I startled awake, blinking into the darkness of my bedroom.

Something had woken me, what the…

A shattering sound exploded through the silent house. I jolted, my hands flying to my throat, terror rocketing through me. The wail of my new and improved alarm system came next, another jolt, and enough of a fright to shove me out of my frozen position in my bed.

Tilly. I tore down the hall to her bedroom, the only thought in my head was to get to her. She was standing in the middle of her room, frozen in place, dazed and wide-eyed.

Someone could be in the house. She wasn’t safe.

I grabbed her narrow shoulders. “Lock yourself in the bathroom, now.”

She blinked up at me with terrified eyes. “Auntie Willa?”

“Now, baby, quickly.”

Her lips were trembling when I pulled the door shut on her and waited to hear the bolt sliding across.

The shattering sound had come from the kitchen. Grabbing Tilly’s baseball bat from behind her bedroom door, I made my way down the stairs. Trent’s texts and calls had been coming thick and fast the last week. He was getting impatient. I hit the bottom of the stairs. Dammit, I told him he’d get his money. Coming here like this, breaking in, it didn’t really make sense…

Shit.

My pulse thundered in my ears as I creeped closer.

Maybe it wasn’t him.

My phone started ringing from the bedroom and I jumped, cursing under my breath. Why hadn’t I brought it with me? I ignored the ringing and quickly typed in the code to stop the alarm wailing, then carried on down the hall to the kitchen. I couldn’t hear a damn thing with that noise; I needed to know if we were in the house alone. The place was suddenly engulfed in silence. Just the faint drip of the leaky cold tap. Tilly never turned it off properly when she got a drink at night. Christ, what if she’d been in the kitchen?

My heart was racing as I reached for the light switch.

I flicked it on, blinking against the brightness. The window above the sink was shattered, shards of glass covering the counter and floor. No one could have gotten through there, though, it wasn’t big enough. I grabbed for the table, my legs feeling weak all of a sudden. I stumbled to the door and checked it, making sure it was still locked.

I did a quick check of the windows in the rest of the house. Only the kitchen window was broken. No one could have gotten in.

The new alarm had scared off whoever it was.

My phone started again, and I rushed back up to my room and answered, half-expecting it to be Trent. If he’d done this, he’d want to gloat, laugh at me, enjoy the fact that he’d scared us. He was a bastard like that. “Yes?”

“Talk to me, Willa,” a rough voice barked down the line.

“Cage?”

“Your place was breached.”

My knees did give out this time, and I sat heavily on the edge of my bed. “I’m…I’m fine. Someone broke the window, but they’re gone now. We’re okay.”

“I’m gonna need to check that out for myself. I’m on my way. You keep me on the line, okay, talk to me until I get there.”

“Okay.”

“Your little girl? She doing all right?”

“Tilly, yes, she’s…” I ran from my room. “I told her to lock herself in the bathroom.”

“You check on her, I’m turning onto your road now. I’ll be at your door in a few minutes.”

I nodded as if he could see me and called through the bathroom door. “It’s okay now, Tils. You can unlock the door and come out.”

“Are you sure?” she said, voice muffled.

“I promise.”

The door opened a crack and Tilly poked her head around the corner. As soon as she saw me, she flung it wide and ran to me, clinging tight.

“I’m here,” Cage said. “Open the door for me, honey.”

I ended the call, put down the phone, and scooped Tilly up in my arms. There was a light knock and my niece froze in my arms. “It’s okay,” I said to her. “It’s just the man who put the alarm in for us. He’s checking we’re all right.”

I rushed down and opened the door. Cage strode in, all business. “I have a man checking outside now.” He gave us a onceover. “Where was the window broken?”

“The kitchen.”

He nodded. “Stay here.”

An hour later, Tilly and I were on the couch, wrapped in a blanket while Cage spoke to the police. I’d already told them everything I knew, which was exactly nothing. I didn’t mention Trent. At first I thought it was him, but I couldn’t think of a motive for it, he’d already made his threats. Then again, the prick had never needed one before; being an asshole just came naturally.

My only option was to pay him his money and hope like hell he left again. If that meant doing more shifts at the club, then I’d do it. Steph made a lot of extra money giving lap dances, and the occasional private dance. I’d hoped to avoid that, but I didn’t think I had much choice anymore.

I heard the sound of boots pounding up the front steps before someone thumped on the door. Somehow, I knew who it was instantly. I didn’t like the way my heart gave a little flip when it opened and Jude came barreling in, or the way my breath caught in my throat. I also wasn’t happy about the instant relief I felt at seeing him, of having him here.

I took him in, unable to help myself. He looked wild-eyed, like he was ready to fuck someone up. I hadn’t seen him since my first night at Stilettos a few days ago. His head swung to us and I watched as he sucked in a breath, his wide shoulders looking even bigger, before he let it out on a rough exhale.

