Secrets and Sins: Chayot: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite) (15 page)

He fell over her, covered her. Skin stuck to skin, sweat the adhesive gluing them together. Hard fingers tugged her head back, and he set his teeth to her, branding her as he slammed into her, rode her. Caught up in a vortex of ecstasy, she spiraled helplessly toward orgasm, aided by his dick hitting the same magical spot over and over again.

With a scream, she tumbled ass-over-head into rapture. Plunged into ecstasy with her arms flung wide.

Knowing Chay would catch her.

…

Damn.

What inconsiderate bastard blasted music at the ass crack of dawn?

Aslyn peeled an eyelid open. But instead of the orange, yellow, and pink rays of a new day, moonlight streamed through the bedroom window. Still night. And this wasn’t the rental home, but the condominium. The safe house.

And the heavy, solid weight behind her was Chay. Warmth uncoiled in her stomach and radiated to all points south and north.
I could get used to this
—

Whoa there, girl. Rein it in.

The Stockholm syndrome reared its twisted, confused head again. Only, was it confused? Or in denial…

“Damn it, Rafe.” Chay rolled over and out of the bed. She lay on her back and completed her stretch, studying him with unabashed admiration while he snatched his jeans off the floor. He yanked his cell phone free and pressed it to his ear, cutting off the tinny ringtone.

“Yeah,” he said, his tone abrupt. After several seconds, his frown cleared, the stoic reserve returning. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Give me thirty, and we’ll meet you there.”

She sat, a hollow pit replacing the sultry heat of moments ago. He lowered the phone, stared at her.

“What?” she rasped.

“The surveillance we continued on your house,” he said, tone flat. “They spotted a trespasser early this morning. Aslyn, we might have caught your stalker.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

He hated police stations.

And though this time Chay wasn’t confessing to a two-decade-old murder, the interrogation room in the Canton police station still irritated the hell out of him. They all looked the same. Institutional colors, two-way mirror, a small table that made him feel like the Jolly Green Giant, and the most uncomfortable chairs ever created by man. Why couldn’t one of these rooms be decked out in red paint, a long conference table with plenty of leg room, and cushy seats?

He sighed. Shit, he was deflecting and concentrating on anything that would derail his mind from the memory of the last time he’d occupied an interrogation room. Then he’d been exposing a terrible secret that could have jeopardized his future as well as his friends’. That last occasion had also marked the divide between a private, anonymous existence and a life open for public consumption and sordid speculation. Hell, a producer from a cable network had even contacted him about a Movie of the Week film.

In the last couple of months, his reality had started veering toward, if not normal, something that resembled quiet and solitude.

At least it had until last week.

He cast a glance at the quiet woman sitting to him. Well, “quiet” might be a misnomer. Aslyn wasn’t verbally speaking, but the incessant jump of her leg, the drum of her fingers on her thigh as if she played an imaginary piano screamed “I’m nervous as hell.” He’d noticed that quirk about her. She seemed in perpetual motion. Even when sitting, something—her fingers, her feet, her legs—moved. He remembered that frenetic energy during her performance. Aslyn didn’t remain sitting on a bench. She
owned
the stage in her leather pants, fuck-me boots, and flowing shirts. She stood, strutted, danced, conducted. A person—including Chay—couldn’t take their attention off her for that hour.

And that was the problem.

In a short week, she’d impacted his life like a blazing meteor rocketing through Earth’s atmosphere and slamming into the ground. The landscape of his life had been forever altered by her appearance in it. She’d shown him deep down he wasn’t satisfied with a lonely existence tempered by the occasional nights out with friends. He may not want more, but he
needed
more than a superficial connection with a woman. He longed for a woman he could trust, could be naked to the soul with, could…love. A woman who knew all his dark secrets and accepted him anyway.

Today, he was not only willing, but he’d exposed a secret to her he’d hidden from three of the closest people in his life. Though he’d never confided in Gabe, Mal, or Rafe about the full extent of Richard’s abuse, Chay always suspected they’d guessed the truth. He’d never confessed to anyone but Aslyn about the failed suicide. His shame had been too great. Yet he’d trusted her.

