“I gave you everything,” she snapped, cutting him off. “And you made it clear that you didn’t want it, Alex. Now it’s too late.”
He stumbled back a step, unable to believe she wasn’t even going to give him a chance to talk to her. “So that’s it? You don’t even want to hear what I have to say?”
Her expression was so cold it looked glacial, and he wondered for a moment if that was how he always appeared to other people. Like a cold-ass bastard who didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone.
He opened his mouth, no idea what to say to her. He was lost, drowning in regret, until a desperate spark of hope suddenly flared in his chest when he caught a vibrant, anguished flash in her eyes. It looked as raw and sharp and powerful as his own raging need was for her—but then it was gone in an instant, wiped out of existence by a blink of her lashes. She lifted her chin, and with her low voice completely devoid of emotion, she said, “I’m sorry, but I won’t let you destroy me the way that you let your ex destroy you. I’m getting out now, before you can do any more damage. I’m just not brave enough to take any more risks with you.”
Uh . . . yeah. He opened his mouth again, but was no more successful getting words out this time than he’d been a few seconds ago. He was fucking dying inside, but what the hell could he say to that?
Nothing, you idiot. You blew it.
Rubbing at the center of his chest, Alex turned around and practically staggered back to the Rover, only distantly aware of her shutting the door behind him. He was dizzy with heartbreak, his fucking chest feeling like it was caving in. He couldn’t believe he’d had something so wonderful just that morning, but had lost it. Just shit all over it and destroyed it. He’d survived emotional blows before, but never one like this. He truly didn’t know how he was going to pick himself up now that he’d found the one woman he fucking knew, with every part of his being, was meant to be with him, and lost her.
Opening his door, he started to climb behind the wheel, sucking in shuddering breaths, trying not to bawl like a jackass in the middle of her driveway. He just . . . he just didn’t fucking get it. Yeah, he knew there was a chance she would kick his ass out after he’d said everything he’d come to say. But he hadn’t reckoned on her not even giving him a chance to talk to her.
I’m just not brave enough . . .
Standing there braced in the open driver’s side door, Alex ran his tongue over his front teeth, letting those words work deeper into his head. There was something that just wasn’t . . . right, damn it. Because Brit Cramer wasn’t a coward. She was a damn goddess. An Amazon. One of the bravest fucking people he’d ever known. So then what the hell was her problem?
He turned his head, staring back at the silent house, and a trickle of unease started to slip its way down his spine as he thought about her last words . . . and that devastating look of need that had flashed on her pale face before she’d killed it. Oh, God. Oh, shit, he thought, as his worst nightmares started crashing into his head with the force of a hammer. Working on autopilot, he reached across the center console and grabbed his spare gun from his glove compartment. Tucking the gun into his waistband at his lower back, he carefully shut the door on the Rover and made his way into the thickening shadows by the garage. Taking his cell phone from his pocket, he scrolled for Ben’s number, then started making his way around the side of her house, careful to duck beneath the windows, as he waited for his brother to answer.
When he did, Ben’s deep voice was rough with worry. “Alex, I was just getting ready to call you.”
“Where the hell is Shepherd?” he quietly snarled, careful to keep his voice low as he made his way toward the French doors he knew would give him his best view inside the house.
“You’re not gonna believe this shit,” Ben muttered. “Shepherd started complaining of chest pains, and an ambulance was called. The medics said he needed to go to the hospital, and the fucking thing was involved in an accident on the way. In the middle of the chaos, Shepherd slipped away and got a gun off one of the deputies who was riding with him.”
Leaning against the back of the house, Alex closed his eyes for a moment and silently cursed like a motherfucker, so furious he wanted to . . . to . . . Shit, he didn’t want anything in that moment but to know that Brit was safe. He hoped to God his instincts were wrong. That she was fine and just severely pissed off at him, instead of in trouble.
“Alex, you there?” Ben asked.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he muttered, opening his eyes and edging closer to her French doors.