His brown eyes were sharp, focused, when they locked with mine. “You okay?”

For some reason, the look on his face, the tone of his voice, God, the genuine concern he had for us, had my eyes and nose stinging.

Pull your shit together, Willa. “We’re fine,” I said, not able to hold his stare any longer. Things between us had been rocky from the start. Then there was the kiss, and what I’d accused him of…

I inwardly winced. I didn’t need to be thinking about that now. I’d done enough of that, going over and over what happened backstage, already. But despite our differences, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to think that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe his actions, his kindness, were actually genuine. The idea was so foreign, I didn’t know what to do with it.

Just the thought of letting down my guard, of putting trust in someone, lifted the hairs on the back of my neck, like a cornered wild animal lifting its hackles. The automatic urge to push back, to tell him we didn’t want or need him here, was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back. He didn’t deserve that. The man had come to our house in the middle of the night to make sure we were okay. He’d made the house safer.

And he’d asked for nothing in return.

So, for once, I kept my big mouth shut.

His gaze dropped to my niece, and God, it melted. He came closer, crouching low, getting down to her level. “You okay, honey?” he said, voice rough but incredibly gentle.

Tilly nodded, then her bottom lip started trembling. “I was so scared,” she whispered.

“I know, baby,” he said. “But you’re okay now. Your aunt took good care of you.”

Tilly didn’t like men that much, but she’d always been fine around Jude, since the first time he met her, when he crouched down like he was now, and introduced himself.

She wriggled from my lap, and to my utter shock, jumped into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and holding on tight. “Will you stay here, Jude?” she sobbed. “Please stay here with us. I’m scared.”

I sat there, stunned, and feeling so damn helpless. I’d let her down. She was scared out of her mind. And I didn’t know how to make it right, how to make her feel safe.

Jude had wrapped her in his massive arms, one of his giant hands on her back, while he rocked from side to side. “No one’s gonna hurt you, Tilly, I promise you that.”

His intense stare slid to mine and I swallowed at the look in his eyes. He had questions and he wanted answers.

I didn’t know if tonight was random, or if Trent was playing games—but the sudden urge to spill my guts, to tell him everything, to unburden my mess onto those broad shoulders was so, so tempting. But I had no proof it was Trent, and if it wasn’t, and I went after him, he’d come after me even harder.

And despite how nice Jude seemed, eventually people let you down; they left, betrayed you, they fucked you over. I couldn’t let myself rely on this man. I needed to do this for myself.

I couldn’t let myself need him, or anyone.

I watched Jude comfort my niece and doused the warm fuzzies in the middle of my chest with ice. Because I’d learned early, if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.

I stood abruptly and reached for Tilly. “Come on, Tils, you need to go back to bed.”

She came back to me, but shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep in my room. What if they come back, what if they get inside?”

I didn’t know who’d done this, but I’d never wanted to strangle anyone more in my life. “You can sleep with me.”

Tilly took another shuddering breath. “I want Jude to stay.”

I rubbed her back. “Baby, Jude has his own place, he can’t stay here. We’re safe, I promise.” God, I wished that were true. I wished I knew for sure that the threat was over. I planned on calling Trent first thing to arrange a time to hand over what money I’d managed to put aside so far. If it had been him, I didn’t want to give him a reason to come back.

“I’ll take the couch,” Jude said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

“I’m on the couch tonight,” he repeated.

“You don’t need to do that,” I said, gaze boring into him, doing my damnedest to silently express how much I didn’t like the idea.

He ignored me completely. “I promised, Tilly.” He gave my niece a small grin, then headed to the kitchen, joining Cage and the police officer, who both looked ready to leave.

Tilly had relaxed against me, feeling safer now she knew her new favorite person would be watching over us all night. I carried her to my room and tucked her into bed, stroking her hair. “You go to sleep now. I bet it was just some silly teenager. They probably broke our window on a dare.”

“Really?” she said, looking hopeful and extremely exhausted.

“Yep. I’m sure of it. It’s going to be all right, Tils. I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

She nodded, her eyes getting heavy. “I know. And Jude, he’ll keep us safe as well.”

Her eyes closed and I sat there until I was sure she was asleep.

The house was quiet when I went back downstairs, too quiet, and for a moment I thought Jude might have received my unspoken message and left. But when I went to make sure the door was secured, I found him. He was sitting on the couch, his elbows resting on his spread knees, hands dangling between those insanely solid thighs. His head was dipped but lifted when I walked in. Going by the don’t-even-try-with-your-bullshit look on his face, the inquisition was about to begin.

