by P. C. Cast
Would it be rude to laugh at her? She’d actually spelled the word rather than said it.
His stance softened, and he allowed his arm to fall to his side. “So you’re an artist, huh?”
“An amazing artist.”
“I don’t know about amazing,” he said, “but you’re definitely modest.” And she was more than cute, he realized. She was short and curvy, her face something you might find on a little girl’s favorite doll, with big blue eyes, a button nose and heart-shaped lips. She was utterly adorable.
“By the way,” he added, “being called ‘sir’ would be a reason to have a hissy. Ma’am’s all good. I say that to everyone with—” his gaze automatically dropped to give her a once-over, but he got caught on her breasts, which were straining the fabric of her pajama top. He managed to jerk his attention back up and choke out “—estrogen.” Girl was stacked.
“Good point,” she said, tossing that tumble of pale hair over one shoulder, “but I assure you, I’m all woman.”
Noticed. Believe me. Rather than voice the sentiment aloud—and risk finding his testicles in his throat—he gave her a single nod of affirmation. “No argument here.”
A relieved breath left her. “Thank you for not telling me I need to double-check my woman card.”
“A double check isn’t necessary.” Are you…flirting?
“Well, isn’t the big, strong he-man sweet?”
“Yes, ma’am, he is.”
He wasn’t the type to flirt, but yeah. Yeah, he was flirting, and she was flirting back.
He’d planned to ask the redhead out, not really wanting anything to do with the blonde and all that guilt and shame she’d caused, but now, with the emotions out of the way, he changed his mind. He wanted this one.
In female-speak, that meant he wanted to get to know her better. In male-speak, he wanted her in his bed, like, now.
She was young, probably in her mid-twenties, with that cascade of wavy blond hair, blond brows and blond lashes, those delicate doll features and the fair skin of someone who preferred to hiss at the sun rather than to bask in it. And she was—
Familiar. He knew her, he realized. Somehow, someway, he knew her. Finally, an explanation as to why he’d felt what he’d felt when she’d first moved in, and yet he had no idea when or where they would have met.
“You’re staring,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.
A nervous habit, definitely. One that made him think she was slightly…broken.
A protective instinct he usually only experienced on the job sprang to life. Annnd, yes, there was the guilt and the shame again.
Why? Why would he feel this way about her?
Well, no matter the answer, Red was back in the running. Levi didn’t date the broken. Ever. He protected, he avenged, but he didn’t fix. How could he? He couldn’t keep his own life on track. Besides that, he didn’t like feeling this way.
“Seriously. What?” she demanded.
“Just wondering if we’ve met before.” Even as he asked, his arms felt heavier, the muscles tense, as if memory had been stored there and he was now reliving his time with her. But…that would mean he’d held her. That wasn’t something he would forget.
Her nose scrunched up endearingly. “Is that a line? Because that sounds like a line.”
“Actually it’s a question—” can’t date her, can’t date her, really can’t date her, even though you dig her straightforwardness “—and an answer would be nice.”
“Oh.” Was that disappointment in her tone? “Well, the only answer I can give you is no. I would remember someone with your particular…attitude.” Her gaze raked over him, and the little tease shuddered as if they were discussing B-L-O-O-D. “And for your information, I’m entirely lacking in modesty about my paintings because there’s no need for it. I’m an incredible artist. Incredible!”
Confidence was more of a turn-on than straightforwardness, and she possessed more than most. There was no way she could be the broken girl he’d imagined her. Right? And guilt and shame weren’t that bad. Right?
“Never said you weren’t incredible. And what’s wrong with my attitude?”
“It kind of sucks, but I’m sure you’re told something similar all the time.” Up her hand went, her nail back in her mouth, her teeth nibbling. “I, uh, smell coffee,” she said, a sudden tremble in her voice, “and yes, I’d love some. Thanks.”
She darted around him and breezed inside, a waft of cinnamon and turpentine accompanying her. As he watched, momentarily speechless, she stalked to his kitchen.
His brain eventually chugged out of the station. Who did she think she was? His home was his sanctuary and strangers were never allowed. Not even hot ones.
To be honest, this girl was the first person other than himself to ever step inside the apartment. His partner was avoiding him, and his family was…well, he had no idea where. At eighteen, he’d left home and had never looked back. His parents had died when he was six, and none of his relatives had wanted him, so he’d hopped from one foster family to another until the age of thirteen, when a depressed housewife and her emotionally abusive husband had adopted him. Good times.
So, yeah, call him paranoid, call him domineering and selfish and rude, but what was his was his, and he never shared.
But you’re learning to share, remember?
Not anymore!
He would kick her out after scolding her for her daring—and, as a courtesy, he wouldn’t shoot her in her pretty face—and then they could discuss going to dinner, maybe a movie.
He would have the blonde or no one, he decided.
