The tell-tale beep of the security door chirped three times before it opened, and Ash stood in the doorway dressed head to toe in black. Striding purposefully into the apartment, he told me the plane was fueled and ready to go whenever I was.

I’d expected him sometime around six o’clock, but he was a bit early. I was still sorting through my belongings, trying to figure out what I’d take and what I’d leave behind. I tossed a long-sleeved shirt on top of the pile that was slowly building into a mountain of clothes inside my luggage. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what was appropriate to pack when hiding out from one’s lunatic stalker. It was shallow of me to think about my wardrobe at a time like this, I knew, but caring about my appearance was something ingrained in me from all my time in the spotlight. The problem was, most of what I had with me wasn’t really made for being on the lamb.

I threw a sequined skirt into the “leave” pile—I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be necessary where I was going—and picked up a pair of faded gray sweats that I’d practically lived in while in rehab. When I’d gotten out, I vowed they’d never touch my skin again. I shot them across the room, basketball style, into the garbage bin. Then, picking up a pair of soft black yoga pants, considered their practicality. Dressing down for me was designer skinny jeans and a blouse.

“Is there a gym where we’re heading?” I asked. I still didn’t know where we were going. McClintock had explained that was for everyone’s safety. I’d been annoyed when he’d basically said me I wasn’t trustworthy enough to keep my location a secret from my would-be killer, but afterward, I could see his point.

“Of course,” Ash replied quickly, as if I’d asked a perfectly obvious question.

Then again, all the McCormick employees I’d met—including the older man himself—had hulking muscles. Those didn’t just magically appear by sitting around all day reading the newspaper. They worked for them, and as much time as they spent on the job, their safe houses were likely equipped with all the necessary equipment to keep their bodies in prime physical condition.

“Okay, then,” I said, rolling the pants into a ball and tossing them into my suitcase. “Give me another ten minutes and I should be finished,” I called over my shoulder, shocked to see Ash standing close enough to reach back and touch.

His eyes were focused on a sheer black top that had been sitting at the back of my closet for quite some time. The team who’d packed up the last of my belongings had brought every item of clothing I’d ever owned, including this one. Ash blinked, and then his eyes met mine. “You were wearing that the night we met.” He brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Or something like that.”

I picked it up and stroked my fingers over the ornate neckline. The collar, made up of several different sizes of pearls and sparkling costume jewels, was removable but I loved the way it looked against the gauzy fabric so I always left it on. A little bit of elegance against the blatantly sexual nature of the see-through material.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” I admitted, looking up at him. “To be honest, I don’t remember a lot about that night.” I dropped the shirt on the “leave” pile.

I jumped when Ash’s hands came to rest on my shoulders. He stepped closer and I swore I could feel the heat of him against my back. “But you remembered my face when I walked in.” When his warm, cinnamon-tinted breath hit my neck I suppressed a shiver. “That tells me you remember at least some of it.”

Unable to find my voice, I bowed my neck forward, desperate to feel his lips on my skin, just below my ear. He was right. I remembered some of it. Like the fact that this was the first place he’d kissed and it had set in motion a yearning I hadn’t experienced before—not even with the man I’d married and assumed I’d spend the rest of my life loving.

Ash let out a satisfied chuckle. “Yeah, you remember.” His hands skated over my arms until his fingers encircled my wrists. “I kissed you here,” he whispered against my skin, but he didn’t kiss me. His mouth hovered over the slope of my shoulder. “I bit you here too.”

Dear god, I was shaking. I wanted so badly to feel his teeth on my skin, to have that wicked, knowing mouth sink into my flesh and brand me as his. “Do it, please.”

“I shouldn’t,” he whispered against my neck, the tone of his voice suggesting he was struggling with his attraction as much as I was. “It’s not right.”

To fuck with what’s right, I thought. I wanted him and I hadn’t wanted anyone in a long, long time. I wanted this. Only him.

“Who’s going to tell? Besides, aren’t I paying your salary?”

