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  I cut my gaze, afraid this man who is a stranger will see more than anyone has in years now that I’m honest with myself. Afraid that comment already infers that he does. Afraid of the intimacy he infers, as much as I crave it, when I cannot. It’s wrong. It’s unfair to him. It’s dangerous to him. Because I still have a Prince Charming who I now know is really The Beast.

  “Sierra,” he says, a prod in his voice that I can’t seem to resist. I look at him and he adds, “What happened tonight is done, but we aren’t.”

  “There is no we.”

  “We work together. And in answer to your earlier question about the gas. I’m an ex-Navy SEAL. I’ve done extensive gas training and Luke is Blake’s brother, who I served with in the SEALs.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised and embarrassed. “You were—but—you—you’re—”

  “Tatted up and have long hair?” he asks.

  “Yes, actually.”

  “A blond pretty boy American screams military overseas. It would have been a death wish.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t. My eyes are fucked right now. My vision is waning in and out. And for the record, I’m capable of functioning with this stuff in my eyes and on my skin. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.” He pushes off the wall and looks down at me. “Either take me to your place or I have to find a place I won’t contaminate to rinse off.”

  “I’m not letting you go someplace else,” I say. “Can you walk?”

  “I can walk. I can fight if I have to. Apparently, I can survive armed assassins, but not a five-foot-four brunette named Sierra with mace.” His lips curve. “But that’s okay. Next time it might not be me.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  “You don’t need to keep saying that. Just take me to water.”

  “Right.” I turn and start walking and he’s quickly by my side. The streets are deserted except for a homeless man lying on a step in front of a small church. The wind is non-existent, the night a warm September evening, and I don’t know New York City enough to know when that will change. I just know that I don’t have a coat which is on my list of must-buys with the cash in my purse. We walk the full two blocks and I don’t speak and Asher doesn’t speak, but I am aware of this man in ways I’m not sure I’ve ever felt with anyone, even my Prince Charming once upon a fake fairy tale. But then, I’m different now than when I met him and everything with Asher has been up close and personal from the moment I met him tonight. I’m not sure how I correlate those two things. Actually, I do. He’s overwhelmed me in too many ways to count, mostly good. Obviously, I’ve overwhelmed him now, too. I sprayed the man with mace. I know how to leave a lasting impression.

  “We’re here,” I say, halting our progress in front of the ancient concrete building that cost me a small fortune, despite it being a rat trap, quite literally. “And I hate to break the news to you,” I add, “but we have to walk up four flights of stairs.” I punch in the code to the door that buzzes open, and turn to face him. “My place is pretty bad. I just moved here and—”

  “I don’t care about your apartment, Sierra,” he promises, and I notice that he’s using my name still, not some generic endearment. “Let’s go inside,” he adds.

  I nod and turn to open the door, he catches it and holds it. I walk inside and turn to him again. “The stairs and your eyes—”

  “I’ve navigated much worse than stairs in much worse conditions.”

  “Because you’re a Navy SEAL,” I say, telling myself that means The Beast can’t hurt him, but that’s a lie I want to believe.

  “Ex-SEAL,” he says, a distinction that seems important to him, and it is to me too. He can’t be plucked from a mission and killed by one of the many powerful people in the government that owe The Beast favors. It’s a ridiculous way to comfort myself for obvious reasons. The Beast could still come after him and for nothing more than looking in my direction.

  Inhaling on that thought, I turn away from Asher and cross the small foyer to the narrow, steep staircase where I begin the treacherous climb that kills me daily, but I’m not thinking about the pain. I’m thinking about Asher behind me. About how good it feels to be with one of the good guys for once, which is how I read Asher. But then what do I know? I haven’t exactly proven my assessment of character to be stellar, which would be a problem if I still had a future as a clinical psychologist, but I don’t. That career choice, and my internship with a world renowned clinical psychologist, and mentor, crashed and burned nine months ago when I’d been forced to start my city and state hopping to finally land here.

