by Lisa Childs
“I don’t,” she said. “But a stalker can be anyone. I could have smiled at someone on the street and given him the wrong impression.”
He nodded slowly as if considering it. “You do have a very friendly smile.”
She didn’t know if he was complimenting or teasing her.
“I really don’t think this has anything to do with you,” he said.
“You and Nikki talked it over,” she prompted him.
He nodded more quickly now. “We would have presented our theory to everyone tonight, but it was more important that Nikki go to the hospital and get checked out.”
More important than his getting checked out. Nick had always been such a loner that he’d acted as if he could barely tolerate her and Gage following him around. But it sounded as if he was beginning to care about this family he hadn’t known he had until his mother had died.
And if he cared about them, could he someday come to care about her, as well? She’d spent years trying and had never reached his heart. It had taken them only months. She had to accept that it just wasn’t meant to be.
“We’ll have a meeting about it tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” she said. The danger needed to end. She wanted her life back.
“And in the meantime, you’re safe here,” Nick said. “Nobody can get inside this place.”
“I don’t feel safe,” she said. That was why she couldn’t sleep. She had felt safe only one place—in his arms.
As if he’d read her mind—as he always did—he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. His heart beat fast and heavily. Maybe it was residual adrenaline from the crash.
Or maybe it was...
She stared up into his face and saw the way his blue eyes darkened, his pupils dilating. He wanted her, too.
“You need to go to bed,” he said. And he lifted her easily in his arms—despite his wounded shoulder and her extra weight—and carried her into the master bedroom.
She locked her arms around his neck so that when he laid her down, she pulled him down with her. “I’m not tired,” she said.
“Oh, I didn’t say you were going to sleep,” he murmured. Then his mouth covered hers. He kissed her passionately, as if he’d been starving for a taste of her lips.
She had been starving for him. Her body ached with desire. She had felt so empty—so hollow—without him. She pulled at his clothes, trying to tug off his shirt, his belt. But she was too anxious—too inept.
He stepped back and pulled off his holster and gun. His shirt followed, and his jeans. He was so damn sexy.
She reached for her clothes. She wanted to be as naked as he was, wanted nothing between them but skin. But she fumbled with the buttons.
He undid them. And as he parted her blouse, he pressed kisses against the skin he exposed—on her throat, then the curve of her breast and her belly. The baby shifted beneath his lips.
And a smile spread across Nick’s face. Was he happy about the baby? She hadn’t thought so. She’d seen only his shock. Until now...
She wanted to ask him how he felt. But then his mouth was on hers again. He kissed her, his lips sliding over hers. She gasped at the delicious sensation, and his tongue slipped inside her mouth. It stroked back and forth between her lips.
Desire overwhelmed her.
He unclasped her bra and pushed it and her blouse from her shoulders. Then he touched her breasts. Cupping them in his palms, he teased the nipples with his thumbs.
She moaned and pressed against him, wanting more. His erection pushed against her hip, so she wrapped her fingers around it. She stroked him.
He groaned, and his control snapped—like it had that night they’d made love the first time. He lifted her so that she straddled his lap. Then he eased inside her and filled the emptiness.
She felt whole again. Safe.
But she felt so much more than that. As he moved inside her, the tension built. She clutched at his shoulders and his back as she moved frantically. She rocked and bounced and arched, desperate for the release only he could give her.
He clutched her hips in his hands and helped her match his rhythm. They moved together as one. And they came as one, shouting as pleasure overwhelmed them.
He dropped onto his back on the mattress and pulled her down on top of him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, as if he never intended to let her go.
But Annalise knew better.
She knew he wouldn’t stay.
* * *
He cursed as he watched the news footage of the crash. Another lackey dead.
He’d lost one man in the hospital parking garage. And now another...
Nicholas Rus was good. Too good. The FBI special agent had made so many enemies that it hadn’t been hard to find more men to take him on. The only problem was that they didn’t want what he wanted. They wanted vengeance. Because Rus had shut down so much crime in River City and Chicago, they wanted him to pay—with his life. They were imbeciles. The shoot-out at the hospital wasn’t going to get him what he wanted.
What was his...
But he had been looking—as discreetly as possible—for months. And his patience had worn out. Where the hell was it? What had Nicholas Rus or that woman done with it?
One of them had it. They had to.
They probably just didn’t realize what they had. He had to get it before they did. Or maybe he would make Nicholas Rus bring it to him. He just needed to make sure he had something Nick wanted as desperately as he wanted his property.
The woman was the key. Annalise Huxton was the key to him reclaiming what was rightfully his.
Chapter 18
Nikki looked like death. She’d already had the bruise on her left cheek. Now she had another on the right side of her face along with a short line of stitches near her temple.
Nick’s heart contracted with regret that she’d been hurt—because of him. “I’m sorry,” he murmured as she stepped inside the condo.
