The Distraction Read online

  “Anna,” I said. He’d been at the AA meeting as well—the one in the suit I’d seen loitering at the coffee cart.

  “I know.” He grinned, and I couldn’t help smiling back. At least not everyone here was a total dick.

  “There’s full video surveillance,” said Alec in a quiet voice. “Around the house, and out to the street. It’s solid. I checked it myself.”

  I knew why he was telling me this. He wanted me to know I would be safe here.

  I nodded.

  We continued on to the last bedroom at the end of the hall. It wasn’t much larger than the one at my apartment, but it did have its own private bathroom and double bed. There was one small window, but thick red curtains covered it.

  “I can’t believe you’ve been staying here,” I said. In the quiet stillness of the room I became aware of my pulse, still flying, and the twitchy comedown from my adrenaline rush.

  He sat on the bed, pulling me between his knees. His head came to rest against my stomach and I wove my hands through his thick, dark hair. Slowly, my body began to settle.

  “It’s not so bad,” he said. “Sheets are clean at least. I washed them yesterday.”

  His fingers spread over my waist, warming the ice that Reznik had left inside of me.

  “You shouldn’t be doing anything,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was muffled in my thin, long-sleeved cover-up, but I could hear the exhaustion.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  He looked up at me then, dark eyes swimming with emotion.

  “It’s not worth it, is it?”

  I held his face in my hands. For a second, I feared that he meant us—that we weren’t worth it—but his grip only tightened around my waist.

  “What isn’t worth it?”

  “The trial. Testifying. I thought it was the right thing.”

  “Alec, it is the right thing.”

  Every muscle in his body went rigid. “You’ve had a knife to your throat and a gun to your neck in the last two weeks. What happens when the trial actually starts?” He turned his face away. “Anna, this is your life we’re talking about.”

  I understood that. I also understood that Maxim was snapping his jaws like a rabid dog backed into a corner. He was running out of options fast. In a matter of months, he would lose everything.

  “It’s your life, too,” I said.

  “You don’t understand.” He gripped his side, the pain bright in his eyes, and he lowered his voice to control it. “You are my life. If I lose you none of this was worth it.”

  His words settled on my skin and slowly sunk in, giving me time to recognize what they meant for both of us. Never had I been necessary to another person, but as I looked at Alec I knew that his need went far beyond the physical.

  Mike had told me before that Alec had gone his whole life looking for an anchor, and I was it. I understood that now, better than ever. I could almost feel him grasping for something to hold on to. For me.

  I sank into his lap, my touch just as gentle as his was fierce. I stroked his jaw, the tense muscles of his neck. He shivered as I slid my hands beneath the collar of his shirt.

  “You won’t lose me,” I said. “I’m right here.”

  Slowly, I tilted my head and pressed my lips to his. My eyes drifted closed, and soon there was nothing but the soft warmth of his mouth, and the rough stubble on his jaw, and his fingers rising up my back.

  My breath caught as the kiss deepened. He would claim me with that passion. Build a brick wall around us and never let anyone get close enough to hurt me again. I could have let him—I wanted to let him—but I didn’t. Because what he wanted and what he needed were two different things, and right now when he was raw, and hurting, and afraid, he needed love of a different kind.

  I eased back, planting light kisses on his cheek and his brow.

  “We’re going to get through this,” I said, feeling more confident as I said the words aloud. “Maxim Stein is going to pay for what he’s done. And one day we’re going to look back and this all is just going to be a memory.”

  He studied me for a moment, pushing back my hair.

  “I lied before,” he said quietly. “When I said it’s not your job to save me.”

  I ran my fingertips over his jaw, tracing the dark circles of exhaustion beneath his eyes.

  “You’ve been saving me since the day I met you,” he said.

  Tears welled up in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. I kissed him again, dampening both our faces with them. Everything ugly, all the chaos and the danger, was left outside. We were here now. Together. That was all that mattered.

  I held his hand against my cheek, brought back to reality by the swelling in his knuckles. I pulled his hand down to assess the damage from where he’d hit Reznik, and Tenner before him. There was only one cut, but the bruising had already begun.

  Gently, I blew across the back of his hand, smiling when his breathing turned rough. I went to get a washcloth from the bathroom, and when it was damp and cool, I laid it across his skin. An ice pack would have been better, but I wasn’t ready to part with him, even for a few minutes.

  “Let me fix your bandage,” I said.

  I helped him out of his shirt, tracing the rise of muscle over his chest. I hadn’t been mistaken the last time I’d seen him; he was thinner than before. I was going to take care of that, too, now that I was here.

  “Keep touching me like that, and I’m not going to let you play nurse for long.”

  I smirked, flattening my hands over his pecs, reveling in the way his lips parted, and his eyes rolled back as if I was doing something a thousand times more erotic.

  “Lie back,” I said. “Nurse Anna’s going to take care of you.”

  He complied, and I reached for the open pack of bandages on the nightstand. Beside them was a full prescription bottle of painkillers.

