She had opened the first case when her mother laid a hand on her arm.

Kia turned her head, staring into eyes similar to her own, into a face that was merely an older version of her own.

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" her mother asked softly.

Chase paused by the door, freezing as he heard Cecilia ask that question.

"I've always loved him, Mom," she said softly, and the admission tore through him with a slash of emotion.

Her voice was thick, filled with emotion, and it had his heart clenching in his chest.

"Kia, do you know what you're doing?" her mother asked. "Moving in with him? Has he told you he loves you?"

"He doesn't have to love me."

Chase could almost see her expression. That stubborn tilt to her chin, the way her sapphire eyes brightened with determination.

"If it's all over tomorrow and he asks me to leave, then it will have been worth it, Mom. I hid all this time, not because of Drew, but partly because I can't stay the hell away from Chase any longer."

"He's going to break your heart." Cecilia sighed.

"Probably." Kia's voice was soft. "But at least I'll know, Mom. It won't torment me any longer."

"Knowing could torment you worse."

Kia shook her head at her mother's sympathetic look.

"I don't think it could," she told her. "He's tormented me for years, Mom. Now, I just have to deal with it."

She saw the understanding in her mother's face then, the elemental woman-to-woman communion; she understood that Kia could do nothing other than reach out for what completed her. If she managed to live long enough, because it sure as hell looked like someone wanted her dead.

Chase wasn't certain how the hell he managed to survive the hours, too many fucking hours, with an apartment full of people keeping him away from Kia.

He watched her as she helped her mother put together sandwich trays from the food that was delivered. She was still too pale, too fucking wounded.

He would never forget, as long as he lived, the feelings that had swept over him as he realized she was more worried about him than she was about herself.

She had been brutalized in that apartment. Her very existence ripped to shreds and threats sprayed in blood-red letters on her walls, and she had been worried about him.

And then later, hearing her admit she loved him, that she fully expected him to ask her to leave when this was over. Equal parts anger and lust had filled him.

She was wrapping herself around him in ways he knew he was never going to recover from. Because he couldn't imagine letting her out of his life now.

When her parents finally left, leaving them alone in the silence of his home, he turned to her, watching as she stacked the dishwasher, her movements graceful, though she appeared tired.

Hell, she was exhausted. It was nearly midnight. The detective had arrived for her statement, and that had worn her down. Her parents' worry and concern hadn't helped much. Her mother's pleas that she return with them to their home had been even harder on her, Chase thought.

Chase watched as she closed the dishwasher and set it to start before straightening up. Her expression was somber, her eyes still too dark, too filled with fear.

She had changed out of the slacks and sweater she wore upon arriving at the apartment into a lounging set her mother had brought her. The soft, thin black velvet pants and long-sleeved loose black top made her look even paler.

"You're tired, Kia," he told her as she turned and stared back at him quietly. "Let's go to bed." He held his hand out to her.

Kia inhaled slowly. "I think, for tonight at least, I'm sleeping in the guest room."

His brow arched. "Really?"

Kia hadn't exactly started out with that decision. Over the past few hours it had evolved, a knowledge that she was too vulnerable right now, her emotions too close to the surface.

"I really need to get up early and get in to the office. I've been away too long already for a job I only just started again."

"And sleeping with me is going to change that how?" His arms went over his chest and he scowled.

"One has nothing to do with the other." She shrugged and pushed her hands into the pockets of her loose lounging pants.

His eyes narrowed on her. "You're exhausted, Kia. Let's go to sleep. Just sleep. I promise."

He held his hand out to her. She stared at it suspiciously. She felt so off balance, on the verge of tears again, and she didn't want to cry. What she wanted she couldn't allow herself to have tonight. Because giving in to it could very well mean giving in to her need to beg him, just for a little while, to lie to her. To tell her he cared, because, right now, she needed so desperately for him to care.

She was weak. She had always been weak where Chase was involved.

"I need to be alone, Chase," she whispered. "Just for a little while."

Just long enough to convince herself he was doing this, keeping her with him, just to be protective, not because, maybe, he could love her.

"Well, isn't that just too damned bad."

Before she could avoid him he swung her into his arms and he was striding through the open area of the converted warehouse to the bedroom in the back. He stepped into the room, kicked the door closed behind him, and dropped her on the bed.

"That is just so juvenile," she snapped, pushing her hair back from her eyes as she stared up at him.

"Look, dammit, I don't have to fuck you just because you're in my bed," he half snarled. "I know how to sleep with you without it."

"I'm still surprised you know how to sleep with me," she snapped back, her voice rising as she glared up at him. "You're like a damned yo-yo, Chase. How the hell am I supposed to keep up with you?"

He shot her a hard glare as he unbuttoned his shirt. Oh God, she really didn't want him to unbutton his shirt. Didn't want to see his wide chest with that dusting of dark hair across it and arrowing down past the band of his pants. She didn't want to want him tonight. Not while she was feeling like this. While the fear was driving her to hold on to him.