  I shove that thought away, as we reach my floor and the tiny hallway I share with only one other tenant. Pausing at my door, Asher joins me, and I unzip my purse and grab my key, quickly sticking it in the lock. Asher steps to the landing with me, so close I can feel the warmth of his body encase mine. “Wait to go inside, Sierra.”

  I leave the key in the lock and turn to face him. “Afraid I’ll spray you with mace again once I have you trapped inside?” I ask, using the witty remark to hide the fact that his nearness, and the way he’s towering over me while smelling all deliciously earthy, jolts me.

  “You’ve already maced me,” he says. “Find another way to torture me that we can both enjoy. If you need ideas, I’ll offer a free tutorial on another occasion. But right now, my clothes are contaminated and yours most likely are as well. Tear gas has a way of finding places to settle and can become a problem later. You need to take off your clothes, bag them, and shower. Stand in the bathtub when you undress and bag your clothes there. And I mean everything. You can wash your clothes, but trash your purse.”

  “It’s my only purse.”

  “Replace it,” he says.

  That costs money, I think, but I bite my tongue. “Is this really necessary?”

  “The way that gas affected me,” he says. “That was about twenty percent of what most people will feel.”

  “That was obviously a yes. I need to replace the purse. You need to shower first. You’re the one with burning eyes and skin.”

  “Unless you want me walking around in a towel, I have to wait for clothes.”

  “Oh.”

  His lips curve and I have no idea why I’m so obsessed with this man’s mouth.

  “Is that a yes or no?” he asks.

  My gaze jerks to his. “What was the question?”

  “Me in a towel.”

  “I’ll give you my pink robe. You have to shower first, though you sure aren’t acting like you need instant relief.”

  “I’m good at hiding pain, sweetheart, and this isn’t as much about me right now as it is ensuring I don’t expose anyone else.”

  “Is that a yes on the robe?” I ask.

  “As much as I like pink,” he replies, “I’d rather see it on you. And since chemical contamination will really screw up any mood we get going, I’m forced to move on, right when I’d rather not. Do you have plastic bags?”

  “Yes. I do. Under the kitchen sink.”

  “Good. Go to the sink. Wash your hands and arms thoroughly. You don’t want your fresh clothes to end up contaminated. Then get the bags and pick out new clothes with as little contact with anything else as possible. Whatever we touch, we’ll wipe down.”

  “I had no idea this was such a big deal.”

  “Most people don’t. We should go inside.”

  Right. His eyes. They’re red and I should be rushing him to water. Still, when I turn and grab the knob, I can’t seem to make myself open the door and invite the questions I know will follow. Asher knows, too. He is suddenly a little closer, when he was already close, his hand on the door above me. “Nothing in that apartment matters to me,” he says.

  He’s wrong. It will matter. I feel it, but I can’t change what’s to come at this point. I open the door and enter what is quite literally my hole-in-the-wall efficiency where the kitchen and the rest of the place are one room. A bathroom and a closet that is barely a closet are the only attachmen
ts. The door shuts behind me, the lock turning into place, both of which tells me that Asher now consumes the small space because he’s that big and it’s that little.

  I’m also alone with the only man I’ve been alone with since leaving The Beast nine months ago. I’m alone with the only man I actually might like for far longer and how fitting to my dilemma that we’re covered in toxic chemicals. Because I’m toxic and I’m not going to give Asher a chance to try to play hero and get hurt.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sierra

  There was no avoiding this moment.

  I brace myself to endure Asher’s reaction to my tiny living quarters, and then turn around to find him focused to his left where my entire apartment exists, his jaw set hard. I scan the room, taking in what he sees: a twin-sized bed with plain rose-colored sheets and one pillow, a classroom-size student desk and chair, a small fan, a suitcase in the corner because it won’t fit in my midget closet. No photos, art, or personal anything.

