TREVOR KEPT PAIGE tucked under his arm while she gave her statement to the police. He couldn’t believe how cool she’d stayed under pressure, trying to calm down the asshole, relate to him on a personal level. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised after the way she’d come to his rescue last time.
He gave a statement too, confirming that the carjacker was the same man who had attacked him in the parking lot last month. He explained that he’d come out of the stadium to see his Escalade driving crazy across the lot, and that he’d at first assumed Paige was playing a joke on him.
Then he’d seen that two people were in the SUV. He’d run after it, cut the power with his spare remote key, and dragged the man out before he could harm Paige.
He didn’t mention what the man had said about Wayne County, even though it kept clanging through his mind like warning bells. Maybe he knew something, maybe he didn’t. The only thing that mattered—the only thing Trevor cared about—was keeping Paige safe and getting this man off the streets. Going after him, that was one thing. Mess with Paige . . . fuck no.
The only bright side was that he’d just had a giant wake-up call. Stay away from Paige. He should tattoo it on his forehead.
Finally, all the official business was over and he was alone with Paige. She still looked pale, but not quite as shaken. “I’ll drive you home,” he told her.
She crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest. “Have you forgotten we’re on a date, Trevor Stark?”
“Have you forgotten what just happened? You got kidnapped because of me.”
“I got kidnapped for about two minutes, if that. By a moron who didn’t even think you might have an override key. And you rescued me. Nope, sorry, none of that lets you off the hook. You asked me out, and you’re taking me out.”
“Paige . . .”
God, he had to make her understand what a mistake it would be to get involved with him. He cupped her elbow and turned her to face him. “There are things you don’t know about me,” he made himself tell her. Once she knew those things, she’d run screaming.
“I know you put apple blossoms in your glove compartment. I know you called the cops even though you hate cops. I know you never would have let that man hurt me. I know you want me the same way I want you.” Her eyes were huge in the lamplight, sapphire-dark and urgent.
Desire for her thrummed in his blood like a drug. “Yeah, all that is true. And more. But I’m nothing but trouble for you. What am I supposed to do, put you in danger because I want you?”
“Maybe you should let me have a say,” she whispered. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be with you. Why you’re so bad for me. What’s so terrible about Trevor Stark?” She lifted a hand to interrupt him. “And Nina told me that’s not your real last name, so you can start there.”
He stared at her for a long, long moment, hiding all his turmoil behind the glacier of his face. It felt as if the ground was crumbling from under his feet, as if he stood on a lonely cliff face about to be washed away by the sea. No solid footing, no way to hide. Paige had just been kidnapped because of him, and that man had mentioned Wayne County. He needed to tell her. Even if he lost her.
And he would. He had no illusions about that.
Finally, his voice like a rusty hinge, he said, “Not here.”
“Take me to your hotel room.”
“Okay, but we’re not—”
“Just take me.”
She’d nearly ended up in his hotel room the very first night she met him. Then, it would have been a one-night stand type of thing, a shallow encounter between two strangers. Now, it was perhaps the opposite. It was Trevor dragging his hand through his hair, pacing the room, looking scraped raw. It was Trevor tugging his shirt off his back, showing the burn scars in the shape of a W—the gang emblem of the group that had drawn his father into their criminal web.
Now, it formed the skeleton of a hawk that had been tattooed in meticulous detail around the scar.
“That’s to remind me never to stop watching my back,” he told her, while she stared, speechless, at the work of muscled, inked beauty that was his back. Wide shoulders, tapering to a taut waist, with endless ripples and ridges of sinew in between. Hovering over it all, the harsh image of the hawk, wings spread open.
“That’s . . . beautiful.”
He gave her an odd look over his shoulder, then pulled his shirt back down and leaned against the wall while she sat cross-legged on the bed. “I don’t know where to start with this fucking story. My dad was a pharmacist. Normal, middle-class guy. Taught me baseball, soccer, everything. Then my mom died, and he went to pieces. Started using drugs from the pharmacy. Then he got into harder stuff, using the pharmaceuticals as payment to the dealers. It got worse and worse, but I didn’t know most of it. I was always playing baseball. Nina would come to me sometimes and ask what was wrong with Dad, but I had no clue. She was at home more and she knew something wasn’t right.”
