Being Me (2 page)

“I have to go back and lock the unit,” I whisper. I could call the police to meet me. They won’t arrest me for being afraid of the dark. They might laugh, they might be irritated, but I’ll be safe and smart this time.

My cell phone rings from the seat, where I don’t remember tossing it, and I jump, balling my fist between my breasts. “Good grief,” I murmur, chiding myself. “Get a grip, Sara.”

I glance at the number.
Chris
. My chest burns hot with emotion. There is so much between us that is unsettled, so many reasons why we are wrong for each other. Yet, despite this or perhaps because of it, I have never needed to hear someone’s voice as much as I need to hear his now.

“Sara,” he murmurs when I answer, and my name is a soft rasp of silky male perfection that radiates through me and settles in the deep hollow of my soul only he seems to fill.

“Chris.” My voice cracks on his name, because damn it, my eyes are burning. How have I gone from living the past few years so unaffected by what is around me to the opposite in a matter of weeks? “I . . . I wish you were here.”

“I am here, baby,” he says, and I think, I hope, I hear a note of his own emotion etched deep within his words. “I’m at your front door. Open up.”

I blink in confusion. “I thought you were in L.A. for the charity event.”

“I was and I have to fly out again in the morning, but I had to see you. Open up and let me in.”

I am stunned. I’ve worried all day over his silence. Feared he’d shut me out, as I had him last night. “You came home just to see me?”

“Yes. I came just to see you.” He seems to hesitate. “Are you going to leave me outside?”

More of that emotion I try not to feel erupts inside me, and the burn in my eyes threatens to become tears. He came to see me, went out of his way, to fly here from another city, even after the way I’d reacted to his confession at the club last night. “I’m not home.” My voice is barely audible. “I’m not and I want to be. Can you please come here?”

“Where is here?” he asks, sounding as urgent as I feel.

“A few blocks away. At a Stop N Buy store by the storage unit I told you about.” I can’t bring myself to say Rebecca’s name and I don’t know why.

“I’ll be right there.”

I open my mouth to give him directions, but the line goes dead.

I’m out of my car the instant I see Chris’s Porsche pulling into the parking lot, and the chill I feel when I step outside has nothing to do with the cold air blasting from the nearby ocean, and everything to do with what had happened back at that storage unit. I hug myself and watch him drive toward my silver Ford Focus, and my heart thunders in my chest. Suddenly, I am nervous and insecure, and I hate this part of me I cannot escape. What if I’ve read his visit wrong and he’s here to end what’s between us? What if my reaction to his big reveal last night at Mark’s club has convinced him of what he’s so often declared? That I don’t belong in this world, in his world.

The 911 slides sleekly into the parking spot next to mine, and I try not to think about it being the same car my father drives. My father is the last person I should have on my mind, yet he’s been in my head these past few weeks and I don’t know why.
I’m off-kilter, my mind all over the place, shaken by the night’s events and my fear of what will happen with Chris.

I watch Chris exit the car, and just the sight of him towering over the roof of the Porsche sets my pulse to racing all over again. He rounds the trunk, and dressed in black jeans, biker boots, and a leather jacket, his blond hair spiking to his collar, he looks rumpled and sexy, and oh so ruggedly male. His long strides mimic the same urgency I feel, and I launch myself in his direction.

The few steps between us feel like an eternity before I am finally in his arms, wrapped in the warm cocoon of his embrace, his powerful body absorbing mine. The battle of the night before is gone as if it never existed. I melt into the hard lines of him, sliding my hands beneath his leather jacket, and inhaling the wonderful sandalwood and musk scent that is so wonderfully Chris.

In an easy move, he maneuvers me to the side of the car, where the wall hides us from the sight of the people coming and going into the store. “Talk to me, baby,” he orders, studying me in the dim, barely there glow of some kind of parking lights on the Porsche. “Are you okay?”