She’d wrought change in him and his life. And the messed up part was the desires she’d stimulated and created could only be satisfied by her. So where did that leave him? Wanting a woman who would return to the other side of the country.

Wanting a woman who lived her life in the spotlight.

Everything she did invited public adulation or scrutiny. After being on the receiving end of the ravenous and predatory press once, he couldn’t do it again.

And besides, his name wouldn’t be alone on the entertainment and tabloid sites and papers. Gabe, Mal, Rafe—they would become fodder again, too. The stench of the murder case was finally clearing from them. He refused to drag them right back into it.

“Stop staring at me,” Aslyn said without turning her head and verifying he had been intently studying her. Red and gold hair tumbled over her shoulder like fire. He barely resisted the urge to loop one of those curls around his finger and tug. Her lashes would flutter, and her breath would shudder from between her parted lips. He could predict her reaction as easily as he could foretell his next heartbeat.

“How do you know I’m staring?”

“I can feel you,” she murmured. She tilted her head to the side, meeting his gaze this time.

The answer and the desire in her eyes sent heat spiraling through him. He clenched his fists.
I can’t lay her out on the table in the interrogation room and fuck her senseless…right?

The door to the room opened, and a detective entered, aborting any thought of having her legs hooked over his shoulders and his cock buried deep inside her.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” The detective, a bulky man with salt-and-pepper hair, offered his hand to Aslyn first, then Chay. “My name is Detective Adams.” He lowered to the chair across from them. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. Jericho. I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

“It’s not a problem, Detective.” Aslyn smiled, and Chay silently snorted at the slightly dazed expression on the apparent career officer’s face. It probably wasn’t a usual occurrence meeting an internationally known concert pianist—and a beautiful one to boot. “Especially if coming down here means this nightmare might finally be over.”

Adams cleared his throat. “Yes, well, we’re still questioning the suspect, but…” He leaned forward, his clasped hands on the tabletop. “Ms. Jericho, I read the reports that have been filed regarding the trespass, harassment, and assault. I have to be frank. The UNSUB who is behind those crimes sounds unstable, erratic, and intelligent. The guy we picked up outside your house is an eighteen-year-old kid who lives a couple of streets over from you. Socially awkward, yes. Dumb? Probably. Horny?” He coughed, his lined skin flushing red. “Pardon me.”

She waved off his apology. “No worries. It’s not the first time I’ve heard ‘horny’ or used worse myself.”

The detective nodded. “Anyway, yes, he’s probably…that as well. But a criminal capable of masterminding an attempted kidnapping? I doubt it. Anything’s possible, but,” he shrugged, “in my opinion, doubtful.”

“How did he know where she lived? That she was even there? Aslyn tried to keep that information private,” Chay said, speaking up for the first time.

“His best friend lives in the house behind Ms. Jericho’s. Apparently, his friend noticed her sitting on her porch several nights out of the week and told the suspect. So the kid decided to get a closer look.” He shook his head and muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “Stupid-ass teenagers.”

The explanation made sense. But
damn
. For Aslyn’s sake he’d hoped Rafe’s phone call had signaled the end of the terror. Though he didn’t know the detective, Adams wasn’t inexperienced or a rookie. With his graying hair and world-weary eyes, the seasoned detective had likely witnessed a lot in his career. And he agreed with Adams that her stalker seemed more sophisticated then a neighborhood teen. The detective had also spent three hours interrogating the suspect. And if Adams surmised the boy was guilty of trespassing and being a horny dumbass but probably not waging a campaign of terror against Aslyn, then Chay was inclined to agree with him.

Didn’t mean he wouldn’t ask Rafe to perform a
thorough
background check on the idiot, the idiot’s friend, and the idiot’s family.

