Saber

 

When I called Ryder, I could see how much Renee didn’t want me to. It was written across her features, in her eyes. But I had to do it. I knew she was scared, understood that there was probably more to that, too, but it didn’t matter. The only way to make her permanently safe from this psychopath was to give Ryder all the information.

 

“Hey, boss,” I’d said when he answered, trying to get up the courage because Ryder may not have been the type to kill the messenger, but he wasn’t exactly one to be thrilled with that messenger either. “I’ve got…I’ve got news.”

 

“What is it, Saber? Is Renee alright?” I could hear by the cool, calm tone he used that if my answer wasn’t She’s fine, I was about to become very, very dead.

 

“She’s fine,” I told him quickly. I debated telling him about last night and the incident with the man, but I figured it was unrelated to the letters and all that Renee was currently dealing with. That didn’t mean that the prick shouldn’t spend the next eternity burning in hell, but telling him about that might throw him off the right track which was dealing with this stalker. More than that, I could guess that Renee didn’t want to talk about it.

 

“Then what’s going on?”

 

Already Ryder was starting to sound impatient with me and it was how I knew that he was pulling long hours. Most of them were probably related to the guy who had attacked Renee, but I was sure there was a chunk devoted to the business, too. He couldn’t close up shop just for this—though I was willing to bet he’d considered it. But in the end too many people’s livelihoods hung in the balance. He had to think of his men, too.

 

“I’ve got some information on our guy,” I began, not sure how to really approach this. I could guess how it would go and I wasn’t thinking pretty.

 

“A name? Address?”

 

I shook my head, though of course he couldn’t see that, so I said aloud, “No, no name and no address.”

 

“Then what have you got?” he snapped, sounding equal parts pissed and frustrated.

 

I ran a hand through my hair, glancing over at Renee. She was staring at me with those big blue eyes, making me think things that I shouldn’t have been thinking. I looked away before I got too distracted. “Letters,” I said flatly, because I could feel anger boiling to the surface as I thought of what they said—and of how scared Renee truly was. Poor thing, I thought, wondering how she had kept it together for as long as she had—and how she thought she could possibly have continued to do so without telling anyone.

 

“Letters?” Ryder repeated, and now he sounded genuinely confused. “What kind of letters?”

 

I took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. “Letters that are threatening Renee.”

 

There was a pause, then, “What do they say? How many? Do you think they’re related?” Just then, he sounded very calm, collected even, which had me a little worried. If he was snapping at me or joking with me, we were fine, but this? No, he was on the verge of blowing up and I had a feeling it was because he already knew or at the very least guessed what those letters were.

 

I cleared my throat. “She has several.” More like a hundred, I thought darkly. “She’s been getting them…” I hesitated. Did I really want to tell him that she’d been getting them for a year and hadn’t told anyone? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think that would go over well for Renee, so I simply said, “For a while. She said they started off like any fan mail, but they quickly digressed. He started saying specifics about events that they’d shared together, except that she swears he wasn’t there and that someone who wasn’t there couldn’t have known those details.”

 

There was another pause, this one longer than the first. I heard breathing, the kind of deep, steady breaths that you took when you were either panicking or trying to tamper down a swell of intense anger.

 

I could guess which of those he was working on right then.

 

After a while, he spoke again. “A stalker.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Renee, my niece, has a stalker.”

 

“Yes.”

 

There was a moment, then, “What the fuck? How long has she known about this? What the hell is going on there, Saber, God damn it?”

 

He continued to throw a litany of curses at me, yelling wildly, and he was loud enough that I held the phone away from my ear so that I didn’t go deaf. I glanced over at Renee and found that she was thankfully staring down at her mug. I didn’t think she’d like Ryder’s reaction, though she had probably been anticipating it.

 

When he’d stopped cursing, I put the phone back to my ear in time to hear him demand in hot tones, “Put Renee on. I want to fucking talk to her.”

 

I glanced again to Renee. She had stiffened, but was otherwise still looking at her coffee. I considered going over to her and letting her have the phone, but I could imagine what that would look like.

 

Her eyes would be huge and watery, her full lips tugged down in a frown, her lower lip wobbling as she struggled to hold it together. And her cheeks would grow warm as she listened to her uncle tear into her for not telling him about the letters, the stalker. How awful she would feel, how she’d eventually let out a wrenching sob that would cut through my heart.

 

“Sorry, she’s not here,” I finally lied to Ryder. And before he could jump on me and ask why the fuck I wasn’t with her, I added, “She’s in the shower right now.”

 

Ryder cursed.

 

For reasons I couldn’t say, but were probably the equivalent of having the desire to poke a sleeping bear just to see if it would come up roaring and tearing, I slyly added, “Do you still want me to take her the phone?”

 

At this Renee glanced over at me and I saw her cover her mouth to hide the hiccup of giggles that managed to escape through her lips. I smiled at her and winked, like this was a shared secret or inside joke, just between us.

 

It was all fun in games—until I heard Ryder’s low growl on the other end, “Don’t touch my niece, Saber. I trust you as one of my men, as family, but I won’t put up with that. Not from any of us mongrels, you hear me?”