My eyes meet his and even in the deep haze of the shadows I feel the connection between us, the depths of his feelings for me. Chris has layers I don’t pretend to understand, but he cares about me and I want him to see what I failed to show him last night. I want to understand him. I want him, all of him, including those parts I made him feel I can’t deal with.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Now that you’re here, I’m okay.”

I’ve barely spoken the words when his mouth closes over
mine, and I can taste his urgency, his fear, which I recognize now as my own, a fear that after our visit to Mark’s club, we’d never be here, like this, again. I arch into him, drinking in his passion, instantly, willingly consumed by all that he is and could be to me. A dark seed of something that started back in the storage unit, or maybe last night in the club, tries to surface, something my mind refuses to accept. Desperate to escape what I do not want to face, I do what I never dare, and lose myself in the moment. I feel myself sinking deeper into passion, lost in the heat burning low in my belly, the desire spreading slick and hot, between my thighs. There is nothing but the slide of Chris’s tongue against mine, the taste and scent of him, the feel of his hands molding me possessively against his body. I need this. I need
him
.

I shove my hands under his shirt, absorbing the hot feel of taut skin over hard muscle, pressing closer to him. A rough sound of desire rumbles in his chest, and I revel in his pleasure, his desire for me, at the way his hands slide down my back, over my backside, before he pulls me hard against his groin. I lick into his mouth as I feel his erection thick against my stomach, and something just snaps inside me. I don’t care where I am. I don’t know where I am. I just want Chris. I cannot stop touching him, tasting him. We are all over each other and I am lost. And still, it’s not enough to keep that dark seed at bay. I need something . . . more. I need . . .

“Sara.”

I gasp as Chris tears his mouth from mine and my name is a rasp of heat and desire torn from his throat. With no concept of how much time has passed, I’m against the wall and I don’t remember how I got there, nor do I care. I try to kiss Chris
again. His fingers tunnel into my hair, holding me back, and he is breathing as hard as I am. “We have to stop before I get us arrested. And right now, it wouldn’t take much to risk it just to be inside you.”

Yes. Please
. Chris inside me, filling me. I crave that more than my next breath. I blink up at him, dazed but not confused about what I want, which is him. Now. Here. But the sound of an engine, and the laughter of a child, blast through me with a jolt that stiffens my spine. Everything that’s happened in the past hour rushes over me and balls into a tight knot in my stomach. I am appalled that I have forgotten where I am, and the urgency of needing to secure Rebecca’s things.

I splay my hand over the warm heat of Chris’s chest. “I forgot the time.” I’m panting. How can I not be with this man’s hips ground to mine, promising the kind of sweet escape I know he can give me? I push thoughts through the haze of lust. “I forgot to lock the unit. I have to get back before the main building is locked and I can’t.” I
want
to tell him everything that has happened. He’s the only person I can talk to about my fears for Rebecca, but I instinctively know he will flip out and ask too many questions when I have no time. I have to get to the storage unit quickly. “Can you follow me over? I need to hurry.” I don’t wait for an answer. I slide along the wall to make my escape and ineffectively try to dart around him.

His hand settles on the wall by my head, caging me in. “What do you need from Rebecca’s storage unit this late at night?” His jaw is set in that stubborn way I am coming to know, and despite its meaning, a part of me revels that I am coming to know him.

I brush my hand over the dark blond stubble on his jaw responsible for the delicious rasp on my cheek. “Can I explain on the way over? Please, Chris? I really don’t want to get sealed out of the main building.”

His keen stare cuts through the darkness and, damn it, I was right in my assumption. He’s steel, unmoving. Unwilling to let me escape without explanation. “What haven’t you told me, Sara?”

“In case you don’t know, you can be very overbearing, Chris. I’ll tell you on the way over.”

“Tell me now.”

“They’ll lock the building, Chris.”

He doesn’t move. Right. Of course not. Chris is always in control.
Not always
, a voice in my head says, and I remember him offering me his shirt to keep me from feeling insecure about my nudity when he was still dressed. In small but important ways he shares the power with me.

