Jacob grabs my bag from the hallway, and then leads me to a side door, where we’re greeted by yet another security panel. I watch as he keys in a code and then uses his fingerprint again. The process is a welcome reminder that there are layers of protection here that I do not have at my place. Jacob clears the security requirements and the door pops open, after which, we enter a spacious foyer with a high ceiling, and head up a stairwell, with wide, marble steps. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t push me to speak. He simply settles his arm over my shoulders, and lets me know I’m not alone. Funny how until now, alone felt really damn good. I think I hate Jacob again. I think he’s slowly taking away the peace that alone gave me in the past.
“I liked you better as an asshole,” I whisper, thinking of how easily I could fall for him and how easily he can die on me. He glances over at me, his expression guarded, his only reply a slight tightening of his hand on mine, as if he’s telling me he’s not letting me go. As if he knows exactly where my head is right now, and it’s out the door, in the other direction. I know he does when he pulls me just a little closer, and then in front of him at his door, when he knows I don’t really want to push him away, but I don’t want to fall for him either.
His big arms reach around me as he keys in a code in his door, and repeats the numbers near my ear. An invitation to enter his apartment that feels as if it reaches beyond one open door. He’s protecting me. I know this. But I don’t know where that leave us when this is over.
Jacob pushes the door open and I realize now that this is the part of this visit that feels like it changes me forever. This is the part that changes us forever. I am about to see a part of Jacob, a window into his life, and by doing so, I become a part of that life. All the denial from the stairwell, disappear into my real feelings. I want to see in that window. I want whatever comes next. That desire, drives me forward and I walk through the doorway. Jacob flips on a light and what greets me is a stunningly crafted open concept space. A room that is divided in two halves by a see-through smoked glass strip of flooring with industrial pipes beneath; those two halves being a kitchen and a living area.
Jacob steps behind me then, and I let him ease my coat off my shoulders, as well as allowing him to take my bag. I glance over my shoulder as he walks them both to a coat rack that is steel and shaped like the Eiffel tower. This is no normal man’s home and I have questions that he must expect, and that I really need answered.
He shrugs out of his own jacket. I walk to one of the barstools by the island, perching on the edge of its leather cushion, while taking in the living area. A space framed by massive windows, while those windows are framed by thin industrial piping, and heavy wood. The seating area in front of them is two couches facing each other, both framed by wood, with gray cushions.
Jacob joins me, resting an elbow on the island. “It’s a beautiful apartment,” I say, rotating the stool to face him. “It’s also an outrageous expense, and it tells me I don’t know everything I thought I knew about you.”
“I bought it for a fraction of its market price from the Walker brothers. Myla, Kara’s sister, is married to one of our men, and she’s an up-and-coming fashion designer that does interior design on the side. She did all of this.”
“And?” I press, aware that this is millions of dollars, even at a reduced price.
“Aside from inheriting a decent nest egg from every family member I lost?”
“That answer would be enough,” I say, going with my gut, “if it was the whole story but it’s not, is it?”
“When I got out of the army, I went home. I thought I needed out of the war, whatever the war might be. I took the security job I told you about, working at a large office complex.”
“And met the Walkers through that job and a client.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “By that time, I was coming out of my skin, needing something, anything. I hated being ‘home’ when it wasn’t home anymore without the people that made it home. And I hated not having a real purpose.”
“And they offered you a job,” I say, remembering what he’d told me.
“Yes. But they wanted me to do security work again. Bodyguard work. And I did and do, but on one condition. I am first on the high-risk, high-paying jobs.”
“What does that mean, high-risk?” I ask, not liking where my mind is headed.
“The spectrum is broad. I rescued a Saudi princess. I hunted down a would-be assassin of a Turkish leader. I could go on. Each of those jobs was covert, and paid for in a lump sum that wasn’t small.”
I stand up with a rush of awareness and emotion I don’t want to feel. That I never feel when I’m living my life alone. That’s why alone is good. Alone helps me ensure that I’m good at my job. I see the scene, not the blood, not the death. Not the emotional side of the story. It’s why I survive this damn life I live and suddenly, I need space. I need to breathe on my own, not with Jacob. “I need a shower,” I say. “I need sleep.”
