Officer Next Door (9 page)

“I doubt very much that the Levinson brothers have or ever will have a key to this house,” Alicia said, but her little smile had been replaced by a line between her eyes – clearly, she was worried. The realization set something off inside Liam.

“You can’t stay here,” he said. “Not until your locks are replaced. Especially while the Levinson brothers are at large.”

Alicia gestured with her hands, looking bemused. “What am I supposed to do – rent myself a beachfront hotel room until all this blows over? I’m on a budget, you know, especially after the expense of moving.”

“No.” The idea of her holing up at a local hotel didn’t do anything to take the edge off Liam’s worry. “A hotel room isn’t secure, either. You need to stay with someone you trust.”

Alicia crossed her arms, and a little dent appeared in her lower lip, as if she were biting it. “I guess I could ask Kerry or Sasha to let me stay the night, but I’d feel pretty ridiculous.”

Visions of the flirtatious blond and serious brunette Liam had met the other day filled his head. That didn’t exactly erase his concerns, either. “You can stay at my place,” he said. “You’ll be safe there.”

Alicia raised one eyebrow so high that it nearly disappeared into her hairline. “Your place?”

Liam held her gaze. What he’d said was bold, but he didn’t care. The guilt over the nurse who’d been slain was bad enough; he couldn’t bear to have Alicia’s blood on his hands too. Dangerous locks aside, he didn’t like the idea of her staying alone with two murderers on the loose in any case. His perma-hard-on for her had nothing to do with it.

He had to admit though, the idea of her spending the night at his house
was
satisfying for more than one reason.

“I know I might seem a little paranoid,” he said, “but give me some credit. I spend just about every day surrounded by these kind of criminals, and I don’t need a news reporter to tell me what they’re capable of. I don’t think there’s a single woman in Riley County who should be staying on her own tonight. Hell, no one should be alone – the Levinson brothers have already killed four people, including three law enforcement officers and an innocent civilian. They’re a danger to everyone and anyone.”

The dent in Alicia’s lip grew more pronounced. He didn’t feel bad for scaring her, because what he’d said was true – every word of it.

“My place is just like yours,” he said. “There’s only one bedroom. You’re welcome to have it though, and I’ll take the couch. You can have the top floor all to yourself.” As much as he liked to imagine them both in his bed – or on his couch, for that matter – together, she needed to know that his priority really was keeping her safe. He wouldn’t lay a finger on her if she didn’t want him to.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I’d feel a little ridiculous imposing on you like that. I’ve been living on my own ever since I graduated from college almost a decade ago, and I’ve always taken care of myself.”

She looked troubled, and he couldn’t blame her for being reluctant to spend the night in the house of a man she barely knew. At the same time, he knew he’d walk away feeling guilty if he left her alone after dark, knowing there were desperate criminals at large – desperate criminals with a history of brutal violence.

Quiet filled the kitchen, the only noise coming from the TV in the living room, at the other end of the hall. With neither of them speaking, he could easily hear the news.

The anchor was reporting on the Levinson brothers’ escape. No surprise there; that was big news, especially in Riley County and the surrounding area. He glanced to the side and saw that Alicia was listening with a nervous look pasted on her pretty face.

He tipped his head in the direction of the living room. “You want me to go shut that off?”

She shot him a wide-eyed glance. “No. I want to know what’s going on – I’m just afraid I’ll find out that someone else has been hurt or killed. I mean, after what happened to that nurse…”

He couldn’t help it – he winced. The mental image of that helpless woman lying on her kitchen floor – imagined, but vivid nonetheless – would likely haunt him for the rest of his life. Maybe if he’d given the order for Troy Levinson to be shot a second sooner or a second later… Had he jumped the gun? Or waited too long?

“Oh Liam, I’m sorry.” Alicia frowned. “I didn’t mean to bring that up. There’s something you should know about me: I put my foot in my mouth, on occasion.”

“Don’t we all?” he asked, shrugging off her words. He knew she hadn’t meant anything by mentioning the nurse – she didn’t need to explain.

“You know…” She was still looking at him, her apprehensive expression tinged by another emotion he couldn’t quite identify. “You shouldn’t feel guilty, but I understand why you do. A few years ago, back in DC, I used to have these neighbors who fought
all the time
. A couple. They were really loud, and it just about drove me crazy, but I learned to ignore it as best I could.”

He stopped listening to the news anchor and devoted his full attention to Alicia.

“I was living in an apartment then, and we shared a wall. One night they had a really big fight and I turned my TV on so I could sleep through it. The next day I saw the woman – her face was black and blue. I knew as soon as I saw her trying to hide the worst of it with sunglasses that he’d hit her.

“She hadn’t had those bruises the day before. And you know what? I felt awful for just ignoring their fight. I wished I’d called the police the night before – maybe I could’ve stopped her from getting hurt.”

“It’s not like you knew,” Liam said.

She shrugged. “No, but I should’ve played it safe – I should’ve called the police. That poor woman was afraid to do it herself – I know because I tried to talk to her about it later, and she freaked out. No matter what I said, she refused to involve the police.”

Liam’s curiosity got the best of him, even as his blood simmered at the idea of a man beating up a woman. “What’d you do the next time it happened?”

“There was no next time. After I spoke to her, she told her boyfriend what I’d said, apparently. He came up to me in the parking lot one day and yelled at me—”

“He what?” Liam’s blood turned to hot lava, and he sat up straight, feeling the lingering fatigue leave his body. It was a totally useless emotion, but he instantly wanted to go back in time and to DC to kick the guy’s ass.