“I’ve already got two deputies on their way over to Brit’s place. I know this sucks, but we’ll pick him up fast, Alex. He won’t get near her.”
“Too late,” he growled, his stomach plummeting as he peeked around the edge of the French doors. “I’m looking at him, Ben. Get your ass over to Brit’s now. He’s already inside with her.”
“Fuck!”
“Just hurry,” he grunted, ending the call and slipping the phone back in his pocket. He was careful to keep far enough back that he couldn’t be spotted by the asshole standing in Brit’s living room with a fucking gun in his hand, while she stood just a few feet away from him, bleached with fear.
Reaching for the gun at his lower back, Alex focused on breathing in and out in a slow, deliberate rhythm, fighting against the terror and rage coiling through his insides, knowing he couldn’t let them take hold. He needed to be numb, damn it. Cold. Or he was never going to make it through this. Anger and fear were only going to make him stupid, and he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. Not when her fucking life was on the line. Which meant he would have to wait until later to lose his shit over the way she’d just purposefully tried to send him away. He didn’t have any doubt that she’d done it in order to protect him, and it made him want to shake some sense into her until she promised to never do anything that crazy again.
Getting as close to the glass as he dared, he could just make out what they were saying to each other.
“How did you get the code to my alarm? Was it in my office?” Brit asked, her soft voice rough with fear.
Shepherd’s voice, on the other hand, was cocky with confidence, as if he’d finally gotten exactly what he wanted and couldn’t wait to enjoy his spoils. “No. It was even easier than that, Dr. Cramer. I just stood in your backyard the other night and used a pair of binoculars to watch through your French doors as you came inside and punched in your code.”
“Which night was this?”
“Sunday night,” Shepherd muttered, “when you came here with that cop bastard you just sent away.”
“He’s not a cop, Clay. He’s a private investigator.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“You don’t even know him,” she snapped, and Alex was glad to see the rush of color burning in her cheeks. He didn’t want her doing anything to antagonize her former patient, but he’d rather see her angry than afraid.
“I know he’s a dumbass and that I hate him.” Shepherd’s voice got eerily quiet as he stepped closer to her, making it difficult to hear him. But Alex could just make out his chilling words as he said, “I almost hate you for letting him touch you.”
Alex exhaled in an audible rush, knowing damn well that the safest thing to do was wait for backup. But he didn’t know how long he would be able to hold back while she was in there with that raging psychopath.
Shepherd’s next words made it clear he wouldn’t be able to wait long at all.
“Enough stalling, Dr. Cramer. I’ve waited long enough. Take off your clothes for me.”
Alex’s fingers tightened around his gun until he was surprised the metal didn’t give way under the pressure. He had to go in now, without the others, and hope to God he could get her out without her getting hurt.
With his free hand, he reached for the door handle, listening as Brit said, “No, I won’t do it.”
&
nbsp; “You’ll do it or you’ll die,” Shepherd argued.
“Then you’ll have to kill me, Clay. Are you really willing to do that? You want to watch me bleed out from a bullet wound?”
“No, I don’t want you to die,” Shepherd said unsteadily, sounding confused . . . and distressed. “I just want your tears and your pleasure. I just want you to look up at me and truly see me for what I am. Your perfect partner. The devil to your angel. Hell to your heaven. Sin to your salvation. You are so perfect and I love you! Don’t you see this is the only way I know how to show you?”
Sending up a silent prayer of thanks that the door was unlocked, Alex slowly opened it until he could squeeze in, the heated argument taking place in the living room keeping Brit and Shepherd from noticing his entry. He left the door ajar as he aimed his gun at Shepherd and eased toward them, making his way around her dining table.
“Shepherd,” he said in a firm voice, when no more than fifteen feet separated them, “I want you to step away from her.”
