What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) (9 page)

“Zack, it’s Caden. We need to talk.”

I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “I already fucking told you assholes to leave me alone. When will you listen?”

“Just wait a minute and—“

“No, you wait a minute,” I said, and already my blood was boiling again. “I told you to stop bothering me. Stop calling me, stop trying to find me. And you better listen to me or else you’ll wish you’d never heard of me. Got it?”

There was a long pause. “We’re not going to stop until we find you.”

And then the line went dead.

“Fuck you!” I shouted, slamming my already battered fist into the steering wheel so hard that the entire truck shuddered a little, swaying on its shocks.

My shoulders were so tight that I was getting a tension headache. I shook my head, muttering to myself, then hit the gas and guided the car back onto the road, driving towards home.

Tonight wasn’t going to be easy.

Sleep wasn’t going to just happen, not after me blowing my stack like that. Not just once, but twice that night, I’d lost my shit and it had put me in a bad place.

At the next stoplight I pulled up the contact list on my phone and began to cycle through all the women I had on tap. There were literally dozens of possibilities, but as I went through one after the other, I kept getting the strangest feeling.

It was as if all of the fun and interest had gone out of my list, the list that I’d been cultivating ever since I got home from Afghanistan.

How many times had I gone to that well, and how many times had it worked its magic for me?

Some hot, ready little slut who’d come over at any time of the day or night to get what I had to give.

I’d never failed to come up with at least one name to get my juices flowing, if not a few. Hell, there were some nights in recent memory when two or three of them were happy to come over at once and be in on it together.

But suddenly I was bored, sick of it all.

And I knew why, in flash.

Because not a single one of them was her.

I didn’t want any of them. I wanted Caeli.

C
AELI

One of the worst parts about living in one place your whole life is that everyone knows you and you know everyone else. Even the cops.

That’s what I was thinking as two officers questioned me while they carted my cousins away in three ambulances that had responded after the fight.

We stood in the parking lot, caught between the headlights of the various vehicles that had pulled in and were idling now, the exhaust fumes heavy in the air.

One of the cops questioning me was Jamie Grubbs, a guy I’d gone to grade school with. When we were little, we’d been friends. He’d always been a bit strange, even then, and his name seemed to suit him.

Grubbs.

His hands had always been dirty, especially under his fingernails, and as he took notes on a small, battered notepad, I couldn’t help but notice that his fingernails were
still
dirty.

I started to smirk and he glanced up at me and frowned.

“Something funny, Caeli?” he asked, looking perplexed.

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head and showing him how serious I was taking this.

And it was serious. My cousins weren’t that badly hurt, but they were busted up and angry. Even as they were being loaded into the ambulances, I heard them shouting and swearing about what they were going to do when they caught that guy.

Zack Wild.

Nobody knew his name but me.

“So you say he was just sitting out here in the bed of his truck?” Jamie asked, while his partner, Rex McCallister looked on quietly, watching me through squinty eyes.

“Yeah, just sitting there,” I nodded.

“Why do you suppose he was doing that?” Jamie asked.

“How should I know?” I said.

“I mean, that seems a little strange,” Jamie replied. He scratched his cheek and sniffed, then wiped at his mustache, which was wispy, and strands of it hung over his upper lip.

“I guess it was strange. Maybe he knew them or something…”

“They said they’d never met him,” Jamie interrupted, watching me now with suspicion in his eyes. “All three of your cousins said they had no idea who he was.”

“But they did mention that this man went and talked to you after the fight,” Rex joined in. “What did he say to you?”

I licked my lips. “I don’t recall that.”

“He didn’t come over and talk to you, Caeli?” Jamie asked. He put his hands on his hips. “Could you give us a second?” he said to Rex.

Rex made a face. “Jamie, this is an official statement. You really shouldn’t—“

“Just give me a second,” Jamie said sharply. Even though he was shorter in stature than Rex, the other officer sighed and rolled his eyes, giving in.

“Okay, but don’t take long. We need to finish up here.”

“I know,” Jamie said, then gave me a look as if to say, ‘what an idiot’ as his partner walked off to give us a moment alone.

