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  Roy let out a mirthless laugh. “Imagine losing your fame, your money, your drugs, your band…whatever it is filth like you values.”

  Determination powered his strides. His blood pumped with one intent. Get her the fuck out of there. Ten more feet…eight…six…

  “Imagine watching the most important thing in your life walk away.” Roy raised his voice. “When I find out what that thing is, you’ll know exactly how it feels.”

  Don’t engage him. Keep walking. The backs of his ears burned. His teeth ground. He held his breath until Charlee was safely inside the armored vehicle. Then he turned and looked Roy in the eye. “She’s not a thing, you fucking prick.”

  42

  She’s not a thing. Jay’s words resonated, loosening the knot coiled in Charlee’s belly. She wanted to crawl into his lap and envelop him with comfort. But the tic in his cheek and his wooden posture suggested he might need more than a handless hug.

  Nathan followed Jay in, putting Jay in the middle, and Tony climbed in the front seat. When the last door slammed shut, the knot unclenched.

  She met Nathan’s eyes over Jay’s slumped head and saw her relief reflected there. “So you disarmed that Craig in the parking lot, I assume?”

  He held the gun on his lap, his eyes glassy and locked on his fingers as clicked the magazine in and out, checked the safety, went back to the magazine. “Had to time it right.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t want to force Roy’s hand.”

  “Nothing forces him to do anything.” Recalling the things Roy had done to her produced a dull ache in her chest, but watching Nathan avert his eyes at the memories sucked the air from her lungs, strangling her.

  As Colson merged the SUV into traffic, the gravity of Roy’s threat knocked her in the gut. She turned to look out the rear window. At the center of the standoff between his men and Jay’s remaining bodyguards, Roy stared directly at her as if he could see through the dark tint.

  A shiver penetrated deep in her bones. On its heels was the incessant hum for vengeance. Did she just walk away from her only opportunity to kill him?

  If she had the penthouse camera footage, she might’ve stood a chance against him in a courtroom. But during Nathan’s undercover sting, he hadn’t been able to crack the firewalls to copy the recordings or pinpoint where they were stored. The photos he’d snapped of her injuries the night he rescued her didn’t incriminate Roy as the abuser. Without proof in court, it would’ve been her word against a powerful billionaire and his infinite team of lawyers.

  If Jay’s video cameras captured Roy forcing her into the SUV, maybe they finally had something. Something they could use. She lowered her finger from her mouth, the nail ripped to the quick. What a disgusting habit. “I know you made a verbal agreement back there, but what’s stopping us from using your recordings against him?”

  Tony glanced over her shoulder and shared a look with Jay. He lowered his gaze. His fists clenched, flexed, shook, and clenched again.

  Charlee felt his silence. Why wouldn’t he look at her? She rubbed her temples as his non-answer ripened to realization. “You were bluffing.”

  “Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth.

  The remorse in his voice pained her. She leaned forward, tried to snag his gaze. “You know what? We didn’t run away from him. We walked.”

  He cut his eyes to her.

  “I’ve never walked away from Roy Oxford. You gave me that.” Just thinking about it made her blood sing through her veins. She glanced up and found the corner of Nathan’s lip twitching. Yeah, she was certain he shared her sentiment.

  She returned her attention to Jay. “Roy knows where I’m at, who I’m with, and what I’m doing. Which means he’s lamenting the fact he can’t just pluck me off the street anymore.” She grinned. “Not with the parade of media following you. And not with the level of security you employ. The cameras were a bluff, but the threat is still there. He won’t risk it.”

  “Charlee’s right.” Nathan holstered the gun and leaned back. “We’ve been running so hard for so long, we’ve been in nonstop defense mode. Now that we don’t have to run, we can finally focus on our offense.”

  Her head swam. “Since he can no longer force us physically, he’ll try to outmaneuver us. He’ll blackmail your PI business, Nathan.” She looked at Jay. “And he’ll dismantle your band. He won’t be above using your loved ones as leverage to force me to him.”

