I slept fitfully that night. I dreamt of pot roasts and masked men trying to grab me from behind thick velvet ropes. When I woke up, I was tangled in my sheets and drenched in sweat. I didn’t get a moment of peace before my phone was ringing.
I grabbed it while ripping the bedding from my mattress. “What?”
“Well, aren’t you little miss sunshine?” Jennifer’s voice was warm and kind, despite my greeting. “I just wanted to let you know that the set is closed today. We’re beefing up security measures and locking everything down. I want to make sure everyone is safe before we go back in. Another light fell last night. It nearly took out Laster.”
I dropped everything and froze. “Another light fell?”
“Yeah. Near the stage. Laster was going over some lines and barely managed to jump out of the way in time.”
“That doesn’t make any sense if this freak is just after me. I never sit near the stage. If they knew enough to know where my chair always sat, they’d know I never sat by the stage. So why mess with that light?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, at this point, they’re just trying to shut down the whole movie.”
It didn’t feel right. Something buzzed at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t form the feeling enough to know what it was. “I don’t know either. If his attention is shifting to the set, maybe we should shut it down for a few days. There’s no need to put anyone’s life in danger.”
She scoffed. “Except for yours? How come now you give a shit? I don’t like that you are apparently so flippant about threats when they’re aimed at you, Darby.”
I picked up my bedding again and sighed. “It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I asked for some of this, Jen. I stuck my nose in places that naturally upset people. No one else did. No one else deserves anything like this.”
“You don’t deserve anything like this. You did your job and you put an end to a vicious string of murders. Don’t be stupid.”
I walked out of my room and stumbled over the end of my sheet as I locked eyes with Hendrix. He was standing up from the couch, in just a pair of black briefs and I felt like I’d instantly lost about half of my brain functions.
I tried and failed to keep my eyes above his chin. I took in his wide chest and narrow waist, the growing bulge in his briefs, and the thickness of his thighs. I tried to catch myself but I stepped on the sheet again and the silky material on the smooth, hardwood floor made it impossible. I slipped and went flying forward, thankfully landing on my pile of sheets.
“You okay? It sounded like you just got punched or something.” Somehow, I’d managed to keep the phone next to my ear.
“Jen, I gotta call you back.”
She snorted. “Are you doing some weird sex thing with Hendrix? Girl, you need to fess up and tell me everything. That man is gorgeous.”
“You’re not lying…” I’d turned my head and found Hendrix standing over me with his thick arms crossed over his chest. He looked amused.
She squealed in my ear but I was already trying to stand up. I hung up the phone quickly and shook my head. “I’m a mess.”
Hendrix nodded. “Yep.”
I knelt there, cheeks growing redder by the second. He wasn’t too far from me and when I chanced a glance at his body, he shifted. There was some throat clearing and when I looked farther up, his eyes met mine with a lot of heat. It sent shockwaves of pleasure coursing through my body.
He bent down and grabbed me under my arms to pull me up and into his chest. “If I’m supposed to have any self-control around you, you can’t be on your knees in front of me, looking up at me like that. Go back to your room and put on some pants, would you?”
I was still grasping the feeling of his bare thighs against mine when he spun me away from him and slapped me hard on the ass. I gasped and hurried to my room. I stopped in the doorway and looked back at him, though, to find him staring at me with the biggest erection I’d ever seen in real life tenting his briefs and a pained look on his face.
Feeling a little wild, I pulled my sleep shirt over my head and threw it down before flashing him a slow smile and closing my door. Seeing the look on his face was bliss for me, knowing that I was getting to him just as much as he was getting to me.
I leaned against the door and covered my face with my hands as I processed the fact that I’d just flashed him my almost completely naked body. I’d never been so bold before. Something about the man in my living room set me on fire, though.
Enough to make me forget what I’d just learned and what I was supposed to be focused on. I saw what he meant when he talked about being distracted.
I cracked the door open and hid behind it. “Hendrix?”
“Not right now, Darby.” His voice sounded tortured.
“Um, well… That was Jen on the phone and she mentioned that another light fell after we left. It almost hit Laster but he got out of the way in time.”
A growl met my ears as he stepped into view. His eyes moved down my body, but after my shoulder, I was hidden by the door. “That’s why we shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I know, I know. It’s a distraction.”
He frowned and eventually nodded. “Yeah. It is.”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, why would the stalker person mess with the light by the stage?”
“I don’t know. I got a text from Jennifer earlier saying they’re tightening up security at the studio today, so we’re free. I want to swing by there and check out what they’re doing and see about the second light that fell. Can you be ready in half an hour?”
I glanced down at his still-tented briefs. “Can you?”
He tried to grab me but I shut the door in a hurry and then locked it for good measure before laughing and heading towards my shower. Before I’d even reached the shower curtain, though, he was behind me, leaning against the doorframe.
