Page 4 of Into The Green

Hearing the door close and, likely, my breath gasping inward, his head turned, and I got more than just his profile. And, well, he was ridiculously good looking for a criminal. He was tall and a lean kind of strong with blond hair longer on top and cropped close on the sides. His somewhat severe brows were over eyes the lightest blue I had ever seen in my life.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, startling me enough to jerk back a step.

What was I doing there? What the hell kind of burglar asked that?

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, taking a step to the side and reaching for the door handle. "Look, just go. Get out and don't come back and I won't call the cops. We obviously don't have anything to steal," I added in case that wasn't painfully obvious. I looked away for the barest of seconds as my hand turned the knob.

But that was apparently all he needed.

One moment, he was mostly across the apartment from me. The next, he was right in front of me, his front slammed into my front, his body pressing mine hard against the wall as his strong hand grasped my wrist in a punishing grip.

My words got caught in my chest under the strangling feeling of fear for a long second. "Let me go," I demanded, my voice a little squeaky.

"Tell me what the fuck you're doing here and I will," he demanded in his cool, detached, undeniably sexy voice.

"No," I said, fear making me angry. "You tell me what the fuck you are doing here."

To that, his head tilted a little as he took his free hand, reached in his pocket, pulled out a key and waved it in my face. "I have a key," he informed me.

"Not anymore you don't," I snapped, snatching the key from him and curling my fist around it, figuring he was one of Jade's exes or something. Hell, maybe he was that cheating guy, Doyle. "Now get the hell out of my apartment," I demanded despite definitely not having the upper-hand in the situation.

"Last time I checked, this was Jade's apartment. So I will ask one more time- who the hell are you?"

Unsure what the right move was at that juncture, I went for the truth. "I'm Cece. I live with Jade."

"There," he said, smiling a little lazily, "was that so hard?" he asked, taking a step back and it was the first time I felt like I could breathe properly again.

I looked around a little, feeling the hopelessness overwhelm me all over again. "She wasn't here, right? You haven't seen her?"

His head tilted again, taking me in. "How long has she been gone?" he cut to the chase.

"She... I'm not telling you anything. I don't even know who you are. You destroyed our apartment."

To that, he shrugged. "I'm Jasper," he supplied. "I'm Jade's brother. And your apartment was like this when I got here. Someone else broke in and tore it apart."

The second the words were out of his mouth, I saw the resemblance. It was in the sharp features, the light and heavy-lidded eyes, the blond hair, the tall and thin build. Hell, Jasper was even wearing what I had learned from living with Jade to recognize as hemp pants and a tight cotton tee. And then the realization hit that Jade was still missing, her brother was as worried as I was, and someone had been rifling through our apartment. I looked around a little anxiously as if someone might still be hiding out behind a bookcase or something to snatch me up too, making me wonder what Jade might have gotten herself into to bring people into our apartment to rip it apart.

"How long?" he asked again when I remained dumbly silent.

"Three days," I answered automatically. "I figured she just flaked off or something. But today, I knew it wasn't that. I just filed a report with the police."

"They won't be able to find her where she went," he said, moving several feet away from me.

"You know where she is? Is she okay? Why wouldn't she say something about leaving?"

"She's in The Green," he supplied oddly.

"The Green?" I repeated. "Is that some kind of club?"

He laughed then, a short, humorless sound that still managed to make my belly do a strange quiver. "No."

"Well, whatever it is, give me the address. I'll go see if she's okay."

"You won't get in. At least not without me."

"Fine then. Let's go. We're just wasting time here," I said, moving away from the wall and reaching for the knob again.

"You can't go like that," his voice stopped me.