Pushing to his feet, Travis strode out of the darkened bedroom and down the short hallway to the kitchen, naked except for the boxer briefs he wore. Swiping a bottled water out of the fridge, he drank it down in one long swallow.
Bracing his hands on the counter, he leaned against them and hung his head between his arms, his chin nearly touching his chest. The faint glow of the light over the stove cast the thin, narrow scars across his arms and chest into sharp relief. Most of the time, they were barely visible, but when the light hit them just right... They’d hurt like a bitch when he’d had every single one covered in a tattoo, until ninety percent of his body was covered in the ink. Scar tissue wasn’t pleasant to tattoo over. Most of the scars peppered the left side of his ribcage and stomach, though several long gashes had sliced up his forearms, as well as his thighs as his father had swung that knife wildly.
Shoving away from the counter, he treaded back down the hallway and began to dress, pulling on a pair of gym shorts and an old t-shirt with the arms cut off. He pulled socks on and then slid his feet into a pair of sneakers. Strapping his cellphone to his bicep, he queued up a playlist and then headed outside.
The moon was still up, but on the horizon, he could see the first signs of dawn; the inky blackness giving way to gray skies in the distance. Travis stretched, loosening his tight muscles, and then set off at a brisk jog. His feet pounded the pavement as he ran, his strides eating up the miles beneath him as he pushed himself. By the time he made it back home, his legs ached and sweat had drenched the front and back of his t-shirt.
But his head was clearer, and he headed to the bathroom to shower. Turning the water on to warm, he stripped, tossing his sweaty clothes into the hamper, and then climbed in beneath the spray. He let his mind wander to Roxy. She had somehow burrowed under his fucking skin. He hadn’t let himself get attached to anyone in decades, but somehow this fiery redhead had weaseled her way in, and he was powerless to fight against her draw. He felt an overwhelming urge to protect her, to shield her from whatever was causing that fear in her.
He scrubbed the sweat away and washed his hair, lathering the long strands with shampoo, and then a conditioning treatment. He thought back to their not-a-date last week, and how badly he’d wanted to kiss her smart and sassy mouth afterward. How he hadn’t wanted to let her leave without tasting her, just once. Remembering what those leggings did to her thighs and ass, he groaned lightly when his dick responded to the memory, hardening even as he fisted himself in his hand.
Stroking from root to tip, he braced one forearm against the shower wall as he imagined everything he wanted to do to Roxy, what he wanted to do to that sassy mouth of hers, what he wanted her to do to him. It wasn’t long before his balls tightened, and he grunted low as he came, painting the shower wall with it, and her name fell off his lips.
Fifteen
“Motherfucker!”
“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” Natalie asked drolly from the other end of the phone.
“I haven’t seen my momma since I was sixteen and you know it,” Roxy muttered sourly, her phone set to speaker. “I just feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind lately. My shampoo is gone, and I can’t find my teal sports bra or leggings either.”
Wracking her brain, she sank down onto the foot of her bed. She couldn’t remember putting them in the wash after she’d gotten home from the not-a-date with Travis, but knew for a fact that she’d tossed them into the basket in the corner of the bedroom because she’d had to wrestle the damn sports bra off. And the way he’d stared at her all evening in them… they were her new favorites.
Which was why she wanted to wear them to the gym tonight, just on the off chance that Travis would be there, too… since he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her the last time. She groaned.
“Actually, the entire outfit is gone. Leggings, sports bra, the jacket. I know I put them—” she stood, going through the motions to recreate it, tossing the invisible clothes onto thehamper. She stepped over to it, digging behind it, but there was nothing there. Turning back to the bed, she dumped the clean laundry out of the basket and into the middle of the mattress. Rifling through, she shook her head in frustration. There was no other laundry in the wash; this was all she had. And they most definitely were not in the pile of clean clothes.
Ice filled her veins then. Had he come back? Had he gotten inside again, and taken her clothes?
Striding around the small house, she checked every window and both doors, but everything was secure. Bobby had replaced the locks and double checked all the window locks, and she had the only copy of the key. There was no way he was getting into her house, not now. So those clothes had to be heresomewhere.
“—do you want to go to Waylon’s tonight?”
“Huh?” Roxy asked, shaking herself back to the present at the sound of Natalie’s annoyed voice through the phone.
“Welcome back to Earth,” Natalie intoned sourly, and Roxy wondered how many times Natalie had asked that question already. “I was asking if you wanted to go to Waylon’s tonight? That new country band is playing tonight, go with meeee. We haven’t been out for a girl’s night in months. You always bail on me.”
Natalie was right. Roxy hadn’t joined her for a girls’ night out since the roses had shown up in her kitchen. Paranoia had made her overly cautious, and with the note from two weeks ago…
But…she thought wistfully, chewing on the inside of her cheek, things had been uneventful the last two weeks. Maybe the roses hadn’t been from Neal after all. It could have been her imagination, the paranoia making her see him watching her from across the street at the gym. She hadn’t actually seen him, just a flash of that dark hair across the street... The note was admittedly slightly alarming, but altogether not threatening, exactly. She could go out, just for a few hours. She would bein a highly public place, with Natalie, surrounded by people. Bouncers, even. It would be fine. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. Even if it was creepy.
“You know what, why not? I think a night out at Waylon’s sounds perfect,” Roxy said into the phone still tucked under her ear. “I’m going to get a quick workout in, but I’ll see you there at nine?”
“Yesss!” Natalie whooped and Roxy rolled her eyes, then chewed on her bottom lip, her heart doing a little nervous flutter in her chest.
Because just one night out couldn’t hurt, right?
Sixteen
He knew the second she walked into the gym, as if his entire being was somehow attuned to her presence. The air got thicker, heavier, time seemed to slow and speed up all at once until all he could seem to focus on was the woman that was crossing the gym floor to the opposite side of the room, toward one of the hanging body bags.
Sage green leggings encased her thighs and her bottom, delineating each curve. A darker sage green jacket was zipped up and over her breasts, but she removed it as soon as she made it over to the other wall, where she’d set down her gym bag. A matching sports bra was all that covered her upper body, and even from this distance he could see the muscles that had developed on her shoulders and arms in the last months. Her back was defined, her waist trim, and flared into wide hips. He ached to know what those hips felt like beneath his hands, gripping them as he pulled her back onto him—
Travis averted his gaze quickly, willing his mind away from imagining her the way he’d imagined her in the shower. He thought of dead locusts crunching beneath his sneakers on the road as he ran, sorting and folding socks, and sang the statessong in his head to will away the erection that had begun tenting his gym shorts. Not a good time, buddy.
But it wasn’t long before his eyes returned to her, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she sank onto one of the benches and laced on her sneakers, then pulled out her sparring gloves and pulled them on her hands, velcroing them in place. She stretched her fingers wide, opening and closing her hands several times to work the gloves into place.
She tucked a pair of headphones into her ears and flipped through the screen on her cellphone, before tucking it into the side pocket of her leggings. Roxy stretched for several minutes, and then she began.