I spotted him and screamed while trying to keep my chest covered at the same time. My earlier bravado had vanished. “How did you”
He laughed and twirled my shirt from the end of his finger. “I was a SEAL, Darby. A locked door is never going to be enough to keep me out.”
I tried to snatch my shirt but he caught my arm and pulled me into his chest. With one wrist in his hand and the other arm trapped between our bodies, I was trapped against him. Not that I minded. “I don’t think you understand what keeping away from me means.”
With a shake of his head, he turned us so my back was pressed into the wall and then he leaned down to capture my mouth in a hot kiss. When he pulled back, his lips were red and his eyes were heavy. “I can’t walk away when you look like this.”
My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest and somehow, I’d gotten my arms free and they were wrapped around his neck. “Like what?”
He leaned down and nipped my lips before groaning and pressing his palms against the wall behind me. “All big eyes and soft skin. You look like you just woke up from a night in my bed with your hair all messy and your lips all swollen. I want to devour you when you look like this. Then you look up at me like you’re amazed and my dick tries to break free of my clothes.”
I whimpered and tugged at his hair. “What are we doing, Hendrix?”
He gripped the back of my thighs and easily lifted me into his arms. “Getting this out of our systems so we can focus again.”
I stiffened and felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been poured over my head. I wanted him, more than I’d ever wanted another man, but not like that. Maybe I was being stupid, but I didn’t want to have sex with him just so he could get me out of his system. I was a little more romantic than that.
“What? What’s wrong?”
I pushed against his chest and he let me slide down his body. As soon as my feet touched the floor, I bent over and grabbed the shirt he’d dropped earlier. I pulled it on and turned away from him. “You should go.”
He stood there for a few more seconds before leaving me alone in the bathroom. He didn’t say anything, attempt to talk me down from whatever ledge he could tell I was on. He just left.
I shut the door and started the shower, embarrassed to find tears prickling the back of my eyes. It didn’t make any sense, but I was feeling more than a little bit emotional about him wanting to just “get me out of his system.” He didn’t owe me anything. We weren’t dating. He was my bodyguard and we happened to find each other attractive. I should’ve been okay with just screwing around and then forgetting it.
I stripped off my panties and then climbed into the shower. As soon as the hot water touched me, the first tear fell. In an instant, I wasn’t just crying about Hendrix. Instead, I was crying over everything that was going on and everything that had gone wrong.
I rested my forehead against the cool tiles and let the water pound into my shoulders. Like a movie, scenes from the past couple months played across my mind. The ones of Tabatha hurt the most and I wondered what the women under Ricky were doing.
Tabatha was the mother of the group of them. She took care of them and did everything she could to make sure they were safe. Only twenty-five herself, she acted much older and cared for everyone around her with a heart that was much bigger than the circumstances she’d been handed in life.
I leaned my head back into the stream and then gasped. That was it. There was one girl who was especially close to Tabatha. Surely, she’d be willing to speak out against Ricky. It would just take one girl. I just knew it.
I hurried through my shower, trying to solidify the girl’s face in my head so I could describe her and point her out. Surely, I’d caught her on film at some point. I just had to find her.
I dried off in a hurry and dragged on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt before wrapping my hair in a towel and rushing out to the living room.
Hendrix was sitting on the couch, his own hair wet from a shower. I ignored the thoughts and grabbed my laptop from in front of him, where he’d been studying it the night before.
“There was a girl who was really close to Tabatha. She was younger, probably not even twenty. She loved Tab. Maybe if we can find her, she’ll roll over on Ricky.”
“That’s probably our best bet. What’s her name?”
I quickly brought up my files and opened the tab labeled Tabatha. I opened the first video and enlarged it. “I don’t know.”
“Where do we find her?”
I glanced over at him, but a flash of the bathroom scene had me looking away just as fast. “I don’t know.”
He blew out a big breath. “Okay… So, what do you know?”
“I know what she looks like. I can’t remember where I saw her, but I’m hoping she’ll show up somewhere on here. She’s young, and at the time, her hair was black. She’s a white girl with big dark eyes. Pale skin, an odd look to her.”
“An odd look?”
I looked over at him with a frown. “I’m doing what I can here, Hendrix.”
He didn’t meet my eyes as he stood up and moved over to the TV. “Yeah, okay.”
After thirty minutes of looking, I still hadn’t seen her. Annoyance bit at me and I could tell Hendrix was annoyed, too. He wasn’t saying anything, but I could feel waves of frustration coming off of him.
“Why don’t you take a break? I need to run to the studio and we’re out of food. I’m hungry.”
I laughed. “That’s it. You’re hangry.”
He narrowed his eyes at me but didn’t say anything else. Instead, he pushed my laptop shut and motioned towards my head.
I remembered the towel on my head and took it off. I moved to my bedroom and quickly brushed my hair and braided it. I slipped my feet into sandals and met Hendrix by the door. He gave me a look so I frowned at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
I sighed. “It’s going to be a long day.”