He chuckled and released my wrists. I almost wept at the loss of contact until I felt his strong arms wrap around my waist and pull me back into him. There was no mistaking the thick, hard erection pressing against my bottom. “You calling me your whore?”

I stiffened at his use of that word. Hearing him say “whore”—the man who I’d fucked and then walked away from, the man who’s name I’d only learned as he’d walked out the door with the smell of our sex still lingering in the air—broke something loose inside of me. I squirmed and tried to break free of his hold.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, immediately loosening his grip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“I know,” I told him once I’d shimmied away.

I knew he hadn’t been calling me a whore, but I couldn’t control my reaction. Just like I couldn’t control the way my heart sped up when he’d shown me he understood why such an innocuous statement triggered me. I didn’t want to talk about any of it though, so I tried to put him off. “It’s fine. I know what you meant.”

“Do you?” he asked, his steady gaze locked on mine until I was forced to glance away.

“Like I said, it’s fine.”

He took a tentative step toward me, as if he wanted to touch me again but didn’t dare. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s the beauty of our situation. You don’t have to believe me. You just have to protect me,” I said, my voice taking on a snide quality I hated. I only got like this when I felt cornered. It was something I’d tried working on in therapy, but some habits were far too ingrained in a person to be remedied after only a few months.

“You’re right,” he said, taking a step back. Ash’s voice turned stiff and formal. “My apologies. I won’t let it happen again.” Then he adjusted the fall of his coat and flicked his cuffs. “I’ll be outside. Holler when you’re ready and I’ll send someone up to get your bags.

* * *

I slipped into the darkened interior of the Lincoln Navigator, its windows somehow even darker than the one that had brought me to McClintock Security’s offices in the first place. In the time between he’d left the apartment upstairs and I’d descended, I resigned myself to Ash’s presence in my life. I’d also resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t his fault we had a history. It had taken two of us to fuck mindlessly in that ugly hotel room, and I needed to own the role I’d played in what had come afterward. I also needed to own how I felt about him now.

The truth was, I was attracted to Ash. Ridiculously so. That was the easy admission. What wasn’t so easy to admit was that I felt more than attraction. At the time, something about the way he’d moved inside of me in the cold dark of night, and then the way he’d looked at me the next morning, made me feel like he’d seen the real me. And that feeling had grown stronger since he’d walked back into my life again.

That night, the trappings of my fame and fortune had been stripped away so all that was left was Norma Rae Griffin, the white trash redneck who’d made it out of Hicksville, USA, through talent and hard work. He hadn’t known my name; he’d only known me as the woman who’d lain in his arms and welcomed him into her body, seeking a few hours of solace from a stranger she’d never see again.

Except maybe that wasn’t all I’d been.

In the days since we’d been thrown together again, there was something about the way we seemed tethered to one another. Even as we fought it, and I’d begun to wonder if he didn’t feel something more as well. Almost as if I’d also given him a measure of comfort, as if during that night he’d been running from his own demons, and I’d offered a few hours of numbness—a moment to forget who he was, where he’d been, and instead focus on the warmth and succor that could be found in someone who didn’t know the baggage you carried every moment of your life.

When the car door shut, I chanced a quick glance at Ash out the corner of my eye. His arms were crossed over his expansive chest and his jaw was clenched.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “About earlier.” He huffed out a noise that said he wasn’t buying what I was selling. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s … well, let’s just say it’s a defense mechanism I’m not proud of. When I feel cornered, I lash out. I’m working on it, but …” I shrugged my shoulders.

Ash palmed the seat leather and turned to face me. “Do you know why I took this job?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

“I’m not one of McClintock’s regulars. I don’t babysit pretty starlets.” His eyes flashed with ire. “You have a truck full of diamonds being transported across hostile territory, I’m your man. Or,” he growled leaning forward, an intimidation tactic I recognized from my conflict resolution class, “say you’re a Russian oligarch who’s on Putin’s shit list, you call me in to get you the fuck out of dodge and to safety. Do you get what I’m saying?”

I did. Or at least I thought so. I was nothing more to him than a pain in the ass. All those notions I’d had about how we might be kindred spirits vanished in an instant. I licked my suddenly parched lips, nodded my head, and swallowed down the lump of embarrassment in my throat.