“We’re still holding him,” Detective Adams continued. “And he will be charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing, and we will definitely verify his statement. But at this time I’m afraid we don’t have enough evidence to hold him regarding the harassment, assault, and kidnap attempt.”

Her shoulders slumped forward the tiniest bit. Disappointment sat in his gut like a lump of cold lead. Reaching over, he gripped her hand and entwined his fingers between hers. She glanced at him, inhaled, and straightened. Resolve looked damn fine on her. He hadn’t thought it possible, but she earned even more of his admiration.

“Thank you, Detective,” she said, standing and holding out her hand.

Adams shook it, regret in the downward slant of his eyebrows and small shake of his head.

“That’s what we’re here for, Ms. Jericho. And I understand it may not seem like much considering the circumstances, but we will continue to have patrol cars drive by your home.”

She nodded, smiled. “It is a comfort, and I appreciate your efforts.”

“Let me show you the way out.”

The detective guided them from the room and to the lobby where Chay and Rafe had waited for her days earlier. Once they stood outside of the station, they headed toward his SUV. He unlocked the vehicle and opened the passenger door. She stepped forward then stopped, staring into the interior.

“I thought,” she began but broke off. Dragging her hand through her hair, she loosed a short crack of laughter. “I stupidly thought this would all be over quickly. When I entered the police station, I allowed myself to believe I would leave free. But now I feel worse because for a moment there I had hope. Stupid, stupid hope.”

Chay shifted closer until his chest touched her back. And though he was always in a state of semi-erection around her—pressed against her ass, it wasn’t with arousal that he kissed the top of her head or cradled her in his arms. He got disappointment and the frustration in witnessing your expectations crumble around your feet. Since he couldn’t shield her from the hurt, he offered her his body as a resting place…or a hiding place.

“We’ll get him, Aslyn,” he promised.

They would, damn it.

She deserved to have her life back. To live, not just exist. She reminded him of the bright exotic birds he’d seen at Franklin Park Zoo on a school field trip. It’d always seemed a shame they were caged. Gorgeous, vibrant, and a little wild, the parrots and raptors should’ve been free to soar and hunt, not trapped for others’ pleasure, no matter how pretty and comfortable the prison.

She nodded, tipped her head back.

“I believe you,” she whispered and climbed into the car. As he closed the door and rounded the front of the SUV, he vowed not to break that trust.

Moments later, he started the engine and glanced over. Like he couldn’t keep his eyes off her for any length of time. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t. He enjoyed looking at her. Studying the ever-changing nuances of her facial expressions. The molten silver of her eyes when he was buried inside her, or the stormy gray when she was angry or saddened. The dark brown fringe of her lashes and the honeyed glint of skin. Every time he looked at her, he saw something new, something fascinating.

“You’re staring again,” she murmured, removing her cell phone from her pants pocket.

“Yes,” he simply said.

One side of her mouth quirked, and he wanted to lick it. Just taste the smile on her mouth. He unbuckled his seat belt, ready to give into the need when she stiffened. The phone tumbled from her fingers to her lap. Her head lifted, and her eyes, wide and dark with shock, gazed back at him. She paled, the peach gloss on her lush, trembling mouth the only spot of color on her face.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” When she didn’t reply, but continued to regard him with that horrible blank stare, he reached for her phone. She didn’t try to stop him. Didn’t move. Just. Stared.

He glanced down at the cell.

“
Shit
.”

His heart plummeted to his gut. A surge of bile scalded his chest and throat. He gripped the phone so tight the plastic casing crackled in protest.

Jesus Christ
.

The photo filled the phone’s screen like a gory wallpaper.

A man’s body. Sprawled in death. Blood splattered the chest. And his face…

His face was gone. Obliterated into a mess of blood and tissue.

And above the picture, two words that shot the fear of God into his heart.

You’re Next
.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“It can’t be Liam,” Aslyn mumbled, arms wrapped around her torso. “It’s not. It can’t be.”