“I stopped by to see if I could find anything else that might tell me how to contact Rebecca.” I intend to say no more, but he stares at me and my tendency toward nervous rambling kicks in. “I lost track of time and then all of a sudden the power went out and it was pitch black. I felt like I was suffocating and I couldn’t see anything and I got spooked. I heard this weird popping sound and I felt like I wasn’t alone.”

“What do you mean you felt like you weren’t alone?”

“I just know I wasn’t alone. Someone was inside the building. It felt like they were stalking me. I didn’t know if I should hide or run and I couldn’t see my damn phone to dial. I finally ran and when I got to my car I drove here. That’s how
I ended up leaving the unit unlocked. I’d just pulled in here when you called.”

He stares at me for another intense moment and then pushes off the wall, cursing under his breath as his hands settle on his hips, under his jacket. “What the fuck were you doing at the storage unit after dark alone in the first place?”

My defenses flare, made worse by the fact that I know it wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Stupidity is not an easy thing to face. “Don’t curse at me, Chris.”

“Don’t make decisions that put yourself in danger and I won’t.”

My feathers are ruffled further. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“Is that what you call tonight?” His anger is palpable, crackling off him like the hum of electricity. “Taking care of yourself? Because if it is, you’re scaring the crap out of me, Sara. I told you I’d have someone look into Rebecca’s whereabouts and that means you leave it the hell alone.”

I’m more than defensive now. I’m pissed. I don’t need another man to tell me I don’t know how to take care of myself. I lash out. “We’ve had this conversation, Chris. Fucking me does not give you the right to run my life.”

His jaw flexes, and while the shadows hide the green of his eyes, I’m pretty sure they’d be burning with red-hot anger. “Is that what we’re back to, Sara? I’m fucking you? Is that where last night took us again? Why you are all over me in a parking lot? Because if you want me to fuck you, I’ll fuck you until you can’t remember your damn name and you never forget mine.”

Heat rushes over me because I know how capable he is of
making good on his words. But in their depths is the inference I’m not already there, that he doesn’t know I will never forget him, and more so, that I don’t want to try. I open my mouth to say as much, but I don’t get the chance.

“Decide now, Sara,” he demands. “If I’m with you beyond a few fuck sessions, I’m damn sure going to do everything I can to protect you and you’re going to have to deal with it.”

My mood shifts instantly with his ultimatum. I’m already in old demon territory and I can suddenly taste the poison of the past in every word I hiss. “Protect me or control me, Chris?”

I wait for him to react, to try to smash me back down, to demand of me whatever he sees as his right. Part of me wants him to rise to this challenge. Another fears he will. But at least if he does, I know how to deal with it.

But this is Chris, and he doesn’t do anything I expect, now or ever. He just stares at me, his expression unreadable, his jaw set in a hard line.

Long, tense seconds tick by, and he reaches into his jacket and snatches his keys from his pocket. “Let’s go lock the damn storage unit.”

He turns away and I feel my stomach sink to my feet. I don’t want to fight with him. And I’m not fighting with Chris, anyway, I realize. I’m fighting with my past and I refuse to let my old demons come between us.

I dart forward and put myself between him and the car, my hand settling on his chest. He doesn’t touch me. He stares down at me and I see no emotion in him. I’ve seen this Chris, back at the winery, when he’d been given something of his father’s, when he was shutting down emotionally, and I am not going
to let him do that now. Not with me. Not because I let some damnable past demon get in the way.

Emotion claws at my chest and my lashes lower. “I’m sorry.” I draw a heavy breath and meet his stare. I’m scared to death of being vulnerable with this man who, without even trying, has more power over me than anyone before him did, but I remind myself that coming here was his olive branch, his act of vulnerability. “I needed you to be here and somehow you are, and it means more to me than you can possibly know. I don’t know how I’ve made such a mess of this, Chris. Please don’t let me screw this up again like I did last night.”