AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ben glared at me in the mirror on the passenger side visor. Shame filled me. They were right. I knew it. But I didn’t like having it pointed out. “Fine. I won’t go anywhere without a babysitter.”
“Good.”
The rest of the drive was completed in stony silence. I knew that the night was far from over, that Ben was simply waiting for the moment we were home to berate me.
Dan pulled his car into the driveway. Ben said, “Give me your keys and stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because after two attacks tonight, I want to conduct a full sweep of your house first while you stay with Dan,” Ben grumbled, leaving no room for argument.
I knew better than to fight him on this when he was already seething. “Okay. Be careful.”
He just nodded. He and Dan had an unspoken conversation, then he exited the vehicle. It jolted me when he withdrew a handgun from a hidden ankle holster before heading inside.
“What were you thinking pulling that stunt, Moira?”
That I was in love with Ben. And his admission spurred a wellspring of hope inside me so potent it staggered me. “I wasn’t. I’m tired. I’ve been sleeping like crap and just wanted to run the trash out like I’ve done a hundred times before. I know I made a mistake, but this is the first time I’ve ever been stalked like this.”
Dan nodded toward the house. “Cut the guy a break. He just wants you safe.”
“I know.” And he was creating this need inside me for dreams I thought had long since burned to ash.
“He’d stay if you asked him.”
I doubted that. Men didn’t stick with me. I knew I didn’t have curbside appeal beyond the bedroom. I wasn’t the woman a man settled down with and raised two point five kids. I wasn’t the woman they brought home to Mom and Dad. And even though Ben continued to surprise me, I was terrified of getting my hopes up only to have them flattened when he left.
“We’ll see.” That was the best response I could come up with that didn’t involve me divulging my emotions. I liked Dan. For a police detective, he wasn’t a bad guy.
Ben was gone for ten minutes. They were some of the longest minutes of my life. Because what if something happened to him in there. What if my stalker tried to kill him? I’d never be able to live with myself.
The world needed him. He kept people safe. He put his life on the line for others. How could I do any less? I knew what I had to do. It would shatter my heart to do it. But as Ben held his hand out, I knew Dan was right. Ben would stay with me if I asked. And god, I wanted him to with every fiber of my being. Except I refused to trap him here with me.
But I wanted one more night with him. Because I was greedy. And I needed him too badly. I needed to store up my memories to sustain me once he was gone and I was alone again.
My life had been nothing but a long, winding, lonely road. In the end, I was always alone.
Taking his hand, I exited Dan’s sedan and let Ben lead me inside. The moment we were inside with the door shut and locked, I launched myself at him. My lips found their home on his. Lips that turned me inside out, made me ache with the fire that erupted between us.
Ben wrenched his mouth away. “Wait. Just wait, babe, we need to talk.”
“Later. I need you.”
His expression turned mutinous. “No. We need to address what happened tonight.”
I marched into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of wine out of the fridge. If we weren’t hopping into bed, I needed the fortification to survive the scolding.
“Moira,” he said, his voice infused with gravity and weight.
I poured wine almost to the rim of the glass. “Yes, I know. I did a stupid thing tonight. Dan already informed me of how stupid I was. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“What I want to know is, what you were thinking?”
I took a long sip of chardonnay. What was I supposed to say? Because I just figured out that I love him, and when he admitted he cared about me, it spun me for a loop. That I wasn’t thinking straight because I was building castles in the air about the two of us. I couldn’t say any of that, so I lied. “That they had already attacked once tonight, and that was their pattern. I figured the threat was over for the night. It was a miscalculation on my part.”
“A miscalculation?” he thundered, brows raised as he stormed my way. He bracketed me against the counter. The wine was forgotten. He gripped my face in his hands. “Woman, a miscalculation is you overestimated the amount of food and alcohol at a party. Not heading out without protection when you’ve got someone gunning for you.”
“It’s your fault,” I couldn’t believe I said that, but the man got me so damn twisted up I couldn’t help but divulge the stirrings of my soul.
