Anywhere (BBW Romance)

Anywhere

Christin Lovell

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ANYWHERE

Copyright © 2014 by Christin M Lovell

This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

All characters and storylines are the property of the author and your support and respect is appreciated. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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ANYWHERE

Plus size Aeren Haverwood is pushing thirty, yet
she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She’s still figuring it all out. The only thing she’s certain of is that she loves the man who’s been her inconsistent constant the last five years of her life.

Since the day Rahmi Çevik met Aeren, he’s made it his mission to protect her from the truth that haunts him. Sometimes, though, the best of intentions aren’t enough to keep your loved ones safe; he knew that first hand long before he met Ari. When he discovers his past came looking for him through his present, he realizes the wall he’d put between he and Ari
 to safe guard her had been useless all along, and his secrets were the very thing keeping her in harms way. It was time he told Ari the truth: that he loves her, that he’s been living a double life, and that he’s a murderer.

Ari never expected to be driven from her home, she never expected to be shot at, and she never expected the man she’d welcomed into her home to have
 a dangerous side she’d never seen. And therein laid the problem. The Ram she knew was a world away from the man confessing his sins to her.

Will Ari be able
 to look past Ram’s transgressions? What do you do when your heart belongs to a man you never truly knew?

Lives and hearts are at stake in the newest title from USA Today Bestselling author, Christin Lovel
l
.

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Chapter One

Aeren

The loud thud followed by the sound of wood splitting would haunt me forever.

I gasped, leaping up from the sofa. My heart took off, pounding against my suddenly tight chest. The moment I saw them, fear stiffened my limbs. My mind was racing, but nothing stood out; I was frozen, struggling to breathe, unable to think straight enough to solve the problem before me, namely the four burly men with guns aimed at various parts of me.

“Where is he?” The male closest to me demanded. His Eastern European accent was thick, much like the cords of his forearms. Bushy black hair covered
the lower half of his face, obscuring his features a bit; his dark rose lips were mashed together. He emitted power.

I immediately knew who they were asking about, and I was unexpectedly grateful for all his secrecy over the years.
“I…I…I don’t know. He…he doesn’t tell me.” I swallowed hard; shocked I hadn’t collapsed yet.

The others seemed to be of the same origin as the dominant one, yet they didn’t speak. They were the order followers
, the obedient soldiers.

Proving my point, their leader issued a single word order in an unfamiliar language, and the other three took off deeper into my home.

My knees shook, forcing me to grasp the arm of the sofa. In the distance, I heard furniture, cupboards, drawers and objects crashing about. I had no doubt the men were ransacking my apartment. Even if I knew where Rahmi was, I would never betray him. He was my best friend, my inconsistently constant partner, and I loved him.

The men returned to the living room, issuing a single word reply to their expectant boss.

His eyes blackened the longer he focused on me. I swore my heart stopped beating as he stalked towards me.

Instinctively,
shakily, I backed up until my rear hit the unforgiving wall. I pressed my body as close to it as possible, as if I could blend into it, as if it could somehow shield me. Ominously, thunder rumbled outside, warning of the storm rolling in.

I knew my eyes widened as a single large hand closed around my throat, constricting my airway to a pinhole size passage. It wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t breathe or the fact that he had a gun pressing into my side, it was the bone-crushing pressure he applied around my neck.

I wasn’t tiny or dainty by any means, yet he made me feel weak and helpless. I knew better than to fight him. That’s how people got shot. If you rebelled, then they became more aggressive, right?

I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think.
All I saw was a tall, heaving international male with a gun, an angry sneer and no mercy before me. He was capable of more; that registered. Somehow the nonsensical and the obvious computed in my overwhelmed, oxygen deprived brain.

“We will be watching.
” The menace in his tone sent chills chasing down my spine.

Panic slammed through me, knocking the last of my breath away. My head began to pound; the room began to spin. My flesh
prickled, as though my physical presence was fading. My vision blurred at the edges, obscuring his features.

The moment he released me, I fel
l to the floor, panting and wheezing. Pain sliced down my windpipe. Each inhalation hurt, like breathing, moving, with a body covered in bruises. Hazily, I recorded their footsteps retreating, but couldn’t bring myself to check.

Rahmi.
I needed to get a hold of Rahmi. I needed to know that he was alright, to warn him, to ensure they didn’t – wouldn’t – get to him.

Shoving my hefty curves up, I used the sofa to hoist myself upright. I felt around the surface are
a of the couch for my cell phone. My stomach tensed when I couldn’t locate it.

Blinking in rapid succession, adrenaline pumping through me, I looked around the room. I knew the moment I spotted it across the
space on the entertainment center that it had been compromised. Either they had bugged it or they had placed a tracker on it or in it. That’s what
Michael Westen
would assume anyways.

I glanced down at my clothes. It was my day off. I was in my
slum-bum clothes, as I had affectionately deemed them, which consisted of comfortable black sweats, hiked up on my calves, and a tight grey tank top. I still wore the same faux diamond stud earrings from yesterday and hadn’t bothered to remove my make-up either. I had taken the time to do a fishtail braid this morning, between
Burn Notice
re-runs, but I was nothing short of a mess. I didn’t have time to change, though; I didn’t have time to make myself presentable to the world. I had to move.

