he arrived, and when I came out he and Cole were talking over coffee.
The look Cole shot me was very hands-off, so I went over to hug Sebastian and then just gave Cole a cool look. “So what’s the plan?” I asked, looking from man to man.
They were both strong, intelligent, and exceptionally competent. If a woman was going to be safe from a stalker, I was.
“That’s under discussion,” Sebastian said, smiling at me. “Cole thinks you should stay here.”
I glanced over at Cole, who was giving me a mild form of his glower. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that. What are you guys going to do?”
“Seb can stay here with you, and I can get out there and catch this asshole.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Naturally, now he wanted to get as far away from me as possible. “Do you have a plan for catching the asshole?”
“I’ve got some ideas.”
I looked back to Sebastian. “Are they good ideas?”
Cole bristled visibly at the implications of my question, but I ignored him. I could act just as standoffish as he could, after all.
Sebastian gave a half-shrug. “Eh. All we can do at this point is stab around in the dark.”
“We need to draw the stalker out, then,” I said, realizing what the problem was, why the both men were acting wary. “If I’m cooped up in this safe house, then all you can do is fumble around and hope you land on something. I need to get back out on set, don’t I?”
Cole and Sebastian looked at each other before they both looked at me.
“Your safety is our primary concern,” Sebastian said. “You’ll be safer if you stay here.”
“Yeah. Probably. But you don’t even have any leads on his identity yet, do you?” I looked from one to the other and saw the answer on their faces. “So I might be safe here, but this thing will never end.”
“It will end. We’ll catch him one way or the other.” That was Cole, and he was still bristling, but it looked like it was with defensiveness now, a muscle rippling with tension in his jaw.
“But you’ll be more likely to catch him if I’m out there, so he can make another move.”
“We’re not going to put you in danger.”
“I assume you’ll keep me safe, wherever I am.”
“Absolutely.” Cole’s eyes met mine, and it felt like we were alone in the room, alone in the world.
“So I’ll get back on set so we can get this thing over with.” I nodded, anxious about the idea of being vulnerable again—at the memory of those dead rats in my bathroom—but I wasn’t going to be a coward, and I really wanted to get this over with.
Now, more than ever.
“It’s her decision,” Sebastian put in, when it looked like Cole might argue.
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m the client. I make the decisions here. I’m due back on set this afternoon, so that’s what I’ll do. I can stay here at night, if it’s okay, though. I don’t really want to go back to that apartment.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Sebastian said, and even Cole finally nodded.
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “I need to go prepare for a couple of scenes. You all figure out a plan to take care of this guy, and make sure it’s a good one.”
/> ***
I was primed for danger at every turn that afternoon, so it was a little anticlimactic when nothing happened.
The scenes we were filming were actually really hard—they demanded a gritty, bleak kind of emotion I wasn’t at all used to conveying—so I had to focus completely on the work. In every downtime, I would suddenly remember that the stalker might be around, and I’d search the set for signs of trouble. Cole and Sebastian were both always around, and honestly I’d be intimidated if I was a stalker trying to sneak around those two.
Maybe they scared the guy off. Or maybe he wasn’t planning anything for today. One way or the other, the afternoon ended, and I was getting changed after the last shot of the day, and there was no sign of anything gruesome or scary.
I tensed up when there was a knock on the door, but it was just Janelle, delivering some scene notes from the director.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling in relief that it was just the harmless assistant in her jeans and sweatshirt.
“You did really good today,” she said, her blue eyes wide and sincere. “It was really great. I was almost in tears, watching.”
That kind of compliment was always going to feel good. I smiled again, more sincerely this time. “Thanks. It’s a really challenging role, but I’m glad I decided to do it.”
“Me too. It will be great for the world to see how much range you really have.”
“Yeah.” I was used to everyone assuming I could only sing, dance, and look sexy, so it was nice to have someone recognize that I might actually have a little real talent hiding away somewhere. “Hopefully, it will turn out well.”
“It reminded me of that episode in Paris—from the second season. Remember? When your friend almost died?”
I blinked, thinking back through the years to the cable show I’d been on and the special serious episode that was supposed to be a tear-jerker. “Good memory,” I said. “It did kind of feel like that.” Only not so fake and over-the-top.
“Matt couldn’t keep his eyes off of you.”
It took me a minute to remember that Matt was another assistant of Pete’s. He was rather geeky young man who never said much.
Maybe it wasn’t unusual for a guy to be attracted to me, but for some reason the idea of Matt standing around mooning about me was a little creepy.
Maybe he was the stalker. I’d mention it to Cole.
“Any progress with finding...” Janelle trailed off, evidently hesitating about bringing the subject up with me.
Maybe it was a little presumptuous, but I didn’t care. “Not yet. But I’ve got a good team on the job.”
“Yeah. I guess so. You know, it might be nothing, but Malcolm has been acting kind of strange this week. Skulking around and stuff.”
I felt a little sliver of fear—not really fear for my safety but fear that someone I trusted as much as Malcolm could have been acting against me all this time. It was a horrifying thought.
I’d always liked Malcolm. I really didn’t want it to be him.
I didn’t want it to be anyone I knew and trusted. It was much easier to think it was someone like Matt.
But it had to be someone with connections to people I knew, or they never could have gotten access to all the places they had. But maybe Matt could access all of the places himself. It was possible.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” I said with another smile, when I realized Janelle was waiting for an answer. “Malcolm was supposed to be checking things out here, so I’m sure that’s what he was doing. Thanks for these.” I gestured with the script notes she’d handed me earlier.