She babbled; a small voice in the back of her head ordered her to
shut up
. But she couldn’t. Because every time she stopped, she glanced toward the front of her rental house. And every time she glanced toward the front of the rental house, she glimpsed yellow and black caution tape stretched across the front porch. And every time she glimpsed the yellow and black caution tape stretched across the front porch, she remembered why. Remembered why police officers in white booties and gloves entered her home. Remembered why a crime scene unit van was parked on her curb.

She remembered.

And she didn’t want to.

“Aslyn.” Chay cupped the nape of her neck, and the warmth from his hand seeped into her skin.
No
. She stepped forward. No warmth. No comfort. She needed to remain numb. Cold. Because if she started to
feel
she would crack. Right here on the street in front of God and country.

“It’s not him, Chay. It’s not.”

He didn’t say anything, just replaced his hand on her neck and drew her into the shield of his large body. God, she wanted to curl into him. Beg him to cover her, shelter her from the grief that nipped at the heels of denial.

“It can’t be,” she rasped.

But again he said nothing, and the silence was telling in itself. Because he’d seen the same photo as she. Had noted not just the terrible, profane image of death, but the piano. The black grand piano the body had been slumped over.

Her house.

And only one person other than herself had access to the house…

No
.

Her mind shouted the objection. “No,” she whispered.

A detective emerged from the house and paused to speak with the uniformed officer next to the door who logged each person as they entered and exited. Whipping off his paper booties and gloves, he deposited them in a clear bag before heading down the steps and across the front lawn. Toward her.

She met him on the sidewalk.

“Ms. Jericho?” he asked, ducking under the caution tape. “I’m Detective Ronald Wilson. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Yes, of course.” Anything so he could assure her the body in the picture hadn’t been her best friend.

“You told the responding officer you received a text with a picture of the body?” He flipped to a page in the small notebook he carried.

“Yes,” she repeated. And relayed the stalking incidents from the past week. The detective jotted down notes as she spoke, occasionally interrupting with a clarifying question. “I filed reports each time, and the police are investigating the attempted kidnapping.”

“Did the text come from the same number that you’d been receiving harassing phone calls from?”

She shook her head, the horrifying image flashing unbidden in front of her mind’s eye. Nausea roiled in her belly, and her throat squeezed tight in response.

“He must’ve switched phones, because I didn’t recognize the number, Detective.” She paused to clear her throat of the hoarseness. “Detective, my manager, Liam Ahearn, owns this home. He allowed me to stay here for some months. He arrived in Boston from California yesterday morning, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with him today. I—” Her voice cracked, and her legs trembled. The only thing holding her up was the strong hand on her nape. “I need to know if he’s okay. If the man in the picture—in the house—is him.”

The officer’s gaze sharpened. “Does Mr. Ahearn have a key to the house?”

“Yes.”

“And the alarm system?”

“Yes,” she said. “Since it’s his house, when the system was installed, I gave him the code.”

He scribbled another note down then scratched his jaw, frowning. “Ms. Jericho, I’m going to be blunt. The injury to the face makes a facial identification impossible. And until the ME has the body and examines it, we won’t be able to run fingerprints.”

She flinched, the words “injury,” “facial identification,” and “ME” like mini explosions detonating against her one by one. “I understand.”

“Does Mr. Ahearn have any identifying features? A tattoo? A scar?”

She was already shaking her head before he finished the questions. “Liam didn’t—
doesn’t
—have any tattoos. He hated them. As for scars, I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead.
Think. Think
. The answer popped into her mind like a light bulb over her head. “His ring. It’s a family heirloom. As long as I’ve known him, he’s worn it on his right ring finger.”

“Give me a minute.”

Wilson strode back up the walk, donned new protective gear, then disappeared inside the house again. Minutes later, he reappeared inside the doorway, not stepping back out on the porch.

“Ms. Jericho,” he called. “Would you mind coming here?”

