by Cynthia Eden
Ice cold.
No way the guy had just gotten home. That made lie number one for Clay Prescott.
“What was taken?” Clay demanded to know.
Well, well. Clay was certainly the curious-slash-nosey neighbor.
The police cruiser pulled away. The lights were still flashing as the cops raced to the next scene.
Odin sidled back toward Maisey.
“My laptop,” he heard her say. “A few other things.” A nice, vague reply, Odin thought. Better than her saying, “My murder board.” A sigh escaped Maisey’s lips as she added, “But the laptop was the most important thing.”
Clay curled his hand around her shoulder. Gave her a seemingly reassuring squeeze.
Odin’s eyes narrowed. You need to stop that shit. A growl rumbled in his throat.
Clay’s gaze immediately jumped to him.
“Don’t,” Odin told him flatly.
“Don’t…what?”
“Don’t touch what isn’t yours.”
Clay’s eyes seemed to bulge. “Excuse me?”
“No.” Odin closed in. He lifted Clay’s hand off a visibly uncomfortable Maisey. “She doesn’t want you touching her. So you don’t.”
Maisey crept closer to Odin.
Clay’s gaze drifted between them. “Special friend,” he muttered.
Odin inclined his head. “Very special. The kind of friend who gets seriously pissed when anything or anyone upsets Maisey.” And he was staring straight at someone who upset her very, very much. It was time for Clay to exit the scene. But first, “Where did you say you were tonight?”
“I didn’t.” Clay’s attention shifted back to Maisey.
The man sure seemed to enjoy staring at her.
Too much.
Maisey’s arm brushed against Odin. She was almost standing on top of his feet. She’d also gotten very quiet. When she’d come to his office, she’d been a bundle of energy and words. She’d told him that she talked a lot when she was nervous.
Apparently, when she was scared, she went dead silent. Odin made a mental note to never forget that about her.
Actually, he made a mental note to remember everything about her.
“Where were you?” Odin asked as he sized up Maisey’s suspect.
“Why the hell do you want to know?” Clay’s focus was still on Maisey.
He needed to stop that shit.
“Because you’re her only neighbor,” Odin replied.
Maisey caught his arm. Put it around her shoulders.
Odin stiffened. But if she wanted him holding her…
He pulled her closer.
Clay’s stare finally rose to lock with his. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough light for Odin to clearly make out the guy’s expression.
But I’m betting he’s pissed.
“You’re her only neighbor,” Odin repeated smoothly. “So I thought you might have seen something useful. Coming or going from your destination, that is.”
“I was out walking along the beach. Watching the sunset then taking in the stars. Like I said, I only just returned home. Didn’t see anything useful.” A long exhale. “I’m sorry this happened, Maisey. I keep meaning to get one of those security doorbell cameras. If I’d had one, at least I could have seen the people driving by on the street.”
“Maisey will have one of those cameras installed first thing tomorrow,” Odin assured him. “In fact, her whole house will be equipped with cameras. She’s getting a long overdue security upgrade.” His voice lowered. “This will not happen again.”
“I’m getting an upgrade?” Maisey asked as her head turned toward him.
“Yes.” He felt her stare, but his focus was on his target. “Thanks for being neighborly,” he said to Clay. “But I’ve got Maisey from here on out.”
Clay didn’t take the hint. In fact, he leaned toward Maisey, even as she stood in Odin’s arms. “If you need me, remember, I’m right next door.” His voice deepened as Clay added, “I can come to you anytime, day or night.”
For some reason, those last few words…
I can come to you anytime, day or night.
They felt like a threat.
They even sounded like one.
So Odin responded as if they were one. “The hell you will.”
Clay jerked back. “What?”
“I’ll be with Maisey, day or night. So don’t worry. I’ve got her covered.” From here on out.
Maisey was stiff against him.
Clay slowly backed away.
Odin waited until Clay turned for his house and then—
“It’s a good thing you had all the files from your laptop backed up on your computer at work,” he told Maisey, making sure his voice was loud enough to carry. “That will sure help you out.”
Clay paused. A barely-there pause. A barely-there stumble of his feet. Then he was hurrying for his house. Almost double-timing it to get inside.
Oh, no. Not suspicious. At all.
“Odin.” Maisey’s voice. Whispery. Husky. Sensual. “Odin, I don’t have—”
He turned her in his arms. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll stay the night.” Again, his voice was nice and loud. He knew they had an avid audience.
Maisey gave a little start of surprise.
Odin lowered his head so that his lips were near her ear. Her delectable scent teased him. “Inside,” he barely breathed the word.
She shivered.
“We’ll talk…inside,” he promised. His lips were so close to her that they brushed over the shell of her ear.
Another shiver shook her. But she gave a quick nod and pulled from him. Maisey nearly ran back to her house.
Odin took his time following her. Nice and slow. He let his gaze sweep over the area, and when he reached her porch, he turned toward Clay’s house.
Clay was watching him. His porch light fell on Clay as he stared straight over at Odin.
Odin tossed him a wave. Then he stalked inside Maisey’s home. He kicked the door shut behind him.