He passed a hand over his forehead, as if even talking about this hurt. “Then I think my dad tried to get out, but they sent some thug over to muscle him into line. That’s when . . . well, the guy was no match for a baseball bat. I went into juvenile detention for the rest of high school.”
Horror flickered through her. “Did he die?”
“No. Brain damage.”
She frowned, sorting through the story. It didn’t seem to completely add up. “If you attacked the man who was hurting your father, wouldn’t that be considered self-defense?”
He was quiet for a long time. “It didn’t play out that way. And I can’t say any more about it. Just that my father worked it out with them so the gang wasn’t suspected of anything. He was going to take the blame, but I was only fifteen. If he’d been sent to prison, Nina and I would have been on our own. I wanted her to be safe, so I confessed and got sent to juvie. I think my dad thought I’d be safer that way. I probably was, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“A couple months after I went in, they bribed a guard. He knocked me out and I woke up on a folding table next to a smelting oven. That’s when I got the scar on my back. They wanted me to know that my time in juvie wasn’t payment enough. That they owned me. They said there was more to come after I got out.”
She touched the scar on his cheek. “This?”
“That’s the first line of a W, but that happened three years ago, and I wasn’t unconscious. He didn’t get far.”
A chill shot through her.
Trevor’s jaw worked, his eyes a turbulent green. “Soon as I graduated, I changed my name and got the hell out of town. I had to change my name once more after that, after a Detroit cop put it together. He was working for them. After I signed my major league contract, I sent for Nina. I got her set up somewhere safe in another city. I don’t know if they’re looking for me anymore, but I know they’d still love to find me. And that’s why you should have nothing to do with me.”
The flat finality of his voice shook her up even more than his words. And the truth was, she could see exactly what he meant. Anyone would say he was a dangerous person to be around; her father sure would. But was it his fault that his father had gotten involved with drugs? His fault that some gang enforcer had attacked his father? His fault for rushing to his father’s defense?
She got up and walked slowly to his side. He tensed. She could practically see the electric barrier rising between them. “Where’s your father now?”
“He died of an overdose while I was in juvie. I only saw him a few times after that night.”
The stark sadness of that statement horrified her. God, none of this was fair. “I’m so sorry, Trevor.”
She took his hand, rubbing her thumb across his big knuckles. After the way he’d manhandled that carjacker, she could imagine what he’d done with his father in danger. With a baseball bat or bare hands, Trevor was a warrior. He defended those he cared for. She’d seen it over and over.
Lifting his hand to her lips, she kissed it. “Is the Trevor part real?”
“Yes.”
He tried to pull his hand away but she didn’t allow it.
“Paige, listen. I’d like to think all of that is dead and gone forever, but the truth is, it could come back to bite me anytime. I’ve changed a lot since fifteen, but they’d still recognize me if they saw me. Hopefully, they never will. But I can’t guarantee that. And you don’t want anything to do with those guys. They’re evil.”
His eyes darkened, and he shifted his back muscles in an unconscious gesture. She thought about Trevor, a fifteen-year-old baseball prodigy, thrown onto a folding table and branded with a hot iron.
“It’s not fair,” she burst out. “How long are you supposed to live in fear of them? Forever?”
“I don’t know. If it was just me, I’d say to hell with it. But I have Nina to think about. She’s what matters most.”
“Nina?” Paige frowned. Would they go after her as a way to find Trevor? It seemed like a stretch, but what did she know about this kind of thing? Absolutely nothing. And then something else clicked. “You don’t want to play in the majors, do you?”
His head shot up, his startled reaction telling her she was onto something.
