“I don’t mind,” I say quickly, relieved. But it’s more than just relief—I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. I feel like I would have been pacing like an animal all night, listening through the walls, checking the peephole every two seconds. Her muted tone and the way she’s clinging on to me… I’ll fucking kill anyone who tries anything,anything, again.
We make it upstairs to our room, and I realize my adrenaline is starting to come crashing down, too. I feel just about ready to collapse on the bed, but first I want to make sure Helen has everything she needs. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to order some food?”
Helen puzzles over this a moment, like she genuinely doesn’t know. “Not yet, I don’t think. I’m going to take a bath, if that’s all right.”
She sounds so dazed, I feel a lump forming in my throat. My God, she was almost kidnapped today. Who knows what those two psychopaths would have done to her? I honestly can’t let myself think about it too much. I’m more than half tempted to call off the whole search, just turn Kitty around and head straight back to Chicago. Except, Helen might not be safe there, either. It sounds like those mob guys have been following her for a while, and I know Shane and I were doing the same. Who knows who else might be hanging around?
Maybe we should hop on a plane, go somewhere new? I’m not sure at what point this became less about finding Dean than taking care of Helen, but that’s where we are now. We should fly somewhere unexpected. I wonder what it would take to convince her. Maybe I’ll entice her with someplace warm like a tropical beach, where we can swim and sleep all day, and be somewhere no one’s ever heard the name Dean Flanagan.
I realize this is crazy, of course. And I also realize I’ve been staring at Helen this whole time without saying anything. I try to smile, doing my best to let her know that everything’s okay now, we’re back to normal—or as normal as it gets after what happened today. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you need. Take your time.”
She hesitates. “I think…I think they took my bag. Can I borrow one of your shirts?”
In the chaos of the afternoon, I hadn’t even noticed she didn’t have her luggage with her. They must have taken it when I went into the bathroom, probably hoping there’d be some clue inside as to where we were going. I always lock the doors, but I doubt that would be much of a roadblock to two mobster thugs. A sudden thought strikes me. “Did they get your phone?”
Helen shakes her head. “I threw it in the back seat, remember? After…”
After I accidentally saw those pictures of her in her underwear. I will not let myself think of that right now. The poor woman’s been through trauma. I will not be the gross guy who is picturing her in red lacy panties after she almost got kidnapped. “Right. Shirt. You need a shirt.” That’s a nice distraction, at least, and I need something active to do to help her. I dig through my own bag and pull out a clean T-shirt. “Lucky that I overpack, eh?”
She gives me a wan smile, but at least it’s a smile. It’s the first trace of real emotion I’ve seen on her face since the police arrived. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
Without intending to, I reach up, gently touching the edges of the bruise blooming on her cheek. I never knew I could have such warring emotions inside of me. Rage at that bastard for hurting her, but also this…tenderness. I see the tears pricking her eyes and I instinctively cup the side of her face, careful not to touch the sore spot. “I’ve got you,” I tell her earnestly. I wish I were more eloquent, that I could say it in a better, prettier way, but I need her to hear the words, even if they aren’t polished. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
Helen blinks rapidly, trying to smile, trying not to cry, as she nods into my palm. She reaches up, gripping my wrist for a moment.
Then she lets me go, and closes herself in the bathroom. A moment later, I hear the tub running. My mind instantly goes to Helen in that tub, warm water and bubbles enveloping her naked body…
Yep, that’s what happens in a bathtub. I try to nip that line of thought in the bud right then and there, but my dumb brain keeps getting stuck. It would be creepy enough under normal circumstances, to be so immature about a woman taking a bath that I can’t stop imagining her naked. But when you pair it with her almost getting kidnapped this afternoon, I feel like a complete dick. Seeing that guy grabbing her and throwing her to the ground awakened something almost primitive in me. I wanted to break every bone in his hand, throwhimdown onto the ground just to see how he liked it, let him and everyone else know that no one touches Helen like that and gets away with it. These aren’t bad emotions, in and of themselves. I want to make sure she’s safe, and that guy was trying to hurt her.
The problem is, the primitive man inside of me seems to have gotten loose with all that violence unleashed. I don’t want to just stop at keeping Helen safe. I want to claim her as my woman. I want to take her mind off everything that happened today. I want to be in that bathroom with her, rubbing her neck and massaging her soapy breasts and reaching up between her legs…
Jesus. What the hell is wrong with me? I run over the list of reasons why Helen and I will never work out, yet again. Because she’s an innocent and I’m an old jaded bastard. She’s a nun, or shewasa nun, and she’s a good woman and a good person. She wants love, romance, babies. After what Vera pulled, I’m honestly not sure that’s something I can offer to anyone ever again. But Helen deserves that. She doesn’t deservemeout here fantasizing about her beautiful naked body or just how good I could make her feel…
I need something to do. Something active, to help her feel better. In her heart and mind and soul, not…anywhere else. I pace the room a moment, thinking through my options, before I realize the perfect thing.
Crossing the room to the phone, I dial down to the lobby. There’s no way I’m going to leave Helen in here on her own, but this place is fancy enough and I’m paying enough money for the room that maybe I won’t need to. “Hi, can I speak to the concierge, please? I need a favor…”
Chapter 29
Helen
Isubmerge myself up to my neck in the tub’s hot water, piecing through the events of the day. There’s a surreal quality to everything that happened, like it came from a movie I watched or a book I read. Like it didn’t happen to me.
My sore body tells me otherwise. My cuts and bruises are superficial, but my side aches from when I was thrown onto the pavement. The human body isn’t meant to be treated that way, and mine never has been. I’ve always been handled with kid gloves, I realize now, very rarelytouched, much less manhandled.
A knock on the door startles me out of my thoughts. I stare, my muscles automatically tensing. “Who is it?”
A part of me knows that of course it must be Thad. He’s been hovering around me ever since what happened at the gas station, and I believed him when he promised he wouldn’t let anything else happen to me. When he looked deep into my eyes, his warm skin against mine, his voice low and ominous and gravelly.
For a brief moment, I think he might be knocking on the door to ask to come in here. Not just in the bathroom, but the tub. To massage my sore muscles and whisper words of comfort while he soaps my breasts, strokes my…
I inhale sharply against the thought. That’s the sort of thing that would happen in one of my novels, not in real life.
This is not a romance,I remind myself.
I think I’m coping pretty well, all things considered, with nearly being kidnapped this afternoon by a member of the mob, but there has been one pretty weird side effect.