She stiffened. Go inside that house? Witness the horror from the picture in terrifying reality?
Hell no
, her brain screamed. But even as the cry bounced off her skull, she stepped forward. Dread had replaced blood in her veins, but she had to know. She had to eliminate the possibility that Liam was…was…

A firm hand grasped her elbow and guided her under the tape. In seconds, Chay stood beside her on the other side of the barrier. She gaped at him.

“I don’t think you can—”

“You’re not going in there alone,” he stated, his tone hard as steel.

Relief poured through her and almost buckled her knees. Tears pricked her eyes, so she closed them, fighting back the stinging moisture. An emotion she shied away from labeling pressed against her sternum.
Alone
. She’d been in that big, cold, empty place before. Not with Chay, though.

God, I need him
.

Under normal circumstances she would’ve balked at admitting such a weakening statement unless his hands were on her, pleasuring her. But these weren’t normal circumstances. She walked toward the door that loomed like the opening to hell and allowed the moment of fragility. Of exposure. Later, she’d deal with the repercussions.

“Sir.” When they topped the porch, the uniformed officer with the log held up a hand, halting them. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to return to the other side of the tape.”

Before Chay could reply, she jerked her attention to Detective Wilson.

“I’m not going in there without him.” She couldn’t. Fuck it. She
wouldn’t
. Let them think she was pulling a diva moment; she didn’t care. No way could she face what awaited her in the living room where she’d drunk coffee, curled up on the couch, and read without the silent, stalwart support that was Chay.

Maybe the detective noted her stubborn resolve…or desperation. Either way, after a long moment, he shifted his regard to the other cop.

“It’s okay. Let them both in.”

After supplying their information to the officer and slipping on the protective footwear and gloves, they entered the house. In spite of the law enforcement presence, the house seemed eerily quiet. Like a great pall had descended over the room, enshrouding it in death and violence.

The smell hit her first. Metallic. Wet. Filthy, like rancid meat and waste. She reeled, rocked back on her heels.

“Easy, baby.” Chay cupped her hips, his hard chest a solid wall behind her. “Breathe,” he softly instructed into her ear. “Through your mouth.” His calm voice steadied her as nothing else could’ve—that and the unyielding strength he offered her.

Until then she hadn’t let herself peek at the living room floor. But she did now.

“Oh God,” she whispered, the plea fervent with a tinge of panic. “Oh. God.”

A large figure lay on the floor in front of the piano, a white sheet draped over it. Crimson dotted the material at the head and torso. Though she could no longer view the damage, she could clearly still
see
it in her mind. Understood why blood smeared the sheet. In perfect, Technicolor detail.

The body was large, tall. Liam stood at six feet, two inches, but his frame hadn’t been that wide, had it?
No
. She shook her head, although the detective hadn’t yet posed the question.
Not Liam
. Relief shot through her nerves like the first intoxicating hit of a drug.

“Detective—”

Wilson knelt beside the body and flipped the sheet back, revealing a hand and upper arm.

And a thick, heavy ring with a garnet set in the middle of the square. Ivy-like vines surrounded the setting.

She knew that ring. Had seen it often over the last ten years since Liam never removed it.

Not even in death.

In the distance, someone called her name. Shouted it. And she tried to answer, tried to tell them she’d heard them. She was okay.

But her throat wouldn’t work. Her vision dimmed, blackened.

And then nothing.

“Here. Drink this.”

Aslyn glanced up from her blind contemplation of the afternoon sun shining over the waters of Boston Harbor and accepted the cup Chay pressed into her hand. He settled on the living room floor beside her, and drawing up his legs, looped his arms around his knees. His shoulder brushed her arm, and the slight contact shivered over her, through her, trickling tendrils of warmth that tried to infiltrate the cold, the numbness. She closed her eyes, concentrating on that cold, willing it to spread, to thicken. Because grief—gnashing, clawing, ravenous grief—waited for her beneath the ice. She wasn’t ready to face it or the rage, the paralyzing loss. She shifted, breaking the contact.

So hard to believe her world had morphed so much after that early phone call from Rafe. Her best friend was dead. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon, but the day felt like it should be almost over. She resembled an emotional icicle, frozen from the inside out.

