Hunted (32 page)

Zoe swallowed hard, his words touching her more deeply than any romantic gesture ever could have. She could see how hard he was trying to convey what he felt for her, could see his sincerity.

Gazing up into his earnest eyes, Zoe felt her heart go into freefall.

I love you.

The words were there, crowding her mouth, but she didn’t say it. Not yet, because it was too soon. He’d already come so far and after what had happened things were emotionally intense for both of them.

They’d also only been together for a ridiculously short amount of time, even though they’d been building toward it for months. She could wait a little longer to tell him, didn’t want to spook or push him for more now. And she also felt he needed to be the one to say it first.

“I need you too,” she said instead.

Clay groaned and cupped her face in both hands. His blue eyes searching hers, he kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth. The other corner. Her chin. Her cheeks. Every single spot that hurt or throbbed. As if he wanted to erase the marks. Soft, slow kisses. Sweet, tender kisses that melted her and turned her heart inside out.

When he finally settled his mouth over hers he did it gently, sealing their lips together before gliding his tongue across her lower lip. She opened for him, sought out his tongue with her own, a deep, searching kiss that made her tingle all over. But then he broke the kiss and lifted his head, his hands sliding across her jaw to the back of her neck and up to her head. “Let me take care of you.”

She wasn’t about to argue, and she could feel how badly he needed this, almost as though he needed to make up for having to leave her in the cabin, even though he’d had no choice and she didn’t hold it against him.

Zoe bowed her head as he began rubbing the shampoo into her hair and scalp. She winced when he hit a tender spot from where Carlos had yanked on her hair. Clay immediately lightened the pressure of his massaging fingers, sending streamers of pleasure through her battered body. On a grateful groan she rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes, letting him take care of her.

Another lump formed in her throat at the feel of his big hands working in her hair, rinsing the shampoo out then gliding the bar of her favorite soap over her wet skin. Slick and warm, they ran gently over her body, avoiding her bruises and cuts from the wooden shrapnel and where the jagged edge of the windowsill had scraped her.

She drifted in a contented haze as the water pounded down on her back and his heat surrounded her. “This feels so good,” she murmured, never wanting him to stop.

“Good.” He slid his soapy hands down her back, over the curve of her hips to her rear. That she didn’t even want to act on the tingles his touch created told her how beat up she was. “Sore?”

“Yeah. But just think of how realistic I can make my action and suspense scenes now that I’ve experienced all this firsthand.”

His hands stilled on her rear and she looked up into his face. He was staring down at her with an almost comical expression of disbelief. “What? Too soon?” she asked.

He grunted in reply, drew her head back down to his chest and resumed washing her, his motions caressing. Drugging. Her eyelids grew heavy.

All too soon the water began to cool. Clay reached past her to shut it off, snagged a towel from the hook on the wall just outside the shower and wrapped her up in it. She opened her mouth to argue that she could take it from there but he shot her a look that told her not to bother so she stayed quiet while he toweled her off then lifted her in his arms and strode for her bedroom.

Once again, her body stiffened, preparing for the moment when she entered the room where Carlos had attacked her. Clay had replaced this door too, she noticed, filled with gratitude for having such a wonderful man who cared so much.

Clay stopped walking. “We can sleep in the guest room,” he said quietly.

“No, I want to be in my own bed. With you.” It was the only way to replace the bad memory with a good one, and she wanted to hold onto it for the coming nights when Clay wouldn’t be here. That was coming far too soon for her liking as it was.

He pulled the covers back and set her on the bed. She settled onto her side and snuggled deeper under the covers, inhaling the scent of fresh sheets. “You changed the bed,” she murmured, feeling like she might cry all over again.

“Yeah, after I stayed the night here,” he said, as if it was no big deal. But it was. Those little things he’d done, his consideration of her feelings and comfort, meant the world to her. He slid in next to her and eased her into his arms. Zoe moved fully into his body and rested her head in the curve of his shoulder, breathing in his scent.

