BELL

Naked, I walked down the hall and into the kitchen, leaning on the island with a lazy groan. “I can’t find my dress.”

Ian turned away from the stove, a piece of toast in hand. “Look on the balcony.”

Ah. I had a vague recollection of straddling him on the chaise lounge, and it coming off. I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “Good thinking.”

He smirked, ripping off a bite of toast. “I never forget my best work.”

“And that was your best work?” I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe you need some tutoring.”

He laughed, not at all concerned with my critique. “Your orgasms didn’t seem to mind it.”

“Yeah, they aren’t very picky. But, I’ll probably keep you around a little longer. As a charity project, of course.” I grinned at him and walked around the counter, stealing a crumb of his toast and popping it into my mouth. “Please say that you have more than burnt bread to woo me with.”

“There’s yogurt in the fridge.”

“Oooh. Sexy. You’re like a hot Emeril Lagasse.”

He spun slightly on the stool. “At the risk of getting you all hot and bothered, I’ve also got cereal in the cabinet.”

I made a face. “I think I’ll just grab something on the way to work.”

“Your loss. I’ve got to get back to the university anyway.”

He grabbed a shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head. Pushing open the balcony slider, I saw my sundress puddled on the deck.

“Need help?” He stuck his head out the door, a baseball cap now pulled on, and damn, he was pretty. Five o’clock shadow, T-shirt snug over his lean muscular build, and enough height to make me look up into his eyes.

Tugging it up my body, I started on the side zipper. “Nah, I’m good.”

He hesitated in the doorway as if he had something to say.

I finished getting the dress into place. “What?”

“Speaking of keeping me around a little longer, I was wondering if you might want to go out to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Dinner?” I hesitated. “You mean, like a date?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, Bell. Like a date.”

Alarm bells sounded at full strength. Dating wasn’t what I was looking for. While sizzling hot sex with a consistent guy was right up my alley, thoughts of emotional attachment gave me hives. Not that he was proposing emotional attachment. But that’s what dates led to, right? Relationships. Real relationships, not the fuck-buddy stints of my past.

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“Because you’re working, or because you don’t want to?”

“Both.” I met his eyes. “I thought we were on the same page with what this was.”

This wasn’t his fault. My steadfast commitment to emotion-free sex wasn’t normal. Losing my virginity to two assholes who left me bleeding on a barn floor had certainly affected my viewpoint and left me with deep emotional scars. For the first two years after that night, I had nightmares. I’d been terrified of men and avoided any interaction with them. Long talks with my mother had helped. She taught me that I couldn’t be a victim. She’s the one who took me to the gun range on weekends and gave me the confidence to believe I was no longer vulnerable. Counseling, a year later, had cleared several more hurdles. But Elliot Wilton was the one who did the heavy lifting in my emotional healing. Sweet, terrified of me, Elliot Wilton had done the impossible and calmed my fear of men. We’d had a semester-long history project together, a project that led to a dozen late nights alone together in the dark recesses of the library. He’d all but quaked when my hand had brushed against his leg. Three weeks later, I’d kissed him with the hesitancy of an alley cat and he’d blushed bright red. I’d felt power in that kiss, had felt the way his skin had heated with the touch, had seen the way his eyes had shone with worship when I’d pulled away and wiped my wet mouth. With Elliot, I wasn’t the victim, I was the aggressor. Slowly, I learned that I could do anything I wanted—or didn’t want—and he’d let me.

Elliot gave me a taste of the power of my own sexuality. And with that taste, I was addicted.

The project ended, Elliot graduated, and I moved on to a foreign exchange student who barely spoke English but introduced me to the beauty of his mouth in between my legs. After my own high school graduation, I grew bolder, testing the waters with an electrician five years older than me, one who could spit game like a pro but was putty in the bedroom.

With each male, I grew stronger, less affected by the events of my past and more detached from the act of sex. I didn’t want a relationship. I wanted pleasure. I wanted control. I wanted the ability to walk away without a thought, pain or heartache.

Which is why this Irish sex god and I couldn’t go on a date. This needed to stay like every other physical relationship I’d ever had—a mutually beneficial arrangement set up with clear ground rules. They needed to treat me with respect. Sex wasn’t ever a guarantee. Condoms would be used. And no emotions needed to be involved, other than friendship.

Initially, I avoided emotional attachment because of the potential risk. Not so much to my body—that had already been run through the gamut of abuse—but to my heart. I was terrified that, after surviving the emotional train-wreck caused by the rape, heartbreak would be another burden I wouldn’t be able to handle.

Those worries had been unnecessary. Far from heartbroken, I seemed to be an emotional cactus, dry and parched of any of the emotions that led to love. With the first few guys I messed around with, I’d nervously waited, in the quiet moments after sex, for the feelings to come. The rush and exhilaration. The high. The butterflies. The endorphins that turned ordinary people into lovesick idiots. None had ever come. Eventually, I’d stopped worrying and gave up on the feeling altogether, accepting that that part of me might have broken that night in the barn.

Ian flipped his keys in his hand and scowled at me. “It’s just a date, Bell. I’m not proposing.”

“Oh, I know. I just … I’m not looking for anything serious.” I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. “Are you okay with that?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.” He frowned. “Since the burnt toast didn’t appeal to you, want to go grab something quick. Subs?”

I pretended to swoon. “Subs? Like, with meat AND bread?” I fluttered my eyelashes. “You are an Adonis of sexual temptation.”

“So I’ve been told. I also issue A’s for exemplary blow jobs.”

