He and Ashley had never been close. He’d always wondered why, when they might have bonded over a common enemy, their stepfather. But from the beginning, the old man had treated Ashley differently. Not spoiled, by any means; she’d seen her fair share of discipline. But never the violent kind. That had been reserved for Clay.
Clay had been forced to conclude there was just something about him the old man had hated. Maybe his stepfather had seen Clay as a rival for his mother’s affections. But that would’ve meant that his mother had to be affectionate with him. And she’d never been that. He’d never mattered to her.
Still sore—and okay, maybe he should’ve rested more today—he lay on the couch with the TV remote and woke up sometime in the middle of the night. He grabbed his phone. Three thirty-seven. Could he take another week of this?
He sat up gingerly and headed for the fridge, then remembered he didn’t have any beer in the place. Barney’s was closed. Heck, he wasn’t supposed to drink with these pain meds, anyway.
But he needed...something. He was restless. He paced. Everything that had happened in recent months detonated in his mind, leaving fragments of depression, rage and misery bouncing around, still volatile.
Gabby trudging through the sweltering jungle with a smile. Or how she’d looked flushed with passion after he’d kissed her—right about where he was standing now. How she made him feel as if he...mattered.
That was a wild thought. He was a SEAL. What he did mattered. For a few more years, anyway. But Gabby...
Was she okay? What was she doing right now?
Sleeping, you moron.
Like a junkie needing a fix, he checked her Twitter page. Saw her most recent bank pun and smiled. Noticed the hashtag. Getting back to normal? He rubbed his chest at the sudden pang. That was good. Good for her. Getting back to normal. So, she hadn’t received any more threats, or felt unsafe or had any further problems? She was getting on with her life.
That was a positive thing, right?
He shot off a text to Neil.
How are wedding plans coming?
Clay cringed and wiped a hand over his mouth. Wedding plans? He was truly desperate. He needed a hobby. His phone beeped.
You realize most people are asleep this time of night? What’s up?
Clay grinned. Good old Barrow. He texted:
Bored. Another week medical leave. Let’s go fishing.
Barrow: Bored? Yeah, right. Can’t get away right now. Why don’t you go see a Broadway show?
Why would Neil think Clay cared about seeing a Broadwa— Ah, Manhattan. Where Gabby lived. The guy was still trying to play Cupid. Not cool, Barrow. Clay hesitated, his thumb hovering over his phone. He wasn’t going to ask Neil about Gabby. He’d told himself he could check in occasionally with her bodyguard. Tomorrow would be a week since he’d left her at Kennedy...
Nah, not into Broadway. Pool at Barney’s more my style. Just need my wingman.
Barrow: Maybe when this is all over.
Until then you should Charlie Mike.
Continue the mission? What was Barrow talking about? What mission? His buddy was losing it, man.
Falling in LUV has fried your brain.
What mission?
Barrow: LUV is all that really matters, bro.
And Love IS the mission. Say hi to Gabby for me.
Clay flopped back on the couch and winced at the pain in his ribs. Love was the mission? Say hi to Gabby? He typed with his thumb, What are you talking about? How would I tell Gabby anything?
Barrow: What? Aren’t you with her? She told her bodyguard you were staying, so I assumed...
Clay jackknifed off the couch. She’d done what? She didn’t have anyone watching over her? And Neil thought Clay was with her? Barrow didn’t know he’d been injured in Iraq. Clay stared at the phone, paralyzed.
But her Tweet had sounded like she was fine.
Of course, that Tweet had been four days ago... Anything could’ve happened to her since then.
He would just call her and make sure. He brought up her contact and—wait. It was four in the morning. She’d be asleep.
Too bad. She shouldn’t have fired the bodyguard if she didn’t want to get woken up.
On the other hand, if he called right now and she was okay, he’d sound like a jerk. A lovesick jerk.
But he’d rather sound like a lovesick jerk than lay here all night and worry about her.
His phone beeped.
Bellamy, you ARE in New York with Gabby, right?
Clay winced as he got to his feet, grabbed his duffel and started throwing in some clothes. He would be as soon as he could catch a flight out of here.
If he looked like a jerk, then so be it.
18
GABBY LOVED EASTER SUNDAY.
It might still be raining, but she headed out to Mass in her nicest dress, determined to move on with her life. To Charlie Mike.
Her throat tightened and her chest ached. She should get phrases like that out of her vernacular. They reminded her of Clay. And thinking of him... Her eyes watered. Okay, stop it. Remember the long phone call you had with your family this morning.
There, that helped.
In church, she said a prayer for James, hoping he was recovering from the flu, and that maybe they could at least work together without things being uncomfortable. And after Mass she stopped by the grocer’s across from her place and splurged on a small ham, and ooh, fresh asparagus, and, yes, that potato salad looked good. She ended up buying way more than she should try to carry in only two bags, but she was right across the street.
When she set one bag down to use her key on the outer door, another resident of the building had come up behind her and used their key, so she walked in behind him. That must be how James had— No, she wouldn’t think of that today.