They both swung toward him with expressions of shock, but while Brit’s was edged with soul-shredding terror, Shepherd’s face had a maniacal cast to it that said the guy had lost his grip on reality long ago.
Now that he was standing in the same room with him, Alex could see that the asshole wasn’t what he’d expected. He also could see why Brit had held such empathy for the young man. When you looked at Clay Shepherd, with his slight frame and shaggy hair, you could still see the shattered teenager who’d had his life stolen from him so cruelly by the ones who were meant to protect him. An adolescent who had been twisted into something even Shepherd himself didn’t know how to handle. He was hurting, and in his pain he was trying to find relief. But it was just too fucking late.
Still, that didn’t mean that Alex wanted to have to kill him. He could see now that the best place for this guy was a high-security psych ward, where he couldn’t hurt anyone else . . . or himself.
Inching closer to where they stood, he said, “Shepherd, I need you to put the gun down. If you do that for me, then everything’s going to be okay.”
“Alex, what are you doing?” Brit whispered. Her beautiful face was stiff with fear as she stared at him, tears running unchecked from her glittering eyes.
“Shh. Just stay calm, Doc. I swear it’s going to be all right.”
Shepherd’s gaze was darting between them, and Alex wanted to fucking roar when she said, “Clay, just ignore him. Just keep your focus on me, okay? We can work this out.”
“No!” Shepherd shouted, his arm trembling as he tried to keep the gun trained on her in the middle of his breakdown. “He’s just going to try and take you away from me, but I won’t let him. I’ll never let him have you!”
Forcing his words through his clenched teeth, Alex said, “I don’t want to shoot you, Clay, but I will if I have to. I can’t let you hurt her.”
“But I have to,” he cried, shaking. “I love her! I have to show her!” Swinging the gun toward Alex, he said, “I won’t let you take her. I’ll blow your fucking brains out before I let you take her!”
“No!” she gasped, holding her hands up, as if she were surrendering. Alex’s insides froze when he realized that’s exactly what she was doing. “I’ll go with you,” she choked out. “Are you listening to me, Clay? I’ll go with you and do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him.”
Turning his head toward her, Shepherd blinked in confusion. “You care about him that much?”
Trying to get Shepherd’s focus back on him, hoping like hell that Ben and the others hurried up and got there, Alex started talking in a calm, even tone. “It was a setup, wasn’t it, Shepherd? The thing up at your school. It was your way of getting close to her again. Am I right?”
Shepherd shook his head as he looked at Alex again, as if he was trying to quiet something raging inside his skull. Then he laughed. “Bet you think you’re smart for figuring that one out.”
“How did you do it?” Alex asked, hoping he could keep the guy talking.
Shepherd shrugged his slender shoulders. “It was surprisingly easy. There are so many people willing to do horrible things for money. You just have to make them the right offer.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, man. But you know Dr. Cramer only wants what’s best for you, right?”
Shepherd’s brown eyes gleamed with his madness. “She will, once I’m done with her.”
“She isn’t yours to hurt, Clay.”
Still holding his gun on Alex, Shepherd slid his calculating gaze over to Brit. “She will be. I love her, and so it’s up to me to fix her.”
Brit’s voice was steady as she held Shepherd’s stare. “Those aren’t your thoughts, Clay. Those are your mother’s.”
He went on as if he hadn’t even heard her, his eyes going glassy and wild again. “Don’t you see? Hurting you is the only way to break through the masks so that you can truly see. Pain is the most pure form of emotion that exists in our world, so easily created . . . and manipulated. And with the right person, it can make us new. Enable us to transcend all this earthly shit and chaos that doesn’t mean anything, until we find a plane where the only thing that matters is me . . . and you. Where we can be together, for always.”
“Clay,” she said softly, “when you care about someone, it isn’t natural to want to hurt them.”
“Isn’t it though? You were upset when you came home tonight.” He swung his wild gaze back to Alex. “Is that because you hurt her?”
