MoreThanWords (15 page)

He was done. Truly done with that side of himself.

The tile gods were on his side tonight. He played
truth
and let the word speak in lieu of a message.

Still smooth, I see.

Not so smooth anymore. I quit shaving.
He ran a hand
over the bristly beginnings of a short-boxed beard. Son-of-a-bitch was itchy.

A little scruff is sexy, but don’t let it get bushy and
out of control like your friend’s beard.

Like his friend’s beard? Travis squinted at the screen. He’d
never shown Calli pictures of any buddies. And none of them had bushy beards.
Even if she’d been looking at shots of the Black Box guys online, the only one
with facial hair was Victor, and that was strictly a ’stache, no beard.

Maybe she was trying to make him jealous. It was working.
The idea that Calli had been hanging out with any other guy, heavily bearded or
otherwise, gnawed at his gut. Threw gasoline on his possessive-natured fire.

You hanging out with truckers and lumberjacks now?
Travis waited, watching the stupid clock tick off four full minutes before
typing another message.
Still with me?

Sorry, thought I heard something downstairs. More
craziness courtesy of my screwy brain.

His jaw clenched. He hated when she put herself down. His
rat-bastard behavior had probably made it worse. The beard thing bugged him.
And she still hadn’t played a move. His brain was the one going crazy now.

Are your doors locked?

All six hundred deadbolts have been locked and
double-checked, yes.

Cute.

Another message popped up on her side of the chat window.
Oh, and your friend Tom, the fuzzy-beard guy, fixed my door buzzer today, so
thanks.

What the…
Sweetheart, listen to me. None of my friends
have that kind of facial hair. Tom’s a six-foot-three baby-face. He couldn’t
grow a beard to save his life. Whoever it was who fixed your door, it wasn’t a
friend of mine.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He stared at the
laptop and its damn blinking cursor. Nothing. He set it aside and pulled on
jeans and a t-shirt. Still nothing. “Damn it, Calli. Play a word, tell me to go
to hell, do something.”

He grabbed his cell. Brought up her number and hit call.
Four rings, then her voicemail. He fired off a text.
Are you okay?

No reply. That’s it, he was out. If she laughed and slammed
the door in his face, so be it. As long as he got to see for himself that she
was safe.

He sent,
I’m on my way
. Headed for the door.

The temperature had plummeted since the sun went down.
Frigid air stung his skin as he fought the wind. His Nissan protested when he
turned the key in the ignition. Should’ve plugged in the block heater. He tried
it again, holding his breath as the engine whined but didn’t turn over. Not
now, not fucking now. He pounded a fist into the steering wheel. Once more,
then he’d call a cab. Take a bus. Run, if he had to.

“Start, you son of a—” Hallelujah. They had liftoff.

He swore at traffic. Ran two reds. Cut off a city bus and
cringed as the driver laid on the horn. Hell, he would’ve tried to outrun the
cops if necessary.

Finally, he reached her neighborhood. Then her street. Damn
it, no spots in front of her store. The building was dark, but it didn’t look
as though there’d been a break-in. Not from the front.

He pulled into the narrow alley she used as a driveway, far
enough to get off the street. The keys refused to be jammed in his pocket and
fell to the ground, immediately swallowed by snow and darkness. To hell with
them.

Front was closest, so he checked there first. Locked. He
rounded the corner, past his car, down the alley to her back door. Also closed
up tight. He pounded on the steel. Then the glass in the small window.
Somewhere inside, Charming was barking his head off, going totally apeshit. But
no Calli.

What the hell? He yanked on the doorknob—pointless with the
locks she had in place. He put his boot to the door and called her name. Still
nothing.

He had to get inside. Fuck it, he’d break a window. Not this
one, he’d never fit through. He booked it around to the front. How was he going
to bust through one of these plate-glass windows—drive his fucking car through
it? If that’s what he had to do. He jabbed his hands into his pockets—no keys.
Because they were buried somewhere beside his car.

“Shit!” Could this night get any worse?

The distant, muffled scream from inside the building answered
him. It could get a hell of a lot worse.

