Opening the door, I call out his name, and a fraction of a second later I hear him barreling down the hallway. He skids into the kitchen and stops, staring at me with his tail wagging back and forth. I take a quick scan of the room, making sure everything is the way I left it, and he doesn’t move which only makes me suspicious.
“What have you been up to?” I ask him, and he just fucking grins at me. I never knew dogs could smile until Emma decided I needed this mutt.
“Well, come on, then. You want to go see Ali?”
At the mention of her name, his ears perk up, and he starts running at me full speed like a maniac. I step out of the way just in time, and he hits the wall before righting himself and looking up at me, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, and his tail wagging like crazy.
“Let’s go. You know the way,” I tell him, and he walks out the door and down the steps before sitting and waiting for me to follow him. I lock up and as soon as my foot hits the sidewalk, he trots off, leading the way to Ali’s house. I swear, he loves her more than me and I’m the one that fucking feeds him.
Not that I can blame him.
I honestly don’t know how I resisted her this long. The very moment we met, I felt it. Like a bolt of lightning, she sparked something in me, and I was resurrected. There’s still so much shit from my past that she doesn’t know, and I’m going to have to tell her someday, but I want to put it off as long as I can. The things I did, while justified to me, may seem wrong to her, and it would fucking kill me if the way she looked at me changed.
I’m addicted to it. The way her blue eyes sparkle in amusement when she tells a joke or the heated look she shoots my way after I kiss her. I need it all. For as long as she’ll let me have it. No, that’s not even true. I won’t ever be able to let her go, and I knew it from the start. Ali is mine until the very moment I take my last breath.
Bear slows in front of me, lowering his chest to the ground as he lets out a low growl, and I stop, scanning the street. He takes a step forward, his gaze locked on an older dark-colored sedan across the street, and I reach for the gun tucked into the back of my pants as I study the car. The window rolls down, and a face I never thought I’d see again grins at me as he pulls away from the curb and races down the road.
I look up at Ali’s house, my heart pounding and fury seizing my body. This isn’t over, and I don’t think I can leave her – even if it would save her life. There has to be another way. I’ll find another way to end this and keep her safe that doesn’t involve me losing her.
“Bear,” I snap as I start jogging up the sidewalk to her house, needing to see her as panic rips me apart. I just need to see her, make sure she’s okay before my heart rate will go back down to normal. I pound on the door but she doesn’t answer, and I pound again. The door flies open, and she gapes at me.
“Jesus, where’s the fire?”
Reaching out, I grab her arm and pull her out onto the porch, into my arms, as I lean down and possess her lips. Everything rights itself as soon as I hold her, and her kiss breathes life into me again. She melts against me, gripping my cut in her fists as she clings to me like her life depends on it. I fucking love it. Eat it up as she kisses me back like the hour I was away was just too goddamn much to bear. When I finally pull away, she looks up at me with a dreamy little smile.
“Oh, there’s the fire.”
I laugh and hold her tight against my body, breathing in her intoxicating fruity scent as I try to force myself to breathe regularly. She pushes against my chest so she can lean back enough to look up at me with a scowl on her gorgeous face.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, and I know there’s no way to lie my way out of this. She always sees straight through me no matter how hard I try to hide.
“Let’s go inside.” I glance over my shoulder, feeling like we’ve got eyes on us, and I won’t relax fully until I’ve got her locked away safe and sound. She nods and leans up on her toes to kiss my cheek before spinning around and marching into the house. I follow her down the hallway into the kitchen, and she goes straight to the refrigerator as I sit down on one of the barstools lining the island. She sets a beer down in front of me and cocks a brow.
“What’s up with you tonight?”
I fiddle with the label on the beer bottle for a minute before standing and walking around the island, pulling her into my arms. “When I was coming over here, there was someone sitting outside of your house watching you.”
Her face pales as she stares up at me. “Oh,” she whispers, her voice so quiet that I almost don’t hear her, and it breaks my fucking heart. I can’t believe I brought her into this mess, and I hate myself for it. I should have ended this six years ago. She looks away from me as she starts chewing on her bottom lip, and I try to read her.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Kitten,” I say, gripping her chin between my fingers and guiding her gaze back to mine. The fear in her eyes grips me like a fist squeezing my heart, and a huge fucking part of me just wants to lock her away until this is over. He can’t fucking have her – not again – and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep her safe.
“There’s been some weird things going on at work, and I just dismissed it all, but if someone was watching me…” Her voice trails off, and my ears ring as I process through what she just said.
“What things? And how long?”
“Since the column went viral. And it’s just this guy, Chris. He called in to the radio interview I did, and he’s written a couple of letters.”
Jesus, of course. I’d totally forgotten about the article going viral, and it would have made it so much easier for Ian’s brother to find her. “What did you do with the letters? I want to see them.”
“I threw them away.”
I blow out a breath and nod. “What did they say?”
She pulls away from me and goes to the sink, grabbing a glass from the counter next to it and filling it up. Glancing over at me, she chugs the whole thing before leaning back against the counter and closing her eyes. I go to her, stopping just in front of her and pressing my body against hers. She lays her forehead on my chest and takes another deep breath.
“What did the letters say, Baby?”
“The first one just said that he loved all my work and he thought I was really talented and that he couldn’t wait to read the column,” she says, not lifting her forehead off my chest. I want her to be comfortable but I need to see her eyes. I slide my hand into her hair and give it a little tug, urging her to look up at me. She does and it almost guts me. She’s so fucking scared right now, and I don’t have any way to make it better.
“How many more have there been?”
“Just one more.”
I nod, running my fingers across her scalp in an effort to calm her. “And what did it say?”
“He was talking like we were in a relationship, and he was sad that I had been working so much and not seeing him. He sent a teddy bear and a rose with that one.”
All of this feels so familiar, and I know that Ian is behind it but I won’t be making the same mistakes again. I’ll end this before he ever lays a finger on Ali.
“Are you sure he was watching me?” she asks, chewing on her bottom lip again, and I reach up, pulling it free from her teeth.