  “Did you just get these refilled?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want them.”

  “But you’re in pain.”

  “They make me numb.”

  “And?”

  He took the bottle from my hand and placed it back on the nightstand.

  “And you don’t want to be numb in case I need you,” I murmured.

  He didn’t respond.

  I changed his bandage, biting my tongue so as not to complain when I realized he’d been doing this himself the whole time he’d been here. When I was done, I rubbed his temples, and his shoulders, and his arms, imagining him here alone, pacing, staring at the GPS, making himself crazy wondering if he’d made the right decision to leave me alone.

  By the time I reached his chest, he was asleep.

  Thirty-five

  I showered in the tiny stall adjacent to where Alec slept, keeping the door cracked, just in case he stirred. It was getting late, but my mind was running a mile a minute. Jack Reznik. Maxim Stein. Bobby Calloway. Charlotte MacAfee. Their faces kept swimming in front of my vision, even as I squeezed my eyes closed. I’d told Alec moving forward with the trial was worth it because it was. It was the right thing. It was the kind of thing my father would have done.

  But then I thought about Jacob, who’d run away from home to protect his sister. Sometimes doing the wrong thing actually got you to the right place.

  No. Alec would testify. We were both safe now. The police would catch Reznik, and he would confess that Maxim had paid him to threaten us. And then both of them would be locked up for the rest of their lives.

  I just prayed that he wouldn’t find other ways to hurt us. Ways that involved the people we cared about, like the two friends I had left the YMCA with earlier tonight. Mike had his daughter to worry about, and nothing could happen to Amy or Paisley. Not after her ex, and not because of me.

  Alec was still passed out on the bed wh
en I came out. Seconds, maybe minutes passed while I watched him sleep. The tight lines of worry on his face had softened, making him look younger, less burdened. His chest rose and fell evenly, and even half covered by the gauze bandage, his body was perfection. An impossible combination of smooth skin and hard muscle. A living, breathing statue.

  The cheap towel was rough against my sensitive skin as I tightened it around my body. More than anything, I wanted to take it off and lie down beside him. Touch him slowly, make him warm. Heal him, and heal the hurt inside of me as well.

  But he needed to rest. And I needed to eat.

  I found a pair of his sweatpants and a T-shirt in the small closet, and even though they were huge and I looked ridiculous, I made my way out into the living room.

  Tenner was sitting on the couch with his hand in a box of cereal watching a basketball game on TV. He must have gotten back when I was in the shower. Though he’d gotten rid of the rag, his face didn’t look much better than before. His nose may not have been broken, but he was going to have a couple of nice black eyes come the morning.

  “Did they catch him?” I asked, rushing to the couch.

  “Who? Reznik?” He took another handful of cereal. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  “Yes, Reznik,” I said. “Did the police catch him?”

  “Nope.”

  I rocked back on my heels. I’d already been on edge, and now I couldn’t keep my frustration from boiling over.

  “Why are you such a jerk?” I asked. “It’s no wonder Alec punched you.”

  He stopped mid-bite.

  “Your boy back there may have just compromised the entire trial, you know that, right? I snagged the video feed of the intersection, but any asshole with a smartphone could be uploading a video right now of key witness Alec Flynn attacking some poor chump in the middle of the street. It won’t exactly make him look trustworthy in court.”

  “But Alec didn’t attack him,” I said. “Reznik had a gun. He was going to shoot him.”

  “Matter of perspective,” Tenner retorted. “I watched the traffic footage. Looks like Alec charges, unprovoked. Reznik draws in attempt to defend himself then flees in a minivan. Which he dumped, by the way, five miles down the road from where you parted ways.”

  I swallowed, feeling the heat that had risen in my cheeks drain away. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for what had happened, and now Reznik was on the loose, and probably righteously pissed off. He could be planning his revenge right now.

  “I’m monitoring the Web,” said Matt from one of the foldout chairs in front of the card table. He was staring at a laptop, a handheld monitor with a video feed right beside him. “Nothing’s surfaced yet. We might get lucky.”

  “But that’s all part of the job,” continued Tenner. “What really makes me a jerk is that I’m sick and fucking tired of dry cereal and cold pizza.” He tossed the box on the couch.

  I made my way to Matt’s side, staring at the images of outside that flipped by on his monitor. No Reznik. Not that I’d expected him just to be standing out on the front lawn like some horror movie or something. I picked at my fingernails.

  “I could cook.” It wasn’t going to make anything better, but maybe it would serve as a small thank-you for allowing me to stay here.

  The first two cabinets I opened were empty. “What kinds of things do you have?”

  Matt jumped up to help me search.

  “There’s a pizza from last night in the fridge. And there’s . . . um . . .” He opened the double doors to the nearly bare pantry. “Pancake mix? I don’t think we have any milk though.”

  I took a slow breath.

  “It would be a real shame if that guy you’re trying to keep from getting stabbed again dies of starvation.”

  “What about me?” called Tenner. “Does anyone care if I die of starvation?”

