Chapter Five
Zola woke to the scent of coffee. She moaned as she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. The sun was up high enough that she knew she’d slept late. A squinted glance at the partially closed blinds told her it was about nine.
She’d spent hours the night before forcing herself to memorize every detail in the case folder she’d brought with her. It was meant to take her mind off the sexy SEAL in the other room and prepare her for trial. She wasn’t sure either happened. But at least she’d worn herself out and then crashed into bed and slept hard.
With a fortifying breath, she hauled herself out of bed and padded across the room. She’d worn a tank top to bed with nothing else except her panties. After shrugging into a pair of yoga pants and a large sweatshirt from her college days, she stepped into the hallway.
Coffee first.
When she rounded the corner, she stopped in her tracks.
Mike.
Damn him. Why did he have to look so hot? He didn’t know she was behind him yet. He stood at the counter in the kitchen doing something in the sink. Sun shined through the window over the sink to cast a warm glow of light around him.
But those details weren’t what had her frozen in her spot.
Nope. He was wearing nothing more than low-hanging jeans. She couldn’t see his feet, but she would guess they were bare. But his back…
Damn. He was much larger than he’d been in high school, which would stand to reason since he’d been in the navy. But he wasn’t an active SEAL now, and he obviously still worked out. It seemed like the muscles in his shoulders and arms and back had muscles of their own.
Suddenly he turned around to set something on the counter behind him. He caught her standing there, and a smile spread across his face. “You’re up.”
Her mouth was dry. How long had she been staring? She cleared her throat. “Yes. The smell of coffee lured me.”
He lifted the pot to indicate it was full and poured her a mug. “Half a scoop of sugar. Splash of cream?”
She nodded as she stepped forward. “How did you know? I didn’t drink coffee in high school.” She had known his preferences from that stage of life, but he wouldn’t know hers.
“You had three cups of coffee yesterday.” He half grinned as he stirred.
“Ah.” Right. She took the mug from him, her breath catching when their fingers touched. To hide her face and avoid his gaze, she leaned toward the mug and took a sip.
“How late did you stay up?”
“I don’t know. Late.” She didn’t want him to know how hard she’d worked to keep from thinking about him nor how long she’d tossed and turned after finally turning out the lights.
He chuckled. “Well, while you slept the day away, I’ve been working this morning.” He pointed at the kitchen table. His computer sat open, the screen bright. He turned to head that direction, resumed his seat, and nodded toward the chair opposite his.
Yeah…his feet were bare. Sexy as hell. So were hers, but who knew how he felt about feet? She almost laughed at her insane thoughts as she lowered herself onto the seat.
She cleared her throat again, looked out the window to avoid his chest, and spoke. “Why did you leave the SEALs?” Seemed like a good place to start. All she knew was that he had been a SEAL at some point.
“I was injured three years ago in the Middle East.” He tapped his leg. “Shot in the knee. Shattered my kneecap.”
She winced. She hadn’t noticed him limping. “No one would be able to tell now.”
He smiled at her again. If he kept doing that, she wouldn’t be able to think. “Trust me. If you saw the scars.”
She shivered. The idea of seeing his knee… Which would include him not having on his jeans…
He laughed. “Some things about you have not changed.”
Her face heated. She knew it would be a deep red as was always the case when she felt self-conscious. Her pale complexion dictated that every flush was visible to the world.
Mike set his elbow on the table and put his chin on his palm, leaning closer to her. “Sorry. I couldn’t help teasing you. How are you still so easily embarrassed at the age of thirty?”
She tucked her lips between her teeth. Not that he required an answer, but if he knew how little experience she had with men, his eyes would bug out.
He kept talking. “Besides, I didn’t even say anything except that I have wicked scarring on my knee. How did you twist that into something sexual?”
She still didn’t respond, but she did turn a deeper red. Finally, she couldn’t remain in his presence, so she pushed back from the table, grabbed her coffee, and headed from the room. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
* * *
Mike watched her walk away, his smile falling as he sobered. Her ass in those tight yoga pants. Lord help him. First the skirt and then the pants and now this. It kept getting worse.