Oh, Christ. Alex felt like someone had just reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. He knew he’d just gone as pale as Brit, and Shepherd laughed as he glanced her way, a knowing smile curling his lips. “Open your eyes, Dr. Cramer. People are always hurting one another. Man is flawed. We can’t help our true nature. All we can do is try to accept it, and make it beautiful.”
“No,” she whispered. “I refuse to believe that, Clay.”
Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Then I’ll make you believe it,” and his finger started to tighten on the trigger of his gun. Left with no other choice, Alex fired into Shepherd’s shoulder, the impact of the bullet jerking the young man to the side, but he amazingly kept hold of the gun. Brit was screaming, and Alex was ready to fire another shot, when she threw herself at Shepherd’s gun arm, trying to wrest the weapon away from him.
“No!” she screamed, clawing and hitting his arm. “I won’t let you hurt him, Clay! Don’t you dare fucking hurt him!”
Alex shouted for her to get the hell away, so that he could get a clear shot, just as Shepherd jerked the gun up, slamming it into Brit’s temple. She staggered back, dazed, but stayed on her feet, still standing between the two of them. Alex shifted to the side, ready to take another shot at the guy, but Shepherd had lowered the gun, his shocked gaze locked in hard and tight on Brit.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered, glancing at her gashed temple, before looking back at her eyes. “Why would you do that? Why would you risk yourself for him that way?”
“Because I love him,” she said, at the same time Alex barked for her to get behind him—an order she ignored. He didn’t know what she’d been thinking, but he was going to spank her beautiful ass for putting herself at risk like that—because of him, no less—just as soon as this was over.
“You love him?” Shepherd asked in a broken voice, while tears streamed from his eyes, his body shaking with bone-jarring tremors.
“Clay, I’m sorry,” she said softly . . . gently. “I know you’re hurting, but it’s the truth. I love him, and if you hurt him, it will kill me. I won’t be the same person you’ve known. I won’t be. I’ll be dead inside.”
Blinking against the tears in his eyes, Shepherd said, “I didn’t know. I thought you were just fucking him. That it was all in your head. It’s always all in a woman’s head. How can you love him?”
“Because he’s
mine,” she told him, making pride surge through Alex in a dizzying rush. “And he’s so many different things that I need. That I can’t live without.”
A sob broke from the guy’s throat. “This changes everything.”
“Clay,” she started to say, but he cut her off.
“I hope you know how lucky you are,” he whispered, looking at Alex. Then he lifted the gun to his temple and fired, his body slumping to the ground as what was left of his head bled out over the floor.
Fuck, Alex thought, lunging toward Brit. She swayed, nearly falling to the floor, and he knew she was in shock. Scooping her boneless body up into his arms, he clutched her against his chest as he carried her outside, away from the gore and the stench of death.
Sitting on the edge of a patio chair, he cradled her against his chest as he rocked her back and forth, the side of his face pressed to the top of her head. His insides ached, and he knew he was going to be shredded for God only knew how long by what she’d tried to sacrifice. By the way she’d actually tried to send him away, leaving herself at the mercy of that psychopath, just to keep his own ass out of danger. Then putting herself between them and trying to get control of Shepherd’s gun. What the fuck had she been thinking? Didn’t she know that losing her would have killed him anyway? Gutted him to the bone?
If anything had happened to her, Alex knew there would have been no coming back from it. He would have been ripped open and emptied, left as nothing but a shell, and the churning desire he still felt to spank her little backside for taking such an ungodly risk with her own life was almost too much to control. Only the fact that she was shivering in shock in his arms helped him keep it together.
But when she was better, so help her, there was going to be hell to pay.
Right now, though, he was quickly getting lost in a soul-searing sense of relief that pervaded every cell of his body, pumping through his veins like a fever. He couldn’t stop the tears running down his face now that she was safe in his arms, and he didn’t even try as he spoke to her in a raw, broken voice that he prayed she could hear through her shock.
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