Clay kissed the top of her head, ran a hand over her damp hair. “Need anything else?”

“Just this,” she mumbled, his heat seeping into her. “So tired.”

“I know. Let yourself go.”

“You’ll stay here with me all night?”

He snorted and tightened his arms around her. “A direct order from the Director of the FBI himself couldn’t make me leave this bed, raven.”

Zoe smiled at that, closed her eyes and fell headlong into sleep, aware at the deepest level of consciousness that she was safe in his arms.

And, even if he hadn’t said the words yet, loved.

****

Clay jerked awake in the darkness hours later when Zoe shifted against him. For the most part she’d slept soundly but over the last hour or so she’d been restless. Three times she’d woken, immediately looking for him and he’d pulled her close and soothed her back to sleep.

She lay curled up in his arms on her side, her head resting on his shoulder, one bare leg thrown over his. Clay rubbed a soothing hand up and down her spine, the other cupping the back of her head to hold her close. While she’d been sleeping he’d been running over everything in his mind.

Every time he thought of how close he’d come to losing her it shook him. He lived with that kind of violence on a constant basis, ever since he’d joined the Navy. But that was his world, not hers. He hated that it had touched her.

“You okay?” he murmured, still overwhelmed by the need to soothe, to comfort. She’d been through hell and he would do whatever it took to help her.

“Mmhmm.” She rolled a bit so more of her weight rested on him. He’d already been half-hard from having her naked in his arms, and now his erection was swelling rapidly against her belly but he ignored it.

The urge to roll her onto her back and claim her with his body was so strong his muscles twitched. He wanted to push into her and watch her fly apart beneath him so badly but that wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed to be held and he’d do it for as long as she needed him to.

Sighing, Zoe snuggled in closer, her fingertips drawing little patterns across his bare chest and shoulder. Tracing his tat. Bathing him in the warmth of her soft curves, her clean scent. “So I want to tell you something but I don’t want to freak you out,” she said quietly. “I was going to wait but I just can’t anymore, and you know how I like to say what’s on my mind.”

Did he ever. And while anything that came with a warning like that wasn’t something he wanted to hear right now, her thinking he might freak out was downright insulting. Especially considering what they’d been through the past few days, not to mention what he did for a living. “Okay.”

Her fingers paused on his chest, her touch still sending tingles through him. She tipped her head back and looked into his eyes. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Whatever she wanted to say, he could handle it. Except if she didn’t want him in her life. After the way he’d opened up to her earlier he wasn’t sure if he could take that.

A mischievous little smile played around her mouth, making her eyes sparkle in the half-light. “We’re falling in love with each other,” she murmured. “I just thought you should know, in case you weren’t aware.”

It was so unexpected and lighthearted that he couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah?” And he was extremely aware of the falling in love bit.

She nodded, seeming completely confident about her statement and not at all hurt or thrown off when he hadn’t agreed. “I write about falling in love for a living, so in a way that makes me an expert on the subject. I recognize the signs when I see them. And it’s happening to us right now.”

He wasn’t going to deny it, because it was true. He toyed with a lock of her hair, then stroked a fingertip down the length of her straight nose and nodded once. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” She sure as hell was. He’d never felt like this in his life. She made him feel alive in ways he hadn’t in a long, long time.

Her smile widened, showing even, white teeth. “I know I am.”

He chuckled at her smugness. She looked up at him with such joy and pleasure, it twisted him up inside. And he was so grateful that she didn’t seem to expect the actual words from him yet. He felt them, wanted to say them soon, but when he did say them he wanted it to be all on his own, without her feeling like she’d coaxed it out of him.

“We’ll take the plunge together.”

God, when she said things like that he just wanted to squeeze her tight and never let her go.
Already plunged, raven.

It still startled him that he’d fallen for her after he’d sworn never to do it again, but then, Zoe was unlike any other woman on this earth. He was going to make damn sure he was worthy of her.