Her brown eyes twinkled. “Sorry? You’re the first one to make sure I’m included in a Payne Protection meeting.”
Nick was sympathetic. He knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in on a family. He had felt like that with the Huxtons. He’d understood he wasn’t one of them, but at least Gage and Annalise had tried to include him. Nikki had known she was a Payne, but her brothers had never included her like they should have.
Until now...
Everyone else fell silent as she walked into the condo. They were probably staring at the bruises. Nikki tensed as if she thought they were going to throw her out.
Nick said, “Now that Nikki is here, she’s going to run the meeting.”
Predictably, Logan bristled. “She’s not up to speed on this assignment.”
“She’s more up to speed than you think,” Nick said. “She’s been working this assignment all along. She found Annalise’s stolen car for me when the whole River City Police Department couldn’t find it.”
“You had no right to put her on this assignment,” Logan said.
It wasn’t the first time Nick had heard that. He’d put Garek Kozminski on assignment for the FBI and had nearly gotten him and Candace killed. He’d made mistakes. So he wasn’t going to argue with his half brother, especially now that Logan was his boss.
Logan’s face flushed with anger as he continued, “You’ve put her in danger over and over again.”
And Nick didn’t feel good about it. But he felt compelled to point out, in Nikki’s defense more than his own, “And she survived it. She is tougher than you all have given her credit for being.”
Nikki didn’t just smile. She beamed.
And Nick’s heart swelled with pride in her. He finally understood Gage’s connection with Annalise. He glanced ov
er to his friend sitting next to Annalise. Right now, Gage looked better than Nikki did. Whatever physical injuries he had sustained while he’d been missing were healing. Nick hoped his other injuries were healing, too.
“Suck-up,” Parker called him.
Unabashed, Nick grinned. Maybe he should have sucked up to his sister a while ago. “She’s smart, too.”
“We never disputed that,” Logan said. “That’s why she’s best behind a desk.”
Nikki snorted derisively.
“She figured out what no one else has,” Nick said. “This isn’t about revenge.”
“What is it about?” Annalise asked the question. She’d been worried that it was about her, that she had made someone jealous or obsessed. She could have. Her smiles were powerful enough to make a stranger on the street fall in love with her. But Nick doubted it had anything to do with her.
Everybody looked at Nick, but he turned toward his sister.
Nikki shrugged.
“I thought you figured it out,” Logan said, frustration joining his earlier irritation.
“We don’t know what it’s about,” she said. Her suspicion from the day before was gone.
The tightness in Nick’s chest eased. Nikki didn’t think the worst of him anymore. She didn’t think he was corrupt, like all the cops and public officials he had busted in River City. Maybe she was even beginning to trust him.
Logan’s brow furrowed with confusion, and he began, “I thought—”
“It’s about something,” Nikki said. “But we don’t know what.”
Nick could see the others were still confused, so he explained, “People think either Annalise or I have something they want.”
A ragged sigh of relief slipped from Annalise’s lips. “Of course.”
“The break-ins,” Gage said. “I thought it looked like someone was searching for something.”
Nikki nodded. “That’s what I thought when I checked out the scene of the last break-in.”
The scene where she’d nearly shot him. But he kept that to himself. He didn’t need the others to think she’d overreacted. Her quick reflexes were what would keep her alive when she was a true bodyguard.
“And that’s probably the reason for the car thefts, too,” Nikki continued. “They think Annalise or Nick has something.”
“What?” Logan asked.
“I have no idea,” Nick said. But he glanced at Annalise, who had fallen curiously silent after her sigh.
“I had some idea,” Nikki sheepishly admitted.
Logan groaned.
“What?” Annalise and Gage asked the question together.
Explaining for his sister again, Nick said, “She thought I was dirty. That I stole drug money or something that should have been entered into evidence.”
Gage uttered that rusty-sounding laugh of his. “You, dirty? That’s hilarious!”
Nick hadn’t found it amusing at all.
And realizing that he had been offended, Gage laughed again. Then he turned toward Nikki, whose face had grown red with embarrassment. “You really don’t know squeaky-clean Nick. He’s the only one Chief Lynch considered sending up to handle the corruption in River City because the chief knows for certain he’s beyond corruption.”
And that tightness in Nick’s chest eased even more. Despite his crossing the line with Annalise, Nick hadn’t completely lost Gage’s respect.
But the tightness only eased. It didn’t disappear entirely. It wouldn’t until they figured out what someone wanted so desperately from him that they kept going after Annalise. Maybe they had figured out that if they wanted to work an exchange, the only things Nick cared enough about to barter were Annalise and their unborn baby.
* * *
Garek waited until the team had returned to Payne Protection Agency before he spoke. He shut the door behind them and settled into the chair across from his boss’s desk. Most of the team—including his beautiful bride—had stayed outside the condo for added security for Nick.
