He didn’t want to tell her that it could be a total stranger, a psychopath who had become fixated on her for no reason other than that she had crossed his path. And that she was beautiful.
He needed to stop thinking about her beauty.
“We’ll figure it out soon,” he said.
“I hope so because my conscience is already bothering me about how much time you’re spending on my problem.”
“Would it help if I told you that I’m doing this because I don’t want to risk getting on Dawn’s and Alice’s bad side? They’d rip me to shreds if I let something happen to you.” He gave her his best shit-eating grin.
For a moment she answered him with a cool, measuring look. Then the corners of her lips curled upward. “I’m not sure about Alice, but Dawn might kick your butt.”
Her smile arrowed right down to his groin. “How much longer do you need here?” he asked.
“Honestly, my concentration is shot,” she said with a glance at the laptop in front of her. “I might as well admit it and go home.”
A door slammed at the back of the salon and Tully tensed. “Who’s that?”
When footsteps sounded on the stairs that ran up the wall beside her office, she said, “It must be Deion. He rents the apartment upstairs.”
“Let’s go talk to him. See if he’s noticed anything out of the ordinary around here.” Another long shot, but some people observed more than they realized. It just took the right questions to draw the knowledge out of them.
Tully shifted into what Natalie had come to think of as “FBI mode.” His eyes took on a glint of purpose, the angle of his jaw hardened, and he exuded a coiled energy that sent a sexual thrill zinging down to her belly. She forced her gaze back to her laptop, shutting down the accounting program and closing the computer.
“Give me a quick background sketch on your tenant,” Tully said.
Natalie pulled her focus back to Deion. “He’s young—in his midtwenties. He works a lot of odd hours at the Harper Court Mall selling men’s suits. He’s saving up to travel to Patagonia because he’s an outdoor lover. As a landlord, I couldn’t ask for a better tenant. He keeps his place immaculate and always pays the rent on time.”
He also had been arrested for shoplifting when he was a teenager. The social worker he’d been assigned was one of Natalie’s clients, and she was the one who’d suggested Deion as a tenant when the apartment became vacant. Natalie admired him for working hard to change his life, so she’d rented to him for below market rate. However, she wasn’t going to share all that information with Tully.
“How long has he lived here?” Tully asked, his attention focusing like a laser.
“About eight months.” She gave him back an equally level gaze. “He’s not my stalker.”
Tully held up his hands. “I didn’t say he was.”
“You have that look in your eyes.” She stood up. Deion didn’t need to deal with being treated like a suspect.
He nodded and rose, standing aside in her small office so she could go through the door first. “Actually, I want to recruit him,” Tully said. “Everyone around you should know about the stalker so they can keep an eye out for someone who behaves strangely. He’s an excellent candidate because he’s familiar with what’s normal around the salon at all different times of day.”
Natalie felt a pang of guilt for misjudging Tully’s intentions. “I hate people knowing about this whole stalker thing. It’s so . . . melodramatic. Sometimes I think I must be imagining it.”
She’d felt that way about some of the things Matt had said and done to her as well. She was just an average, everyday person. How did she get involved in these crazy situations? What did she do to attract such awful people? The questions shook her and she inhaled sharply.
Tully stepped in front of her and pivoted, his head tilted downward so she could easily look into his eyes. “You’re not imagining it. Your reality has just shifted for a short time because you are the victim of a crime. This is not melodrama. This is real.”
“I hate that word, ‘victim.’ I don’t ever want to be a victim.” Again. She’d allowed Matt to crush her into a person she barely recognized. She refused to let that happen to her now for any reason.
Tully cupped his hands over her shoulders, their strength and warmth seeping through her blouse to her skin. “Bad choice of word. You’re the stalker’s target, his prey. But prey can be smart and lead the predator into a trap.”
The concern that softened his face brought a prickle of tears to her eyes. She blinked them back hard. “Then let’s set that trap.”
He dropped his hands, the loss of his touch more noticeable than she wanted it to be. “We’re working on it.” He fell into step beside her, his gaze sweeping back and forth as they walked down the hallway beside the front staircase and through the door to the kitchen. He winced. “I hate french doors. They’re worse than sliders.”
Natalie smiled. “Pam wasn’t crazy about them either. But they’re alarmed and there’s a glass-break detector in the corner there.” She pointed.
He just shook his head. She knew he was thinking what Pam had voiced—that the alarm only discouraged amateur thieves. Someone who really wanted to get in would know that it took at least ten minutes for the phone calls to go out and the police to arrive.
“It’s not as though I sleep here, you know,” she pointed out, opening the door to the back foyer. The back stairs were narrow, so she went ahead of Tully, marveling at the fact that her footsteps made more noise on the oak treads than his, despite his cowboy boots. By the time they reached the landing where the steps turned, her whole back fizzed with a delicious tingling. She could almost feel his eyes resting on her. She had to control her primitive urge to put an extra sway in her hips.
She knocked and turned her head to watch Tully’s reaction to his first sight of Deion. She heard the door open and caught the slight widening of Tully’s eyes before she looked at her tenant.
