Desire. Lust.
The guy was drop-dead sexy. She’d never been the type to fall for a tall, dark stranger, especially not one who came with all of his extra features.
Only she wasn’t pulling away from him. She was standing there, enjoying his touch despite the madness that he’d brought her way.
Maybe she was the crazy one. Shelly cleared her throat. “What aren’t you telling me?” Her head tilted back more as she stared up at him. “Can you fly? Because if you can fly—”
“I can’t fly.” His gaze came back to hers, and it actually seemed to—to heat. A sensual awareness filled his stare. “But I am tuned to you.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means. Seriously, no idea.”
“It means that I can feel you. How the hell do you think I found you in these mountains? It’s like—hell, it’s so hard to explain, but it’s like an invisible thread connects me to you. When I broke out of that lab, I could feel it. I could feel it when I was still in the lab, too. It’s a pull that leads me straight to you.” He hesitated, and she knew there was more. Only she wasn’t so certain she wanted to know the rest. Maybe she’d had enough revelations for one night.
An invisible pull? Was the guy saying he could basically, what? Find her, anywhere she went? That was—
“When your thoughts are strong enough and I…think when we’re physically close, I can hear them.” Another confession from him.
Her jaw dropped.
“So, yeah, I can find you anywhere. I can—”
“I-I didn’t say that part out loud.” She yanked her hands back from him.
He frowned at her. “You don’t have to pull away. I like touching you, too. I feel the desire, too. I wanted you before I even knew if you were real or just a figment of my desperation, and I—”
I feel the desire, too. No, no, he knew that she felt that weird attraction to him? Now her cheeks were burning hot, and not because of the flames in the fireplace. “You don’t just jump into someone’s head. You don’t do that. It is not appropriate.”
His frown deepened as his brows pulled low. “I was just trying to understand you. I knew you were afraid, and I wanted to see if you could feel anything other than fear for—”
She jabbed her index finger into his chest. His bare chest. His sexy chest. Focus. “Do not get into my head again, do you understand me? Because I am trying hard not to have an absolute freak-out on you. You’re some kind of superman who has just landed on my doorstep, and on top of all the other terrible shit in my life, I don’t know if I can handle this right now.” I don’t know if I can handle you.
He blinked. “I told you, I’m here to help you. I think you’re in danger. After what happened tonight, I know you are—”
“Blane—Sheriff Blane Gallows said some hunter accidentally fired at us, and Blane told me that my brakes had gone out because of a leak. Wear and tear. No one was gunning for me. No one was—”
His hand curled around hers. But he didn’t move her hand away from his body. Instead, he flattened her palm against his chest, and she could feel the thunder of his heartbeat. “That wasn’t a hunter firing at you. The shot came from far away, from a guy who knew how to use a scope and aim perfectly in the dark. Probably a trained sniper. He’d picked that spot deliberately because he expected you to go off the mountain there. He knew your brakes couldn’t handle the turn. He was there, waiting, to finish off the job, just in case you managed to get out of your car before it went over the edge.”
She licked lips that had gone far too dry.
He gave a low growl. A sound that was weirdly sexy. All hard and primal.
Her breasts tightened. What is wrong with me? She cleared her throat. “You can’t know that.”
He just stared at her. “I could hear the shot coming. I was able to figure out the guy’s location. A sniper spot. After he hit me, I heard him flee. If I hadn’t been dying, I would have given chase.”
Dying. “Y-you knew you’d come back.” Come back from the dead. Was she seriously saying this stuff?
He gave a little shrug. “I figured the odds were good.”
“What if you hadn’t?” Her voice was husky. “What if you’d died right there and that had just been the end?”
“Then you’d still be alive.”
She snatched her hand back. “Don’t.” Her whole body had gone tense. “Do not ever do something like that again, got me? Because I don’t want someone dying for me.”
He blinked. Seemed confused. Fair enough—that made two of them.
She needed to put some distance between her and her mystery man. “You should leave.”
He glanced toward her door. Her broken door. “It’s not safe for you to be alone out here. You’re being targeted.” He rolled back his shoulders. “I’ll fix your door.” He hesitated. “I can…I can stay outside, if you’ll let me. The cold doesn’t do anything to me, and—”
“You’re not staying outside.” A terrible thought struck her. But if everything else he’d said was true…oh, jeez. “You don’t have any place to go, do you?”
He gave a curt shake of his head. A negative shake.
Was she really supposed to kick out the man who’d saved her? Turn him out into the cold, winter night? Shelly bit her lower lip. Dammit. “This cabin is plenty big enough for us both.” No, she hadn’t just said that.
Had she?
His eyes widened. “You’d let me stay with you?”
Her breath heaved out. “The place has three floors, okay? Plenty of room. I’m on the top floor. You can take this one. Use the bathroom. Shower off the blood. And get a good night’s sleep. We can figure out everything else in the morning.” She paused. “Don’t go down to the lower floor, okay? It’s, um, locked up.” Partially true—her studio was down there, and she wasn’t up to going in that particular room yet.