But he took one look at her and found himself rooted in place. Her motions were stiff, jerky, as she gathered the supplies she needed. A cup, the sugar, a spoon. As many interrogations as he’d conducted over the years, he knew when someone wanted to say something but hadn’t yet worked up the courage. His new neighbor was desperate to confess a secret; she just needed a little push.
Take control of the situation. “Hey, lady. You need to get something straight.”
“‘Lady’ is just as bad as ‘ma’am.’ I’m Harper,” she called over her shoulder.
Harper. The name didn’t quite fit her.
He closed the distance, checking the living room to make sure he’d cleaned up after himself. Besides the shirt and pants he’d draped over the side of his couch, he had, thankfully, done a little picking up. As for his furniture, the dark leather of his couch and love seat were scuffed but of high quality, his coffee table as polished as his gun, and his rug threadbare only where he liked to pace. The floorboards creaked with his every step, but then, creaks, groans and moans as wood settled and hinges dropped were the standard sound track, blending with chatter that could be heard through the ultrathin walls.
“Listen up,” he said.
“Okay, I’ve waited long enough for you to offer,” the woman—Harper—interjected. “What’s your name?”
“Levi. Now why are you here?” He gripped the counter to stop himself from shaking her. Shaking was bad. Very, very bad. Or so his captain was always saying.
Clutching his cup, sipping his coffee, she turned to face him. Only, rather than spilling her reasons, she grimaced and gasped out, “What is this crap? Because honestly? It tastes like motor oil.”
So he liked his joe strong. So what? “Maybe it is motor oil.”
“Oh, well, in that case, it’s actually pretty good.” She took another sip, sighed as though cont
ent. “Definitely grade-A motor oil.” Her gaze slipped past him. “You know, your place is so much bigger than mine, with much better lighting. Who’d you have to sleep with to get it?”
She’s as weird as the rest of them. “Who says I had to go all the way?” Apparently, I am, too.
A laugh bubbled from her, and she choked on the coffee. “Dude. Do you know what you just implied?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s why I said it.” Now, then. He’d allowed her to dominate the conversation long enough. He needed to move this along before she gave another one of those laughs. Gorgeous.
He sidestepped the counter, moving closer to her, closer still, the fragrance of cinnamon thickening the air between them, the turpentine fading. He claimed the cup, set it aside and crowded her personal space, forcing her to back up until she ran into the cabinets.
She peered up at him, those ocean-water eyes haunted…and, oh, so haunting. Just then, she reminded him of a fairy with a broken wing.
Broken. There was that word again.
Muscles…tensing again…
In his experience, everyone had secrets. Clearly Harper was no exception. He recalled the day she moved in. She’d kept her eyes downcast, the long length of those pale lashes unable to mask the shadows underneath. There’d been a hollowness to her cheeks that had since filled out, and a stiffening of her spine every time someone had neared her. And wow, he’d noticed a lot considering he’d hadn’t allowed himself to watch her.
“You have five seconds to start talking,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. There was no reason to break her other wing, but dang, his instincts to protect those weaker than himself were taking over, every part of him rebelling at the thought that someone had hurt her. “Why. Are. You. Here?”
She gulped, and her trembling increased. “Can’t a girl get to know a guy before she begs him for a favor?”
“No.” Evasion never worked with him. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Color darkened her cheeks, even as the rest of her blanched to chalk-white. “Not exactly, no.” Softer voice, danger hidden by silken threads of…fear? Yeah, definitely fear. No longer was her gaze able to meet his.
More gently he said, “Explain ‘not exactly.’”
And there went her nails, smashing into her teeth. “Word on the street is, you’re a detective with the OKCPD.”
“I am.” No reason to mention his forced leave of absence.
Those ocean-water blues finally returned to him, so lovely in their purity his breath actually snagged in his throat. “What kind of cop are you?”
“A detective, as we’ve already established.”
“Like there’s a difference. A badge is a badge, right? But I meant, are you the good kind or the bad kind? Do you care about justice, no matter the cost, or do you just like closing a case?”
He pressed his tongue into the roof of his mouth and reminded himself that he was a calm, rational being (with a gun) and she probably hadn’t meant to insult him and his coworkers.
“Harper.” A swift rebuke, her name uttered as though it was a curse. He should have called her “ma’am” again, but since he’d teased her about how he’d gotten the apartment, formalities were out. “You’re seconds away from being arrested for public intoxication, because only a drunk person would say something like that.”
A relieved sigh left her. “The good kind, then. Otherwise, you’d try and convince me of just how good you are, rather than taking offense.”
“Harper.”
She swallowed. “Okay, fine. I told you I’m a painter, right?”
“An incredible painter.”
Her chin lifted, those haunting secrets in her eyes momentarily replaced by affront. “Well, I am,” she said, having to speak around her fingers. “Anyway, I, uh, hmm. I knew this would be hard, but wow, this is worse than the time I had to tell Stacy DeMarko her butt did, in fact, look fat in those jeans.”