“Hi, Gerard.” She smiled at the elevator operator, but he didn’t get up from his chair in the minuscule foyer. She should show Gerard James’s picture, see if he recog—
“Power’s out this side of the street.” Gerard shook his head, grimacing at her full grocery bags. “You got to take the stairs, hon.”
Ugh. Why had she bought so much food?
She trudged up four flights. Her arms were on fire as she set both bags down to unlock her dead bolt and open the door. Guess she didn’t need to rush in to turn off the alarm.
She lugged the groceries to the kitchen and was putting things away in her dark fridge. Then she heard the sound of her dead bolt clicking shut.
She froze. With both arms full of groceries, she hadn’t locked the door behind her... Spinning around with her heart banging in her chest, she faced—James. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t scream. And even if she’d wanted to run, she was literally cornered in her small kitchen.
“Hello, sweetheart.” His sickly smile brought bile to her throat.
Sweetheart? She dragged in a breath and thought she might hyperventilate. Her pulse raced and she gulped air into her lungs. Her purse with her phone and the pepper spray was on the counter beyond her reach. Past James.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was so shaky she stopped and tried to calm herself. But this, this invasion felt even more terrifying than the kidnapping had. At least then, she hadn’t been alone.
James stepped closer and Gabby couldn’t even back away. The edge of the counter cut into her back. “Gabby. I’m here for you, of course. I’ve always been here for you.” She flinched away as he ran the back of his hand down her cheek.
“You were here before, right? You were the one who broke in and—destroyed my stuff?”
His smile dropped and he scowled. “I was really mad after you didn’t want to go out with me again. You wanted to just be friends? But we’re so much more than friends, Gabb
y. After what we went through together? No one else can understand. I thought you knew that. You went out with me, even made me dinner here, so I know you love me. You want to tease me, is that it?” he whined.
“No, that’s not it.” In her mind she was calculating whether she could reach into the drawer with the knives and grab one before he stopped her. And even if she managed that, could she actually stab him? Maybe it would be enough to scare him away. Get him to leave.
He closed the distance between them and put his mouth on hers.
Gabby twisted her head and leaned as far back as she could, shoving at his chest. But he was half a foot taller than her, and wiry strong.
His lips smashed against her cheek, her neck. “I know you love me, Gabby, you just don’t want to admit it, right? But I saved you from that mugger, remember? I saved you.” He tried kissing her again and finally Gabby remembered her self-defense training and jerked her knee into his groin. She wasn’t tall enough to do much damage, but he jumped away and that was enough to give her a moment. She had a split second to decide, purse or knife. She went for the drawer and the first knife she spotted.
But James grabbed her wrist with a howl and for what seemed like an eternity they fought over possession of the knife. But with his superior height and weight and upper body strength, it wasn’t really a fair match. He wrested the knife away from her and she screamed as he brought it to her throat.
* * *
CLAY PAID THE cabdriver and jogged up the steps to Gabby’s building. He’d had Neil text him the address and then had to explain the whole situation to his buddy while he waited to board at the Norfolk airport.
When he rang the buzzer outside, no one answered, but through the glass door Clay saw an elderly man in a blazer stand up from a chair in the foyer.
He called through the door, “Power’s out. You got to call ’em on their phone, then they can come down and let you in.”
Clay raised his brows, yanked out his phone and called Gabby. Her phone went to voice mail. A sick feeling hit his stomach.
He knocked on the door and the building super got up again. “Do you know if Gabriella Diaz is home?”
The building super nodded. “Sure is. Just came in a few minutes ago.”
Maybe she was in the restroom... Still, in his gut, Clay knew something was wrong. And he’d already decided he’d prefer to look like a jerk than sit by if she was in danger. He held up his phone to the man. “She’s not answering, could you maybe knock on her door for me and make sure she’s okay?”
“Me? Listen, that’s four flights up.” He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“She’s had some threats lately, and I’m worried about her.”
The super looked confused. “That why she had all that security installed?” He scratched his head. “Let me see some ID.”
Clay pulled out his driver’s license, and for good measure, his military ID.
The gray-haired man squinted through the glass door, reading Clay’s ID. “You Navy? I served in the Navy. Vietnam.” He pushed open the door. “Come on in out the rain, sailor.”
Before the super had finished his sentence, Clay was bounding up the stairs. He tried to remember Gabby’s apartment number. 4D. He was shaking as he took the stairs three at a time. Second floor. Third.
Once he reached the fourth floor, her door was the first one he saw past the landing. He knocked, long and loud.
No answer.
He called her phone again. Heard it ringing through the door. He pounded again. “Gabby! It’s Clay. Let me in!”
“Clay!” It was Gabby. She screamed, sounded terrified!
“Gabby!” He didn’t have a firearm to shoot the lock off since he’d had no time to clear a piece through airport security.
Cursing with every foul word he knew, he flew back down the stairs. What if he didn’t get to her in time?
If something happened to her, he couldn’t...
There had to be a window— “Call 911!” he ordered the super as he ran outside, down to the corner and into the narrow alley between two apartment buildings. Fourth floor... He calculated the layout of the apartments in his mind, and tried to judge which window would be Gabby’s.