He leaned back in his chair and lifted his hands to fold them behind his head. How was he supposed to keep up this charade with the sexiest woman he ever knew?
When they were young, her rosy cheeks always gave away her shock at the way he spoke to her sometimes. Even though they had only slept together one time, he had teased her mercilessly by whispering things in her ear in public. Nothing compared to the kinds of things he wanted to say to her now, but at seventeen, even the suggestion of kissing her in front of people made her blush.
She had been a bit of a prude when they first hooked up. In fact, his friends had teased him about dating the school bookworm. But he’d known from the first moment she sat next to him in tenth-grade English that she was someone special.
He didn’t care what harassment the other guys dished out. He wanted her bad enough to take it. And he’d never given up. It took a while to convince her to go out with him, and then she’d relented and met him at the movies with a group of people.
She’d been sweet and shy and funny and damn smart and cute as hell. His best friend thought Mike would get over her. After all, she was from the other side of the tracks. Her dad was rich. A politician. She came from money.
Mike was in foster care. The only reason he’d gotten into the small private school they attended was because he’d worked his ass off and had an affinity for science and math.
He’d been lucky. His foster parents had noticed he was bright as soon as he came to live with them in the fourth grade—his third family. They were kind and nurturing, and they met with his teacher and arranged for him to apply to the elite academy where he attended high school.
He knew he was lucky. Foster kids didn’t normally do that well in the system. It was rare. And he didn’t squander the opportunity. He didn’t want to spend his life in poverty on the streets or worse. He didn’t want to end up dead from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the crossfire between gangs.
That had been his father’s fate, though Mike didn’t remember him. He’d been a baby.
His mother hadn’t fared any better. She’d died of an overdose when Mike was four. His memory of her was spotty—a small, skinny woman with stringy hair and gaunt features from years of abuse.
Foster home number one had lasted two years, and he’d hardly spoken to anyone in that house.
Foster home number two had lasted three years, during which time he’d forced himself to join life and started to come out of his shell. He’d realized early on that if he was going to get out of the cycle of poverty and drugs, he had to do it himself.
That family had done the best they could for him, but eventually the father had gotten a job in New York, and he didn’t think it was reasonable to take Mike with them. The pain of that separation had been intense. Mike was nine years old and felt so unwanted he could hardly lift his gaze.
And then the Andersons came on the scene. He owed them his life.
Shaking the sad memories from his mind, he focused on the water running in the shower. He closed his eyes, visualizing Zola in that shower, naked, wet. He could tell even without seeing her naked that she had filled out significantly since high school.
He swallowed over the lump in his throat and lowered his arms to adjust his stiffening cock trapped under the zipper of his jeans. Any added weight to the tits he remembered would make them glorious. They’d been fantastic to behold at eighteen. Now… Shit.
The water shut off, and Mike jumped up to take his mug to the sink. He rushed down the hallway to his own room and shut the door to hurry toward the shower himself. He didn’t think he could face her again just yet. He needed some time alone.
He needed a plan. What the hell was happening between them? She was a job. Nothing else. He needed to protect her life. Toying with her emotions or getting involved with her wasn’t an option.
Was it?
He hoped he could take the edge off his lust in the shower, and it didn’t help any when his mind wandered to images of her doing the same thing. Would she? The girl he’d known twelve years ago would never have masturbated in the shower. He smiled again at the image. Contrary to his own little pep talk, he’d give anything to see that show.
Thirty minutes later, he found her sitting at the kitchen table opposite where he was set up, her face tipped down, studying a thick file in front of her. The empty wrapper from a granola bar sat on the table next to her. Good. She’d found something to eat.
As he slid into his seat across from her, she lifted her gaze. “You really think this is all necessary?”
“All what?”
“Me. Hiding here in Norfolk. Over some random threats that probably won’t amount to anything.”
“You tired of me already?” he teased.
She rolled her eyes. “Can you be serious for a minute?”