“OhmyGod,” Maisey’s voice was cracking. “What was all of that about?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. Put his back against the door. Considered his options. Decided to go with the truth. “Your neighbor is a liar. The hood of his car was ice cold. No way he just arrived home.”
Her eyes flared.
“He’s hiding something.” No, Odin wasn’t jumping on the serial killer theory, but he was worried. Clay had stared at Maisey like she was a freaking bowl of sweet, warm milk, and he was a thirsty cat.
“Why did you tell him I had a backup? I don’t have a backup! There is no backup for the material on my laptop!”
“He doesn’t know that. And now, if he is our guy, he’ll go after what he thinks is on the computer at your office. When he makes his move…” If he made a move. “We’ll have him.”
Her breath shuddered out. She inched toward him. “So you really believe me?” Hope glinted in her eyes.
“I believe something is happening here.” Two break-ins? That was bad. No way was he leaving Maisey on her own until he sorted out what was going on with her. “Guess you convinced me, after all.” Even without her murder board. He stuck out his hand. “Maisey Bright, you just hired yourself a PI.”
She looked at his hand. Then at him. Even before she launched forward, Odin knew she was going to hug him again.
He didn’t hate the idea. In fact, when Maisey happily launched her body at him and gave him a surprisingly strong squeeze, warmth poured through him.
Sometimes, you didn’t realize quite how cold you were, not until someone offered you a little fire.
“Thank you!” Maisey exclaimed. Her head pressed to his chest. “You will not regret this, I swear it!”
His hand lifted. He’d been intending to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, just as he’d done before. But…
Instead…
Both of his hands moved to curl around her. To hold her. He was way bigger than her. So m
uch stronger. But damn if he didn’t feel like they fit together. Like she felt right.
“Odin?” Her head lifted. She didn’t let him go. Just kept herself crushed against him. “You won’t regret taking the case.”
Part of him already did. Because being this close to Maisey…
Hello, torture.
And Odin knew a thing or twenty about torture.
He forced his hands to release her, but she didn’t let him go. Just kept beaming up at him.
“You’re a hugger,” he finally said. “Got it.”
Surprise flashed on her face. “Actually, I’m not.” A laugh tumbled from her as Maisey’s dimples peeked at him. The laugh was light and sweet and exactly what he would expect from her. All infectious and cutely disarming. “I guess I just like hugging you.”
Dangerous.
That’s what she was. Sweetly disarming and incredibly dangerous. Because the woman should not go around dropping bombshell statements like that to him.
“This is probably the wrong time to ask.” Maisey licked her lips.
Do not react. Do not—
“But do you have a girlfriend? Wife? Any sort of significant other who would—”
“No.”
Her smile expanded. “That’s fabulous. Wonderful to know.”
It was? Wait. Did she feel the same hot surge of attraction that he—
“This way, no one will get upset when you spend the night with me.”
He focused on breathing. But her scent just got sucked into his nostrils.
“That is what you said you’d do, wasn’t it? Spend the night with me?” Now she did let him go, and he immediately missed her warmth as he went back to being in the cold.
Her eyebrows did a fast wiggle. “I’m assuming you said that statement all extra loud so Clay would know I’d have protection tonight.”
“Yes.” A rasp.
“And maybe you were just bullshitting but if you could actually stay, I would feel a million times better. At least, until I get the upgraded alarm system you were talking about. Wait, was that for real, too?” Now worry flashed across her face. “But if I’m giving you all of my savings to cover the costs of the case, I won’t have enough money to pay for the new alarm, too, and—”
“I’m not a bastard.”
“I never thought you were.” An immediate reply.
“Not some dick who takes advantage of desperate, really attractive women.”
Her eyebrows didn’t wiggle, but they did fly up. “Did you just call me desperate?”
Shit. He had. War would say it had been a typical Odin move. Open mouth, insert big-ass foot.
“And…really attractive?” She bit her lower lip. “Did you call me that, too?”
Because he didn’t want to risk saying something else wrong, Odin gave a curt nod.
“That is—no man has ever told me that before.”
“That you’re desperate?” No, he was sure the fools hadn’t. It was a dumbass thing to say. “Yeah, about that. I’m—”
“Really attractive.” She gave him a quick, nervous smile. “You’re the first man to tell me that.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Uh, no?” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m not.”
He backed up a step. Took her in. Every inch of her. “You’re telling me…no guy has ever said you were beautiful?”
That quick laugh came from her again. “Actually, I have been told that, but the men in question were both at bars and drinking was involved so…” Her words trailed away. “It’s not like it’s something that is just dropped into a casual conversation.”
She’d been surrounded by idiots. Obviously. “Consider this a casual conversation.”
“It…doesn’t feel casual.”
“Whatever.” He stared straight into her eyes. “You are beautiful.”
Her smile stretched.
“Probably the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.”
Now her eyes were sparkling.
“And I would love to fuck you all night long.”
Her lips parted. A faint squeak emerged from her mouth.
Sonofabitch. “I should have held that last part back. I can see that now.” He scraped a hand over his jaw. “My bad. Won’t happen again.”
Her lips were still parted. Her eyes were huge.