I am not amused. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away from her mouth.
The contact jolted her, and she gasped. It jolted him, too. Her skin was unbelievably soft, decadently warm, something out of a fantasy. Her pulse hammered erratically, every pound caressing him. He let her go, stepped away.
“Last chance, Harper. Just say what you came to say. That’s the only way to get what you need.”
She rubbed at the elegant length of her neck, the picture of feminine delicacy, and whispered, “I’m painting something…from memory, I think, and…the problem is…I don’t really remember, but it’s there, in my head, the horrible image, I mean, and…and…I think I witnessed a murder.”
CHAPTER TWO
Aurora Harper, named after Sleeping freaking Beauty—and if anyone dared call her by the awful name they’d soon get a personal introduction to the razor in her boot—sat “calmly” on her neighbor’s couch. He was peering at her, silent, waiting for her to answer his latest question.
Her tongue felt thick and unruly, unusable, and there was a lump growing in her throat, making it difficult for her to swallow. She hated talking about this, hated thinking about it, and would have given anything to slink away unnoticed, soon forgotten.
Thing was, Levi would not be forgetting her. After her grim announcement, he’d gone stiff and jarringly quiet, then had ushered her into his living room, gently pushed her onto the couch cushions and pulled a chair directly in front of her. He’d spent the next half hour drilling her for information.
She’d had no idea what to expect from him, had known only that he was the most rugged-looking man she’d ever seen. Oh, yeah, and every time she’d glanced in his direction he’d made her heart pound with an urge to fight him or to jump into his arms and hold on forever—she wasn’t yet sure which.
He had wide shoulders, muscled forearms and the hard, ridged stomach of an underwear model. Dressed as he was in black jogging shorts, she could see that he had scarred knees and calves. He was barefoot and his toes were strangely cute.
She forced her gaze up. Black hair shagged around a face honed in the violence of a boxing ring, or perhaps even the down-and-dirty streets, with still more scars crisscrossing on his forehead, his cheeks sharp and skirting the edge of lethal, and his nose slightly crooked from one too many breaks. A shadow of a beard covered his jaw.
He was just as bronzed up top as he was below, and she would guess his ancestry Egyptian. His eyes, though…they were the lightest green, emeralds plucked from a collector’s greatest treasure. Long black lashes framed those jewels, almost feminine in their prettiness.
Not the only thing pretty about him, she thought then. His lips were lush and pink, the kind her best friend and roommate Lana would “kill to have…all over me.”
And, okay, enough of that. Harper wasn’t here for a date, wasn’t sure she’d ever date again. The past few weeks, she could not tolerate even the thought of being touched. Maybe because every time she closed her eyes she felt phantom hands whisking over her, heard the laugh of a madman who enjoyed inflicting pain, and smelled the coppery tang of blood deep in her nostrils.
She could have written off the sensations as an overactive imagination, except…sometimes she fell asleep in one room and woke up in another. Sometimes she would be in her kitchen, or in her studio room painting, or anywhere, really, and would blink and find herself standing in a neighborhood she didn’t recognize.
The blackouts freaked her out, filled her with soul-shuddering panic,
and each time she realized she was someplace new, her mind would paint her surroundings with blood, fill her ears with screams…such pain-drenched screams.
The only explanation that fit was that she’d witnessed a murder, but had suppressed the details. Suppressed until she painted, that is, the blurred images of horrors no one should ever have to bear taking shape and emerging unbidden. Either that, or crazy had razed the edges of her brain and she needed to be locked away for her own safety.
“Honey, I asked you a question and you need to answer it.”
The harshness of Levi’s voice jerked her out of her mind. Guess he was done calling her by her name and even the old-lady “ma’am,” and was now resorting to endearments that sounded more like curses.
“No,” she said, just to pick at him. “Not ‘honey.’ I told you. I’m Harper.”
One black brow arched into his hairline, and for a moment he appeared amused with her rather than accusatory. “Is that a first or last name?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah.”
She popped her jaw, finding strength in the familiarity of an irritation she’d never been able to shake. Her mother had named her after a fairy-tale princess and had expected Harper to mimic her namesake. Years of training in manners and deportment, followed by years of competing in a pageant circuit she’d despised, had nearly drained the fighting spirit out of her. Nearly. “Well, I’m not telling you the rest of my name.” He’d laugh; he’d tease her.
He shrugged those beautifully wide shoulders. “Easy enough to find out. A few calls, and boom.” He paused, clearly waiting for her to jump in.
“I will never willingly volunteer it, so you’ll just have to make those calls.”
A gleam of challenge entered those green, green eyes. “So be it.” He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned closer to her, the scents of minty toothpaste and pungent gun oil intensifying. Scents she really, really liked, if the flutter of her pulse points was any indication. “Let’s backtrack a bit. Tell me again what you think you’re painting.”