 

I sobered up instantly at his words, though I kept up a good face for Renee who was still watching me. I didn’t want her to know of Ryder’s sudden, not so veiled threat. As I instantly agreed with a “Yes, boss,” I told myself that it was for the best. I worked hard to convince myself that all this supposed chemistry was just nonsense and hormones and my desperate need to get laid. But even as I tried to tell myself that I didn’t want anything with the amazing woman sitting at that counter, staring at me with her huge blue eyes and her too baggy sweats and a shirt that most definitely couldn’t be hers that read Detroit Steel on it, I couldn’t make myself believe it.

 

Oh, you asshole, what are you doing to yourself? I wondered miserably, because I knew that as much as I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t thinking of starting something with her, I had to admit if only to myself that I had been thinking it. And I’d been wanting it.

 

“I’ll deliver the letters,” I told him, then hung up the phone with a sigh.

 

I didn’t like it and Renee didn’t either, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to catch this bastard before Renee got seriously hurt.

 

***

 

We spent the rest of the morning together talking about nothing in particular. I made her breakfast, which she seemed delighted by for reasons that were beyond me, even though it was only pancakes with some fruit. She had a bunch of fancy things in the fridge like caviar and a few other things that might have been cheese or baby food, either way I wasn’t interested in finding out. But pancakes were easy enough, even if I had to make them from scratch. She had all the fixings for it and I took advantage of the opportunity to do something with my hands. To keep myself busy.

 

Because ever since my phone conversation with Ryder, she’d been sending me smoky looks. The kind a woman shot you at the bar because she had every intention of taking you home that night. Because she wanted something deep, dark, and sultry from you.

 

Which I was usually all about providing, but circumstances were what they were with Renee. I’d been kidding myself, losing myself to her wiles and charms even though I knew it was a bad idea. But my little talk with Ryder set me straight right away. There was no uncertainty in his voice, no misunderstanding, no wishy-washy tones as he told me not to touch his niece. His little girl. His only family.

 

It clenched at my heart something fierce because I now knew that I’d been walking a fine line that I’d been ready to cross even. But I couldn’t do that now.

 

Except that Renee kept sending me those damn fiery looks and I was at my wits’ end.

 

How the hell was I supposed to turn down someone like that?

 

So I made pancakes.

 

I piled several high on a plate for her, then slid it over with butter—which was unsalted and maybe was some low calorie alternative, I wasn’t sure—and jam and a bowl of fresh fruit. I’d been looking for the damn syrup since I started and wasn’t having an ounce of luck. Finally, I leaned on the counter towards her—which was a bad idea, because it put us closer and damnit she looked sexy even in those goddamn sweats—to ask where it was.

 

“Syrup?” she repeated at me, and then laughed delightedly. The sound was so crisp, so clean and genuine, that it made me want to laugh, too. I resisted the urge, however, by mock scowling at her.

 

“What?” I demanded.

 

She shook her head, smiling warmly at me as she answered, “You’re lucky I have butter. And if I’d known that I could make pancakes from scratch like that, I probably would have thrown out half the stuff you used in them.”

 

I raised an eyebrow in question at her.

 

Her smile turned sardonic and self-depreciating when she said, “You think it’s easy to look like this?” And she did some exaggerated model pose that was probably supposed to look ridiculous, but only made me look at her chest as she thrust it out and stare at those pouty lips that she pursed together.

 

“Yes,” I told her simply.

 

She relaxed from the pose, her smile turning soft. “Well, anyway, it’s actually a lot of hard work. I can’t go around eating pancakes all the time, you know. I’ve got to make sure I’ve got that ‘perfect body’ that everyone always wants. I’ve only got a few years as a younger actress anyway and it’ll blow up in my face if I let my weight become a problem.” She hesitated, glancing down at the fresh pancakes with a frown.

 

I suddenly felt guilty for giving them to her, which was utterly ridiculous, but then she grabbed up the fork and stabbed them anyway, determinedly stuffing in a mouthful. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then let her eyes roll back up into her head, letting out a moan that was so good it was almost sexual.

 

It made me half hard all by itself, and the long column of her neck did the rest.

 

When she swallowed, she leveled her gaze at me and said, “Fuck it. I’ve earned some damn pancakes, right?” Before I could answer, she stabbed them again, viciously. “I’ll just do extra reps to work them off.”

 

After she’d finished her pancakes—then ate the fruit, because she told me “It’s important to have something good for you in the mix to help balance it out”—she actually helped me cleanup, which surprised the hell out of me. Then she informed me, “I’ve got to make a phone call to my agent—what a party pooper,” she said with an eye roll, “then I’ve got my homework out. I cancelled the personal trainer today.”

 

She frowned a little at that and I heard the unspoken words that hung in the air, Because I don’t trust anyone right now, not even the people I know.

 

I wanted to reach out and comfort her, which was probably a really stupid idea, but thankfully she saved me from myself. She turned and walked away, throwing over her shoulder, “Do whatever you’d like. I’ll come back downstairs when I’m done.” Then she paused in the middle of the staircase and turned to look at me. “After all, I still have to thank you for saving me.”

 

And with that, she turned and went the rest of the way upstairs without looking back. I was left with an aching hard-on and all of the things she could have possibly meant when she said, Thank you for saving me.