“If I came out here,” he said, not glancing her way, “I figured I’d be less likely to jump you in the shower.”
Her lips curved at that. “I wouldn’t have minded a little jumping.”
She saw his hands tighten along the arms of the chair. “My…self-control isn’t what it needs to be tonight. Not for you.”
They’d better not be back to that.
He rose then and offered her his arm. “I want to get you home.”
Home. She liked the way he said it. Did Trace realize that the only home she’d really had, since she’d been fifteen—well, it had been with him? Trace was her home.
They left the studio. The streetlights were on, spilling light onto the pavement. There was no sign of Reese, but Trace’s dark Jag waited near the corner of the street.
He led her to the passenger side door. Started to open it, then stopped.
She looked up, wondering what was wrong, and Skye saw that he was staring across the street. Trace was looking at the figure that stood—waiting, watching—just beneath the street light.
A baseball cap was on the man’s head. His shoulders were hunched, so Skye couldn’t see him clearly. He had on jeans, and, even though the weather had warmed, he wore a light coat.
“Get in the car,” Trace ordered her. In a flash, he’d yanked the door open. Pushed her into the seat.
And then he rushed across the street.
What the hell? Skye jumped from the car and ran after him. “Trace, stop!”
The man in the baseball cap was lifting something from his coat. Something small and dark.
A gun. Dear God, what if it’s a gun?
“Trace!” Skye yelled.
He leapt up onto the curb. Grabbed the man’s hand. Light flashed. The guy screamed. His baseball cap slipped to the ground.
“Let me go!” The streetlight fell on his face.
An angled jaw. A hawkish nose. High forehead.
A stranger. Skye had no idea who this man was.
“You can’t attack me, man!” The fellow snarled. “I’m Press! I’ve got rights, you can’t—”
The flash of light. Skye glanced down and saw the shattered remains of the camera on the ground.
“This-this is assault,” the guy sputtered. “You can’t do this to me—”
“I just did.” Trace’s voice was cold and hard. “Want to know what I’ll do next?” His hand shoved into the man’s pocket, and Trace yanked out a wallet. He flipped it open, thumbing through the contents.
“Stop! What. The Hell!”
She saw that Trace had found the guy’s ID.
“I’ll call your boss, Clyde Jones. I’ll get your ass fired.” Trace tossed the wallet back at the man. “Because what kind of Press hides in the shadows, stalking a woman? What were you going to do if she’d come out alone?”
“J-just take some pictures.” Clyde swiped the broken camera from the ground. “It would’ve been an exclusive.”
“Screw the exclusive,” Trace spat. “You’re done.” He caught Skye’s hand, linked his fingers with hers, and marched back across the street.
A few moments later, he spun out of the lot with a squeal of the Jag’s tires.
Adrenaline beat in Skye’s blood. “I-I couldn’t tell that he had a camera. I thought it was a gun.”
The Jag’s motor revved. “And you still chased after me, knowing the jerk could have a weapon?” Trace spared her a glittering glare. “I told you to get in the car!”
“And I didn’t feel like waiting for you to fight my battles!” The words burst from her.
Silence.
“That’s what you’re doing.” The scent of leather filled the car’s interior. “Giving me guards. Trying to protect me, twenty-four, seven. You can’t do that. I’ve told you already, I won’t live in a prison. Not even for you.”
“I want you safe—”
“There’s no guarantee of safety. Not for any of us.” Ben Sharpe had discovered that truth. “The guy on the street was a reporter. He would have taken some pictures and been done. He’s not going to be the only one who comes wanting a story, and you can’t attack reporters every time they show up.”
He slowed at a red light.
“He could press charges against you,” she whispered.
“Let him try.”
The wildness was there again. In the slightly cruel curve of his lip. In his eyes as he glanced over at her.
Trace was balanced on a razor’s edge—he’d been that way for weeks, and Skye couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when he fell over the edge.
Her hand lifted and curved around his. His fingers were clenched tightly along the wheel. “You saved me, Trace.”
His eyelids flickered.
“You got me out of that basement. I’m alive. You’re alive.”
A car horn honked behind them.
Swearing, Trace accelerated.
She didn’t let him go.
“Everything is going to be okay,” she told him. She wanted to soothe him, to just hold him.
But Trace gave a hard shake of his head. “You don’t know…” His words faded into silence.
“What? What is it that I don’t know?”
“You have your nightmares. I have mine.”
“What happens in your nightmares?”
He was staring straight ahead, at the dark road. “I don’t get to you in time.”
Her heart seemed to stop.
“And without you, I go fucking insane.”
Every man had a strength.
And every man had a weakness.
When it came to Trace Weston, the man’s greatest weakness was Skye Sullivan.
From the shadows, he watched as the reporter stomped away. The guy was clutching his camera. Muttering about lawsuits.
Interesting.
He crept up behind the man. He’d overhead their conversation easily enough. Trace had been so focused on Clyde Jones that he’d never looked around for another threat.
His mistake.
No, his weakness. The woman seemed to consume Weston, and when a man fell that hard—
It was the perfect moment to strike.
He pulled out his weapon, and his fingers curled around the handle of his knife.
It would be so easy to take out Clyde Jones. A fast swipe of his knife. The guy was a leech. A vulture who made his living by feeding off the pain of others.
If he killed Jones, then he’d probably be doing the world a favor.
But he’s not my target.
Jones swore and headed toward the busy intersection. “Taxi!” Jones shouted.
He put up his knife. He’d learned to control his impulses long ago. Jones could keep breathing.