He tore around the closest side of the building, the unused
one with the narrower laneway. And there it was, near the back and ground
level—an old wood-paned window. He actually had a shot of squeezing through this
one. Might get shredded in the process but they could stitch him up later. He
dropped to the ground, ready to kick the glass in. The pane jiggled with the
gust of air he created. Unlocked—from the inside. Fuck. He whirled around.
Footprints in the snow that didn’t belong to him. Shit. No.

He slid, legs first, into the small rectangular opening,
having to shuck his coat to get his torso through and getting scraped to shit
before the last of him cleared the frame. Small good news—the guy who’d come
through before him couldn’t be any bigger. And right now, there’s no way that
fucker could be more motivated.

The only light in the basement came from that window. He
pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and swiped his finger across the
screen. Instant flashlight. Thank god the room was tidy and mostly empty. He
picked up a hammer lying on a storage container. Violence—hell yes, there’d be
violence. He’d kill any man he found hurting Calli. And he wouldn’t need the
hammer to do it.

The springy wooden stairs creaked with each step. Hammer at
the ready, he opened the door to the main floor. No sign of life in Calli’s
back office. Sounds, that was another story. A steady growl filtered under the
bathroom door. He ignored the door. Couldn’t afford detection if Charming
barked or bolted. At least the intruder hadn’t killed her dog. That didn’t mean
he had the same code for the woman upstairs.
His
woman. The woman he’d
started falling in love with during their first online chat, even if he hadn’t
realized it at the time.

He slunk through the office. The door separating the
main-floor business from the stairs to her apartment stood open. No obvious
damage to the door that he could make out given the dim lighting. She always
locked this at night, so what the hell? Their chat conversation ran through his
head. She thought she’d heard a noise down here, then joked it off as paranoia.
But she must’ve come down to check. Unknowingly opened the door to the bastard
who’d entered through the basement window. Why had she chosen tonight of all
nights to be brave? Damn it.

He paused at the foot of the stairs, beside the back door
that opened to the small parking lot. This door was still locked up tight, same
as the front had been when he’d tried it. She’d felt safe inside these brick
walls, but all her damn locks hadn’t protected her.
He
hadn’t been here
to protect her. Fuck.

One-handed, he worked the back door’s deadbolts and
slide-locks open, cursing silently at how much noise they caused. Think, be
smart…tough to do when every cell in his body urged him to charge up the
stairs. They needed the police, maybe an ambulance. Shit, he couldn’t let his
mind go there.

He slipped back into the office and hit 9-1-1 on his cell.

“9-1-1. What is the nature and location of your emergency?”

“There’s an intruder at—”

Calli’s choked-off scream ripped through Travis’ body.

“The Romance U store, on Belmont, go to the back door,” he
rasped into the cell before dropping it. He took the stairs two at a time,
calling out when he knew it’d be better to stay quiet. “Calli!”

No answer, nothing. Jesus, what if the bastard did something
worse now?

The living room was trashed. Laptop smashed on the floor,
cushions flung from the sofa, coffee table upended. No blood. Thank god.

Small apartment meant limited places for him to search—and
for her to hide. Fury balled in his gut. He cocked the hammer and moved toward
the bedroom. No light coming from the crack under the door. Shit, shit, shit.
Calli’s room was the black hole with the light off. He couldn’t go in there
swinging blindly. What if he connected with her?

“Yeah, go ahead and cry. I like that even more than the
screaming.” The male voice finished with a laugh. Then came the smacking of
flesh on flesh. A whimper from Calli, a grunt from the man. And the unmistakable
sound of a zipper.

“Get away from her, motherfucker,” Travis hollered as he
burst into the room. Not completely dark—the man pinning Calli to the bed held
a heavy-duty Maglite, the beam illuminating Calli’s bruised face before the
intruder turned it on Travis, half-blinding him. Travis lunged in the man’s
direction, knocking the wind from both of them in a clumsy takedown.

He managed, “Calli, go,” before the aluminum-barreled
flashlight clocked him in the temple, then again in the jaw, filling his head
with stars.