“But I’m also the only goddamn person McClintock has on the roster who knows fuck all about music and can run a goddamn soundboard, so we’re stuck with each other until they catch whoever’s after you.”

I would have asked more about the types of jobs he typically took on, but I got the impression they weren’t open for discussion. That was fine, now that he’d made it perfectly clear what I was to him, I didn’t need to know anything more about him. All I needed to confirm now was he could do the job I was paying him to do—both of them.

“How is it you know so much about music?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation into neutral territory.

“I play the guitar.”

“And you’ve been in a studio before?”

His eyes raked over me with disdain. “This ain’t my first rodeo, baby.” He leaned back in his seat and stared out the window as we drove down the freeway.

I’d never been particularly good at keeping my feelings bottled up inside—that’s probably what made me a good songwriter—but I’d always been hyper aware of being polite because of that flaw. I didn’t know what was going on in Ash’s brain, but I wasn’t going to sit back and take his abuse. I’d done enough of that with Ford—smiling and nodding while he put me down—and look where that had gotten me. At least Ford had been my husband; keeping the peace had been worthwhile.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I seethed.

“Do you really want to know, or are you hoping I’ll say ‘nothing, I’m fine.’”

“No, I really, genuinely want to know why you’re being such a dick,” I responded as he continued staring out the window, refusing to meet my angry glare.

“Look Rae. You’re paying me to keep you safe—and I’m willing to put my life on the line because I’m a good little soldier and that’s my job—and I’ll help you with your damn album, but I think it’s best if we kept it to that. We don’t need to talk about our feelings or anything else, so if you don’t mind, I’m just going to sit here and keep quiet for the rest of our journey.”

“You’re the one who keeps coming on to me, who keeps touching me and trying to get into my pants.”

Inwardly I cheered when his head whipped around and angry eyes clapped on mine. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” I volleyed back. Pointing at him, I added, “This is on you.”

Angrily, he undid his seatbelt and slid across the leather separating us. “I know you’ve got some shit going on, and you’re dealing with a whole lot on your plate at the moment. But nothing I’ve heard you say this past week has pointed to a woman who is stupid or manipulative, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt right now.” His eyes raked over my face and he licked his lips. “I hate to break it to you, Rae, but every time you look my way, I catch you undressing me. Every time we talk, your eyes rove over me appreciatively. You watch my mouth and your pupils dilate, thinking about—remembering—what these lips can do. You’ve been eye fucking me for a week and a man can only take so much.”

“Wh … how … is …” I sputtered. I had some pretty major shortcomings, but the inability to express myself wasn’t one of them. Sure, there were times in my past I’d decided not to say what was on my mind, but that hadn’t meant the words hadn’t been there—just that I’d chosen not to use them. But with Ash’s snide statement ringing in my ears, I was actually speechless. The only other time that had happened was when Ford had announced on TV that we were separating and I hadn’t known.

I blinked long and slow, and when I opened my eyes, I was finally able to give Ash a piece of my mind. A very loud, very vulgar piece of it. “You motherfucking cocksucking piece of shit! Who the fuck do you think you are?” I shoved at him with my palms and then punched his solid chest with balled fists. “You sexist piece of trash!” I wailed as I took out my disgust on his rock-hard body. “Just because a woman looks at you appreciatively does not mean she wants you to lay your grubby fucking hands on her! Just because I’m attracted to you doesn’t give you license to accost me every damn time we’re in the same goddamn room. Just because I fucked you before doesn’t mean I’m going to spread my legs and let you slide that magnificent fucking cock into my needy, aching cunt. It doesn’t mean I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember my name and I can’t stop screaming yours!”

By the time I finished my tirade, my furious hollering had morphed into a yearning entreaty, and before I knew what I was doing, I threw my arms around Ash’s neck, twisted my hands in his hair, and pulled his face to mine.

And then, just before our lips crashed together, he chuckled. “That’s where you’re wrong, babycakes. That’s exactly what it means.”