But Weston? Soon enough, he’d be dying.
Chapter Five
He grabbed her, his fingers closing tight around her arm. Trace yanked Skye against him, and her eyes flew open. She couldn’t see anything, it was too dark, but she knew his touch.
“Trace?” She whispered.
“Can’t let go…” His fingers bit into her as he muttered those words.
Skye tried to shift toward him. They were in bed. It was the middle of the night and—
“Didn’t want to…kill…”
His rasped words stole her breath.
“So…fucking sorry…have to do it…”
And his hands lifted—to her throat.
“Trace!” She screamed his name as real fear pulsed through her.
He stilled.
The only sound then was their breathing—both ragged. Panting.
“Skye?” Confusion thickened his voice.
His hands pulled away from her. He pulled away. Trace rolled to the side of the bed and flipped on the lamp. “Baby, what’s wrong?” Trace demanded as his gaze swept over her. “Did you have another nightmare?”
She hadn’t moved. She couldn’t. His hands had been going for her throat as if—as if he would kill her.
Trace would never do that.
She licked her lips. Every single bit of moisture in her mouth seemed to have vanished. “You were the one having the bad dream.”
Shadows were all around them. The lamp spilled a small pool of light onto the bed. Everything else—darkness.
“I was?” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t remember it. I’m…sorry if I woke you.”
Those words jerked Skye out of her stupor. She sat up, letting the sheet fall away. “I’ve woken you up nearly every night for the last month. Don’t talk to me about sorry.”
He stared at her.
“Something scared you. You said…you said you didn’t want to kill, but you had to do it.” Her stomach was in knots. “It’s because of me. You killed to save me, and now the memory is there, tearing you apart—”
His laughter stopped her. Cold. Bitter laughter. “That particular memory has nothing to do with you.” He leaned toward her, caging her with his body. “You think I regret what I did to Mitch Loxley?”
She tried to search his gaze. There wasn’t enough light.
“Not for an instant. I’m glad he’s dead. I just wish I’d made him suffer more before I sent him to hell.”
She believed him. “Then what gives you nightmares?” Her question was a hoarse whisper.
He didn’t speak.
“One secret.” Skye grabbed his shoulders, desperate. “That’s what we can start with. That’s what I want from you, Trace. That’s what I think I deserve.” No, Skye actually thought that she deserved all of his secrets. And she’d get them. Sooner or later.
His hand came up to her throat. His fingers lightly caressed the flesh. This touch was so different from the one that had come before. “You were choking me,” she said.
He flinched.
“No, no, you weren’t.” She’d screwed that up. In his dream, his memory, he’d been attacking someone else. “You went to touch my neck…you said you had to kill, and I called your name.”
He turned away from her. Sat on the edge of the bed with his head hanging down. “I’m sorry. Scaring you is the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
She leaned toward him and pressed a kiss to his broad back. He was so tense beneath her lips. So warm and hard and strong. “One secret at a time.” Would that be so hard? They had to start somewhere. “I’ve told you about my nightmares. Tell me yours. Let me help you.”
She needed to help him. Couldn’t he see that?
His head lifted. He stared straight into the darkness. She didn’t think he was going to speak at all, but then he finally said, “It was right after I left the military. I’d gone…independent with some friends. One of my teammates—the person wasn’t who we all thought. A traitor. Leading us straight to hell. I had one chance to stop things. Kill or be killed.” His voice was wooden.
“You killed.”
“It turned out I was good at killing. Maybe too good.”
She rose onto her knees and wrapped her arms around him, pulling his back against her breasts.
Trace’s attention seemed to shift as he stared down at his hands. He’d taken off the bandages she’d applied so carefully before.
“I’d killed before, but that was in the line of duty. When I was following orders. This time, it was different. It was my friend. And I let my emotions get in the way.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I have a lot of memories that won’t let go of me. I went Black Ops six months after my enlistment. I did things…” His muscles were rock hard against her. “I wish I could forget them.”
Because the memories haunted him. “You don’t have to carry this alone.” She pressed a kiss to his neck, just below his ear. “I’m here, Trace. I want to help you.” She wanted in.
“You helped me back then.”
She frowned, but knew he couldn’t see her face.
“Every time I hunted, every time I killed, every time I thought I’d never taste anything but blood and death and the sand that got between my teeth or the snow that froze my bones…I’d see you.”
Her arms tightened around him.
“I’d imagine you dancing, up on stage, with all the lights around you. I’d see you, and the hell around me would vanish for a few seconds. You were my dream, when I was in a nightmare.”
Her lips feathered over his throat.
“I don’t have nightmares about that time…at least, I haven’t,” he said, sounding angry now. “Not in years.”
“But then Ben Sharpe came back.”
He nodded. “Ben worked with me in Black Ops. I saved his ass a few times—that tends to make a man loyal.”
But demons had started to chase Ben, even then.
“After I got out of the military, I brought Ben onto the independent team with me because I wanted to help him. He’d come to me, desperate, but working with me just made things worse.”
Because of the traitor?
“Ben brought them back,” Trace said. “But I’ll forget them again. I’ll shove the memories into the back of my head and lock the damn vault shut on them.”
He hadn’t looked at her while he’d spoken. Maybe it was easier for him not to see her when he saw the past.
“Thank you,” Skye whispered.
“For what? Scaring you? That’s not what I—”
“For giving me the first secret.” A glimpse into his hell.
He turned then, caught her, and rolled so that Skye was beneath him in bed.
“Thank you,” he told her, voice gruff.