The bedside lamp flicked on, but everything was blurred. The
guy jumped off Travis’ chest. More screaming from Calli. A thud. Travis dragged
himself to his knees. Blinked fast to focus. Jesus no. Calli was laid out on
the floor, next-to-naked, pinned by a knife to the neck…and the fucker’s pants
were halfway down his ass.

A war cry whooped from deep in Travis’ gut. He dove at the
guy, rolling him off Calli, blindly pounding the piece of shit with
blood-craving fury. He was going to kill the motherfucker.

* * * * *

“Calli…” Travis tried to sit up, but his body said “fuck
that shit”.

“Shh, I’m right here.” Her warm, delicate hand landed on his
chest. “Oh god, Travis, I’m so sorry.”

“For what, making me fall in love with you?” That’s right,
he’d said it. Said it and meant it. He struggled to smile at the big, soft eyes
staring down at him. Face hurt too damn much. “I feel like shit.”

“You got beat up pretty bad and they had to give you a lot
of painkillers.”

He turned his head and surveyed the room. “Hospital?” Shit,
his head was like a fuzzy TV station. “Did they catch him?”

She pushed a chunk of hair behind her ear and nodded. “Yes
and yes, thanks to you.” Her left eye was swollen partly closed, her bottom lip
puffed to twice its normal luscious size. A small bandage ran diagonally across
her eyebrow. Another one near her collarbone. Little specks of black peeked out
from beneath.

“You have stitches…he cut you?” His rage reignited at her
nod. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him for what he did to you.” He swallowed hard
at exactly what that might be. “Did he—” The words refused to leave his mouth.

“No, you saved me from that. You saved my life.”

Pain streaked up his side as he reached for the hair that’d
fallen from its hold behind her ear. As he hissed at the burn, his eyes snagged
on the state of his right arm. He must be damn drugged up not to have noticed
sooner. “What the hell happened—I was on top of the guy, landing punches…”

Calli captured his arm, gently returned it to the bed. “He
had a knife…and the hammer you dropped. You were getting the best of him until
he stabbed you. The doctor said it didn’t go that deep, that it missed all your
organs, thank god, but there was so much blood…”

That explained the pain in his ribs, not the bandage and
splints. “What about my hand?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Two broken fingers.”

“From the look on your face, I expected you to say they had
to reattach it or something.”

“You won’t be able to play guitar for…months.”

“Which two?”

“Middle and the ring finger.”

Could be worse. Pieces of what’d happened poked through the
fog in his head. The sharp sting of pain in his side. A throbbing sensation in
his hand. Police appearing out of nowhere, weapons drawn, barking commands at
the guy. That was pretty much the last thing.

No guitar for months. Probably the doctor being
conservative. “Doesn’t even hurt,” he said, lifting his right hand again, as if
that proved a damn thing. “I’ll be back at it in no time.” He pushed his fully
functioning left through her hair. Let the silk tickle his fingers before
moving to lightly stroke her cheek and jaw. “See, my fingering hand works
perfectly.”

Her eyes opened wide and locked with his. “That
is
good news about your
fingering
hand.” The sexy little smile budding on
her face made all the cuts and bruises invisible. So beautiful. And still
dirty-minded, despite the horror she’d just been through.

“Want to get in bed with me for a demonstration?”

“They don’t make hospital beds for two, Travis.”

Now she’d done it, addressing him by name. The drugs they’d
given him might be numbing his pain, but they weren’t affecting his cock.
“That’s not exactly a no.”

“Hmm. I think we’ve played this game before.”

That, and better. He tipped his head at the sliver of bed to
his left. “I dare you.”

“Shouldn’t I get a choice of truth or dare?”

Either way, he’d win. “Sure, sweetheart. It’s your move,
pick one.”

“Truth.”

He ignored the ache in his jaw and smiled. “Do you want to
get into this bed with me?” He expected hedging. It didn’t happen. She didn’t
even answer. Simply walked around the bed and slid her body along his left
side. He didn’t shift to give her more room, just curled his good arm around
her and dragged her half on top of him.

“I hope I don’t hurt you,” she said.

“If you do, it’ll be worth it.” He’d missed the way she
looked into him—not at him, like most people, most women, did. When they left
this room, it had to be together.