He wasn’t even blinking. Maybe she’d made a huge mistake. Maybe he was some kind of serial killer and this was a terrible—
“I’m not a serial killer,” he gritted out.
Her hands flew up. “Stay out of my head!” Everything he said is true. She’d need more than a few hours of sleep to wrap her mind around all of that. “That’s the number one rule between us, okay? Don’t jump in my head. You saved my life, so I owe you.” Seriously owed him. “You can stay here and I’ll…I’ll try to help you.”
For an instant, hope flashed on his face. It was almost painful to see.
“I don’t know you.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know how you know me. How you remember me, but after everything that’s happened, I will help you. I’ll help you try and figure out who you are.”
“Thank you.”
She gave him a weak smile.
His face tensed. His eyes glittered even more.
“Um, is everything all right?” Shelly asked him as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I want you.”
Her heart thudded into her chest.
“You…want me, too.” Now he was the one clearing his throat, but it didn’t seem to help because when he talked again, his voice was still more like a growl than anything else. “I picked up that thought before you told me to stay out of your head.”
Her cheeks burned again as she blushed. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I’ve just met.” And I don’t even know your name! She’d have to start calling him something soon. Shelly pointed down the hallway. “After you fix the door…” And really, he’d broken it so it only seemed fair that he fix it, right? Not like she was asking for too much. “Use the bedroom and the bathroom on the right.” She hurried toward the stairs. Shelly knew she needed to get away from her stranger. Maybe put a few locked doors between them.
Then again, he didn’t seem to have any trouble knocking down locked doors.
“We can talk in the morning,” Shelly added, throwing those words over her shoulder. Her hand slid up the wooden banister. She didn’t look back, not until she reached the upper floor. Sh
e paused then, leaning a bit over the wooden balcony. And she found his gaze right on her. For a moment, she absolutely could not look away. There was just something about him. So intense, so powerful…
I don’t know him. We’ve never met. Because there was no way she could ever forget a man like him.
No way.
***
He hadn’t forgotten her.
Shelly moved away from the wooden balcony. Her soft steps padded over the carpet, and then he heard the faint sound of her door shutting—and the click of the lock sliding into place.
He still didn’t move.
She’s real. I touched her. I spoke to her. The doctors at the lab had tried to tell him that he’d just imagined her. They’d been so certain that he couldn’t remember the woman with the long, dark hair and the deep, dark eyes. They’d been so certain he was wrong. They’d pumped him with drugs—hell, sometimes, he’d been sure they were trying to make him forget her.
But he hadn’t forgotten her. She was the only thing he remembered. The only thing that mattered. And every instinct he had screamed that she was in trouble.
Shelly.
His Shelly.
He found some tools in the garage just beyond the cabin. He fixed her door, discovered that the task was surprisingly easy. Maybe he’d been some kind of handyman in his former life.
He put the tools away and as he walked toward the room Shelly had indicated, he saw her phone on the floor. Frowning, he picked it up, and when he did, the screen glowed, showing him a picture of a blond man. A man who had his arm wrapped around Shelly.
Anger churned inside of him. Who in the hell is that asshole? His fingers swiped over the screen and her contact list came up. The guy…he was Blane Gallows.
Sheriff Blane Gallows. Shelly had said that.
She’d been…attempting to call Blane? When she’d been so afraid? He looked upstairs. No sound came from her room. Her call hadn’t gone through. He didn’t have to worry about the sheriff storming to the cabin.
But did he have to worry about the sheriff having some kind of claim on Shelly? Carefully, he put the phone down on a nearby table. With the tension pounding through his body, he was worried he might crush it. He had to always watch himself. He was so strong that he could break things too easily.
I’ll have to be extra careful with Shelly.
Because he would never, fucking ever, want to break her.
He headed for the bathroom. As he entered the room, he stripped. When he climbed into the shower a few moments later, the hot water poured down on him. He closed his eyes, putting his face under the spray, and in his mind, he saw…her. Only Shelly wasn’t in the cabin any longer.
She was walking on a beach. Her hair blew in the breeze behind her. Shelly wore a small, blue bikini, one that showed off her perfect curves. She stopped walking and stared off into the distance. Her feet curled into the sand and then a wave came up and tickled her toes.
She laughed. The sound pierced right through him. She laughed and then she turned…
I swear, she turned to look at me.
The image disappeared from his mind. The waves were gone, and all he knew was the pounding rush of the shower’s water. Frustration surged within him. He wanted the fucking surf back. He wanted the damn beach. He wanted Shelly in her bikini.
He wanted his life.
Chapter Three
Shelly could smell bacon. Eggs. She paused outside of her bedroom, her body tensing even as the tempting aromas filled her nose. She’d always been such a bacon addict. Her bare feet inched forward. She’d showered and dressed, putting on jeans and an oversized, green sweater. She’d wondered if her mystery guy would still be in the cabin. She’d crept out of her room, but then stopped cold when she realized that yes, he was there.
A quick beat of rock music had her hurrying down the stairs. She knew that music. It was actually a ring tone that she’d reserved for Blane. Her phone was on the table near her repaired door, and she quickly scooped it up. “Blane?”