“He got in my face and tried to intimidate me. Told me to mind my own business. Actually…” Her face turned red, so that she looked slightly sunburned again. “He
did
intimidate me. I was afraid he was about to get violent and he wouldn’t leave me alone, so I pulled out my pepper spray and let him have a face full of it. He shut up after that and they moved out of the complex almost immediately.”

Liam shook his head. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I want to kick that guy’s ass. Good for you for defending yourself, though.”

Strangely, Alicia smiled. “That’s sweet.”

“What is?”

“That you want to kick my old neighbor’s ass.”

Liam was so pissed imagining the scenario she’d described that his mouth was dry. “Sweet is hardly what I’d call it.”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t hesitate to break out my pepper spray again if I ever found myself in a similar situation, but you know… It’d be more satisfying to be able to kick someone’s ass if needed, I have to admit.”

“You could always learn some self-defense,” he suggested. “Not that I’d recommend street brawling as a first resort with any strange men who give you trouble.”

Since she insisted on staying alone, teaching her a few basics seemed like the least he could do. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be something, a small concession to the aching desire to protect her.

Alicia rolled her eyes. “Please – you’ve seen me fall down my own steps, what is it, twice now? I think I’ll stick with carrying pepper spray in my purse.”

“Too bad. I was scheming to offer you some free self-defense lessons as an excuse to spend time with you.”

She grinned, and the blush coloring her face intensified. “In that case, I accept – if the offer’s still good, that is. Just as long as you don’t expect me to actually be any good at it…”

Her smile was bright and she actually seemed kind of excited, if a little embarrassed.

Liam’s dick twitched against his jeans zipper. Maybe it was weird that the idea of teaching someone to hurt another person had him half-hard, but the idea of touching her – the realization that she was eager to spend time with him just for the sake of it – practically had him bursting out of his jeans.

“Why don’t we start now?” Not only did he want to help keep her safe, but he wanted to keep her smiling, to distract her from the morbid news. “I’ll teach you how to throw a punch.”

“Okay.” She stood, looking pretty, delicate even, in her denim shorts and striped tank top. It had thin straps that showed off her shoulders, and it was all he could do to tear his gaze away from them and meet her eyes. She didn’t look very threatening, but she sure was beautiful.

“Stand like this,” he said, sliding one foot back and raising his arms in demonstration. “Move that foot back a little more, for stability. That’s good.”

He didn’t want to look away from her long, slender legs. At least, not until he realized she was looking right at him with bright hazel eyes, waiting for the next step.

“Here,” he said, reaching for her, barely resisting the urge to run his fingers over her bare shoulders. “Hold your hands up a little higher, like this. And never, ever tuck your thumbs inside your fists – you’ll break them if you punch that way.”

He waited while she adjusted, positioning her perfect body the way he told her to.

“That’s better. Now, when you actually throw the punch, you want your whole body to be behind it – it’s not just your arm doing the work. So you’ll move your leg like this and pivot on your foot…”

He demonstrated, throwing a jab into empty air.

“Okay…” She watched and imitated. “Like that?”

“Almost. Except…” He stopped breathing as he laid hands on her arms, moving them so that her fists were higher. “Don’t forget to protect your face, because chances are the other person is going to be hitting back.”

She nodded. “Right.”

He was just about to pull his hands away when something happened – a shiver worked its way through her entire body, subtle but
there
, causing her arms to tremble lightly beneath his fingertips.

An answering frisson zipped through his body. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Fine, I just… Does it seem a little cold to you, all of a sudden?”

“No. Just the opposite, actually.” He couldn’t lie. He felt his little self-defense lesson veering into decidedly intimate territory as tiny bumps popped up all over her arms, raised flesh that made him long to run his hands delicately over her skin, reading her body like braille.

“You’re really not cold?” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, meeting his eyes.

“No. But… Damn.” He felt it then, all of a sudden – an undeniable chill that seemed to have settled into her skin, faster than he could blink. “You’re freezing, and it’s got to be at least 70 degrees in here.” The central air was running, but still – it wasn’t that cool inside the house.

She shivered again, and he reacted in reflex, flattening his hands against her body, covering her shoulders with his palms and trying to rub some warmth into them.

She sighed, and the sound shot straight through him, prompting him to realize exactly what he’d done. A voice somewhere in the back of his head told him that he’d crossed a line, touching her that way when he was supposed to be helping her, but that was before she arched back against him, letting the back of her head touch the center of his chest and rest there.

He kept his hands on her shoulders, let her lean up against him, her breasts thrust forward as her spine bowed and she released another one of those long breaths.

“You okay?” he asked again, because presuming that she’d melted against him in a fit of lustful bliss seemed like a dangerous game. Before he reacted – and damn, he wanted to react – he needed to be sure.

She nodded, but her teeth clattered together, and when he tore his gaze from her breasts – her nipples were hard and easily visible beneath her cotton tank top – he saw that her lips were blue. Actually blue, as insane as that was considering that it was May in coastal North Carolina.

“Shit. Alicia!” He stopped rubbing her shoulders and held onto them firmly instead, afraid she’d collapse at his feet. “Do you have some sort of medical condition I don’t know about?”

He didn’t know what kind of condition might make someone go ice cold and turn blue despite the heat, but the way she felt and looked wasn’t normal – wasn’t right, and that scared him shitless. “Should I call 911?”

Holden shattered the silence that followed his question with a deep whine. Liam looked down and saw the little dog lying at Alicia’s feet, ears pinned flat against his skull, eyes wide. He kept whining, getting louder with each passing moment. His reaction leant a sharper edge to Liam’s fear – if even the dog thought something was wrong, what the hell was going on?