“You think it’s too risky. You might have to play in Detroit. Someone could spot you and put two and two together. It’s safer here in Kilby. Who ever goes to Triple A except the locals? That’s why you keep sabotaging your career.”
He yanked his hand away from her and strode to the window. “I don’t sabotage my career. Have you seen my stats?”
“Yes, I’ve seen your stats. I’m working in the accounting office right now, and it’s like Moneyball back there. I’ve seen your personnel records too. You keep screwing things up right when you’re about to get the call. Drives my dad nuts.”
“That’s not my problem.” Ice cold, as always. But now she knew what was behind that uncaring mask. She wasn’t falling for his act anymore.
“They’re not going to keep you in Triple A forever. You have a monster contract. What then?”
He turned away from her, rubbing the back of his neck, the flex of muscle in his forearm reminding her of the panorama on his back. “The more time that passes, the better. People die off in that world. Eventually they’ll forget about me and my family.”
God, it all made so much sense. Trevor’s past, his fear, his protectiveness, the behavior that drove Crush nuts. He wasn’t disrespecting baseball—he was trying to shield his family. “Just tell Crush, Trevor. Tell him what’s really going on.”
He was across the room before she could say another word, strong hands gripping her upper arms. “No, Paige. You have to promise. I told you all this in strict confidence. You’re the only one I’ve ever told. Literally, ever. You can’t tell. It’s not safe for Nina. You gotta promise me.”
“But Trevor, you shouldn’t have to carry this alone. It’s not fair. What about you, your baseball career, your life?”
He spoke in a low, tight growl. “Fuck all of that. This is my life. It’s the way it has to be. I’d do anything for Nina. I would have quit baseball because of the risk, but she wouldn’t let me. Would you do any different if you were in my shoes?”
She swallowed hard around the tightness in her throat. What would she do if she had to face such a terrifying situation? Again she remembered the harsh scars on his back, the way he’d made that brand into his own. The scar on his cheek. “Maybe not,” she whispered. A tear spilled from her eye; she felt its soft tickle on her cheek. Then another. She didn’t try to hide them, not that she could, the way he was holding her.
He watched her cry for him, everything about him softening with each tear. His grip loosened, his tense posture eased, the lines of his face relaxed into something like awe. After a few long moments he lifted one hand and used his thumb to wipe a tear off her cheekbone. She grabbed his wrist, keeping it right where it was, next to her face. He extended his fingers to cradle her jaw, his hold as tender as it was firm.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I can hardly stand it.”
She smiled through the tears that kept falling. “Says Baseball’s Hottest Outfield.”
“None of that now. I’m talking about you.” His thumb brushed over the skin of her cheekbone, his gaze traveled across her features as if noting every freckle and eyelash. “The way your eyes dance when you smile. The way you catch the light, wherever it is. You’re always shining. Even now, in this crappy hotel room, tears on your face, all the light in the room is on you. Everything else might as well not be here.”
Her breath snagged in her chest. Never in her life would she have expected such poetic words from stone-faced Trevor Stark.
“Trevor,” she whispered. “I—”
“Don’t say anything. Just let me . . .” He trailed off, words disappearing into breath, breath disappearing into the press of his lips against hers. It felt like the softest kiss in the world, like an inevitability, two paths crossing right where they were supposed to. They kissed long and deep, every barrier between them evaporating like mist under the morning sun. His touch turned her body into a river of fluid sensation, everything in her wanting to soften, to welcome, to surrender.
“We shouldn’t—” He began.
“Don’t.” With a fierce kiss, she plucked the words from the air between them, swallowed them before they could shatter their fragile new connection. “You’re not alone in this, Trevor. Not anymore.”
She tilted her hips forward, seeking his erection. Under the denim of his jeans, it pressed against her thigh, hot and demanding. Sensation hot in her belly, she swayed toward him. She wanted him hard against her, surrounding her, cradling her the way he had after the carjacking. She wanted him inside her, his strength and power pouring into her. She wanted him in her mouth, in her hands, against her tongue. She wanted him now, all night, again and again.