  Matt rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “We got Chinese one night.”

  I blinked at him.

  Tenner twisted on the couch to face me. “If you seriously can cook, I’ll go pick up anything you want.”

  “Yes,” I said evenly. “I seriously can cook.”

  Five minutes later he was out the door with a shopping list.

  While he was gone, I sorted through the kitchen, pulling out mixing bowls, pots, and three measuring cups—all the same size. It wasn’t much, but it would work. Matt stayed close by, helping me search for various supplies. With his flat freckled cheeks and broad forehead, he wasn’t the most attractive guy I’d ever seen, but his personality made him instantly likable.

  “So how’d you end up in the FBI?” I asked.

  He searched for some dish soap under the sink, and began washing the dusty dishes I’d set aside to use.

  “I ask myself that every day,” he said, making me laugh. “It’s not a very exciting story. I got a degree in accounting, then another in finance. Learned quickly my chosen track wasn’t the best way to meet women, so I applied for a job with the FBI. Figured I could be a secret agent.”

  “And?” I asked. “Does working for the FBI impress the ladies?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a short laugh. “Are you impressed?”

  I smiled. “Absolutely.”

  “What about you? Is wit . . .” He looked up, and I sensed he was smiling even though I couldn’t see his face. “Is non-witness protection everything you dreamed it would be?”

  “Everything and more.” I found a towel and began drying the dishes he put on the counter. My voice lowered. “I heard that Alec had made some kind of deal to keep me out of the trial.”

  “Really?” he asked flatly. “Is that what he and Janelle are always arguing about?”

  I wondered just how often I’d been brought up in conversation. The thought of people talking about me when I wasn’t around threw me straight back into high school.

  “Where is Ms. Jamison tonight?” I asked, noticing that she hadn’t popped out of some hidden corner yet. It took some effort to minimize the bitterness in my tone.

  “Janelle has an apartment near the field office.”

  It surprised me just how relieved I was to hear she wasn’t staying here. I didn’t like the idea of another woman living with Alec, even given the circumstances.

  “She isn’t a big fan of me,” I said.

  Matt finished and turned off the water. “Don’t take it personally. Her focus is Alec. Alec’s focus is you. She finds it . . . irritating.”

  “Sounds like a bad love triangle,” I said.

  He chuckled. “I don’t think you have to worry about him straying. He’s holding a hard line. No one digs into your business. You don’t get brought into the trial. He’s giving the prosecution whatever they need as long as they leave you alone.”

  I hadn’t considered it much before, but the prosecution could have called me as a witness, especially after what Bobby had told me the night I’d been abducted. I could have been put up on the stand in front of a judge and jury, forced to talk about my sessions with Maxim, and my relationship with Alec, and who knows what else.

  But I wouldn’t be. Because of Alec.

  Still, as much as I appreciated the gesture, I would have done it if it had helped him.

  “I’ll do whatever I need to do,” I said.

  Matt paused then. “Think about that before you say it to Janelle. Stein has all the attorneys money can buy, and all they’re doing right now is looking for ways to make Alec bleed. Their first attack will be pointing out the flaws in his credibility, and no offense, but given what I know of your history, they’ll tear you down before you even see it coming.”

  I shivered, the danger of what was lurking around the corner clawing another layer deeper.

  “He’s been taking a beating to keep you out of his business,” finished Matt. “That’s not something to take ligh
tly.”

  I wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about being kept out of Alec’s business. I should have been grateful; it was a sticky mess, that was for certain. But I didn’t like the idea of him shutting me out.

  * * *

  I woke in stages. First, feeling the warmth of a hard, muscular chest spooned down the length of my back. Then with a shimmer of heat from soft fingertips sliding over my belly.

  A soft, wet mouth on the side of my neck.

  The rustle of crisp sheets.

  His solid length, nestled between my thighs.

  We were surrounded by darkness so thick there was nothing to do but feel, trapped in that weightless place between sleeping and awake where time was suspended.

  I pressed back into him, inviting his hand to fan open and rise to where the flat of my stomach met the swell of my breasts. He lingered there, tracing the curves of my body, his touch no more than a whisper.

  My hips rocked back of their own accord, and he responded slowly, bringing a new awareness of the thin cotton of the clothing that separated us. A flame burned deep in my belly—not a spark, but something slower, and stronger, and more insistent.

  “I need you,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear.

  I reached behind me to his hip, and down his thigh to where the muscles grew rigid beneath my touch. He pressed himself against me again. His tongue drew a rough line over the delicate skin where my pulse fluttered, making me gasp.

  “Is this a dream?” I whispered.

  His answer was another kiss, this one on the base of my neck, and then the slide of his fingers between my legs. Even over my panties the sensation was intense, and I pressed my thighs together, trapping him there.

  “Don’t stop,” I whimpered, as his hand began to stroke me. “In my dreams you always stop.”

  He opened my legs, pulling one over his. Callused fingers trailed down my thighs to my center and began that slow, torturous massage again.