Lifting her lashes, she sipped from the hot mug. Tea eased over her tongue, down her throat—

She coughed, her throat spasming, trying to somehow extinguish the fire razing a path over her esophagus and muscles.

“What the hell?” she wheezed. “Are you trying to kill me?”

The sensual curve of his mouth didn’t even twitch, but his hazel eyes lit with amusement. “It’s tea.” He shrugged. “With a shot of bourbon.”

“A shot?” she rasped. “More like the whole damn bottle. Jesus Christ, I’m about to start spitting fire like a fucking dragon.”

He snickered and tapped the side of the mug. “It gets better. Have another sip.”

“This is such a cliché,” she snapped, setting the cup down on the floor. The blaze in her throat had downgraded from a three-alarm to containable. “Why do people give each other hundred-proof alcohol in times of trouble? As if laying them out on their asses cures the problem.”

“Probably because breathing takes priority and gives you a temporary reprieve from everything else.”

“Nothing can do that,” she murmured, but picked up the tea and bourbon cocktail again.

This time when she drank, the alcohol didn’t flay the lining from her throat as much. By the fourth sip, the muscles were most likely anesthetized, because she didn’t feel a thing. Except heat. The bourbon worked its way through her blood, forging a path of alcohol-laced heat. Hot enough to warm her but not enough to penetrate the frigid barrier around her emotions.

Silence weighed between them, the only sound the click and whir of the central air kicking in.

“If I had called him earlier in the day Thursday,” she whispered, “or even right after the assault, he would’ve stayed in Los Angeles. He wouldn’t have been here in Boston within easy access to a lunatic.”

“You don’t know that,” he objected gently. Firmly. “This guy who’s after you is obsessed, unpredictable, and homicidal. Once he didn’t have access to you anymore, he became even more unhinged. As evidenced by those voice messages on your phone. As unbalanced as this bastard is, he could’ve flown out to L.A. to harm Liam, because he knew it would devastate you,” he added.

“People seem to die around me.” Fissures zigzagged across the wall encasing her heart. The first wisps of pain seeped through. Hurrying, she tried to slap up mental mortar over the cracks, but as fast as she repaired them, more appeared. “My parents. Jenna. Liam. The common denominator between them all is me. My mother and father were on their way to my concert when they died. Jenna’s only crime was being my assistant, my friend. And Liam…” A sob welled in her throat, choked off her words. “Liam loved me. Was concerned about me. And it killed him.”

“No, baby,” Chay said. “A sick son of a bitch killed Liam, not you or his love for you. But you’re right—you are the common denominator. Your parents, your assistant, Liam. Each of them loved you, supported you. And even if they knew the day would come where they would lose you, their decision to stay by your side, to love you, would’ve been the same.”

He turned, grasped her shoulders, and hauled her into his arms. She tried to squirm off his lap, but he held fast, his embrace tender but implacable. The tiny fissures expanded to fractures and gaps. His touch, his heat, his scent—they compromised the integrity of her shield. They fucking made her
feel
.

“Chay,” she breathed…pleaded. In his arms, she couldn’t remain numb.

“I’m not letting you go.” He rubbed his chin over the top of her head, grazed a kiss across her temple. “Remember when you said you wanted to know me?” he asked. “
The Longest Yard
is my favorite movie. You and Jonathan Butler are my favorite musicians. I love
The Hobbit
and
The Silmarillion
by Tolkien. And
The Chronicles of Narnia
. The first time I heard your name it reminded me of Aslan the Lion even though the pronunciation is slightly different. You embody him—his honor and strength,” he whispered, brushing his lips over the healing cut along her jaw. “In
The Magician’s Nephew,
Aslan created Narnia out of nothing. And you’ve done the same for me. Created desires and dreams out of nothing, a wasteland. You’re my savior,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her. “So let me do the same for you. It’s my turn to hold you through the dark and fight back the demons.”