"I'm easy to keep up with." He sat down on the side of the bed and removed his boots. "Are you going to sleep in that stuff or get ready for bed?"

"I don't want to sleep with you," she muttered, blinking back her tears.

It was crashing in on her. She could feel it. She could still see her apartment in her mind's eye, all her possessions destroyed, the spray of red. DIE BITCH, WHORE.

She had already broken down once today, she told herself. Sitting in the hallway of her apartment building crying like a little twit.

She glared at Chase.

"Yeah, you do want to sleep with me." He shucked his pants, and she nearly lost her breath. All that dark skin rippling over tight, hard muscles. It was more than any woman should be expected to deny. "But even more, Kia, I need to sleep with you."

Kia wanted to fight the overwhelming need to have his arms around her, to feel him curled against her, or coming over her. To share one more pleasure-filled night in his arms.

He was her weakness. No woman should have to fight against such a man's need to be with her. Just with her. And Kia fought herself, shuddering as the fight went out of her.

"Ah, Kia, sweetheart." He moved on to the bed, pulling the blankets back and sliding between the sheets.

A small sob caught in her throat as he pulled her into his arms, surrounded her with the warmth of his body and sent a shaft of need spearing into her womb.

"Why now?" There was a hint of a sob in her voice that she couldn't control. "Why, Chase? You couldn't bear to sleep with me before."

His eyes were vivid, mesmerizing. Thick, dark lashes surrounded them, giving him an intense, sexual look.

"I had to force myself not to stay with you before," he finally said softly. "Kia, sweetheart. Letting you sleep alone was the hardest thing I've ever done."

She rolled to the side of the bed, with every intention of getting out of it and stalking from the room.

Chase caught her before she reached the edge. His arm went around her waist, pulling her back as he dragged the blankets and sheet along, chuckling at her determined struggles as he pressed her into the pillow and braced his body over hers.

"I don't like this," she snapped, pushing against his chest, refusing to let her fingers curl into the silky crispness of chest hairs.

"I won't be able to sleep without you, Kia," he whispered against her ear. "If you go to the guest room, I'll just follow you. I have to have you with me."

"Are we going to sleep, Kia, or are you going to keep turning me on with that defiant little expression?" He pressed his cock more firmly against her thigh, and Kia swore she felt the sensitive flesh between her legs melt.

Damn him. He made her want, even when she didn't want to want him.

"I want you, Kia." His teeth raked her neck. "I need you."

Her lips parted to protest, but it was a moan that filtered through them as his lips covered hers, slanting against them, his tongue stroking until she let him in.

Oh God, she needed this. She needed him.

She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders, her nails raked across them as that something so wild and desperately hungry rose inside her.

Her lips moved beneath his, drawing in his taste, his heat and his warmth as she felt his hands move beneath her shirt.

The material bunched up beneath her arms, the tips of her breasts grazed his chest, drawing a gasp from her lips as his head jerked up.

His eyes, that light wild green, blazed into hers. Dark hair fell over his brow. His brooding eyes bore into hers.

"Can you walk away from me, Kia?" He dragged the shirt over her head, pulling it from her and tossing it aside as his powerful thighs straddled hers. "Answer me, damn you!"

"It's pretty damned obvious I can't," she cried out, the arousal and fear mixing inside her. "Do you think I would be here if I could walk away?"

He paused. "Would you walk away if you could?"

She wasn't certain what flashed in his eyes, or why it burned in her chest.

"Would you?" she asked him rather than answering.

And he didn't answer. No more than she could he answer that question right then. If she did, she would reveal everything. The heart and the soul she could barely keep contained.

She loved him. She loved him until everything inside her reminded her how empty, how lonely, her life had been for far longer than the two years she had suffered for her one mistake.

But she couldn't bear to suffer longer. Soon, soon, this would have to be resolved.

"No answer, Chase?" she whispered back.

"I'm not letting you go tonight," he said, his hands cupping the mounds of her breasts. "I'm not letting you go, Kia."

"For how long?" Her lips trembled on the question.

"I won't let anyone hurt you." He watched her, his gaze intent, his expression hard. "I swear it, Kia."

She licked her dry lips slowly and fought to suppress the disappointment.

"I knew that." No one but him.

He took her lips again, and suddenly the battle wasn't just emotional. It was physical. It was hunger burning into hunger and an explosion of defiance and anger flowing from Kia. Determination and arrogance aroused in him.

Lips dueled to control the kiss. Her pants were pushed from her thighs, her fingers pressed between their bodies, wrapped around the heavy length of his cock and pumped.

His groan was heavy. Her cry as his lips moved to her breasts filled the dim room.

He sucked a nipple into his mouth, drawing on it deeply, his tongue stroking over the sensitized tip as she watched him. He watched her. His cheeks flexed, his lips covered her flesh, and between her thighs a flood of response saturated her bare flesh.