  He turns to face me and just that quick he’s erased the small space between us, he’s close again, so very close, but he doesn’t touch me and I hate how much I want him to touch me. “Do you know how many questions I want to ask you right now?” he asks.

  “Don’t ask them,” I say.

  He stares at me for a few incredibly long beats, his jaw tight, his expression unreadable. “Go wash up, Sierra,” he orders.

  I don’t like orders. I took them from The Beast to protect my mother. When I left him, I swore I wouldn’t take them from another man or anyone for that matter. However, in this case, Asher’s just trying to do what I’ve ordered him to do: Don’t ask those questions he wants to ask. So I comply with this particular command willingly. I walk to the sink and turn on the water, pumping soap into my palm and working it into bubbles. “All the way to your sleeves,” he says from behind me, his breath warm on my neck, sending shivers down my spine.

  I glance over my shoulder, and he’s practically on top of me. “Do you have to hover?”

  “Yes. I can’t sit down. I can’t lean on anything and there isn’t exactly a lot of space.”

  “None that creates a need for you to stand this close.”

  “Correct,” he says.

  “And yet you’re still standing this close.”

  “Also correct. Where did you work before the bar?”

  “Another bar,” I say, happy to have a question I can answer honestly. I flip off the water and surprisingly, he actually takes that as a cue to back up. I open the cabinet below the sink and pull out the box of garbage bags. When I turn around, I’m sandwiched between him and the counter, and he still smells too good for my sanity. I pull two bags from the box and then shove it at him. “The sink’s all yours.”

  He takes the box but doesn’t move, those piercing green eyes of his fixed on my face. “Do you know how many questions I want to ask you right now?”

  “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Repeating it works for you about as well as your suggestion that I take some clothes off and dance on the bar tonight. Not at all.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that. I’m not going to talk about me with you at all.” Aware that he won’t touch me until he showers, I step around him, easily escaping to my closet. Pulling open the sliding wooden door, I grab a T-shirt and a pair of black Victoria’s Secret PINK sweats, the only pair I managed to haul across the country. I don’t look at Asher, but I feel him staring at me. I feel him every second I’m in his presence, in every nerve and pore of my existence, and I don’t know how that is even possible.

  I walk into the tiny bathroom, shut the door, and stare at the tiny shower, that doesn’t actually have a bathtub, and wonder how Asher is even going to move around in here. He knocks on the door and I jump. “Undress in the shower and bag your clothes. And wash your hair.”

  “Yes. Okay. Got it. There’s bottled water in the fridge and I have milk and cereal.” I cringe. Milk and cereal? Am I trying to seduce him or just point out that I have nothing but milk and cereal in the house? Whatever the case, I need to get done in here and let him get cleaned up. I hurry forward and follow his instructions. First things first, I clean out my purse, and stick my cash and the other few contents in the small medicine chest. I then toss my purse in the shower, and step inside with it. Once I’ve stripped, I bag everything that might be contaminated, with the realization that I’ll have to have my boots cleaned. I’m not replacing them. Once the water is flowing warm, I lean under the spray wondering what Asher is doing out there. He said he can’t sit down. Is he just standing there in the center of the kitchen?

  That question has me reaching for the cheap Suave shampoo in the corner, and stepping up my pace. In five minutes, I’m drying off. In another few, I’ve dressed in my sweats, and I don’t bother drying my hair or doing more than washing what’s left of my make-up away. I’m a mess who will likely scare Asher away and that should make me happy. Yet, it doesn’t, and I can’t analyze why right now. I swallow a knot of about ten million emotions, grab my phone from the edge of the sink, and stick it in my pocket, before opening the door and exiting the bathroom.

  I step into the kitchen to find Asher waiting on me, facing me, and my lips part at the sight of him gloriously naked from the waist up. My heart pounds and somehow my gaze lands on his abs, and I decide suits are great and all, but I have a new appreciation for his low-slung jeans and the hard work Asher must put in to sport such impressively ripped abs. With good intentions of actually looking at his face, my gaze roams upward, and I’m now fixated on his broad shoulders, every muscle, of which there are many, colorfully etched with ink that travels all the way down to his wrists. The artwork like an open invitation to explore his body and study it. Kiss it. Lick it? Not that I’ll ever be licking this man.