Deion was flat-out gorgeous and the sight of him never got old. He had huge brown eyes, glorious high cheekbones, a perfect jawline, and spectacular dreadlocks. Since he’d just come from work, he was still wearing one of the tailored suits that emphasized his trim, fit build, although he’d discarded the necktie.
“Hey, Nat,” Deion said while eyeing Tully warily. “What’s up?”
“This is my”—she stumbled over what to call him—“friend, Tully Gibson. He’s helping me with a problem I have. May we come in?”
“Sure.” Deion led them into the living area, which was furnished with the inexpensive furniture Natalie had left behind when she moved to her new house. Except Deion had rearranged things and added little decorative touches that jazzed it up. “You want something to drink?”
“We’re good,” Natalie said, sitting on the beige sofa while Tully took the knockoff of a Danish modern chair, and Deion sat on an overstuffed ottoman. “I need your help with a . . . well, an issue in my life.”
Deion nodded. “Sure. Anything you want.”
“I have a stalker,” Natalie said.
“A what?!” Deion rocked back on his ottoman. “Like what kind of stalker?”
“He—we think it’s a man—started out by sending me emails,” Natalie explained, “but now he’s taken to delivering letters. One was put under the door here at the salon.”
“Shit!” Deion winced. “Sorry.”
“I’ve heard the word before,” Natalie said. “And it’s exactly the way I feel.”
“What kind of messages?” Worry creased Deion’s forehead. “Like threats?”
Tully spoke for the first time. “Sayings about beauty. Not overt threats but delivered in a menacing way. Have you noticed any people hanging around the salon who seemed out of place or were here at an unusual time of day?”
Deion tugged on one of his dreads as he considered the question. “I can’t think of anyone, but I haven’t been paying close attention. Now I will.”
Tully smiled. “Tha
t’s what I was hoping you’d say. If you see someone suspicious, don’t approach him or her,” Tully warned.
“I’ll take a photo with my phone,” Deion said. “I want to catch this motherf . . . monster. I don’t want anyone hurting you, Natalie.”
“No photos if he can see you. I don’t want you to get hurt either,” Natalie said, her heart touched by his desire to protect her.
“She’s right. Don’t draw attention to yourself.” Tully looked around the stylish apartment. “You’ve got a good eye for detail. Just memorize the face and any other distinguishing characteristics so you can describe it all later. Get a license plate number if there’s a car.” He took out a business card and handed it to Deion. “Anything at all, any time at all, you call me.”
Natalie caught the emphasis on the last word. Tully didn’t want her to get the news first. It irritated her but it made sense. He would have a better idea of what to do.
“No one’s going to bother her when I’m around.” Deion’s beautiful face was taut with resolve.
“I’m counting on that.” Tully pushed up from the chair and held out his hand.
Deion rose with his usual grace and gripped Tully’s hand. Natalie saw one of those looks pass between them that meant “We men will protect our women.” It was very caveman, yet it caused her heart to do a little flip. It was her safety they were joining forces to ensure, so how could she object to that?
Chapter 8
“Deion’s a good guy,” Tully said as they walked back into the kitchen. “Why the hell is he selling suits instead of modeling them? He could make a fortune.”
“He says he doesn’t want to depend on his looks for a job. He’s a fantastic salesman and earns the highest commission payout in the store virtually every month.”
“I have news for him—people buy suits from him because they hope they’ll look like him when they wear them.”
Natalie chuckled. “That’s a partial truth but his boss says he’s amazing at upselling. He doesn’t stand around and pose to make that money.”
“You said he likes the outdoors?”
“He does intense activities like free climbing and sleeping in a hammock clipped to a cliff face.”
“Hmm, I might have a job for him at KRG.” Tully went over to the french doors and inspected the lock with a disapproving frown. “I feel better knowing he’s fully informed about your problem.”
“Would you really hire him?” She would love to see Deion get a better job.
Tully swung around. “He’d be a great asset. He likes a physical challenge and he’s got the protective instinct.”
Excitement bubbled up inside her until she remembered Deion’s record. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. He was arrested for shoplifting more than once when he was a teenager. Your fancy clients might not be happy about his past if they found out.”
A grimace twisted Tully’s lips, and Natalie’s heart sank. “You said he got in trouble for shoplifting. No drugs, no violence, no gangs, right?”
“Definitely not,” Natalie said.
Tully shrugged. “I did a lot of stupid and illegal things when I was a teenager. The only difference is that I didn’t get caught. I won’t hold some adolescent shoplifting against him.”
Profound gratitude—and surprise—welled up inside her. She would have understood if Tully had rescinded his offer. He had KRG’s reputation to protect. His willingness to give Deion a chance melted a barrier. “I expected you to have been an Eagle Scout.”
“Not even close.” Tully’s voice was flat. “I was never good at following rules.”
“Yet you joined the FBI.”
“A miscalculation.” He stared past her into some memory before he shook his head. “I wasn’t cut out to work in a bureaucracy. But that’s history. Let’s head out.”