“I already earned my A.” I stuck out my tongue. “And … I’m going to pass on your gourmet lunch offer. But after class next week, I’ll let you spell out my homework assignment with your tongue.”

Still smiling, I wiggled my fingers at him and pulled the door shut, jogging down the steps and into the warm Nevada sunshine. I let out a hard breath. Prior to his date night invite, I had liked the ease of Ian and assumed he was hooking up with several other coeds. But maybe I’d read him wrong. Maybe he wasn’t a man whore wanting a casual lay. Which sucked, because Meredith had been right, Ian checked off all the boxes in an ideal man. He’d be an ideal boyfriend, if I was looking for that. But… I checked my feelings. Nope, still repelled by the idea of love.

Pulling my sunglasses from my bag, I headed for my car, grateful for the newly-fixed air conditioning. Glancing at my watch, I quickened my pace. I didn’t have much time to get home, shower and change before work.

I pulled out of the complex and was halfway to the main road before I realized I’d forgotten my phone. I pulled a quick U-turn and almost hit a black Tahoe, also on its way out. I kept going, seeing Ian’s Jeep, and slowed down when I saw his hand reaching out, waving at me.

“Forget this?” He held my cell out, and I shifted into park and half crawled out of the window to grab it.

“Yep. Thanks.” I worked my way back in and waved. “See you in class.”

He nodded, and his Jeep bounced a little on its shocks as he bumped it into drive.

Fifteen minutes later, I juggled a giant Styrofoam cup in one hand and eased my car out of the McDonald’s drive-thru, the nose of it almost clipped by some prick in a Tesla. I craned my head forward, looking down the road, and noticed the dark SUV, two cars down, parallel parked under a tree. There was an opening in the traffic, and I pulled out in a screech of almost-bald tires. Settling into my lane, I glanced back at the SUV. As I watched, it pulled out into traffic, four cars back.

I set down the cup and put both hands on the wheel, darting my gaze between the road ahead and the rearview mirror.

It was ridiculous to think it was the same Tahoe from Ian’s neighborhood, ridiculous to think that it had sat and waited for me to finish my fast food order, and extra ridiculous for me to think that it was now following me.

I got in the left lane and it did nothing. I waited until the last possible moment, then switched back to the right lane and whipped off on the exit ramp.

The Tahoe continued straight, and I let out a hard breath. See? Nothing. I was being an idiot.

I was humming down the road when I spotted it again, materializing out of nowhere as if I hadn’t just shot off in a different direction, not three miles ago.

I reached for my phone, driving with my knees as I dialed the number and put the cell on speakerphone.

Rick answered on the fifth ring. “Hey.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “This is probably nothing, but you were the only person I knew to call.”

“Got a body that needs burying?”

I smiled despite my nerves. “With your puny arms? Please. I’d call Lloyd for that.”

“Hey, I devote serious time to these biceps. Want to insult my calves, go for it.”

Traffic opened up a bit, and I pressed the accelerator a bit. “I’m probably being paranoid, but I think someone’s following me.”

“Where are you?” The laughter was gone from Rick’s voice.

“Umm... Martin Street, by that Chipotle. He’s been behind me about ten minutes.”

“Come to our house. Lance is home now. I’ll have him grab the Hummer and hem him in.”

Hem him in? The idea sounded reckless. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Maybe I should just drive to a police station.”

“And the minute you turn in, he’ll drive away and we won’t know anything about him.” I heard muffled talking, his hand probably held over the receiver. “Lance is getting the H1 now.”

I could hear the excitement in his voice, the increased pitch as he called out something. I told him so, and he let out a long puff of air.

“I am not, in any way shape or form, excited by the prospect of kicking some creep’s ass.” He spoke the words in a dead monotone. “I promise,” he added.

“Whatever. Just don’t be stupid about it.”

“I’m going to open the garage door and move my Benz. Just pull in and go in the house. We’ll handle the guy.”

We’ll handle the guy… With someone else, I would have been afraid. But Rick and Lance had managed to survive situations a hundred times hairier than this. Still, he sounded too cocky to be safe and too confident to be cautious. I turned into the entrance of his neighborhood and started to second-guess my decision.

“I don’t know…”

“STOP worrying. And drive normally. I don’t want him to suspect anything.”

“I just pulled into your neighborhood. Please be careful.”

I turned down his road, noticed the black grill of Lance’s H1 idling on a side street, and pressed the gas a little bit harder, passing their neighborhood’s 23 MPH speed limit sign like a badass doing thirty.

Rick and Lance lived in one of those neighborhoods that didn’t quite know its place. It was a cluster of overpriced mansions built during the real estate heyday, back when ordinary people got loans on million-dollar mansions they couldn’t afford, then defaulted nine months later. Half the houses had overgrown lawns and For Sale signs in the yard. Their house sat at the end of the cul-de-sac and was a three-story frat house, disguised in respectability and brick. From the street, you couldn’t see the six-car garage that stretched along its back, nor the pool with the grotto waterfall and Slip ’N Slide.

I didn’t know the rules of following someone, but I assumed this guy’s vehicle had a navigation system, one that would tell him, as I approached Rick’s house, that it was a dead-end. I approached the cul-de-sac and Rick’s Mercedes SUV rolled across the width of the turn-off road, the door opening as I passed. He lifted a hand to me and I focused on his driveway, hitting it at a brisk ten miles per hour and pulling around to the back, the last garage door open and waiting for me.

I pulled in, jerked the car into park and turned off the key. I cracked open my door and waited for the sounds of disaster.