It was Johnny.
“I’m so glad you came back to me, Rosie,” he crooned, caressing her hip. “Because you’ve always been mine.”
And she screamed.
She awoke to the sound of her own screaming. It seemed to go on and on. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but sounds still leaked through. Callie barked; Rose shushed her.
She couldn’t stop trembling. All she could see was Johnny’s eyes, his smile, the way he knew he had her and always would. Feeling sick, she rose from the tangled mess of her blankets to stumble to the bathroom. After throwing up the little bit that was in her stomach, she washed out her mouth and brushed her teeth for good measure. Callie followed her around the entire time in canine concern.
When she heard the knock on her front door, she jumped. Callie barked. Her heart pounding furiously, she grabbed her gun from next to her pillow and went to the door. And waited.
Another knock. Then: “Rose, it’s Seth. Let me in. I heard you scream.”
He said the words softly, but she heard the command under them. If she weren’t so freaked out, she’d be annoyed by his tone. She considered telling him to go away, but did she want to be alone right now?
No, she really, really didn’t.
She opened the door to see Seth wearing only boxers, his hair mussed from sleep. Her breath caught. Although it was obviously dark, the illumination from the streetlamps let her know her imagination hadn’t been far off the mark. If anything, her imagination hadn’t been generous enough.
He was cut as if from marble, from his chest to his abdomen. Her gaze traced the line of his hip to the waistband of his boxers.
He cleared his throat, and she jumped.
“Can I come in?” He looked at the gun still in her hand. “Or are you going to really shoot me this time?”
“Oh. Oh, no. Come in.” She gestured for him to follow her, all too aware she herself wore nothing but a tank top and sleep shorts—and no bra. Nobody sane wore a bra to bed, but at the moment, she rather wished she’d kept hers on, because her nipples were already hardening with sheer want.
She set the gun on the kitchen counter and then turned on a lamp in the living room. She blinked at the wash of light, a headache beginning to pound in her temples.
“You heard me?” she asked quietly, suddenly embarrassed. Her cheeks heated, and then they heated even more when she couldn’t offer Seth a place to sit. She just had her single chair in the living room.
“Heard you screaming? Anyone would’ve heard that. Be glad the couple on the other side of you is out of town, otherwise they probably would’ve called the cops.” He eyed her with concern.
She massaged her temples. “It was just a dream. A bad one. I’m sorry to have woken you up.”
“I was already awake.” And then with a twisted smile that made her heart ache, he added, “I have nightmares, too.”
It was strange, this bizarre camaraderie now forming between them. What horrors haunted Seth? No wonder he had dark circles under his eyes so many mornings.
“You can sit, if you like,” she offered.
“And you can sit on the floor?” He shook his head before sitting on the floor in front of the chair. He patted the chair.
She finally sat down, pulling her legs under her. Callie stood guard next to her.
Even though he was below her, wearing only boxers, and obviously exhausted, Seth still managed to seem commanding. His dark eyes assessed her, and she had to restrain herself from looking away.
That gaze could strip her bare within moments—figuratively and literally.
“So,” he said quietly, his gaze never wavering, “are you going to finally tell me what’s going on?”
Chapter Nine
Seth watched as a shutter fell across Rose’s features, and it only made him want to know her better. Shouldn’t women burst into tears and tell men like him about all the monsters under the bed?
He almost snorted. He’d never met a woman like that and he probably never would. He only dealt with stubborn women, brave women, annoying women. Like his twin, Lizzie.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rose finally said.
He clucked his tongue. “Look, I heard you screaming. Screaming, Rose. Something’s going on, and I’m not leaving this apartment until you tell me what it is.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. Good. He could deal with anger better than he could deal with hysterics. He understood anger.
She glared down at him from her perch on her chair. “I didn’t think you were into harassment, Seth Thornton.”
“I’m not, but I know when somebody needs to talk. You need to talk. You look like shit, by the way.”
That made her laugh, which he’d hoped it would. “You’re an asshole. Go away.”
Before he thought about the consequences, he reached up and pulled her down onto the floor to sit beside him. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t protest. She was warm and soft and smelled like flowers, and he almost buried his nose in the crook of her neck. When she sat halfway on his lap, her hands on his shoulders, she seemed like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave his embrace.
Then Callie sneezed, and Rose scrambled away from him.
“Why do you have a gun?” he prodded again. “What scares you? Or who?”
“Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“Don’t deflect.”
She sighed. She tugged at her braid, which had loosened during sleep. He forced himself not to think about Rose in bed—in his bed—soft and sleepy and a temptation like no other.
“I have nightmares, too,” he repeated.
She stilled, but she didn’t say anything.
“My last tour in Afghanistan…we were on a convoy trip. Nothing but standard procedure. We were just a few miles from base, and we hadn’t had any trouble. Max and I were going to play ball that evening. I’d won our last match and he wanted to even the score.”
Seth swallowed against the lump in his throat. “We’d done three tours together. He’d been a pain in the ass the entire time. When we first met, he told me I couldn’t sit around brooding and that he’d make me laugh at something stupid. I held out for a while, but then he told this joke about a fucking toucan and I laughed. After that…”
He closed his eyes, seeing Max’s wide smile, the way he tipped his head back when he laughed. Max had been carefree, and everyone had loved him. He was one of those people other people gravitated toward. When Seth had joined the Marines, he’d been lost, needing purpose; Lizzie had run off, and his parents had disapproved of his wandering ways. He’d lost touch with any friends from high school.
Max had been there, though. And when Max had asked Seth to be his daughter’s godfather, he’d said yes without hesitation.
“One second we were joking, shooting the shit. The next—an explosion so loud that I thought I’d gone permanently deaf. It’s like being thrown by a tornado or something. You can’t fight it; you just have to hope you land without being broken in two.”
Rose had moved closer to him and placed a hand on his knee. “Seth, I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Max’s wife, Jessica, and to their baby girl. I couldn’t save him. It should’ve been me, not him.”