  Jay stared at something on the floorboard, his tone flat. “I don’t have loved ones outside of the band.”

  She would ask him about that when there wasn’t an audience. She followed his gaze to…a nasal spray bottle? She bent to pick it up, and his body jerked to stillness. His eyes locked on the bottle in her hand, and he leaned toward it even as his expression seemed to draw away. What the hell? She turned it over. The label was worn and peeling.

  “This isn’t allergy spray, is it?”

  He snatched it from her grip, eyes hard, and dropped it over Tony’s shoulder and into her lap. “Get rid of this.”

  Twisting toward Charlee, he grabbed her waist and dragged her across the seat to straddle his legs. With his arms crossed behind her back, he pulled her hips to his and nuzzled his face in her neck.

  She held onto the seat on either side of his shoulders and angled her head to look at Nathan. A small smile touched Nathan’s lips but bypassed his eyes. Grooves crept over his forehead as he watched her with Jay.

  Was he thinking about Noah? Did he think she’d given more of herself to Jay in one day than she gave Noah in their one year?

  But she had, hadn’t she? She didn’t love Noah enough to lay her broken life at his feet. She’d wanted to. God, she thought maybe someday she could’ve. It had taken her six months just to let him steal a kiss. Would she have ever let him know her beyond their physical connection? She never even gave him her real name.

  Her chest cramped. She dropped her eyes to her hand, clenched on the seatback, shamed by the direction of her thoughts.

  After a moment, Nathan pinched her chin and gave her head a little shake. His gesture chased away a fraction of her guilt, but his narrowed eyes promised an imminent conversation.

  She nodded.

  The angles of Jay’s face sharpened as he leaned back and shifted his hips away from the other man. The subtle movement put distance between her and Nathan as if Jay were trying to break their exchange.

  Jay’s flushed cheeks glowed against his tan complexion, his hair tousled and trenched from his fingers. His natural beauty alone could shackle the heart of any woman who laid eyes upon him. Yet, he looked at her as if she were the only one. An unfamiliar feeling swelled in the back of her throat.

  He kissed her neck and pressed his brow against it. “I’m so sorry.”

  The remaining guilt she’d hidden in her silence echoed in the pained whisper of his apology and the beat of his heart drumming against hers. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

  His breath grew heavy, intensifying her own. He raised his head and met her eyes. “I lost it out there with the fans and the guards and…my fucking issues—”

  He looked away, worked his jaw, and dragged his gaze back to hers. “Won’t happen again. I will never walk away from you.” The resolve in his tone enthralled her.

  With all the hands that had been on him and the distress that rocked his body when Tony shoved him in the car, she knew he had been in the grips of his own demon. “You didn’t bail. When I needed you…” She placed a kiss on his hairline, breathing in his masculine scent. Kissed his nose, his parted lips. “You were there. Thank you.”

  The circle of his arms cinched, pressing their bodies together. “I don’t just want to be where you need me.” His tone was deep, sharp. “I want to be what you need.”

  Something pulsed between them. Perhaps it was the rhythm of their shared breath. Or maybe it was the vibration of some invisible boundary falling away. She inhaled it and let it tremble through her body as s
he rested her cheek on the brawn of his shoulder.

  For nine years, she didn’t know who she could cling to, or if she would ever be able to take that risk, but clinging to Jay felt…elemental. As if deep within him lay the map to emotions she’d lost and maybe some she never experienced. She wouldn’t let go. No matter how contagious his pain. If she were tough enough to endure hers, could she shoulder his too?

  He brushed his lips over her jaw and pointed his chin toward the front of the vehicle. “Tony, I want training immediately.” His voice barked through the cabin with an air of dominance. “Self-defense. Firearms. And I want to carry my own gun.”

  “What?” Blood rushed to Charlee’s cheeks. “What about your protection team?”

  His fingers stroked up and down her spine. “I will never be in a situation again where I can’t defend you. We’ll start tomorrow, Tony.”

  “Self-defense?” Tony asked with a smile in her voice.

