Chapter Four

 

 

For Leo, sleep was another battlefield. Littered with the landmines of his memories, he preferred the nightmares to the dreams, because at least when he woke from a night terror, he experienced a moment of relief.

Not so with his dreams. Soft and hope-filled, they appeared either as memories of what he’d lost or longings for a future that would never come, and when he awoke, all he was left with was the sharp ache of grief, and more regret than all the liquor in the world could obliterate.

Every time he awoke and remembered, he relived the sickening realization that they were gone, and they were never coming back. And every time, he reached for the bottle he always left beside the bed. As he did now.

But when he rolled to his side, the pain between his temples shifted and a wave of nausea knocked into him. He groaned as his head started to throb. When he tried to recall the previous night, a black hole of nothingness formed where his memories should have been.

He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and rubbed. Obviously, he’d been drinking. A lot. Enough to black out.

With his self-disgust, a curse fell from his lips. He’d never drunk so much he’d blacked out, and not for lack of trying either. How the hell had it happened? He remembered checking in at the hotel, the repulsiveness of Owen’s task, the overwhelming compulsion to drink, and that moment of weakness when he succumbed.

Last winter when he crashed his car into a tree, he’d thought he’d hit rock bottom. But this was a new low for him.

Movement at his side startled him, and he stilled. Slowly, he turned his head to find a small, scantily clad feminine form at his side.

Oh fuck.

His gaze darted around the room, taking in the soft blue comforter draped over their bodies, which matched the lampshade on the bedside table, a table with delicate woodworking identical to that of the dresser and headboard, all of which were painted the same creamy-white color. A girl’s bedroom.

His head landed with a thud against the headboard. Apparently rock bottom had a basement.

The form beside him stirred and his head snapped back to her. Long dark hair fanned out across her pillow, a tangle of deep brown and golden chestnut. She was turned away from him, so he couldn’t see her face, but his gaze followed the trail of smooth, bronzed skin from her slender neck and shoulder farther down, to the shapely leg and bare foot sticking out from under the covers.

A punch of lust struck him so hard it would’ve knocked him on his ass if he weren’t already lying down. The yearning was potent, palpable. After all, it’d been four years since he’d been with a woman.

Four fucking years.

Until last night.

And he’d been too fucking drunk to remember it? What the hell was wrong with him?

He didn’t remember anything. Not how he met her, or when or where. Not how he got to her bedroom. Not the sensation of being buried deep inside her.

Self-loathing took on a new potency as his gaze strayed back to her exposed leg. The smooth, well-toned thigh and the gentle curve of her calf. Her small, narrow foot with the toenails painted pink.

Lust and want and need warred inside him.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He threw off the girly blanket and launched himself from her bed. Panic mounting, he searched the room for his cell phone. Tracking it to her nightstand, he lunged, seizing the device with shaking hands. He tapped the screen to open the GPS program. While the app traced his location, he dragged a hand through his hair and tugged at the ends.

Then something brushed his leg and he wrenched away with a yelp. Hand over his racing heart, he looked down to find a fuzzy gray kitten twining between his ankles, purring with the steady rumble of a fine-tuned motor.

On his phone, the address had popped up on the map: 44 Harpers Way. With a few flicks of his finger, he panned out to pinpoint the dwelling on the city’s north side, minutes from his hotel downtown.

When the hairs suddenly lifted on the back of his neck, he looked up to find her watching him with big, solemn eyes. She had a small, square-tipped nose and a plump, kissable mouth, which turned up at the corners with her hesitant smile.

A memory struck him with the force of a concussion blast, of her looking back at him over her shoulder while that same soft smile played on her lips, and in that moment he knew, absent of even the tiniest shred of doubt, that she was going to be the end of him. One way or another, when it was all said and done, she’d either usher him to his death, or she’d be the one to bring him back to life.

In his hand, his phone buzzed, and he looked down at the display to see Owen’s name flashing on the screen.

 

 

Prue stared at the man standing in her bedroom, wondering where the guy she’d brought home last night had gone.

Sober now, and alert, a hardness clung to him as a cold, inscrutable mask. The sharp intelligence still gleamed in his arresting eyes, but no passion simmered amidst their green and gold flecks.

The cell phone in his hand whined with a soft buzzing sound.

He bent his head to check the device, and when he looked up again, a tremor of panic chased across his face. “I’m sorry. I need to take this.”

She nodded because he seemed to want her permission.

He pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, what’s up? You got that address?”

Turning at the waist, he scanned the room, then crossed to her writing desk in the corner. He plucked a pen from the desktop and raised the tip to his palm.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

The pen moved with his writing before it stopped suddenly. His panicked gaze latched on to her face. As she watched, a storm cloud gathered around him, sucking all the air in the room into his sphere.

Her heart started to pound. Why was he looking at her like that?

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “I will. Today. Right now. I’ll update you as soon as I… know something.” He listened to the caller, then said, “You didn’t tell me. What’s your sister’s name?”

His hand dropped to his side and his thumb slid over the phone’s screen. The display went dark.

She licked her dry lips. “Is everything okay?”

“What’s your name?”

She wanted to lie, but she didn’t know why. “You know my name.”

“I want to hear you say it.” He bit out the words.

