Page 51 of Blake

He took her face in his hands and dropped his mouth to hers in a soft soul-crushingly tender kiss that made the breath leave her body. It felt as if he was pouring every ounce of his feelings into her body in that second.

His head lifted and she witnessed the anguish and residual fear in his eyes. “Don’t know what I would do if something happened to you, Gracie.”

Pulse-pounding in her ears she echoed the sentiment in her mind. This man was everything to her. “I love you, Cal. You can’t get rid of me that easy.” She offered a small grin with her words.

He was still holding her face in his hands as she rested hers against them, holding his wrists and feeling the pounding of his heart in his veins. This cool-under-fire man was shaken because she had been there when they were shot at—again. “You love me, huh?” His smirk was cheeky and sexy as hell as she rolled her eyes at him.

“Okay don’t let it go to your head, stud.”

“You love me and I’m a stud. Not sure there isn’t an upside to being shot at.”

Pax scowled at him but felt it fall when she saw the trickle of blood from his neck. “You’re hurt,” she said wiping the blood with her thumb.

He rubbed his neck and shrugged at the small cut. “It’s nothing.”

He pulled away after dropping a kiss on her lips that shot straight to her core. Pax re-clipped her seat belt as Blake put the car in gear. He hadn’t returned her declaration of love per se, but she knew he cared for her. He had called her a red-haired goddess and said she’d stolen his heart so that was more than enough. She didn’t need the actual words. He had poured his heart out to her and revealed things nobody else knew. If that wasn’t an indication of how he felt, then what was?

“We need to get back and find out who the fuck is trying to kill us,” he growled as he drove towards Reid’s home.

“Us?”

“Well, those shots weren’t actually aimed at the passenger side, babe.”

Pax picked at her cuticle as he drove and mulled over what had happened in the last few hours. Finding Sally and Marvin dead would haunt her for the rest of her life. Not because seeing their dead bodies weren’t horrific because it was, but it was the feeling of loss that she couldn’t shake. The detective had called Marvin’s family and CPS to deal with the boys and her heart broke for those kids. The young lives they had led were over and they had no support from the two people they needed most.

Getting shot at in the car was also playing on her mind as they drove. Something didn’t fit and she couldn’t figure out what it was.

Glancing at Blake she saw his jaw was tense and knew he was probably running all the scenarios in his head like she was. “Do you think this is all connected? I mean it must be, right? But I don’t know.”

He glanced over and his eyes were dark with buried anger. “What don’t you know, Pax?”

Pax blew out a breath. “I not sure. In part I feel it all must be linked but something feels off. I can’t help thinking the shots fired on the car weren’t about Sana and my father. If whoever killed Sally and Marvin shot at us in the car and on the balcony, why did they miss?” She angled towards him as she spoke her voice becoming more animated. “I mean, they proved they’re willing to kill so why only fire warning shots at us? That truck could easily have taken us off the road and killed us so why drive off…” Her voice trailed off as her brain whirred.

“Go on?” Blake prompted.

“I think they are separate incidents and whoever is shooting at us is just warning us.”

“I agree.”

Pax noticed the knuckles on his hands go white as he gripped the steering wheel. “Shit. So who and why?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question and one I’m going to find the answer to,” he declared as they pulled into the drive of Mrs Reid’s home.

“Reid must be out,” she said noticing his car was gone.

Blake didn’t reply, just mumbled something under his breath she didn’t quite catch.

They approached the house and Waggs came out to meet them, his face grave. “Sorry about the Nixons,” he said to Pax who nodded. He listened in silence as Blake updated him on the shots fired on them as they drove home. Waggs’ look was hard as stone as his jaw seemed to seesaw in anger. “We’re missing something.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Blake replied. “I have to make a call to Jack. Let me catch up with you in a sec.”

Waggs nodded, and Blake moved into her body as they headed upstairs to the room they were using.

Pax sank her ass on the bed and Blake sat beside her. “Now what?” she asked as he turned into her body lifting his cocked knee to the mattress. Her head tilted slightly as his hand came up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“Now I make some calls and see if I can figure out what the fuck is going on.”

She could feel the heat from his gaze as his eyes wandered over her mouth.