  “Yeah.” He lifted a lock of hair from Charlee’s shoulder and twisted it around his finger. “Charlee will help me get through the hand-to-hand stuff.”

  The nerve endings in her fingers itched to touch his face. “I will?”

  He smoothed her hair behind her ear and held his hands palms up on either side of her. A perfect brown eyebrow rose as he waited.

  She slid her hands into his, and a jolt tingled up her arms, the urge to strip him bare and explore his hard body overwhelming. But she couldn’t touch him. Didn’t stop the thought from materializing into a warm throb between her legs.

  “See?” He kissed her bottom lip. “You’re already helping.”

  The heat from his fingers soaked into hers. She blinked against the sensation. “If helping means upending your entire life.”

  He shifted their linked hands behind her, settling them at the small of her back and pulling her hips closer to his. “Christ, Charlee. I needed upending. Do you have any idea how much progress I made today?”

  Her body buzzed with the excited pulse of her heart. She shook her head.

  “I think you’ve gathered by now I have some fucked up shit corroding my head.” He looked at her imploringly.

  She nodded.

  “And you probably saw that shit stir up when I had my pathetic fucking break down in the parking lot.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “No. Listen. I always need narcotics when it hits that hard. Smack, blow, pills, weed, any or all of it. Every. Fucking. Time. And even then, it takes me hours to resurface.”

  His words squeezed her heart.

  “Today, I was so damn crazed to get back to you, I shut it down in record time. Without drugs. Know what that means?”

  She had watched him shatter twice that day. Both times he picked up the pieces and put himself back together. “You fixed it. Not drugs. Not me.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s you. You make me want to rake up the shit just to dissect it. Figure out what I’m made of, what I’m not, and who I am.” A dimple flashed on his cheek, its appearance endearing him all the more. “Got to say, Charlee, that’s an undertaking I’ve never cared to attempt. You make me want to care about a lot of things.”

  Intensity saturated his brown eyes. He appeared completely unconcerned about the presence of Nathan and the others listening in, until he touched his mouth to her ear. “More than anything, I want to learn how to bend to your touch without breaking.” He stroked his cheek along hers, the rise and fall of his chest intoxicating her. “I want you to touch me inside and out.” He straightened to look at her.

  The heat from his words left her breathless.

  He squeezed their hands at her back. “You saw strength in me once. Do you think you could find it again?”

  He was a man like any other man, draped in a net of memories. But it seemed like his memories were suffocating him, as if his scars whispered and burned and tried to dominate his life. Only the man trapped beneath could do something about that.

  “You stood up to Roy. You called him a fucking prick.” She let out a laughing snort. “Do you know how many times I’ve witnessed someone confront him?”

  The skin around his mouth softened, giving him a gorgeously exposed look. He shook his head.

  “None. Never.”

  She fell into the deep waters of his eyes. They held the opening between her past and future. “To answer your question…for two years and two months, I stared at the Golden Gate Bridge from Roy’s penthouse window. I watched it weather the strongest storms, rise above the thickest fogs, and buttress countless commuters with unbending steel. I used to fantasize that one day, it might carry me to a place Roy couldn’t touch me.” She held his gaze. “When I look at you, I see that bridge.”

  His lashes lowered, fanning his cheeks. Holding her hands at her back, he curled his upper body around her and spoke low into her ear. “Then I promise not to buckle beneath you.”

  43

  Charlee followed Jay up the portable airstair to the door of the rented jet. The exhausts of shuttle buses, private planes, and fuel trucks added to the heat wafting off the tarmac.

  Could one of the bustling vehicles have a Craig in it? Not that she was in a position to notice something like that. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the black leather stretching over the back of Jay’s thighs and cupping his ass with each lift of his muscled legs.

  As he cleared the last step, he glanced over his shoulder and winked. “Like what you see?”

  She pulled her lips between her teeth to suppress a grin. “You know I do, you arrogant ass.” She nodded to the oval doorway in front of him. “Watch your head. It might be too swollen to fit through.”

