Saved By A Stranger (2 page)

“
You,
” she said
again, balling her fists, ignoring how lust welled in her
body.

Recognition sparked in his dark gaze. He
lowered the gun and murmured a curse, a vein throbbing in his
temple.

Yes, he remembered her all right.

Probably even remembered
how
he had
dumped her, even though he was a step ahead, because he knew
why
he had dumped her in the middle of a sort of date.

“
Ben, wasn’t it?” she
asked, knowing damn well his name and ignoring that he still held a
gun in his hand. “Should I call the police or will you leave on
your own?”She couldn’t even begin to guess what went on inside him,
but then his features smoothed into a poker face.

“
You mistake me for someone
else.”

“
Ha, right.” Bet he hadn’t
figured on bumping into someone who knew him while he…
What
exactly was he doing?

“
Are you trying to
rob
me?” Laughable. She was so broke, she should rob
him
.

After squinting at her, he glanced over his
shoulder at the street.

“
Um, listen, buddy,” she
said. “I don’t have a lot of money in the register but anyway, if I
were you, I’d pick another store to rob.” She gave him what she
hoped to be a convincing glare.

His answer was a snort, as if her suggestion
amused him.

After another look over his shoulder, he
pushed past her and dived—cursing—behind the counter and out of
sight. “Listen, honey,” he said quietly, “close the front door and
lower the blinds.”

“
Don’t you ‘honey’ me,” she
muttered, her gaze drawn to the street, aware that he was in her
store, hiding, holding a gun.
Why?

Two guys built like brickwalls headed toward
her shop. They moved with a certain grace, like cold-blooded
predators. As if someone walked over her grave, sudden dread came
over her. She wrapped her arms around her middle, skin itching just
looking at them.

Before she could move, the door swung
open.

“
Afternoon, miss,”
Brickwall number one said while number two stood facing the
street.

“
Afternoon,” she said,
forcing a smile. “The Red Velvets are on special today.”

“
DEA.” Brickwall flashed a
square piece of plastic—too fast for her to read. “You didn’t
happen to see a man running by your shop? My height, dark hair,
navy shirt, somewhat shifty?”

“
What did he
do?”

“
Sorry, that’s
confidential. But he’s dangerous.”

She didn’t believe him. And his ID was
probably as fake as a porn star’s boobs.

“
Goodness, I guess I better
close shop for today.”

He gave a curt nod, saying, “If you see
anyone suspicious, call,” and offered her a card. “There’s a reward
for any information that will help us catch this guy.”

She took the card and locked the door behind
them. Through the window, she watched them making their way across
the street. She lowered and closed the blinds, shutting off most of
the light, and switched on the light above the register.

“
So,” she said, flicking
the card into the paper bin, “a simple thanks will do.” She placed
both hands on the countertop, leaned over, expecting to find him
hiding behind the counter. Besides a piece of lint skittering
across the polished wood floor, nothing. Warm breath hit her neck
just beneath her ear.

“
Thanks,” he whispered,
sending a shiver of goose bumps along her back. Exasperated, she
slowly turned to face him. If it weren’t for the obvious questions
she had for him, his sight was actually a pleasant one. But he was
still holding a gun in his hand.

“
I just covered your ass,”
she pressed through her teeth. “Put the fricking gun
away.”

As if he was sorry to have bothered her, he
lifted both arms.

“
Sorry, some habits die
hard,” he said, pocketing the gun in an ankle holster. He took two
steps away from her, giving her another opportunity to check out
what the wind had so suddenly blown to her doorstep.

“
What’s going on,” she
said. “Do share.”

“
Trust me,” he said. “It’s
best you don’t know.”

“
Should I call the
cops?”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.
You’ll have to put a little trust in me.”

“
Trust. In
you
?”

“
Yes, in me.”

About six-foot something of lean, muscled
male met her gaze. His stance was relaxed, feet hip-width apart,
his legs clad in snug jeans.

She resisted working her hand through her
hair. A shiver worked its way over her skin from the soles of her
feet upward to her center, sending a jolt through her clit.

“
Listen,” he said,
interrupting her out-of-control thoughts, “this is how it will
work.”

“
Work?” she replied, and
dragged her focus back to the situation at hand. “Do you remember
at all that we met twenty-three days ago at—”

“
Don’t remember,” he said,
walking up and down the room as if he had trouble standing still.
“You’ve kept count?”

Dark eyes met hers with a mischievous
expression.

“
Very funny,” she said,
blood rushing to her cheeks. No, she hadn’t kept count, or maybe
she had, but she remembered the evening rather vividly.

He rubbed his face, blinking his eyes, as if
he had a hard time staying focused.

“
I need to crash here,” he
said, all playfulness forgotten, and she got a glimpse of the man
she’d thought he was when she first met him—an honest, sensitive,
courteous, quietly strong man. Boy, had he fooled her. “For a few
hours, until tomorrow morning tops. Okay?”

“
Certainly not.”

“
You don’t have much of a
choice, honey.” He raised his eyebrow, probably referring to his
stupid gun.

“
Call me ‘honey’ one more
time,” she said, pointing her finger at his face, “and you’ll
suffer a violent death.”

“
Sure, pumpkin,” he said,
grinning. “But I am pretty much having a perfect day today, so
excuse me that I won’t let you spoil it.”

“
This is what you call a
perfect day?” Only now, did I notice that her hands were shaking,
that her heart was still racing a mile a minute.

“
You all right? He asked,
stepping closer. “You look pale.”

“
I’m fine,” she said, but
really, she wasn’t feeling fine.