He escorted her back to her office to collect her laptop and purse. She didn’t stop him—not because she was afraid but because she savored the occasional brush of a hand or shoulder as they maneuvered down the narrow hall. Even better was the brief press of his palm against the small of her back when he wanted her to go in front of him through the doorway. She could read new feelings into that moment of contact—protectiveness, compassion, and bone-deep decency. That small touch rippled through her body and then deeper, where she didn’t want to feel it.
“I’m just going to check that everything is secure,” he said as they came back into the front hall. He put her laptop case, which he had taken from her, on the reception desk and prowled through the salon, examining window latches, testing the front door, and sweeping his gaze around the rooms. She shifted her position so she could watch him, his body encased in jeans and a dark-green T-shirt, his male presence a striking contrast to the feminine decor. When he ran his fingers over a cracked windowpane, she imagined them skimming over her bare skin. That sent a bloom of arousal through her body.
He pivoted and caught her staring. In a startling change from his flurry of purposeful motion, he went entirely still, his gaze locked with hers.
She should have looked away but she didn’t have the willpower.
She swallowed and he moved again, coming toward her with a different kind of purpose.
“Nat?” he asked as he stopped two feet away from her, his eyes scanning her face with a heat she knew was answered in hers.
She stepped into him, pressing her hands against the cotton of his shirt so she could feel the wall of his chest muscles underneath. “Yes.”
But he moved back so her hands hung in thin air as he shook his head. “You’re just scared.”
“That’s the thing. I’m not scared at all.” She should be. Not of her stalker, but of her desire to have this man kiss her.
She closed the distance between them and ran her hands up his chest to rest on the hard curves of his shoulders, tilting her face up and waiting. He let her stand that way for a stretched-out moment as if he expected her to change her mind.
She held on to her patience. Why had he decided to have an attack of scruples just when she’d gotten hers to shut up?
She breathed a silent sigh of relief when his hands came up to rest just above her hips. Then he lowered his mouth to hers so slowly that she could see tiny details on his face. A small scar at the corner of his right eyebrow. The striations of silver, black, and gray in his irises. The faint glint of whiskers along his jaw line.
Her breathing grew shallow as his lips touched hers with a light pressure, almost a question. She leaned in, pleasure running through her veins like lightning as her breasts met his chest.
No longer were his hands gentle on her waist. Now one cupped her head and the other slid down to palm her butt, bringing her hard against him. And his mouth! He angled it to fit hers, teasing with his tongue, grazing with the edge of his teeth. She opened her lips to flirt with that tongue, making him moan, the sound spiraling down between her legs.
His fingers massaged her scalp, threading into her hair, while he shifted so his thigh was between hers. The friction against the V between her legs made her gasp and arch her neck backward.
He bent farther so he could drag his lips down her bared throat, swirling his tongue in the indent at the base. Her nerve endings danced with arousal. “Yes!” she said, digging her fingers into his shoulders and pushing her hips against his thigh. She couldn’t believe how close she was to an orgasm.
His mouth was on hers again in a too-brief, too-soft kiss before he raised his head. His eyes blazed as he gave her a crooked smile. “Nat, I want like hell to keep going, but I need to be sure you’re not just . . . reacting to the situation.”
“My reaction is to you and only you.” She was a little pissed that he would imply she didn’t know her own mind.
“I like that answer.” His smile went scorching. “But let’s take this back to your house where it’s more comfortable.”
She could see that his decision was made. Maybe her common sense would reassert itself on the drive home.
No, her body was humming with anticipation in a way she hadn’t felt for years. Just this once, she wasn’t going to let good judgment and bad experiences interfere with that.
When his hand stayed on her butt, she let a satisfied little smile curl her lips.
His eyes narrowed. “What’s the joke?”
“You haven’t let go of me.”
“Because I don’t want to.” However, he gave her bottom a squeeze and slid his hands off her. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do that.”
“How long?” she fished.
“Let’s just say that six months of wedding planning have had their bonuses.”
“So all those meetings with the wedding party weren’t only to get the logistics worked out?” More heat poured through her veins at the revelation of his long-standing attraction.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I work at one of the world’s top consulting firms. We could have organized that wedding in twenty-four hours flat. Well, maybe not the dress stuff.”
She laughed.
He took her wrist to pull her against his side and hold her there before he grabbed her laptop. “Let’s head out the back. I want to take another look at those french-door locks.”
“That’s what got me hot and bothered the first time,” she said, enjoying the power of his arm around her waist as they walked toward the kitchen. “You’re sexy when you go into security mode.”
His grip tightened fractionally. “I’ll keep that in mind.” His voice held the edge of a rasp.
He released her long enough to let her set the alarm and lock the kitchen dead bolt behind them. But his arm went back around her for the short walk to her car, giving her the double buzz of his protectiveness and his hard-muscled body moving against hers.
She hit the unlock button on her key and turned to stand on her tiptoes for a quick kiss to tide her over for the drive home. Even that brief contact zinged into her private places.
When she opened the door and leaned in to sling her bag across to the passenger seat, she hissed in a breath.
The Agent Page 7