  I can’t be with him. I can’t be with anyone.

  That hard, cold reality, jolts me and my eyes lift, colliding with his. “Hi,” I say, because I can’t come up anything more brilliant. I’ve been gaping at the man’s body.

  He laughs. “Hi. I had to take my shirt off. My skin—”

  “Is beautiful,” I say appalled that the words come out of my mouth. “Your ink, I mean, and I don’t even like ink.”

  “But you like mine.”

  What am I doing? “I’m not going to reply to that,” I say, not sure what I’m doing with this man. “The shower is all yours.”

  He steps closer, mischief in those green eyes of his that are just as beautiful as his body and his ink. “Next time you’re naked and this close to me, I’m going to have to show my appreciation. Consider yourself warned.” He steps around me.

  “Next time?” I say, whirling around to face him, to try and undo the wrong message I know I’ve sent him. “Do you plan on making me mace you again? Because that’s the only way this happens again.”

  He pauses at the door and gives me a sideways look. “Whatever it takes to make sure there’s a next time, works for me.” And with that, he enters the bathroom and I press my hands to my face. I need to make him go away and it sucks so badly.

  I rotate and put the bathroom behind me, staring at the room that I’ve come to call home, and it is home. It’s freedom, or some version of freedom while the massive house I’d shared with Prince Charming in Denver had been a prison. If I can make a thousand dollars a night like I did tonight a few times a week, I can fix this place up and save the money I need to get a fake passport. Though I have no idea where to go or how to do that, I know it’s going to cost a chunk of change. The shower comes on and I walk to the bed and sit down. Grabbing my pillow, I reach inside my pillowcase and pull out the travel book inside, reading the cover for the millionth time: A Guide to Terre-de-Haut, Guadeloupe Islands, a small island in the Caribbean that requires a ferry to and from. The last place The Beast will look for me.

  There’s a knock on the front door and I jolt, stuffi
ng the book back inside my pillow. My heart starts to race and adrenaline surges through me. I stand up and fold my arms in front of me. No one can get up here without me buzzing them in. Has The Beast found me? My God. I pant out a breath. Has he found me again?

  “Sierra!”

  At the sound of Asher’s muffled voice I rush across the room and stop outside the door. “Yes?!” I call out. “I’m here.”

  “Open the door,” he shouts.

  There’s another round of knocking at the front door, and I don’t hesitate. I go in the opposite direction. I open the bathroom door.

  Asher pokes his head around the shower curtain, all kinds of satisfaction on his handsome face. “I meant the front door, but if you’d rather join me—”

  “Asher!” I snap, my knees trembling. “Stop. Please. No flirting right now. I don’t know who that is knocking. I haven’t buzzed anyone up.” I try to cover what must seem like irrational fear. “This is a hellhole neighborhood, remember?”

  “It’s okay, Sierra. It’s only my friend.”

  “You aren’t hearing me,” I say, trying to sound calm but my heart is about to jump out of my chest. “I haven’t buzzed anyone up.”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” he says, attempting to calm me.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “But I want to. Very much, but right now, you can relax. My friend sent me a text. He followed someone into the building when they got buzzed inside.”

  “You’re sure it’s him?”

  “Yes.” His phone buzzes on the counter. “That’s probably him again. I can come and—”

  “No. No, if you’re sure it’s him, it’s fine.” But I’m not sure, so I need a weapon. I open the medicine chest. My hand comes down on the mace and I shut the cabinet door.

  “Oh fuck,” Asher murmurs, evidentially aware of what I’m holding and not pleased with my plan. I turn away from him right as he turns off the shower and yanks the curtain open. I don’t even think about looking at him, not now. I just need to know who’s at the door. I need to know that I haven’t been found.