“You don’t need to stay,” I said, hoping like hell he'd get up and leave.

He shook his head. “I made a promise.”

I crossed my arms. “There aren’t many people you can count on in this world and fewer you can trust. Tilly knows that, she’ll understand that you had to go.” I don’t know why I told him that, or why I was pushing so hard.

His expression darkened. “You really want that? You want that little girl to grow up trusting no one, scared out of her mind, afraid to ask for help?”

My spine straightened. He’d aimed and fired. Thought he had me all figured out. Well, screw that. “We don’t always get what we want in this world, she knows that already. She learned that when her mother died and her father got locked up for being a dealer and a giant asshole.”

Shit. I hadn't meant to say that much.

He stood, but didn’t move closer. My living room seemed to shrink. I never failed to be jarred, awed, by the size of the man in front of me.

“She learned she could count on you,” he said. “You were there when she needed you, you stepped up. But what I want to know, Willa, is who do you have? Who’s there for you?”

My fingers curled against my sides, my nails digging into the skin of my palms. Those words hit me harder than I expected, and I hated it, hated that he thought he could see me, that he knew me. “You don’t know jack about me. If you did, you’d know I look after myself. I don’t need some guy with a white knight complex riding in to save me. You think because I’m a woman I can’t handle my own life, that I need some goddamn man to fix everything?”

Those brown eyes bore into me from across the room; they were sharp and intense. I’d said too much and he was reading between the lines, trying to figure out my story.

Finally, he said, “No, I don’t think you need a man to fix a damn thing, but by the looks of it, right now, Willa, I’m all you’ve got. So why don’t you stop trying to push me away and accept my help?”

I felt pinned by his stare, trapped. “Like I said, I take care of us. Just leave.” My voice didn’t sound strong like I’d intended, more a shaky whisper, and that pissed me off as well.

He moved closer then, until he was right in front of me, towering over me. He wasn’t trying to intimidate me, I knew that, and he proved it when one of his hands went to my waist and gently squeezed, sending tingles all over my body. He was trying to comfort me.

I realized then I was shaking.

He dipped his head lower. “Not everyone wants to screw you over. I know you believe that, that you expect it, that you want me to walk out that door so I can prove you right. But you don’t know me. I don’t say something unless I mean it. I keep my promises. I’m someone you and Tilly can count on,” he said, in a voice that was impossibly deep. “I’m not blind. You need a friend, Willa. Lean on me, even if it’s for a little while.”

I swallowed. Is that what I was doing? Why I was pushing? So I could be right? So I could have yet more evidence that people sucked?

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t need more proof. I already had it. I’d lived it. Repeatedly.

I tried to think of something to say, but bit back the vitriol. I was at least self-aware enough to know that was my go-to defense mechanism. I couldn’t bring myself to be a bitch to him. Because I didn’t hate him—how could I? And I knew, looking into his eyes, he truly believed what he’d said. He wanted to help us. Be the hero, the good guy. But I couldn’t trust in that, in his good intentions, not when I had Tilly to think about. Not when feelings, people, circumstances, changed on a dime. Soon enough, the next rescue mission, the next woman and child in distress, the next pretty face, would come along, and he’d walk. It’s just the way it was. It’s just what happened.

I held his stare. I couldn’t let down my guard around him. “I don’t need any more friends.”

“No?” he rumbled.

I shook my head, my heart racing faster. His fingers dug a little deeper into my side and I shivered.

His gaze didn’t waver. “Fair enough. Then why don’t you tell me what you do want? What you need?”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever been asked that question in my entire life. I swayed closer, seeking out more of his heat. God, he smelled amazing, leather and motor oil from his bike, the scent of the soap or deodorant he used; it was weirdly comforting. I wanted to bury my face against his chest and breathe him in. As dangerous as it was, I wanted to let him hold me up like he offered.

I wanted to forget, just for a little while.

Lifting my hands to his chest, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I want a distraction.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Woman, you’ve been a damned distraction since I laid eyes on you.”

My knees went a little weak at his admission. I wasn’t that girl, I’d never been that girl. What the hell was he doing to me? I ignored it and pushed on, pushed him. “What are you going to do about it?” I said, needing his mouth on me, needing an escape from those goddamn gentle, but now also hot, brown eyes.

His nostrils flared. “You’re shaking, freaked the hell out, you’re not…”

“Not thinking clearly?”

That muscle in his jaw jumped again.

The heat of his chest was warming my cool hands, the firm muscles twitched every so often. “You don’t know me. If you did, you’d know it takes a hell of a lot more than a broken window to freak me out.”

His expression darkened. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“You said you’d give me whatever I wanted.” Now, I just sounded desperate.

He didn’t move, just stared at me, those eyes searching mine. They went soft again.