“It’s Prue.”

His shock gave way to something else, something darker. The hairs lifted on her arms.

“Prue what?” A muscle ticked along his jawline.

“Why are you—”

“Your last name,” he snapped. “What. Is. It?”

“L-Lockhart.”

A nasty curse shot from him.

Alarm drove her to her feet. “Leo, what is going on?”

The words died in her throat when his gaze raked boldly over her body, zeroing in on all the places her flimsy sleepshirt didn’t provide cover. Her heart performed a series of perilous flips.

Then his eyes returned to her face with enough force to knock her back a step. “You’re Owen’s kid sister?”

She blinked at him. “You know I am.”

“What are you talking about? I have no idea who you are.”

“Of course you do. We’ve met before. Several times.” She spoke around the sand filling her mouth.

“When?”

“When you came home with Owen on your first leave, and at your graduation—”

“That was ten years ago.” His voice filled with fury and made the statement sounded like an accusation.

“It was eight.”

“How in the hell am I supposed to remember something that happened eight years ago? Hell, I don’t even remember what happened last night.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

A flicker of regret touched his features. Hands on his hips, he dropped his head and stared at the floor.

He didn’t remember her? But… he’d talked about how long it had been, and the way he’d kissed her, and touched her, and stripped off her clothing…. Humiliation burned her cheeks.

What had she been thinking? Letting another man, any man, get so close? She knew better. Men could not be trusted.

But he wasn’t just any man, the teenager inside her argued. He was Leo, her first crush. He was different. Wasn’t he?

Her sinking heart supplied the answer. No, he wasn’t. He was exactly like all the others. She was wrong about him.

“Look, Prue, what happened last night… if Owen found out, he’d cut off my—”

“Owen? What does he have to do with this?”

Leo ran a hand through his hair, standing the dark strands on end. “He asked me to check up on you.”

“He what?”

“He thought you might be in trouble.”

“Wh-why did he think that?”

“He said you’re being harassed online.”

Shit. Owen followed her online? Did he know she was investigating Aron King? If so, did he, like Faith, assume the worst about her motives?

To her family, the dark spiral Prue had fallen into after she and Aron broke up must’ve looked like heartbreak. But she wasn’t so delicate as to let a heartless man devastate her so completely, even back then. Aron’s betrayal went far beyond him being a jerk.

She became acutely aware of Leo’s sharp gaze on her, observing. Assessing.

“It’s nothing.” Somehow, she managed to keep her tone casual. “I got caught up in a bot attack, but it’s over now. Too bad, but you went through all this for nothing.”

A frown pressed between his brows. “What the hell does that mean?”

“A bot attack? It’s when—”

“Not that. When you said I ‘went through all this for nothing’?”

Her pride demanded she lift one shoulder and slice him with a haughty look. “You did your job admirably, even sacrificing your body for the job.”

She watched her words hit their mark.

“That’s not what happened.”

“How do you know?” The tremor in her voice threatened to expose her ruse. “I thought you couldn’t remember.”

Intense green-gold eyes held her captive. “I didn’t start the night drunk, and I remember it was you who approached me.”

She folded her arms across her abdomen. “Well, consider your duty fulfilled. You can report back to Owen that I’m fine. Though I’d appreciate it if you left out the, uh, dirty details.”

Except for the color heightening his cheeks, he appeared unaffected by her words.

Which was why she didn’t tell him the truth. She knew she should have. He deserved to know that they hadn’t had sex. That he’d passed out instead.

And that she’d held his hand most of the night.

But her face was on fire and once she got him out of her apartment, she fully intended never to see him again.

The moment stretched out while he studied her. “Are you in trouble?”

She didn’t want to tell him about the break-in or the online attacks, and she most certainly didn’t want to tell him about Aron King.

“Nope.” She managed to infuse some strength into the lie, though she couldn’t quite hold his gaze.

“Let me give you my number—”

“I don’t want your number, Leo.”

He was silent a moment. “I’m in town for a few days. If anything changes, you can give me a call. Anytime. Day or night.”

“I’m not going to call you.”

“Okay.” He crept closer. “Then give me your number.”

“I don’t want to.”

He continued moving toward her, so she backed away, a step for each one he took, until she bumped against the wall.

Pressing into her space, he filled her senses. “What’s your number?”

“I don’t want you to call me.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice was thick, heavy with some emotion, and she didn’t think he was talking about making phone calls anymore.

She tilted her chin up so she could see his face. “Sorry about what?”

The gold flecks in his eyes, dancing like flames, gripped her insides. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth, and his head dipped lower.

He brought his mouth within a whisper of hers before he abruptly stopped himself.

The slash of her disappointment rankled.

“It was never my intention to hurt you. Prue.” He hooked her name at the end of his sentence.

She wanted to deny the hurt, to tell him he was delusional and arrogant and not to flatter himself, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell even one more lie.

His gaze never left her face when he reached over and filched her cell phone off the nightstand. With a few taps on the screen, he added his number to her contact list.

She scowled. “I’m not going to call you.”

He returned her phone to the bedside table. “If you need me, I’ll come.”

“I won’t need you.”

But by the time she forced the denial past the lump lodged in her throat, she spoke to an empty room.