“Yeah, so, my conversational skills? Not always the best.” Far from it. “You don’t have to worry,” Odin tried to reassure her. “I was just—uh, stating a fact. Kind of was on a roll and I went a little too far.” He held his hands up, palms out, toward her. “You have nothing to worry about. I’m not planning to touch you, and there is zero fucking pressure.”
A blink. Then another one. Her head slid to the left. “Do you mean…there is zero pressure for me while I am around you—as in, no pressure in general—or that there is zero pressure to fuck you?”
Now he raked his hand through his hair. “Both?”
More laughter.
Well, at least she was having a good time. “I’ll keep my hands far away from you,” he growled as both of his hands dropped to his sides. “I was just putting the truth out there. You’re an attractive woman. Fucking you would be great and—dammit, I need to just stop while I am only about a mile behind.” He squared his shoulders. “I’ll bunk on your couch tonight. Tomorrow, I will get you a new alarm system installed.” Time to get this runaway train back on the tracks. Time to stop talking about how much he’d love fucking her. Even though…yes, he would love it one hell of a lot. “And, no, you are not paying me separately for the upgrade. We’ll sort out the bill later. The priority now is to get you safe. If the perp has been in here twice already, we don’t want him going for a third shot.” Because maybe on that third time when he came inside, he’d find Maisey.
Odin waited for her response.
Her warm gaze slowly drifted from the top of his head all the way down to his freaking football-field-like shoes. She shook her head. “No.”
“No?” Was she calling off their partnership? Already? Just because he’d confessed that—
“You are entirely too big to ever fit on my couch. That will not happen.”
His gaze cut to the couch. Oh, hell, no, not happening. “I’ll take the floor.”
“That will be horribly uncomfortable!”
“Trust me, I’ve slept on worse. Like a thousand times worse when I was in the field. Give me a pillow, and I’ll think I’m in paradise.”
She inched closer to him. “The field? Were you in the military like Warren—ah, War?”
Different branch from War. “I served.”
She stared at him, all expectant-like. Oh. Maybe he was supposed to share more?
Maisey motioned toward him.
“I can’t talk about most of it,” he mumbled. “Classified.”
“What were you, some super-secret black ops guy?” she teased back.
“Exactly.” He wasn’t teasing.
Based on the swift inhale she gave, he realized that she knew that fact, too. “SEAL?” she whispered.
“No.” That had been War. A fish from day one.
She tapped her chin. Assessed him again. Nodded. “The unit.”
His shoulders stiffened.
“You’re Delta, aren’t you? I mean, you were?”
He didn’t reply. Neither confirmed nor denied.
“That’s the army’s elite group. Delta and the SEALs are the most highly trained special ops groups that Uncle Sam has. First established in 1977 by Colonel Charlie Beckwith, the ops are usually secret.” She swallowed. “Supposed to be around 1200 Delta Force ops out there. The Unit. Task Force Green. They’re called both and even though the US military won’t officially admit that—”
“How do you know so much about Delta?”
“I’m good with research. Didn’t I mention that before? I’m working to get my Ph.D., and it’s not like you can get one of those without knowing how to research your ass off.” Her gaze flickered away from his
. “It’s the research that got me into my current situation. I started on a missing person case. A personal case. Went down the rabbit hole. Couldn’t find my way out.” She turned away from him. Made her way to what turned out to be a closet. As he watched, she rustled around inside and pulled out a pillow and some blankets.
He didn’t move as she shuffled back to him. But her gaze dipped to the items she held, and Maisey shook her head. “I can’t let you sleep on the floor. Not after you’ve been nice enough to help me.”
Nice? She had not called him that. “First sweet, now nice.” Hell. “Lady, you could not be more wrong about me.” Did they need to revisit the whole “fucking” part of their conversation?
“Oh, that’s right.” Maisey rocked back on her heels. “You like to be salty.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Are you teasing me?”
“Sorry. Yes. But it’s been a crazy day and I’m kind of all over the place right now.” She blew out a breath. “Why don’t you take my bed? I’ll take the couch.”
He shook his head. “My mom raised me better than that.” He tugged the pillow and blankets from her. His fingers brushed against hers.
Maisey gave a startled jerk.
Interesting. “You should check my references.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re making another mistake. Just letting me stay tonight without any worries. I could be waiting until you go to sleep and then I will—”
She retreated a step. “You’re back to trying to scare me.”
He was back to trying to get Maisey to take precautions. “Want some references? You mentioned the news station earlier. After the serial case, War and I became friends with the station manager. You can call Simone Davis, and she can vouch for me.”
Maisey pulled out her phone. Dialed the number he gave her, and after a brief talk with Simone, she nodded. Then she curled her hand around the phone as she lowered it back to her side. “I met her once. She came to an event at the college.” More hair escaped to join the curls around her face. “Simone just said you can watch her ass anytime.”
His lips twitched.
“But, just so you know—just so you get that I am not taking unnecessary risks—the cops on scene recognized you earlier. And I asked one for more information about you. He said you had a good reputation, that you and War were creating something strong down here. You have the endorsement of the PD. Figured that meant I could feel safe around you.”