Bare It All

Cheryl shook her head hard.

Hmm... “Maybe she needs to hear you suffering to make her realize the enormity of the situation.” He strode to her, kneeling down and grabbing her hair when she tried to scamper away. “Maybe she needs you doing a little wailing to know that your life is on the line here.”

Cheryl did indeed wail, so loud and pathetic that he wanted to strike her. Instead, he tightened his hand in her hair, pulled her head back. “Just like that, Cheryl. You need to be that authentic when you call tomorrow. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes!”

He looked into her eyes, saw the stark terror there, and knew she would do as told. Releasing her with a shove, Hickson gained his feet again. He needed a foolproof plan, one that would ensure Alice showed up alone, without the law, without enforcements.

Vulnerable.

Easy prey.

“Here’s what we’ll do.” Pacing in front of Cheryl, he detailed every step, and he felt confident that in the end, he’d get what he needed.

He’d get Alice. His life depended on it.

* * *

REESE GOT HOME sooner than Alice expected. She’d just stepped out of the shower when she heard Cash bark.

Not that long ago, alarm would have overtaken her if someone had entered her apartment. Even if someone had knocked on her door.

But she’d learned to recognize Cash’s different barks. She knew when he was afraid, protective, suspicious, and—like now—welcoming. She made the easy and comfortable assumption that Reese was back.

Wrapping a towel around herself, Alice came out of the bathroom. She smiled to see Reese on one knee, holding Cash by the face and talking softly to him while Cash’s tail thumped hard in joy.

When Reese kissed the dog on top of his head, her heart expanded, getting so full that it threatened to break. To fight off the excess of sentiment, she strode closer to man and dog.

Her man and dog—whether they quite realized it yet or not.

“Rowdy is okay?”

“Up to his ears in female adoration, but otherwise fine.” Reese stood, looked her over, and a familiar heat burned in his beautiful green eyes. “How are you?”

“I’m all right.” She unpinned her hair and let it drop down to her shoulders. “Worried, of course. I mean, I keep thinking about what Cheryl is probably going through right now. How scared she must be.”

Instead of coming to her, Reese shoved his hands into his pockets and continued his perusal of her person. “Until she calls back, there’s really nothing we can do.”

“But I assume you have a plan.” Blind faith had never been her forte—not until Reese. She needed to know that he had things in hand, that somehow he’d make it all okay. “You do, don’t you?”

“Working on it.” He tilted his head and studied her body. “How is it that every time I look at you, you get hotter?”

Alice felt a blush rising. “You’re...” Well, she couldn’t say smitten. In lust? Maybe. She settled on, “A charmer.”

Cash looked between them, then trotted to the kitchen, hopeful for a treat.

Reese’s slow smile made her toes curl. “Cash assumes we’ll be having sex.”

Because usually they were. But...maybe not this time.

Despite the warm way Reese looked at her, Alice could tell that he had more than sex on his mind.

“You’re going back out, aren’t you?”

His gaze cut to her face, and a cynical smile twisted his mouth. “So astute.”

That sounded almost like an insult.

Or a complaint.

Alice held the towel a little tighter. “Obviously you have other plans or...” You’d have already been on me.

No, that was another thing she couldn’t quite say.

She lifted her chin. “Or you wouldn’t be waffling around, acting out of character.”

“Waffling?” Taking his hands from his pockets, Reese closed the space between them, lifted her chin with the edge of his fist, searched her face. “It’s almost scary how you do that. How you so easily read me.”

Ironic, because if she could read him better, she’d already know if he loved her. “You’re in cop mode,” she explained. “Anyone can see that.”

If anything, that made him look more forbidding.

“I understand,” Alice rushed to reassure him. “With Cheryl’s call and then Rowdy needing you... What was that about, by the way?”

Instead of answering, his thumb caressed her chin, and he bent to take her mouth, startling her since he hadn’t looked in a kissing mood.

Despite everything going on, all the threats and her worry, she couldn’t remain immune to his mouth on hers. She groaned a little, reached for him...

But he ended the contact as abruptly as he’d introduced it.

Alice whispered, “Reese?”

He headed to the kitchen to give Cash a treat.

“Only half,” he told the dog. “I don’t want you getting spoiled.”

Cash took the treat and went to his favorite spot in front of the balcony doors. Reese stayed in the kitchen, just looking out the window, silent and somehow distant.

Alice didn’t know what to do. “How much time do you have before you have to go back out?”

Bracing his hands on the kitchen sink counter, he dropped his head forward. Alice took two deep breaths—and removed her towel.

Though he had his back to her, he seemed to sense the moment she was naked because his head slewed around and his interest burned all over her.