Those gray eyes of his narrow. “What just happened?”
“I realized that you’re the guy the girl falls for right before he gets killed. And I can’t do that, Jacob. I can’t do that. I don’t even know how I could entertain doing that.” I rotate and intend to escape this conversation, and him, but escape is never easy with Jacob. He catches my arm, turning me back around.
“Don’t walk away. Talk to me.” His phone chooses that moment to ring and judging from his murmured, “Fuck,” he is not pleased. “I have to take it. There’s too much going on for me not to take it.”
“I know,” I say. “Take it. I need that shower.”
His lips firm and with obvious reluctance, but he releases me. “Upstairs,” he says, motioning behind me. “I’ll bring your bag to you.”
“Thank you,” I say, twisting away from him, and spying the carved wooden stairwell. “No,” he says into the phone, as I move in that direction. “I know she’d like to talk to Sierra,” he adds, “but we do not want to do dinner tonight. No. Yes. We do. We will.”
The rest of the conversation is muffled, but the concept of a couples’ night with me and Jacob as one of the couples, no matter what the reason, only rattles me all the more. Proof that I’m hyped up emotionally and I’m never hyped up emotionally. I need to bring myself down a notch or ten.
I reach the top floor and enter a bedroom that is much like the lower level. Exposed beams. Gray and wood accents. A massive king-sized bed, with a gray headboard. Big comfy chairs in the corner. And bookshelves with books on them by those chairs. The man likes books, and I like a man who likes books, but the titles are elusive from the distance and I find that I really want to know every book he chose. I want to know too much about him, which is why I keep walking and enter the bathroom. I flip on the light and of course, it’s gorgeous. An egg-shaped tub that is gray with a wood finish like the double sinks. The floors are gray. I walk to the gray stone-encased shower and turn on the water to as hot as I think I can tolerate, before grabbing a gray towel from a closet and setting it on the edge of the bathtub across from the shower. I strip and once I’m naked, I step under the water, exhaling as the warmth heats my cold body, but it does nothing to calm the cold inside. The cold that is the one fear I can’t defeat: my fear of someone else I care about dying.
Suddenly, Jacob, in all his naked, impossible-to-resist perfection is stepping inside the shower, joining me. I decide I’m officially a mess right now because I want to tell him to leave while I also want him to pull me close, a moment before I’m wrapped in his arms, the hard lines of his body pressed to mine. “I hate you right now all over again,” I say, my hand pressing to his chest.
He cups my face. “No, you don’t. You never hated me.”
“Yes,” I say, unexpected anger sparking in me. “I did. I do. Because you’re making me get emotional. Alone isn’t emotional. I can’t do my job if I’m emotional. I can’t do my job if I—”
“Care?” he supplies.
“Yes. If I care.”
“I took those high-risk jobs because I had nothing but those jobs.”
“You don’t have to say this or do this. We just met.”
“We did just meet, but I know from my many warzones that those you fight with become more to you in less time. And we are fighting a war together.”
“And what about when the war is over?”
“The bond still exists. And I’ve never met a woman that made me want more. You make me want more and I don’t know what that means now, but I damn sure want to find out.”
“I can’t ask you to give up what you do. That’s unfair to you but at the same time, I can’t have you in my life while I wait for you to die on me.”
“I don’t need those jobs, sweetheart. I have plenty of money.” He cups my face. “I don’t need those jobs,” he repeats. “And I’m not letting you go. I need this.” He kisses me, and I don’t resist. And when he presses me in the corner, and settles on one knee, his lips and tongue on my belly, I tremble, and he owns me like I’ve never been owned. All at once, his mouth takes me away, and pulls me back to him. He kisses my hip, scrapes it with his teeth, and then travels lower, and lower, until he’s licking me in the most intimate of places, in the most intimate of ways, driving me over the edge. Until I’m shattering for him, and I can’t stop it, or him, from happening to me.
Much later, I’m in his bed, pressed close to him, his heart thundering beneath my palm, I decide that even knowing how dangerously he lives, if I let myself, I could fall in love this man. I also decide that maybe the slayer is drawn to me because he’s a sadist and as a masochist, not so unlike him.