“Come here.” He motioned with one hand for her to round the table.
She pushed her chair out and came to his side as he moved his mouse around and opened a file. When she finally stood close enough for him to touch but keeping an obviously intentional distance, he reached for the chair around the side of the table and scooted it next to his. “Sit.”
“Bossy,” she muttered as she lowered herself onto the seat, dragging it back a few inches.
He smirked. “And stop trying to avoid me. I don’t bite. Touching me won’t kill you. It’s insulting. Have I ever laid a hand on you in anger?”
She gasped.
Good. He needed to make that point. Her avoidance was growing old fast. She’d flinched like he’d burnt her when he handed her a mug of coffee earlier. And yesterday in the airport and on the plane, she had shrunk away from him several times. She acted like he might hit her.
“Of course not. I wasn’t thinking that,” she muttered.
He turned his torso to face her more fully. “Has someone else hit you? Another man?” That idea hadn’t occurred to him before. It was possible, but if it was true, he would kill the guy with his bare hands.
She scrunched up her face. “Do I seem like the kind of woman who would stay in a relationship with an abuser?”
“No. Not at all. But some asshole could have hurt you once before you were aware of his nature and left.”
She shook her head. “No. Never. Don’t be silly.”
“Then you won’t mind me touching you.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, wrapping his fingers around it from the back.
She jerked her arm back, dislodging him with another more audible gasp.
This wasn’t what he was meant to be doing right now. He should be enlightening her on the level of danger she was in because obviously she wasn’t as informed as he was. But as soon as she came to his side of the table with her weird need to keep space between them, he’d lost his cool on that topic.
He wasn’t a leper. And he’d never given her any reason to cringe away from him—not then, and not now. “What the hell, Zola?”
She lowered her face, tucking her hands between her legs.
He let his gaze follow her hands to the spot where she crushed her fingers between thighs that were now covered with the last material he wanted to see her in—denim. “Talk to me.” He softened his voice. “We have to work together. We’re stuck together like glue for the foreseeable future. I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Well, it’s not abuse. So let that go.”
“Okaaay. No one has mistreated you. Then what?”
When she jerked her face up to meet his gaze, her expression was pained. “Just don’t…”
“Don’t what, babe?” Now his chest hurt.
“Don’t…touch me.”
The pain grew more intense. Don’t touch her? “Zola, I don’t understand.”
“It’s too much, okay?” Her voice rose. She shoved the chair back and stood. “It brings back memories. And what makes it worse is that you obviously don’t feel the same thing. So just stop. When your skin touches mine, my heart races, and I can’t think of anything except the last time we were together.”
Holy fuck. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.
She turned around and fled the two feet to the sliding glass doors, and then she raced outside and ran down the steps to the beach.
Mike stared after her for several seconds before shaking his ass in gear and following. She still didn’t understand the seriousness of her situation. And if he didn’t get control of his lust, he wouldn’t be able to protect her.
She headed straight for the edge of the water to stand in the same spot she’d occupied last night. It was chilly outside this morning, and she wrapped her arms around her middle to ward off the wind.
Her gorgeous strawberry-blond hair blew around her back and neck, making him long to thread his fingers in it and tug her head back the way he used to do in high school.
When he reached her, he set his hands tentatively on her shoulders and then smoothed them down her biceps until he wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her back against his chest. He set his chin on the top of her head, relieved that she didn’t jerk away from him.
For long minutes, he stared out at the waves with her while she slowly relaxed in his embrace, and then he eased his mouth down to her ear. He used to set his lips on that sensitive spot every day multiple times. It felt like home. “I’m sorry. I should’ve read you better. I thought…”
What did he think? He assumed she’d moved on. He assumed she probably had a boyfriend. Why on earth wasn’t she married? So sexy. So full of life.
When she didn’t respond, he continued, “I didn’t think you would still have feelings for me.” Not like the ones I have for you. He’d never forgotten her. Not for a day. Not in all these years. She had been it for him. He’d known it then, and he still knew it now.
