Hot Protector(2)

2


Sophie gulped down her fear as she stared at Chase leaning back against the closed door. She told herself she wasn’t trapped, that she could walk out at any moment, but she sure felt trapped. Trapped between a rock and a hard place.

He looked so calm and casual. She knew he was anything but. He was taller than he’d been at sixteen, probably about six-three, and broad enough it was breathtaking. His chest… Oh my heavens, his naked chest. All that tanned muscle. The dog tags lying between hard pecs. The valley of his abdomen and the peaks—the delicious peaks of his hipbones jutting out above the loose, faded jeans that were torn across one knee.

He looked like an underwear model come to life. A scary, intense underwear model with a moody disregard for the world and a specific dislike for her in particular.

He hated her. She understood why. His father hadn’t married his mother when she’d gotten pregnant with him. And when he’d been about twelve, his dad had married her mother—and adopted her a year later. She was a Nash, and he wasn’t.

Chase had come to California once a year to spend a month with them, and he’d always had this moody resentment of her. She’d tried to make him like her, but it had never worked. When she was fourteen, he’d been sixteen and so utterly gorgeous he’d made her mouth dry.

That was the last summer he came out to California. After that, he’d never been back. And her parents didn’t talk about it.

“What could you possibly need my help with?” he drawled in that slight Tennessee twang he had. “You’re the stepdaughter of a rich and famous blues musician, honey. Let him buy you the help you need.”

“Tyler can’t help me. No one can.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Thought he was Dad to you.”

“You know he prefers to be called by his name.” Tyler Nash was nothing if not vain. Being called dad made him feel too old, he’d said.

“If he can’t help you, I don’t know what makes you think I can. He’s got money and connections. I’m a soldier.”

She licked her lips. She didn’t miss the way his gaze narrowed or the sudden tension in his muscles. Worse, a little prickle of awareness flared to life in her belly.

“That’s it exactly,” she forced out, her voice barely more than a whisper. “This is a matter of life and death.”

Her life and her death.

He pushed away from the door and ranged toward her, all rippling muscle and hard-edged male animal. Wow. He’d been attractive before, but nothing like this.

She told herself it was wrong to feel even a frisson of excitement over a man who was supposed to be her stepbrother—but in reality they weren’t family and never had been. Chase was a boy who’d come to visit for a month during three summers of her life. He’d spoken to her with ill-disguised hostility most of the time. He’d sat in the guest room and strummed a guitar or swam in the pool or played video games and always ignored her as much as possible.

“If you’ve come to tell me that Tyler needs a kidney or something, you’re out of luck. The fucker can rot for all I care.”

“I’m not here about Tyler.”

Chase’s chin lifted. “Good thing. Now what do you want?”

Sophie pulled in a breath. Now that she was here, it almost seemed silly. It was just so abstract, so unbelievable. Like a Hollywood movie. And Chase was Jason Bourne from the Bourne movies, a man with lethal skills and the ability to save her life. The whole way here from New York, all she’d kept thinking was that if she could reach Chase’s apartment, she’d be fine.

When she’d gotten to union   Station, she’d hailed a taxi and given them this address. As the taxi took her into the suburbs of Maryland, she’d started to wonder if she’d made a mistake. When they’d turned onto a remote road with no houses, she’d been convinced of it. She’d had her hand on the door handle, ready to escape.

And then the taxi driver stopped and motioned toward a darkened house sitting off the road. Once she’d paid and been left standing in the dark, it had taken her a moment to realize there was another building, a garage with an apartment over the top. That was Chase’s place. Now that she was inside and could see his living room, she was surprised to find it tastefully furnished despite its small size. Surprised because there wasn’t a board with concrete blocks to hold up his television or anything.

There was, however, a guitar on a stand and an amp sitting near. There were also pictures of album covers on his walls. None of Tyler’s, but plenty of other famous guitar players.

His mouth tightened as her gaze slipped over his walls and back to him. “Out with it, Sophie. It’s late and I want to go back to sleep. If you aren’t here to beg for a kidney or some bone marrow, what do you want?”