Thunder
rumbled loud overhead, vibrating the walls and sending me into motion. I grabbed my neon yellow running sneakers near the door, ready to go with a pair of no-show grey socks stuffed inside. I had them on in record time. I raced to my room, not the least bit shocked to discover it had been destroyed. Locating my purse, near the other side of the room on the floor, I grabbed it. Thinking ahead, with a tinge of paranoia, I realized that they could have put anything in my purse to track me, knowing a woman typically took her purse wherever she went.

Think, think, think, Aeren.

Rifling through the contents, I pulled what was necessary from my wallet: my driver’s license, my insurance cards, an emergency credit card I’d yet to activate, my car keys and all of my cash. I tossed all else aside and quickly opened my bottom nightstand drawer for my personal documents packet. Most people put all of their important documents in a file cabinet, in a safe or in some other inaccessible location that required they re-pack it in an emergency. Perhaps I had an overactive imagination, but I’d stashed mine inside of a black wristlet, able to be grabbed in a hurry, no matter the emergency.

And this was an emergency.

I shoved everything I needed inside the wristlet, zipped it, and pushed it up my arm. I didn’t know what was going on, the extent of trouble Rahmi was in, but I wasn’t about to abandon him. Come hell or high water, I was in this with him.

Chapter Two

Aeren

My front door was barely hanging on its hinges, and could no longer close since the frame had been splintered apart behind their heavy hit. Pulling it gently open, I peered outside, looking up and down the hall for any signs that said my visitors were still lurking. Believing the coast was clear, I sprinted down the way to Mrs. Horace’s apartment and banged on the door.

“Mrs. Horace! It’s me, Aeren. Please open up. It’s an emergency.” I incessantly slapped my knuckles against her door, praying she wasn’t napping. The woman was half deaf without her hearing aids, and had expressed before that she didn’t sleep with them in, afraid either she would damage them or they would damage her.

I was just about to give up when the door swung open.

“What in Pete’s sake is going on out here? I’m tryin
g to watch
The Price is Right
.”

I shoved past her as gently as possible, careful not to knock the short, pudgy grey haired woman over. “Close it, close it!”

She paused, looking around suspiciously.

Growing impatient, my nerves inching higher with each passing second, I pried her hand off the handle and slammed the door shut, locking every lock on the back of her door before stealing a dining chair and propping it up against it.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Horace. I can’t explain right now, but I need to use your phone, please.”

“Dear heavens, child. You’re shaking like a leaf about to fall from the tree at any second.” She studied me through her glasses, taking in every detail
, I was sure. She had a sharp eye when you least expected it. I’d suspected the woman feigned the elderly stereotype on occasion, but never had proof.

“I know. I just- Where’s your phone?” My stomach clenched and chest compressed. I didn’t know whether I was going to vomit or faint first.

Reaching into the pocket of her apron, the one she wore over every housedress she owned, she pulled out the cordless receiver and passed it to me. “Now don’t be dialing long distance. The phone company charges an arm and a leg for those minutes.”

I nibbled my bottom lip. “Whatever they charge, I’ll pay you double.”

She narrowed her gaze on me, considering me for a long moment. “Well, I suppose you’re good for it. If not, I do know where you live.” She grinned lightheartedly, clearly not grasping the severity of the situation. “Now try not to talk too loud. I just love that
Drew Carey
fellow.”

I expelled an equally horrified and befuddled
, “Huh.” The woman was clueless. Maybe it was best that way.

I waited until she made it back to her recliner before dialing Ram’s number. I prayed he answered.

I met Ram while on vacation in Miami one weekend. He claimed he was there for business, but that he always had time for pleasure. His dark features, sexy pout, mouth-watering physique and Turkish accent reeled me in without a line. To my amazement, and probably his too, despite spending nearly every waking hour together that weekend, we didn’t sleep together.

Ram’s kisses curled my toes and had my pussy weeping each time, yet there was this invisible barrier he wouldn’t cross. He claimed he
liked me too much, respected me too much, and valued me too much to lose me. He’d said, “Inevitably,
Ari
, I lose everyone I get close to, and they prefer it that way.”

He never told me who
they
were. Rahmi didn’t give answers; he gave riddles. He said it was for my own safety. That first weekend, I thought it was part of the game he played with women, but when the sex never came, I began to accept it as truth.

Over the past five years, Rahmi visited me every couple months, or he paid for me to fly to see him for a weekend. Our time together was never long, yet, I learned more and more about the secretive male each time, and fell deeper and deeper in love with him. He didn’t call as often as I liked, but, somehow, anytime I was going through something, he popped up, as though he had a six
th sense for when I needed him.

He was my inconsistent constant; I looked forward to every interaction with him. I craved th
ose moments. Waiting for the next phone call or visit was torture, but the moment I heard his voice, a sense of peace washed over me and I just knew everything would be alright. He always made everything right. He was my addiction, my passion.

I didn’t have goals or ambitions. I had Ram.

My heart sunk, my stomach dropped and my nausea rose, when the phone disconnected without an answer. I quickly redialed the number and, with baited breath, again prayed that he would pick up.
Come on, Ram.

Each second that passed without a connection further twisted my insides. I was a mess of knots, of nerves, stress and fret.

The moment I heard his voice, all of my anxiety left in a single exhale.

“Hello?” He sounded rushed; his voice was low, yet still assuring.