“Sure thing.” She waved and smiled, walking out of the room, and I was left thinking about all the people I trusted, about which of them I might have been wrong about.
***
Cole and I drove back to the Maxwell house after we left the set. It was a long drive, but it was worth it to me to feel safe, which I wouldn’t have felt at a hotel or at that apartment.
He was quiet. Much quieter than usual. I tried to make some casual conversation, but it was like trying to talk to a stone.
Finally, I shook my head and stared at him. “Since when is talking off the table.”
“What?” He looked at me for real for the first time, obviously surprised by my words. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know sex is off the table for now, but since when is talking off the table too? Or do you think that talking to me is so irresistible that you’ll immediately be seduced out of your pants?”
I was rewarded for this sally by a moment of conflicted emotion on his face—half-annoyance and half-amusement. Amusement evidently won because he relaxed slightly. “I think my pants are safe for now.”
“That’s what you think. I’m good at seducing men out of their pants.”
“I bet you are. But that’s not going to happen again.”
The words weren’t flirtatious. In fact, they were slightly grumpy. But they felt familiar. Like they were really him—which I hadn’t been feeling from him all day.
Because he felt more like himself, I took the risk of asking, “So what were you brooding about just now?”
He gave a little twitch of surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“You were brooding. I know when a guy is brooding, and you were definitely at it just now. I was wondering why. What were you thinking about?”
He just gave a half-shrug, obviously not inclined to open up.
I wasn’t discouraged. In fact, I kind of liked the challenge. “Surely you weren’t brooding about how hung up on me you are, beating yourself up for giving into your raging desire only to suffer now as you try to hold yourself back.”
He blinked. Then made a choked sound.
I really couldn’t tell if he was laughing or if I’d somehow managed to hit home. I really liked the idea of him wanting me that much, but there wasn’t much sign of it at the minute.
“But seriously,” I continued, “what were you thinking about?”
He sighed and leaned back in his seat slightly, staring out his window. “Gavin.”
I knew who Gavin was—his friend who had died in action. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Did something happen to bring him up?”
“Just that they’ve finally finished the report on the accident, and we’re supposed to go hear the findings, if we want.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good, right? It will help to have some sort of closure, won’t it?”
“I guess.”
I was worried by the tension on his face, and I lifted a hand to stroke his cheek. “Why wouldn’t it help?”
He leaned for just a moment into my hand, before he pulled away. “It depends on what they say.”
“You think they’re going to say something you don’t want to hear?”
“I know they will.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad. It wasn’t your fault, after all.”
“Wasn’t it?”
My heart was racing, and I wanted to shake the shuddering of guilt out of him, since I somehow knew it was irrational. “You said it was an accident. Those things happen. They’re terrible, but they happen. You can’t beat yourself up about it.”
But he could. I could see he was already beating himself up about it, and if he heard anything that implied he could have done something different, something to keep the accident from happening, then he would continue to beat himself up about it for the rest of his life.
Maybe it was better to not know, than to know for sure you could have done better.
I had no idea what to say, but I wanted to make him feel better, so I scooted over in the backseat and wrapped my arms around him in a soft hug. “I don’t think it was your fault, Cole.”
He didn’t pull out of my embrace. In fact, he wrapped one arm around me to pull me closer. “What do you know?” he muttered. The words sounded rather rude, but I could feel that he was taking comfort from me, so I wasn’t offended.
<
br /> “I know just as much as you know. Go to the meeting and hear what they say. Running away from it isn’t going to do any good.”
He made a grunt of a sound and tightened his arm.
I didn’t know if he was feeling better or if he was annoyed by my prying or what. But I felt confident, like I’d done the right thing.
And I sure wasn’t going to complain about being this close to him.
After a minute, I couldn’t resist anymore, so I stroked my hand up his hard chest, over his shirt. His body was firm and warm and rough, and it felt delicious against my hand. When I reached his jaw, I stroked the skin there, feeling the slight stubble against my palm.
He was gazing down at me like he could swallow me whole, and it made my entire body come alive.
I stretched up as he leaned down, and then we were kissing hungrily, needily, our tongues dueling with passionate urgency.
I was really getting into it—my body as well as my heart—when he pulled away abruptly. “We can’t do this,” he said gruffly. He was sweating slightly and looked visibly strained.
Also visibly aroused.
Panting and overly warm, I tried not to whimper in disappointment. When I caught my breath, I told myself not to argue or make a fuss. He was trying to be professional, which was admirable to a certain extent. Sex was a distraction, and he didn’t want to risk it.
That was okay. The moment this thing was over, he was going to be mine.
***
I woke up in the middle of the night, breathless and terrified.
It was a strange house—not my own—and it took a minute for me to orient myself.
I knew my fear wasn’t rational, but I couldn’t talk myself out of it, so I got up to go to the bathroom, hoping the distraction would help me relax.
It didn’t. So I left the bedroom and went to look for Cole.
He was right outside, sitting on a couch, and he jumped up when he saw me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I assured him, feeling stupid now that I was with him and had caught my breath. “I just woke up and felt kind of...anxious. I’m fine.”
I was just wearing a little nightgown, and I saw his eyes slip down a few times to run over my body. I knew he liked what he saw, and that made me a little excited too.
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