Just wanted to make sure you weren’t a knife-wielding maniac. “Yes. I’m sorry.” Quickly, she pulled the door closed and scuttled back to her room, but she should have known putting distance between them wouldn’t be sufficient. Not even two minutes had passed before a soft tap on her door preceded a swath of hallway light falling over her own bed.
“Hey,” he said, voice gentle with concern. “What’s the matter?”
She felt stupid and childish to admit it. “I had a nightmare. Don’t worry about it.”
He was quiet for a long time, and her pulse kicked up. It brought the dream back to her, along with the way he was silhouetted against the light and she couldn’t clearly see his face. Then he said something that made her heart leap for an entirely different reason. “Do you want to sleep with me? I would’ve offered when you first came here, but I didn’t want to come off as sleazy or presumptuous.”
Jesus Christ. Men like him weren’t real. Not in her world. A slow melting began in her chest, and she didn’t think it would stop until there was nothing left of her inside. “The last thing you could ever be is sleazy or presumptuous.”
He pushed her door open the rest of the way. “Come on.”
It was a mistake, she knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop her from getting out of her bed and going to him. “Do you need some water or anything?” he asked as he walked her back to his room. Starla had to force her eyes in front of her and not gawk at his chiseled torso with those low-hanging pajama pants perfectly accentuating his ass. God, how she wanted to get her hands down his pants again, get her lips around that rock-hard thickness she’d felt.
I just need you. “No.”
And she knew she was gone over him as soon as she climbed between his soft clean sheets and his scent enveloped her, reminding her in the midst of her turmoil of everything that was calm and secure.
As he settled beside her, facing her with only inches between them, it felt like home. Only a home she’d never been to before. The feeling shook her like no nightmare ever could.
“Bad dreams,” he said softly after they’d lain in silence for several moments. She’d almost begun to think he was dozing—it was so dark she could scarcely make out his features. “I had them for weeks after seeing Macy get hurt.” All at once, the mention of that name doused her swelling sense of security. It wasn’t hers to have, was it? It probably never would be. Almost as if Jared sensed a shift in the air between them, his big, warm hand found her cold one and held it as he went on: “Not to bring all that up. I just know what you mean.”
“You can talk about her,” Starla said despite herself. “I know she’s important to you.”
“She was, and she still is.” He chuckled. “But she’s someone else’s problem now.”
Starla felt her mouth stretch in a smile, maybe the first genuine one since Brian was attacked. No guilt came with it this time. “Problem, huh?”
“She always was a handful. But let’s not talk about her. Are you holding up okay? All things considered?”
“I guess so.” Hearing his voice here in the dark was doing things to her. Was that completely awful of her? That a man she’d always loved was lying in a hospital trying not to die because of her and she was here lusting after someone else? No. Awful was loving Brian in the first place. Awful was spending her life trying not to think about him. She didn’t want this anymore. She would always love Brian Ross as a friend, as a person. But she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t suffer the shame, the guilt.
She could have this man in front of her, though, if only for a short time. If he wanted her.
“Is it true you were only worried about how it would look if you asked me to sleep in your bed?” she asked him, her entire body shaking with her pulse. Jesus Christ, no one had ever made her feel like this. No one. This hope, this giddy expectation that ran so much deeper than sexual need—though the sexual need was certainly potent enough. There was a heavy magnet low in her stomach, and it was begging to draw him in. She slid her bare thighs against each other. She wore only panties and an extra-long Misfits T-shirt that had belonged to some old forgotten boyfriend but was still her favorite thing to sleep in. The soft fabric chafed against her tightening nipples. They missed the heat of his mouth, ached to feel it again.
“Darlin’,” he said, and his hand left hers to travel up and stroke featherlight over her cheek, “it’s been all I could do not to carry you in here with me. But you’re vulnerable right now. You don’t need me adding to that.”
Vulnerable. Not exactly the way she’d ever heard herself described before. Not exactly the way she wanted to think of herself. He saw a different side of her—he saw the person she was always trying to hide from the world. “I’m only vulnerable to you if you plan to hurt me,” she whispered, and waited for the lie, any lie.
The lies that all men tell. I’ll never hurt you. I’m not going anywhere. You’re the only one. I love you.
“I can’t promise I’ll never disappoint you or let you down. I can promise I’ll try my damnedest not to.” Those gently stroking fingers grew more firm, holding her face as he spoke next. “But I will never hurt you, and neither will anyone else, if I have to give my last breath to stop them.”
A chill went through her as she thought of Max and the threat he posed. Was she insane to let Jared involve himself like this? Of course, there was no “letting” Jared do anything. Jared was going to do what he damn well pleased.
Somehow, even though the words he’d said included a common lie, she knew his were the truth. Maybe it was because she and Jared, from the very night they met, had begun from a place of brutal honesty—he saw her fuckups, he knew her ridiculous infatuation. She saw his guilt and his inability to let go of his past love. They were well acquainted with each other’s truths. How could either of them lie to the other?
Or maybe she was just stupid.
“It makes me really nervous for you to say that,” she said.
“Don’t be. Soon it will all be over.”
“And that’s even worse.” But she couldn’t even imagine how wonderful it would be for everything to go back to normal. Except… “After it’s all over, what then?”
“Are you talking about us?”
She nodded. “Am I here because you want to help me, or is it more than that?”
“More,” he said without hesitation. “Definitely more.”
“I was afraid all this might have changed your mind.”
“It hasn’t.”
“So you still want to keep seeing me?”
“Starla, you’re here now, aren’t you? You wouldn’t be if I didn’t want you to be. Yes, I want to keep seeing you.”
“I suppose we’re doing things backwards, living together before we’ve seriously dated. Your family and friends will wonder what the hell you’re thinking.”
“They can kiss my ass. This is our business, not theirs.”
Starla sighed and concentrated on his soothing touch for a while. “It’s strange to think the police could catch him any time. I mean, it could be over tomorrow.”
“It’s okay to be optimistic.”
“I’m scared to death they won’t hold him. That they’ll question him and he’ll have an alibi, or some fucked-up thing like that.” It made her skin crawl to think he was out there, somewhere, right now. He was free, and Brian was imprisoned in that hospital bed.
“I know it’s hard, but try not to worry. Just sleep, honey. You need it. No bad dreams.”
“No bad dreams,” she repeated and, despite her body’s earlier signals, felt drowsiness creeping in. The need for sleep was winning out over the need for sex, something she never thought would happen. She must be getting old, and she didn’t even care.
It wasn’t nightmares that plagued her once she fell asleep beside him. Her tumultuous desire followed her into her dreams, creating feverish images of him touching her, kissing her, sliding over her, sliding inside her. So real, so sweet—when she was shaken awake, it was as if her favorite song had stopped in the middle of her favorite part. Blinking, she stared up into his face, remembering that hateful nightmare from before and praying this wasn’t another one.
“Are you all right?” he asked huskily. He must have been asleep himself. “You were moaning.”
Oh, yes I was.
Just as her lust had followed her into dreamland, it followed her back out. Caught in a fit of need, she grasped his head and pulled him to her, not caring about her breath or decorum or guilt. She only knew she couldn’t wait any longer, and she wouldn’t let him make her. Already, she trembled on the edge of orgasm, having been brought there by dream Jared, but he had nothing on real-life Jared.
“I was dreaming of you,” she whispered against his lips.
He groaned, only inflaming her further. “I was dreaming of you too.”
Starla let her hand skim down his rock-hard abs and found evidence that he was telling the truth. He was so hard, it drew a whimper from her throat, and her touch drew an answering growl from him. “What was I doing in your dream?” she asked.