  Turning toward her, he looked pointedly at his groin and pursed his lips. “You might be right.”

  Warmth spread across her chest and threatened to reduce her to girlish laughter. She filled her lungs with the dusk air and anchored herself to his beautiful smile. She hadn’t been this relaxed in…well, never. If only she could tuck the feeling away in a place no one could steal it.

  He squatted to eye-level and she felt his gaze in the spike of her pulse and the sudden desert in her mouth. He leaned in. “Keep looking at me like that and we’re going to spend the next six hours in the lavatory.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Actually, I think we’ll do that anyway.”

  A shiver swept through her and her hand faltered on the railing. “Is the rest of the band onboard? I thought these jets had bedrooms.”

  His head dropped and he groaned. “Fuck, Charlee.” He scrubbed a hand over his scalp, mussing the thick strands. “Yes, the guys are boarded.” He looked up at her out of smoldering eyes. “You can count on a bedroom in all our future rentals.”

  They were staring at one another, ensconced in their own cosmos, when Tony’s voice floated up from the tarmac. “We’re on a schedule, Mr. Mayard.”

  He rolled his eyes and grabbed Charlee’s hand, walking backward and leading her into the cabin. “Welcome to the Rolls-Royce of the sky. This twelve passenger jet will whisk us at a speed of Mach .80 for four-thousand nautical miles—”

  “Twenty-three hundred nautical miles.” The man in the captain’s chair turned from the dash of blinking screens. “That’s our flight distance from New York to Los Angeles.”

  Jay shrugged. “Fine. For twenty-three hundred naughty miles—”

  “Nautical miles.” She laughed.

  He bit his lip. “Who’s giving this tour?”

  She forced a straight face. Clearly, he was unconcerned about Tony’s time schedule. “Right. Go ahead.”

  Pulling her a few more steps forward, he cleared his throat. “To your right is the full-service galley.” He stretched out an arm to indicate the built-in wet bar, a grin accentuating his full lips as he opened drawers and lifted rollback covers.

  Behind him, a leather couch, convertible tables, and swivel recliners sandwiched the cabin. Not much smaller than her Village apartment, the space easily accommodated the four band members, her and Natha
n, and the two bodyguards.

  At the rear, Laz’s gelled-up spikes sprouted behind the headrest of a backward-facing recliner. Beside him, two guitar cases were oddly seat belted into their own chair. Wil and Rio perched across the aisle, wearing ear buds, eyes glued to the devices in their hands.

  “To your left is the cockpit. This cloud craft features a…” Jay flicked a finger at the high-tech digital control panel. “What’s running this thing?”

  The pilot beamed. “An Oxford Romulus 2000 avionics system.”

  The blood drained from Jay’s face, and his hands dropped limply at his sides.

  She took a step toward the heaving wall of his chest and looked up into his wide eyes. “Get over it. Oxford Industries owns everything, especially in the aerospace industry.” She lowered her voice. “And it’s not like he can control the system from afar and send us hurtling to our deaths.”

  A sweaty pallor cast over his skin. Something beyond Roy’s avionic systems was unsettling him. Unease coiled up her spine. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked at his Chucks, lips a thin line, and shook his head.

  The silence stretched on, fraying her nerves. Standing against him, she leaned back and raised her chin. “So that’s how it’s going to be? Soon as something bothers you, you’re going to close right up? You might as well walk away.”

  Without looking up, he bent an arm around her waist and pressed her body to his. His mouth grazed her jaw, her cheek, and settled over her ear. “Told you I’ll never walk away.”

  That was probably true. She seemed to attract self-adhesive kind of men. With Jay, she didn’t just want him to stay. She wanted something she didn’t understand. “Will you walk to me? Will you move so close that the ground wobbles, the walls between us crumble, and your thoughts rip open until we’re melding our fears and hopes as easily as we share air?”

  He parted his lips and calmness drifted out with a sigh. “Just…just show me how.” His hand trembled as it combed through her hair. “Jesus, Charlee. Nothing in this world compares to the way you make me feel.”