“Shelly!” A bit of static crackled on the line. “Shelly, there’s something you need to know…”
Sunlight peeked through her curtains, faint rays because dawn had just arrived.
“Your hero from last night?” Blane continued grimly. “The guy disappeared.”
She heard a clatter in the kitchen. She inched toward the sound. Saw her mystery man. Her hero. He was only wearing his jeans. He turned toward her, and a quick smile lit his face.
Her heart immediately jumped into a double-time rhythm.
“I’ve had men searching for him all night. The guy leapt out of the ambulance, and he ran into the woods.” Blane’s words were gruff, tired. Because he’s been up all night. “With his injuries, the poor fellow is probably dead out there.”
“I thought he was dead before…”
“No, probably was just near death. That’s what the EMTs figure. He woke up, confused, disoriented, and he fled. God, I wish we could have found the bastard.”
The bastard in question put bacon and a pile of eggs onto one of the plates that he’d already set on her kitchen table. Two plates. One for him. One for her.
“I ran his prints—they were all over the inside of that stolen truck. And you aren’t going to believe this…Shit, I know it’s probably a mistake but—”
She turned away from her mystery man, hunching her shoulders. “You know his name.” Excitement made her voice too sharp.
Behind her, well, there was just dead silence.
If he could hear through walls, if he could hear whispers from a hundred yards away, she figured her stranger could overhear every word of her conversation with Blane.
“The prints matched up to a John Smith.”
John Smith? For real? That sounded like a fake name to her. An obviously fake name.
“He was a decorated Army Ranger. Served two tours before he went into the private sector. According to what I could gather, the man was a serious bad ass.”
She slanted a glance over her shoulder. The bad ass in her kitchen had frozen. His gaze was locked on her.
“But he died,” Blane added grimly. “He was stabbed by an unknown assailant. The guy was working some kind of private security gig in Miami. Things went south, and he wound up dead in an alley.”
A chill skated over her skin. The chill came both from the fact that Blane had said that John Smith was a dead man and from the fact that the guy had died in Miami. She lived in Miami. The city was her home base.
“I’ll keep the search crews looking for him.” Blane exhaled on a long sigh. “We’ll find the guy’s body, bring him in. Figure out who the hell he really is because there must have been some mix-up with the prints in that truck.”
She didn’t think there had been a mix-up. And she didn’t want Blane to continue searching needlessly. Why waste that time and manpower when the missing guy was right in front of her? “Blane, he’s—”
Right in front of me. The stranger—John?—had moved with that super speed of his, and he was literally right in front of her. And his hand—his hand was over her mouth.
He leaned in toward her, and his lips brushed over her ear as he said, “Don’t tell him I’m here.” His voice was so low. Barely a breath against her left ear.
She shivered.
“Shelly?” Blane blasted. The phone was still at her right ear. “Everything okay? I don’t have the best connection with you.”
No, calls in the mountains were always terrible. John’s hand slid away from her mouth.
John. I can start calling him John. She licked her lips. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll call you later, all right? Got some men waiting on me.” And then he was gone. Blane had ended the call before she could say anything else.
John took the phone from her. He put it on the counter. He stared at her with his incredible eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her chin notched up. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because you look
ed scared as hell of me, and I’m trying to reassure you.”
Her gaze slid over his body. Over the faint scar marks. “Being in the military would fit. I mean, it would fit with your scars. Some of them look like bullet wounds. Maybe even…knife slices?” Her gaze rose and she found that his stare was still on her. “And your hair looks like a military cut.”
“I like it short,” he muttered. “Your…friend…the sheriff thinks I’m John Smith.”
“He thinks there was a mix-up with the fingerprints. John Smith is a dead man.”
Now he laughed. The sound was rusty, but deep. Sexy. “That’s the truth.” He turned away from her, his broad back moving away as he motioned toward the table. “Since you gave me a place to stay, I figured the least I could do was make breakfast. I know how much you like bacon, so when I found a pack in the fridge, I went ahead and prepared it all. I also put extra milk in your coffee, because you like—”
“How do you know that?” She was rooted to the spot.
His hand lowered and his fingers curled around the back of a nearby chair.
“You said you only remembered me.” It was an effort to keep her voice at a semi-calm level. “And I’m trying to follow along, I swear, I am. But how do you know I like bacon? That I put extra milk in my coffee, that—”
“That you have a half-moon birth mark on your right hip?” He looked back at her. “That you like to read every single night before you go to bed? That you curl up with a patchwork quilt in a condo that overlooks the Miami beach, and you read until you fall asleep?”
Her heart seemed to have stopped beating.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I wish like hell that I did. I know all the details about your life, but not a damn thing about my own.”
She should probably run from him. Race away as fast as she could. Not that she’d be faster than him. John…he really wasn’t like other men. And pretending all of this stuff wasn’t real, that it was just some crazy dream—well, that wasn’t going to work. So she took a step toward him. Then another. And her hand reached out to touch his arm. Still so warm, warmer than her own skin. “You’re John Smith.”