But he was still fighting with his conscience; she felt his silent struggle for control. Hot desire battling against the urge to protect her.
“Please,” she whispered. “Stay with me, Trevor.” She closed her eyes, put his hand on her breast, over her heart, praying that her aroused nipple and catapulting heartbeat would do her talking for her.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw a vision of the first time she’d laid eyes on Trevor, striding across the parking lot, powerful but so terribly alone, until that other dark figure had approached him.
You couldn’t escape fate, whether in the form of a man with a BB gun or a troubled slugger.
She felt the exact moment when he gave in, when he surrendered to the desire vibrating between them. He swept her flat against him so there was no room for breath, no room for doubt. “If we do this, you gotta know a few things,” he muttered in her ear. “I can’t make any promises. I don’t lie, and I don’t say things I can’t stand behind. I’ve never felt the way I do with you, but I don’t want to hurt you, and—”
To shut him up, she plastered her mouth against his, throwing her body against him with so much force that anyone with less sheer strength would have stumbled backward. But he received her weight as if she were a tumbleweed, cradling her against his hard chest, those powerful hands gripping the flesh of her rear.
He spun her around so the back of her legs touched the side of the bed, then she was airborne, suddenly weightless, an armful of cotton fluff secured in the muscular circle of his embrace.
Next thing she knew, she was on her back on the bed, a Trevor she’d never seen braced over her. This Trevor was wild, with fever-bright eyes that promised unimaginable things. The heat from his body seared everywhere he touched, even through her clothing. She twisted her body against him, laughing out loud because it felt so amazing, so beyond anything normal.
“Laugh it up, Paige. You’ll be screaming before you know it.” With a growl, he nuzzled his face against her neck. He nudged her legs apart with one knee, and she nearly came just from that. Her dress rode up to her thighs. He drew a possessive hand up the inside of her leg, the roughness of his palm lighting up her skin like fireworks. If he reached her mound, he’d find her already wet and open. But he didn’t get that far, only to the edge of her panties.
He looked down. She knew what he saw: red silk. Selected to state her intentions loud and clear.
“Damn,” he swore softly. With that one word, dripping with lust and awe, all the feminine pride Hudson had stolen from her came rushing back. Doubled, tripled, because this was Trevor Stark. And Trevor had a hold on her heart and imagination no one had ever had.
From the restraint that vibrated in his forearms, she knew what he intended. Some kind of slow seduction, taking his time arousing her with his mouth and touch. That’s not what she had in mind. Oh no.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and thrust her pelvis against his. His erection was hard as a club behind his jeans. Sensation beat hot and fast in the place between her legs—the current center of her world. Wildfire flooded her system, need thundering like a timpani. She rubbed against him, the throbbing in her clit now an electric feverish craving.
“What are you doing?” He groaned painfully, a man in the throes of battling temptation. “I can’t last if you do that. You’re going to make me—”
“I want you to fuck me.” Her rawness shocked her. That wasn’t how nice-girl Paige talked. She didn’t say things like that. At least not until now. “I don’t want slow. I want fast and hard. Come on, Trevor. Do it. You want it just like I do. Touch me.”
She snaked a hand between them, working her way past his pants to take hold of his hard penis. It filled her hand with its thick urgency. God, how she wanted him.
With a groan, he pulled her hand away from his cock. He joined both her hands together over her head, pinning them to the bedspread.
She peeked up at him. Had she ever thought he was icy and distant? Not this man, with his fierce electric gaze and hot mouth. Words were pouring out of him now, just as dirty as hers had been. “I want you hot and wild for me, baby. I want your sweet little body spread out naked and begging. Keep your hands up there and open your legs for me, baby.”
She spread her legs apart, gasping at how it made her feel to do that—exposing herself, surrendering, giving in to him. He sat back on his heels and ran one big palm up one thigh, across her crotch, then down the inner thigh. The silk against her sex turned the caress into a maddening tease. She sobbed and pushed wordlessly toward his hand again. More, she wanted to say. I need more.