What if she felt the same way? But that was crazy. He knew she had moved on. Found another man. Made a life for herself. After months of wallowing in self-pity over her when he should have been enjoying his freshman year at Berkeley, he’d finally forced himself to let her go.
But this? What was this?
“Why wouldn’t I? Seeing you drags it all back.” She kept her gaze to the water as she nearly whispered, “Touching you…” She sighed. “It sets my blood on fire, Mike.”
He was shocked by her bluntness. And half of him was elated to hear he affected her as much as she did him. Now what should he do? That information was heady.
She squirmed in his embrace. “Let me go. Please.”
He held her tighter. “No. I like holding you. And we need to discuss this.”
Her chest heaved against his forearms as she stopped struggling. “Can we discuss it without you touching me?”
“No.” Suddenly it seemed important that he keep his arms around her. Obviously she had an issue, and he intended to put it to rest. He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent, setting his nose against the skin behind her ear.
She shuddered. “Mike…”
“Babe. It’s the same for me. When you touch me, it’s like an electric current runs between us. So we need to work it out.”
“We can do that without you holding me.” Her voice held no conviction.
“We can do it with me holding you.” He squeezed tighter.
She set her hands on his forearms and returned the firm grip. Blessed angels.
He wasn’t sure where to begin. And it turned out he didn’t have to.
“You left me.” Her voice deflated. “You said we would make it work, and then you left me, and I never heard from you again.” The pain in her voice stabbed him through the chest.
She wasn’t wrong. But he had spent the last twelve years thinking she’d moved on and basically left him. “You wrote to me that you’d found someone else.”
She jerked free while he had a moment of weakness. And then she turned around to face him. Her eyes were heated and wide. “That was a matter of self-preservation, Mike.” She stomped back toward the house.
Again, she’d left him staring at her back in shocked confusion. Finally, he took off after her, catching up as she slid the back door open and stepped inside. She kept going, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Stop running from me.”
She glanced down at the spot where his hand was wrapped around her biceps. “Stop touching me.”
He released her, but only because he wasn’t an asshole.
Luckily she didn’t leave the room. She cocked a hip out and crossed her arms. Her face told him she was fighting tears. Again. Why did he always seem to make her cry? Was it possible she was still emotional enough about their breakup to shed tears over him? That was ludicrous.
Or maybe it wasn’t. If he was perfectly honest, he could almost do the same. He shook his head. “Are you telling me you lied? You never met another man and had a new boyfriend?”
“That’s what I’m telling you, big guy.”
He took a step back, afraid he might actually fall. Her words shook his very foundation. He’d never once considered that possibility. “Why?”
“I told you. Self-preservation. You cut me off. You never responded to a single email I sent. I needed to do something. My father—”
“Whoa, wait,” he cut her off to say, “your father? What did he have to do with this?”
She lowered her shoulders, blowing out a long breath. “He advised me to do it. He thought it would help me find closure, put an end to that chapter of my life.”
“He advised you to lie to me?”
She narrowed her gaze. “What the hell did you care? You hadn’t made contact with me since…since…” She didn’t finish.
He knew exactly when the last time he’d spoken to her was. The night he’d taken her virginity and given her his. He lifted a hand to run it through his hair. Holy shit. Her dad told her to make up a boyfriend? Who did that?
Silence filled the room. Nothing except their collective labored breathing. He had no idea how to respond. There was no way in hell he could tell her why he hadn’t contacted her. Ever. She would hate him.
Suddenly he wondered how her dad had reacted to the news that it was Mike who would be picking her up and keeping her safe. Or shit. Maybe he didn’t know…
Mike grabbed a kitchen chair and lowered onto it. He set his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his palms. What a shitstorm.
Zola didn’t move. “That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say?”
“I have lots of things to say,” he told the floor. “But none of them are going to make you feel better. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You’re sorry.” Her voice was sarcastic as hell. She tapped a foot to go with her stance.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” She turned around and left the room.
And he let her go because he had no idea what else to do at that point.