With a soft murmur of contentment Zoe leaned her head back to kiss his fingertip, then forward to press her lips to the center of his chest. She worked her way up his throat, over his chin to his mouth. “I like knowing we’re in this together,” she whispered against his lips. “Then it’s not so scary.”

“I’m not scared.” Wait, was
she
scared? He looked down at her.

She pulled back a few inches to stare at him in the dimness. “You’re not? Not even a little?”

He shook his head. “Nope.” The only thing he was scared of was screwing this up and losing her somehow. And that was a major revelation in itself. “Are you?”

She bit her lower lip. “I was a little, until you said that.” She blinked fast.

He grinned. “Didn’t mean to make you cry. C’mere and let me kiss it better.” He cupped the back of her head so he could kiss her properly. The way she opened for him, her tongue twining with his, made his aching cock swell even more.

No. Not yet. She needed something other than sex right now.

With his cock screaming obscenities at him Clay ignored it and cradled the side of her face with one hand. God, just looking at her made him ache. He was already dreading leaving her. “I can stay for a few more days, maybe until Wednesday. But when I go back to Virginia, I want you to come with me. To stay for a few weeks, or however long you want.” He didn’t want to pressure her into doing something she wasn’t ready for, but he hoped she’d want to go.

She gave him a serene smile. “I’d like that.”

Tension released from his shoulders. “You can stay at my place—well, Tuck’s place, but he won’t be there because he’s at Celida’s mostly. If you’d rather stay with them, though, I understand.” Wasn’t his first choice but having her in the same city was a good start, and a helluva lot better than her staying here in New Orleans.

Zoe reached up and put her hand against the back of his, holding his palm to her cheek as she searched his eyes. “I want to stay with
you
, Clay, not with my cousin or my bestie, even though I love them both to death.”

His heart nearly imploded at the trust and yearning in her face. “Okay, good.” Damn, he couldn’t wait to have her with him, at his place. There when he came home from a long day of training or a work trip, her in his bed every night, her head on the pillow beside his when he woke up in the morning. It was way too soon to ask her to move in with him, but that’s what he wanted eventually. And maybe, someday down the road when they were both ready, he’d ask her to marry him.

It would have to be a Gothic-style ring, he decided. Something with black and red or maybe blue or purple. Definitely not a diamond for Zoe, but he’d give her those too if she wanted them.

Zoe settled her head back on his shoulder with a little sigh. He rubbed her back, savoring the softness of her skin. “Go back to sleep.” She gave a sleepy murmur, let her body relax.

Clay held her as she drifted off. He still couldn’t believe how optimistic she was about life and didn’t know how she’d become such a die-hard romantic in the first place. But he was grateful for both of those things because she’d done the seemingly impossible and shown his jaded, cynical heart that there was still plenty of light and good in the world. There was nothing on earth he wouldn’t give her if it was within his power. And while that realization still amazed him, he’d never felt more certain of anything than his feelings for her.

Zoe was his and he was hers. End of story.

Speaking of stories…

Clay kissed the top of her head and smiled to himself in the darkness. They were opposites in so many ways. She was a romance author who, despite the world being a fucked-up place full of imperfect people, somehow still believed in happily-ever-after.

Now, because of her, he believed in them too. And it was the most incredible feeling to realize he’d found someone who made it possible for him to have a happy ending of his own.

Six weeks later

Breathing a sigh of relief at getting in out of the cold wind and rain, Zoe stepped inside the front door of her new condo and locked it behind her. She hung up her coat on the hook and set her purse on the black, bat-shaped table she’d placed in the entryway.

“Clay?” she called out. His truck had been in its parking spot but he wasn’t in the kitchen or living room.

He slept here more often than not, since he was helping Tuck with renos to get his place ready for when he and Celida moved in together in a couple months. Their wedding was scheduled for the beginning of April, depending on their shifting schedules. Zoe had just come from dress shopping with Celida. The moment her friend had put The Dress on, they’d both known it and Celida’s eyes had gotten misty. Then of course Zoe’s had too.