Page 63 of No Good Fight

My hand tightens around the phone hard enough to make the case creak. Through the reflection of the screen, I catch the hard line of my mouth and force my jaw to loosen before I crack a tooth.

Me: He had enough time to get to her apartment.

Remy: Looks that way. Parker said he paid cash, left the drink, and smiled at the server like he hadn’t just grabbed a woman under the table then asked for her number. Man’s got balls. Can’t wait to help you remove them.

I close my eyes and see Alex’s wrist again. Red marks were already darkening when we stood beneath my porch light. Her hand tucked under my jacket to hide herself. The way she told me he hurt her again, flat and small, like the words couldn’t carry the real size of what they meant. The pain she went through.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard.

Me: Tell Parker thank you.

Remy: Tell her yourself when she stops threatening to staple Preston’s balls to a barstool.

Despite the rage crawling through me, a rough breath almost passes for a laugh. Parker would, too. Remy married a woman with a soft smile, a sharp tongue, and absolutely no fear of making dangerous men look stupid in public.

Remy: Alex needs to make a statement tomorrow.

The almost-laugh dies.

I glance toward the ceiling. The guest room is directly above the hall, not over the living room, but I look up anyway like I might see through drywall if I want hard enough.

Me: I’ll talk to her.

Remy: Talk to her or I will.

I look at that message longer than I need to. Then I turn the phone facedown again before I say something that makes him drive over here just to hit me.

The scanner murmurs from the coffee table, low enough that the words blur together and create white noise. I reach for the volume knob and turn it down another notch because I can hear Alex moving upstairs.

One step.

Then another.

A floorboard gives beneath her weight, faint but clearly my house is telling me that my guest isn’t safely tucked in bed.

Every muscle in my body locks.

I don’t move. I sit there with my hands clasped loosely between my knees and my eyes fixed on the side-yard feed while she crosses the guest room above me. Water runs for less than a minute in the bathroom. Then the steps return, softer this time, and the house goes still again.

She’s awake up there. Maybe scared. Maybe checking the window lock twice and staring at the door, wondering if she should have locked it. Maybe lying in my guest room wearing my jacket and tasting me on her mouth while I sit downstairs pretending the monitors are what require all this restraint.

My hand goes to the back of my neck, fingers digging in until the pressure hurts.

She kissed me.

More than once.

Alex Harmon fucking kissed me.

The first time outside Lucy’s with rain in her hair, Preston’s marks on her skin, and a look in her eyes that damn near broke what little restraint I had left. The second time here, in my living room, with her hands on my chest and my name caught in her mouth like she had made a decision she wasn’t willing to apologize for.

I could still feel her fingers in my hair if I let myself.

I’m so gone for that woman, because I want to. I want to live in the memory of her touch.

My body reacts hard and fast, a pulse of heat low in my stomach that has nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with Alex upstairs in a bed I put her in before I lost the last thread of sense I had. I shift on the couch, dragging one hand over my mouth, but that only brings back the taste of her.

Rain. Sprite. Salt from the fries she ate because she knew I needed her to eat. Her mouth soft at first, then not soft at all when she pressed closer and let me feel exactly how much she wanted.