But he knew what she meant. Right now, in this moment, he owned her and he knew it.
Slowly, torturously, he dragged his hand back between her legs, taking his time as he reached her clit. He used one knuckle to circle that nest of nerves, to pull a deep moan from the very pit of her stomach. She panted, lungs heaving, about to burst.
He pushed her dress up as far as it would go, then dragged her panties down to her knees. The look on his face, all-consuming and feral, nearly sent her over the edge again.
“God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Please, Trevor. Touch me.” She lifted her hips, need vibrating in every nerve ending.
“You’re such a hot thing,” he murmured. He ran his hands from the undersides of her breasts down her torso to her hips. She writhed under his touch. So rough and tender. So knowing.
His touch was everything.
When he reached between her legs to the wetness crying out for him, she released a whimper. “Oh please . . .”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I got you.” His deep, lust-roughened voice worked on her like another hand, like another set of fingers playing havoc with her nerves. He cupped her mound—oh God, she wanted to cry from the piercing pleasure. The inside of his wrist pushed against her clit, his fingers tangled in her soft curls. He tugged lightly. Lightning sizzled through her system. But the edge of everything was still out there . . . out of reach . . . taunting . . .
“Oh fuck,” she moaned, hips thrashing. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“I told you not to worry,” he reminded her, his tone drenched in stern command. A rush of pure emotion made her body relax.
“I won’t,” she whispered. “Just . . . just . . .”
“Just what? This?” He stroked a thumb across her clit. “I feel you swelling for me. Plumping up nice and full. Let it go, sweetheart . . . let it go . . .” He pressed and circled, creating delirious friction between his callused thumb and her own hot juices. “Come for me, Paige. I want to see you come. Don’t hold back. Come on.”
With his palm still hot against her clit, he inserted two big fingers inside her, the extra pressure releasing a deep flood of heat. It carried her up, up, higher and higher, a wave transporting her into a wide starry sky and hurling her to the wind. And then it broke into a cascade of shuddering release. She lost track of where she was and what she was doing, barely seeing Trevor’s head bent intently over her, his hand holding her firm, anchoring her to the bed.
When she was still pulsing from that climax, trying to catch her breath and retrieve her sanity, he snatched a condom from his bedside table and worked it over his rock-hard erection. “How can you be so fucking hot when you look so innocent?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She heaved in a lungful of air, but there was no getting her pulse back to normal. It kept skipping and jumping all over the place. Trevor poised his body over hers. The lamplight caught the little golden hairs peppering his thighs. Fascinated, she stroked the front of his thighs, amazed at their honed, sculpted hardness. They seemed to have more muscles than other men’s thighs, even though she knew that couldn’t be anatomically true. His muscles were just more obvious, more defined. Like iron turned to warm flesh.
Between his thighs reared his penis, straight and true and wanting her. She touched it too, feeling the heat burning through the clear latex. “I got tested after I found out about Nessa,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“I always use a condom. I won’t put you at risk. I can at least promise you that.”
For a moment the magical connection she felt to him wavered. That word “always” made her think of all the other women he’d done this with. Was she just another woman to him, was this just another situation requiring a condom?
But when he pushed his erection into the soft opening between her legs, none of that mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was the way he swelled inside her, the way he filled her, inch by glorious inch, until there was absolutely no extra room for anything resembling a doubt or a second thought or any sensation other than pleasure.
“Paige” he whispered as he moved with aching control within her. “Beautiful Paige.” He flexed his hips, going deeper inside her. Flutters danced along her inner channel, along her spine, down to her fingertips. She closed her eyes because the sight of him was just too overwhelming. She could look or she could feel, but not both. And right now she wanted feeling. She wanted him driving deep. She wanted his shudders, his restraint. His abandon. And then a wild, intoxicating explosion. This orgasm was different from the first. Deeper. It was a thorough surrender of her being to the powerful man who shook in her arms.
The man who was claiming her heart, bit by bit.