DOMINIC

I’m as surprised as she is by my sudden lack of restraint. One minute my hands are on the steering wheel and I’m replaying in my mind what it felt like to press my ever-hardening erection into her back as I showed her how to swing the baseball bat, and the next I’m on her like a wildcat attacking its next meal.

Just the short drive to her place had been long enough to allow my mind the time needed to conjure up a series of very illicit, very dirty things I’d love to do to her. And now, it’s no holds barred from here on out.

I’ve had a taste of Addison Kent, and I’ve acquired an addiction to that sweet, intoxicating flavor in a matter of seconds.

The sound of her phone ringing drags me back to the conscious here and now, enough to cause me to still my groping hands and grinding hips. It never occurs to me she would actually answer the fucking thing. But as her hand comes up between us and I finally see the look in her eyes, beyond the haze of my sexual desperation for her, I see something else.

Fear.

Immediately, I know that fear is not because of me. She was just as into our kiss as I was, so it’s not that. I startled her, but she doesn’t fear me. Even though, maybe she should.

I want to ask her who it is, but she answers too quickly. Even in the dim glow of the SUV’s interior, I can see the color drain from her face as she holds the phone up to her ear, obviously listening to whoever is on the other end of the call.

“How?” is the only response she chokes out, and it makes my eyes narrow.

Addison’s eyes suddenly grow wide, and she snaps her head from one side to the other, searching the darkness beyond the light of the headlights that stretches across into the trees that line the backyard.

Then, she snaps the phone shut, leaving her gaze trained outside the window into the darkness that surrounds us. “You should go, Chief Kerr.”

Oh, now I’m Chief Kerr. “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice low.

Addison is very still, and when I reach out and gently pull her chin toward me, I can see the mental precipice she’s standing on, ready to careen over the edge into a sea of tears. But she says nothing.

“Tell me, Addison.”

She swallows hard. “Someone is after me.”

“Who?” I ask a little too forcefully, and a little too quickly.

She flinches. “My father.”

My poker face is in place now, but inside every ounce of my being is clenched and screaming for answers. “Tell me why, Princess,” I demand in as soft a tone as I can muster.

Addison sighs, and I begin to think she’s not going to tell me anything. Finally, she stares blankly out the windshield. “He killed my mother,” she states, turning to meet my gaze. “In front of me.”

Any ounce of strength I feel is immediately sucked from me. I knew it. I fucking knew there was something that had murdered the brightness of those pretty green eyes.

“I took off after he went to jail for it, and he blames me and my testimony for his incarceration.”

“Addison, you—”

“I testified against him, and he still got out last year. For overcrowding, maybe? Good behavior? I don’t even really know how he did it, but he got out. Got to love the fucking justice system.”

Between her painful tone and the fact that I am the fucking justice system, something sears through my chest to my heart. It might not have been me that let her down, but something within me knows that I have to do something to make this right. “He won’t get to you, Addison. I swear it. I won’t let him.”

She blinks a few times, then laughs. It’s a hollow, sad sound to my ears. “Sorry, Chief, but you’re a little late to the game. Especially seeing as he just advised me that I shouldn’t be making out with a police officer in my driveway.”

Any remnant of the ache between my legs quickly dissipates at her comment. I’ve been wasting time making her talk, and he’s out there, watching us? “Addison, shit! Why the fuck didn’t you—”

I swallow my initial response. The last thing she needs is an interrogation and a scolding. Instead, I finally lean all the way back into the driver’s seat and reach underneath my seat, pulling out the handgun I have holstered under there. “I’m calling for backup.”

“You’ll never find him, Dominic. This is a game of cat and mouse. And it doesn’t include you.”

She sounds so empty and resigned to the fact, like it’s inevitable.

If it was anyone else, it might piss me off. But her surety of the outcome breaks my heart. “If it includes you, it includes me.” I keep my eyes locked on hers as I flick the safety off and check to make sure the gun’s loaded. It always is, but tonight there’s no room for mistakes. “Now, you think we can go into your place long enough to get you some things? If not, we’ll just go.”

“Go where?” She whirls around in her seat then, obviously thinking she hears something outside.

Well, that answers my question.

I reach across in front of Addison and punch down the lock on her door. Our faces are so close, I see her lips twitch slightly as her breath hitches. I graze my lips over hers tenderly, an unspoken promise. But just in case that’s not enough, I whisper, “You’re safe now, Princess. I promise.”