Even if Cooper would have assigned her fieldwork, Nikki was in no condition to work at the moment. So she settled carefully into the chair next to him. She looked like hell, but she was also happier than he’d ever seen her before.
The irony was that the guy who’d made her unhappy—by merely existing—had made her happy again. Or maybe that wasn’t ironic but appropriate. Nick had given her the respect her other brothers hadn’t.
She’d earned that respect, though. He believed her theory was right. Maybe she’d been right about everything.
He began, “Just playing devil’s advocate here.”
Logan snorted. “You enjoy that role too much.”
“But what if we’ve been wrong about Nick?” he wondered aloud. “What if he is dirty?”
Logan shook his head. “Not possible.”
Garek didn’t think so, either. But he trusted that Nikki was right. It made sense that someone had been breaking into Nick’s and Annalise’s places and vehicles because they were looking for something. But Nick had to have something they actually wanted badly enough to kill to get.
So how could he not know that he had it? And it had to belong to someone desperate, someone dangerous.
“I agree,” Nikki said, which shocked Garek for a couple of reasons. First, she was actually concurring with something Logan had said. Second, she trusted Nick. Of course, he had saved her life more than once.
But perhaps the fact that Nick had rushed to everyone’s rescue multiple times had blinded them to his true nature. Maybe he wasn’t as squeaky-clean as the Huxtons believed. Actually, Gage had been the only one to speak up on his behalf. Annalise had remained curiously silent.
Did she know something the others didn’t? She was obviously closer to Nick than anyone else. Garek suspected that nobody understood him better than she did.
* * *
“You’ve been quiet,” Nick said after the others had left. She was sitting on the couch, and he knelt in front of her and studied her face. “Are you feeling all right?”
Annalise felt sick. But it had nothing to do with her pregnancy and everything to do with what she had done. It was all her fault. It had to be. “No...”
His handsome face tensed with concern. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t need to go to the hospital.” Even if she was having medical issues, she wouldn’t risk it, not after what had happened the last time they had gone.
“Is it the contractions again?” he asked. He put his hands over her stomach as if he could feel them, too. Or as if he could make them stop.
He was so protective. But that was just his nature. She couldn’t read more into it than that. She couldn’t convince herself that he actually cared about her.
“No,” she replied. “It’s not the baby.”
He leaned closer, his blue gaze intense as he studied her face. “But I can tell you’re not feeling well.”
Tears stung her eyes—tears of regret. “That’s because of what I’ve done,” she admitted.
He tensed and eased away from her. “Annalise...”
“It’s my fault.” It had to be.
“What did you do?”
She’d realized it when Nikki had been talking. She’d realized then what a huge mistake she’d made. “You’re going to be furious with me.”
Chapter 19
Dread settled heavily on Nick, pulling his shoulders down. He flinched at the pain. His gunshot wound had barely begun to heal. But his physical pain was milder than what he was feeling emotionally.
He got back to his feet and paced the length of the living room before turning back to her to ask, “What did you do?”
What could Annalise have done that had put them in danger? Gage ha
d called him squeaky-clean, but Annalise was more honest than he was. Or so Nick had always believed.
She’d been just a kid when he’d lived next door to her. And he hadn’t stayed in touch with her throughout the years like she had tried to stay in touch with him. He had no idea what kind of men she’d dated. She might have fallen for a bad boy who’d gotten her into trouble.
“I know what you told me to do.”
He’d told her a lot of things over the years. To stop following him around.
To stop hugging him.
He hadn’t really meant those things.
“What did I tell you?” he asked for clarification.
“You asked me to get rid of your mom’s house.”
“You said you rented it.” He wished she’d burned it down instead. Or sold it.
She nodded. “The tenant paid the whole year’s rent in cash.”
A chill raced down his spine. “Someone paid for the year up front? Is that normal?”
She shrugged. “I’ve had it happen before, when someone has sold a house and wants to rent.”
“Had this guy sold a house?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I didn’t handle the sale. I probably wouldn’t have rented to him if he hadn’t been able to pay the cash up front.”
The short hairs lifted on Nick’s nape. “Why not?”
“He had no credit history. No job history.”
“But he had a year’s rent money?”
“In cash.”
Criminals had cash. Who the hell had she rented to? “Annalise...”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“There’s more?” he asked.
She nodded. “You told me to get rid of all of her possessions, too.”
“And you didn’t.”
She had never believed he’d meant the other things he’d told her—or she would have stayed away. She would have stopped hugging him. But she hadn’t. So she must not have thought he’d meant what he’d told her about his mother’s estate, either.
“Did you rent the place furnished?” he asked. That would have made sense and explained why she hadn’t gotten rid of anything.