When I’m ready I walk downstairs to the security room and unlock the door using the keypad attached to the wall. This is my safe room where I can check surveillance cameras placed in strategic locations on the property. I have most of the rooms wired with cameras too, just as a precaution.
I live by the Boy Scout motto.
I scan all the cameras, just like I do every morning and every evening, then check the computer attached to the cameras for any flagged moments. There are none—I would get a text message on my phone telling me if there were—but I’m overly paranoid these days. It’s possible my messaging system could be offline. And I have several levels of suspicious programmed into the alerts. I don’t get bothered with people who walk down the alley and don’t linger, but I look at them anyway when I have time.
There aren’t any to look at in the back. But Jax and I come up on a screen at the front door when he walked me home. I have a sensor on an anklet I wear at all times. It’s a tracker and ID code and it sends my GPS location to this computer every thirty minutes and logs me in and out of my house automatically as I enter and exit.
Just in case.
I didn’t tell Merc about this. Or my dad, for that matter. They don’t need to know that I’m so worried about this stuff. It would only upset them. Especially Merc, since he feels responsible for what happened to me two years ago.
A feeling of dread washes over me as that moment flashes into my head and then my stomach churns, making me feel sick.
All my life I was the one in control. The girl who knew things. The girl with skills.
But that day I was abducted by a crazy man and held hostage for two days was an awakening that changed my life.
Never before had I felt so vulnerable. Never before had I felt so helpless. I was a child assassin. I killed several people over the course of my short career. Grown men and one teenage girl. I can still hear the gunfire as I took out those men when they came to kill me on my grandparents’ ranch. I can still feel the cold knife handle in my palm when I threw it, striking that girl’s throat and ending her life in a horrifying way. Choking on her own blood.
I don’t regret any of that. Not one moment.
But my badass confidence did nothing for me the night that bastard Garrett drugged me and took me as his prisoner. He threatened me with rape. Had started taking off my clothes, even. Only some predetermined alert that beeped on his phone stopped him.
Luck. The fact that he never got his chance to take me like that, it was all luck.
I don’t like luck. You can’t depend on luck.
I like cameras, and guns placed all over the house. And martial arts training. I’ve had a trainer for years. Long before all that Garrett stuff happened. But it was only to keep my skills up.
It wasn’t enough.
It will never be enough to just prepare. I have to embrace the coming confrontation as inevitable. Only that acceptance gets me through the panic and paranoia. Only that silences the nagging voice in my head that says, This isn’t over, Sasha. Not by a long shot.
Will it ever be over? Will I ever put the Company behind me and have a normal life?
An alert beeps on the screen. A black car has pulled into my driveway. The door opens and Jax gets out wearing a long black pea coat that gives me a peek of the dark suit it’s covering up. He checks his watch, then pushes the door closed before striding up the walkway to the porch like a man who owns the world.
I wish I had his confidence.
The doorbell rings, so I exit the security room and close the door behind me. I take a deep breath as I walk to the front of the house, and then pause for a moment before pulling the door open.
“Miss Cherlin,” he says in that deep throaty growl. “You look lovely.” He smiles at me, and God, what a smile. The dimple that reminds me a little bit of Ford. The confidence that reminds me of James. And the air of danger that reminds me of Merc. “You take my breath away.”
God, what a player. “Please call me Miss Aston if you want to be formal. I left Sasha Cherlin behind a decade ago.”
“May I come in?” he asks, ignoring my request and reaching for the security screen. It locks automatically through a mechanism on the anklet when I step into the house, so he doesn’t get far. And his fruitless tug on the door makes me smile for some reason. But he recovers from that little surprise and shoots me a smile that is alarmingly disarming. “Or have you changed your mind?”
He backs away. Just a small step, but my heart flutters when I think he might take his invitation back. “No,” I say calmly. His eyes brighten, as if he was the one who was worried we would not have our date tonight. But I’m dressed. And I answered the door. So he must know I’d come. “I didn’t change my mind. I take a lot of precautions, that’s all.”
He nods. And it’s not a nod that makes fun of me for being so careful, but one of understanding. “You don’t have to worry about that stuff as long as I’m with you, Miss Aston. You’re safe with me.”
His use of my new name makes me blush for some reason. He didn’t acknowledge my request, but he did honor it. And that eases my discomfort about what I’m doing just a little bit. Plus, he basically offered himself up as my protector with that statement.
I have never wanted or needed a protector. I’ve only ever had partners. James, Harper, and Merc. Ford became my de facto protector when he adopted me, I guess. But he’s not a physical fighter. His brand of protection is more along the lines of highly trained attack dogs, military-grade security systems, and hacking skills.
Jax’s offer comes off more threatening. Not like Merc, who can send grown men running with a glare. Or James, who you never see coming, because he doesn’t make threats, he just makes good on them.
No, it comes off like a man with authority.
“Thank you,” I say as I unlock the outer door, intending on walking out on the porch.
But Jax has the security door firmly in his grasp and he takes a step forward, like he wants to come inside. “You need a coat, Miss Aston. A cold front has moved in.”
I panic for a moment, wondering if I want him in my house. But he takes away my choice when his imposing body blocks the doorway, and I have to step back to allow this move.
“Do you have one? Or should I find one for you?”
“A coat?” I laugh off the way he just intimidated me into letting him inside and turn away, heading towards the coat closet. “Of course I have coats.” I open the door and take one off the hanger that will go with the formal dress. I don’t think I have ever worn it, so I check the sleeve for a tag, and then let out a breath of relief that I don’t have to rip it off in front of him and let him in on the fact that I never have an occasion to wear something so fancy.