He stepped between her legs, leaning in.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” He lifted his hand to rest it
against her cheek, a sudden gentleness in his gaze. “I’m not going
to hurt you or anything like that, you know that, right?”

His touch zinged across her skin. There it
was again—the same chemistry she’d felt toward him before. She
stared transfixed into his eyes, fearing he would kiss her.

“
Despite appearances, I’m
very glad to see you again.” He cupped her jaw, lifting her head,
his breath feathering over her lips. “Really sorry about the gun. I
got carried away in the moment. Anything I can do to convince you
I’m harmless?”

She placed both hands against his chest.
Unbelievable. Now he was trying to make out with her? After all
this?

“
No,” she said, shoving him
two steps away. “Hell, no.”

He cocked his head as if weighing his
options. “Well, I guess that was a rejection on several
levels.”

She watched him walk up and down the length
of the room while he was scanning every shelf and corner, as if
checking for deathtraps.

He looked even more delicious when he moved
but that was hardly the point. She was the master of her body, not
her raging hormones. Fucking armed strangers of questionable
character wasn’t an option.

Thoughts of
Why the hell not?
floated
up in her mind and an embarrassed flush tingled over her face.

“
Where does the door lead
to?” he asked, hand on door handle.

“
Upstairs, my place above
the store—no, don’t you dare—“ Too late, he’d already opened the
door and was heading upstairs.

Of course.

Sliding from the counter, she grabbed a
chocolate cupcake from the shelf and started licking the frosting
off the top.

After that, she drained her glass of
wine.

And after a few more minutes allowing her
heartbeat to calm down, she slowly walked up the stairs toward her
bedroom unsure what to do with the man waiting for her there.

Chapter Three

He looked utterly out of place on top of her
purple bedspread. She slumped down on her desk chair, keeping her
gaze on his still face, his closed eyes.

He was
sleeping
.

How tired exactly could a person be to just
fall asleep after what just happened?

She could count on one hand what she knew
about him. He was a journalist for the local paper, he had really
bad manners, he carried a gun, he was on the run from people who
made her blood freeze.

And even sleeping he was sexy as hell.

And, maybe, she really should call the
cops.

She jumped up and gave him a nudge against
his foot with her knee. “Hey, you, wake up.”

He didn’t do her the favor.

His breath came steady and deep. He must
have been on the run from someone? Hadn’t he slept in a while to
fall into such a comatose sleep?

She tried hard not to notice the dark chest
hair curling from the top of his shirt. Such a male thing, chest
hair, she thought, flicking open a button of his shirt. Then
another.

The last shirt button slid through its hole.
Her hands shook when she tugged the shirt wider until he was
bare-chested. Holding her breath, she placed her flat palm against
his muscled flesh. His heart beat steadily, and his skin was warm
to the touch.

Tearing her gaze away from his small, erect
nipples playing peekaboo in his chest hair, she went to threw open
a window to allow her stuffy, too warm place to cool down.

She traced the tip of her finger across his
abs and along an uneven scar underneath his rib cage. It looked
like someone had tried to cut out his liver.

“
So male,” she whispered,
tracing her fingertip lightly over each rib and then his
stomach.

When he’d dumped her, leaving her sitting
alone in the sports bar, she’d paid for the drinks, her cheeks hot
with embarrassment, and walked home to spend a sleepless night
going over each word they’d exchanged.

When Jenna had given her a call the next
day, she hadn’t felt like sharing. For a couple of days afterward
she had fooled herself into thinking there had been some kind of
emergency. But he never called to apologize, even though it would
have been the easy to ask Jenna for her number.

And now he was in her bed.

Her own ragged breathing sounded odd in her
ears, but she couldn’t deny it anymore—she was on an weird
adrenaline high—and apparently it made her horny.

What if he were in her shoes?

Would he undress and touch her, if he’d
found her sleeping? Wrapping her arms around her middle, she tried
to suppress the violent shivers running up and down her skin. She
bit her lip, thinking hard, but sexual scenes in her mind came
crashing.

Fuck.

A snore from him had her snapping back to
attention. She backed away from the bed and sat on the floor.

“
Hey, you,” she said
loudly, annoyed with her own horniness and him in general. “Wake
up.”

He didn’t.

A quick glance at her wristwatch told her
she was in danger of running late for her meeting tonight.

Pacing up and down at the foot of the bed,
she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped dead cold.
Drab pale face, dull brownish hair, nervous red spots on her
cheeks.

She kicked the bedpost, stubbing her
toe.

“
What kind of gun-slinging
journalist are you?” she said, kicked the bedpost again. “Who the
fuck are you?”

She paused.

After one thorough body and pocket
search—two passports, spearmint gum, something that looked as if it
could be attached to the gun, cell phone, gun, money, no credit
cards but a black, worn-leather notebook—she had to sit down
because her knees were shaking.

One internet query for his full name
later—five hits—she skimmed over the black on white answers on the
screen. Ben Chase, six-one, one hundred and eighty pounds, wanted
by the DEA, person of interest…call Simon Parker…

And even in his photo, he managed to look
friendly, innocent and sexy.

A disbelieving laugh tore from her throat.
Looked like Brickwall had been speaking the truth after all… Then
the full implications hit her. He was a
person of interest
and she’d helped him…

She should call, call the cops, call for
help, and yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this would be
wrong. But, it stood to reason that she should do something to
protect herself.

Chapter Four

Ben swallowed away the dry feeling in his
mouth, opened his eyes and stared at a ceiling, cracked with old
paint. Blinking against soft darkness, he tried to lift his head,
which weighed about a ton.