Time was passing too fast! Even now he could be too late. He made an educated guess and bolted up the fire escape, climbing rickety metal stairs to the fourth-story window and peered in.
His blood turned to ice. Gabby stood in her tiny living room, trapped in James’s arms. But what truly paralyzed Clay was the knife James held to her heart.
* * *
GABBY’S BACK WAS pressed to James’s front. She’d been trying to talk him down ever since she’d made a grab for the knife. But Clay pounding on her door had sent him into full-blown panic.
“This is your fault! You came on to me and then you rejected me. I was like some sick game to you!” Every few words he jabbed the point of the knife into her chest. “Why did you do that to me? Why can’t you just love me?” His voice wavered between a whine and a growl.
The alley window to her left crashed inward in a shower of glass. James jumped and turned toward the crash, giving Gabby a couple of seconds. But that was all she needed.
Grabbing his wrist, she shoved his hand holding the knife as hard as she could against the bookshelf and in the same instant, stomped his foot with her boot heel and popped her hips back to knock him off balance exactly like Clay had taught her.
James screamed and fell backward, hopping on his sore foot as Clay burst through the kicked-in window. Gabby wanted to run to him, but she made a dash for her purse and grabbed her pepper spray.
By the time she got back to the living room, Clay and James were locked in a struggle over the knife. “Clay!” She ran closer, snapped the cap off the pepper spray and aimed right for James’s eyes.
As James shrieked and hollered, Clay moved in and put him in some sort of wrestling hold. Then he glanced at her. “Get me something to restrain him with.”
Gabby couldn’t think, she just stood there in shock and disbelief. She started shaking.
“Gabby! Look at me.” Clay had James down on the floor, a knee between his shoulder blades, holding his arms in a tight grip behind his back. “Gabby, you have a stocking or uh, an extension cord?” He was talking slowly, as if she was a child.
She nodded and went to her closet to dig out her extension cord.
“Good, bring it here, now slip it around his wrists.”
Gabby did so, still feeling as if she was moving in a trance. She watched as Clay finished tying up a crying, whimpering James.
Someone pounded on her door. Gabby froze inside.
“That would be the police. Answer the door.” When she did, chaos and questions ensued as a bunch of officers took over. Clay remained at her side and kept his arm around her shoulders as the police questioned her.
While James was handcuffed and led away, Clay mentioned the knife and the policeman bagged it as evidence and hinted that a charge of assault with a weapon would be more likely to result in a long prison sentence.
Clay must’ve handled everything else because whatever happened next was all a blur. Somehow the broken window got covered with plastic, and the glass was cleaned up. It seemed so much later now, though she wasn’t sure of the time. She only remembered Clay helping her get into her pajamas. Her hands were shaking, and so Clay unbuttoned her dress, murmuring gently how brave she’d been, how proud he was of her.
But when he opened the bodice and saw the little nicks from the knife, he cursed and paced away. “I wish I’d killed that—”
When he returned, he’d brought some ointment and bandages, a bottle of water and a couple of pills. Then he got her into her bed.
But she couldn’t stop shivering. “Aw, Gabby, darlin’.” He shucked his clothes, crawle
d in beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She was so cold and he was so warm. His heat enveloped her and she started crying, sobbing into his chest.
“It’s okay, darlin’. Cry all you want,” he mumbled, deep and raspy. His large hard body held her close.
Clay. He really was here. In her apartment. In her bed. She drew in a ragged breath and let it out on a wobbly sigh. Then she snuggled closer, rubbing her nose into his neck, and drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up sometime deep in the night, she stirred and looked up into Clay’s soft brown eyes. He’d left the lamp on beside the bed and didn’t seem to have slept at all. He smiled and smoothed a strand of hair from her face. Whether he admitted it or not, she saw more than just friendly concern in his eyes.
Gabby returned his smile, trying to signal that she was okay now, that she wasn’t going to dissolve into a mess of hysterical tears again. She could feel his body—naked except for his boxers—against her, his hands rubbing her back, and she wanted him. She needed to make love with him.
She moved up and kissed him, running her hands over his shoulders and back, down his chest, and farther, slipping her fingers under the waistband of his underwear. She took hold of him. He was already hard and he moaned as she stroked him.
He deepened the kiss and rolled her to her back as he moved his mouth over her neck and throat.
She broke the kiss only to sit up and strip, toss her top and bottoms to the floor before grabbing a condom from her nightstand. “Make love to me, Clay,” she whispered when she returned to his kisses.
He palmed her breast, lightly tweaking the nipple. She arched into his hand, wanting his weight over her, wanting him inside her. But he took his time, trailing kisses down her body, slowly bringing her skin to a tingly ache.
When he entered her, it was slow and deliberate. He held her gaze and filled her an inch at a time until he was deep in her core, and then stilled while he kissed her long and sensuously.
Only when she whimpered and lifted her hips did he begin to move, leisurely at first, almost reverently, while he smoothed her hair away from her face and kissed her eyes, her nose, her temples, her chin. His thrusts increased, his breathing quickened. He took her hands, entwining their fingers as he suckled her nipples, twirling his tongue over their hard tips.
Her SEAL Protector Page 16