Jax takes it from my hands, his body behind me, so very close to my own. So close I can feel his warm breath as he leans down and whispers, “Let me help you with that.”
I swallow and slip my arms into the satin interior of a long black wool coat with silver fox lining the collar and cuffs, before turning round to face him.
“Are you nervous?” he asks.
“No,” I lie. This makes him smile and I have to wonder what kind of training he’s had. Merc was astute in reading me. He’s trained to look at body language and expressions. He can tell a lot by the color of my face or the way I hold my shoulders. And Jax was trained by the FBI. He could have these skills, since Merc got them when he was in the Army.
“I like this,” Jax says, eyeing my dress and coat appreciatively. His fingertips come up next to my cheek and plunge into the soft, thick fur. “It’s real,” he says, looking at the fur for a moment before dragging a heated stare up to my eyes. “I’m a little surprised such an educated girl would wear real fur.”
I crinkle my nose at his insult. “If you think I’m some do-gooder college revolutionary who has time for stupid things like fur bans, then you don’t know me at all. I eat meat, wear leather, and have killed at least a dozen foxes for threatening chickens on my grandparents’ ranch. I skinned each one of them and turned them into useful articles. It’s more of a sin to waste them by letting them rot than it is to wear them on a coat.”
“I like it, Miss Aston,” he says seductively as he leans into my ear. “I was joking.”
“Oh,” I say as my face heats up. That gives him yet another reason to smile at me. And now I know. He’s watching my reactions very carefully and trying to make me react as he does it. “Well, I know the designer who made this coat. She’s a native up in Alaska and only uses wild-caught foxes that she traps for her sustainability lifestyle.”
He smiles even wider, and then a chuckle erupts. “I’d have expected nothing less from you, Sasha. So thank you for clearing that up.”
The way he says my name—or should I say, the way he makes me feel when he says my name—catches me off guard once again. It’s not my face that heats up this time, but my whole body. I need to put a stop to this shameless flirting he’s doing so I hold up a hand to his chest and push him backwards. He takes the hint and steps back. “Look, I need to clear something up before we go out tonight. That kiss on the stairs? That was not appropriate.”
“No?” he asks, his eyes bright with mischief. He holds up both hands and wiggles his fingers again. “All ten fingers, Miss Aston. So I think you liked it more than you’d care to admit.”
He takes two steps forward, forcing me to take two steps backwards. I’d take more steps back—because he’s far too close to me—but I bump up against the closed closet door.
My heart starts to beat fast as he looks down at me. Races, actually. His hand presses up against my cheek as he leans down into my ear once again. “Sasha,” he says, still in that gruff whisper. “The people in my department call you a lethal weapon. So if you hated the kiss you’d have made good on that threat. In fact”—he laughs a little and this sends yet another chill through my body—”I was very surprised you even bothered to threaten me. If you’d really hated the kiss, you’d have dropped me right there in the hallway and walked off as I lay writhing on the ground. So let’s just stop with the pretenses, Miss Aston. And have a good time together tonight.”
His palm slides up and presses against the side of my neck. I gulp air as I try to calm my beating heart. But it’s too late. He’s got his hand over my throbbing artery, assessing my reaction. But just as quick as it appeared, it’s withdrawn. I’m just about to breathe again when he replaces his palm alongside my cheek.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, the panic starting to set in. I’m fearful that my body will start shaking from all this touching.
“Pushing my luck, Sasha.”
“Don’t,” I say, the panic finally coming through. I place both my hands on his chest and push him back. He sways a little from my demand, but only his upper body retreats. His feet stay firmly planted in the same space right in front of me.
“You don’t do intimacy?” he asks. His palm is still on my cheek. My push had no effect on that. And now it slides down my cheek until his thumb is lightly gripping my chin. I’m so shocked, so mesmerized by his stare and his forward actions that I freeze as his thumb gently caresses my lower lip. “I get it,” he says, his voice deep with desire, but controlled at the same time. “I’m taking you out of your comfort zone. But you’ve had yourself locked up here in this house all semester, Sasha. And I already told you. You’re safe with me.”
I suck in some air as his eyes shift from one side of my face to the other, trying to figure me out. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“Ah,” he breathes. “I never said I’d save you, Sasha. You’re in pretty deep, so I’m not even sure I can do that. It’s”—he stops talking, but his thumb is still doing a sweeping tender arc under my lip—”it’s a pretty complicated setup I have going right now.”
“With me?” I ask, feeling a slight panic as my heart beats faster.
“Well, some of this has to do with you. Obviously. But there’s a lot more going on here than you realize.”
“Why can’t you just leave me out of it? I don’t understand what you think I have that can help you. I admit I was filled with answers a long time ago, but most of what I know is outdated. Most of the people I had connections with are dead. And I swear to God, I have not seen or heard from Nick. I have not been involved in anything in a very long time.”
“I don’t need any of that, Sasha.” But then Jax’s lips are on mine. This time he’s got my chin, and his grip on it tightens, like he’s warning me not to pull away. His tongue sweeps between the seam of my lips and they part. I have a sinking feeling in my lower stomach, and I’m not sure if it’s dread from giving in or just the fact that I haven’t had sex in a very long time. Because there is no doubt in my mind right now—if he pushes, I will give in. One hand on the strap of my dress would have me begging him for more.
But he pulls back, ending the kiss. “You have the one thing I need, Sasha—Nick’s heart.”