God, he felt sorry for me. My face heated and I tried to step back. “Forget it. Forget I said anything…”

“No.” His hands came up, fingers curling around my wrists, holding me against him. “Don’t do that, don’t shut down on me. Tell me, tell me what you want, Willa?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“Bullshit.” His gaze dropped to my mouth then slid back up. “You said you wanted a distraction. Tell me what it’ll take.”

He didn’t think I’d say it, that I’d chicken out, that I didn’t know my own mind. That his show of concern for my current mental state would have given me the out he thought I needed. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

“I want to kiss you,” I said, calling his bluff.

His eyes turned dark and stormy, the soft vanishing in an instant, replaced by the kind of heat that promised hours of sweaty, down and dirty fucking. My lower belly warmed, swirled.

“Then do it,” he said, surprising the hell out of me.

My hands were still on his chest and I pushed. I thought he’d hold his ground, refuse to be handled by a woman. He surprised me again, and stepped back without resistance, eyes locked on mine as I kept coming, until his back met the wall. He was insanely tall, the top of my head hitting somewhere in the middle of his chest, and since I was the one who was going to be doing the kissing, there was only one thing for it.

I scaled his massive body like a climbing wall, wrapping my legs around his hips and my arm around his wide shoulders. I thrusted my fingers into his hair, and brought my mouth down on his without missing a beat. I shuddered at the feel of his firm, warm lips, and the zaps of pleasure shooting down my spine.

His hands came up, so hard and fast, the slapping sound of his broad palms meeting my ass through my PJ shorts, rang out in the quiet room.

I moaned against his lips, and his mouth opened on a growl. I thrust my tongue inside, tangling with his, and tugged harder on his hair. His beard tickled my skin and I loved it. I kissed him like my life depended on it. Making out with him, like a teenager in the back of her boyfriend’s car. I couldn’t get enough of the big man who seemed to be at my mercy.

Every now and then, his broad fingers flexed, digging into my ass, as if he had no control over the action, like a contented jungle cat. I pulled back a little, teasing his firm lips with my tongue, nipping, sucking, then going back in deep and slow. I’d worked myself into a state, so turned on by this point, there was no holding back. He made a rough sound when I ground my hips against his. My pussy clenched and I whimpered when I felt how hard he was. I did it again, grinding on him, gasping at how good he felt. I could come like this, rubbing up against him.

“Fuck, you can kiss,” he said against my lips.

I circled my hips and a small cry escaped. “That’s not all I can do.”

His wide chest was pumping hard. “You want to come, baby?”

“God, yes.”

His fingers dug deeper into my ass cheeks a second before he started moving me, like I weighed nothing. His big body leaned against the wall, solid thighs braced apart, monster biceps bulging as he moved me up and down, grinding, rubbing my aching clit against the massive budge straining the zipper of his jeans like I was a rag doll.

I tugged harder on his hair, tearing my mouth from his, my lips going to his throat, nipping sucking, losing my shit completely. I didn’t care. I had no shame. I wanted this, every bit of it. One of Jude’s fingers went between my cheeks and pressed against my throbbing pussy through my shorts, giving me the pressure I needed. At his curse, I knew he could feel how wet I was.

His fingers pressed against my slick opening while he kept up that grind, sliding me against his body.

“Feel good?” he rasped.

I nodded, biting my lip.

“You gonna get there like this, honey?”

The intensity of what I was feeling was more than I knew what to do with. Nothing had ever felt like this. I started pulsing deep inside and the sensation had my breath catching, my body moving in a way I had no control over. Jude didn’t let up.

“That’s it,” he murmured against my ear. “Come for me, Willa.”

I moaned helplessly, about to scream so hard the walls would shake. Jude spun me, pressed me against the wall, and one of his hands came down over my mouth, muffling my cries, while the other held me up and his hips pumped against mine, ringing every bit of pleasure from me.

When the last of it washed over me, I blinked up at him.

He removed his hand from my mouth, and pressed his lips against my kiss-swollen ones, then slowly, carefully, lowered me to my feet. He used his body to hold me up for a minute and I appreciated it.

I thought I was shaken before.

“Good?” he asked, voice hoarse.

I nodded, unable to make my mouth work.

He grinned then stepped back, went to the couch, and started throwing cushions off. I guessed making room for himself to sleep.

My eyes slid over him. The massive budge behind his zipper was impossible to miss. “You’re still…don’t you want me to…”

“Go to bed, Willa,” he said, not turning to look at me. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

So what? He was going to pass up on a blowjob? He didn’t care if he got off? I didn’t get it. What was his angle?

Fine. Whatever. I got what I needed, right? I refused to think about why that bothered me so much.

“I’ll just…I’ll grab you a blanket.”