Truth was, I’d have preferred it if Rex had stuck around.

Jamie stepped closer to me, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “What the heck is going on with you, Powers?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping back. His breath smelled like stale coffee and old cigarettes.

“I mean, it looks like you’re hiding something. I don’t get it. Is this guy a boyfriend of yours or something?”

“No, Jamie. I told you I never even met him before tonight. I just waited on his table briefly.”

“And you never got a name or a license plate,” Jamie said, watching me closely now.

“No. And they paid in cash, so there’s no credit card receipt,” I mentioned, happy to realize there would be no way for them to trace him.

As weird as Jamie Grubbs was, he wasn’t stupid. Just creepy. And dirty.

Why don’t you just tell them his name? Why would you protect someone you don’t even know and put yourself at risk?

You’re lying to the police, Caeli.

The thing was, I couldn’t bring myself to rat out the man who’d stepped in to defend my honor.

You have no idea if that’s why he beat them up. A guy like that, he was probably just looking for a fight and he found an excuse to get into one.

But even if that was true, he had stood up and taken on my three cousins, all of them bullies, and done something I’d wished would happen to them for years.

I’d often prayed that someone would come along and shut their mouths for them.

I wasn’t going to get him punished for it.

So I kept my mouth shut and lied.

Jamie was exasperated, and after he and Rex reconvened and talked over what to do, they decided that there was nothing else to get from me.

Jamie handed me his business card, which I took, trying not to grimace.

“You call me if this guy shows up again or you remember anything else that could help us catch him,” Jamie said. “I feel like a guy who could do this kind of damage to three other grown ass men must be pretty fucking dangerous.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” I said.

“Damn fucking right. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him, not by a long shot, Caeli. And that worries me. It worries me a lot, especially when I think of him getting hold of you.” His eyes stared unblinkingly at me and I looked away.

“I’ll be fine, I promise, Jamie.”

“Well you call me if you need anything, you hear?” he said, then reached out and grasped my shoulder, squeezing once tightly.

I resisted the urge to pull away and shrug him off, because the last thing I wanted to do was offend a cop.

Even if he was skeevy as hell and making me uncomfortable.

Finally, he dropped his hand to his side and told me I was free to go.

I got in my car and started driving home.

As I drove, I kept replaying the events of the night, starting with seeing Zack Wild for the first time at the table with his friends.

Every time I remembered those green eyes of his looking into mine, I got the chills and my skin got goose bumps. I imagined that cocky grin, and the things he’d said to me.

At the time, I’d just thought he was some jerky frat guy, but now I had to wonder.

How many frat guys could fight like that, all by themselves, taking on three strange men in a darkened parking lot?

It wasn’t normal at all. Far from it. He was very, very dangerous, a guy like that.

So if he was so dangerous, why did I feel like I wanted to get home as quickly as possible and touch myself, lay on my bed with no covers, completely naked, and pretend he was with me…

I pulled up short outside the house where I lived, my breath caught in my chest.

“Holy shit.”

His truck was sitting there. Right there.

And Zack Wild was leaning against it, one hand in his jeans pocket, the other holding his cell, as if he’d been surfing the net or texting while he waited for me to arrive home.

I pulled up behind his truck and parked, my heart hammering hard against my ribcage.

You need to get the hell out of here, Caeli.

Jamie was right. This guy is dangerous as hell, and it’s dark out and he could do anything to you right now.

If he could do that much damage to your cousins—three big guys—imagine what he could do to you.

But somehow, I was taking the key out of the ignition and putting it in my purse, then opening my car door and getting out as if this was all perfectly normal.

I slammed the door shut and stood there, watching him from a few feet away. Neither of us spoke for a moment.

“What are you doing here?” I said, finally.

Zack gave a slight shrug of his powerful shoulders. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

My nipples immediately stiffened and I felt the wetness between my legs. “You should really go,” I said, avoiding him as I walked towards my front door.

“Caeli,” he said.

Something about the way he said my name caused me to stop dead in my tracks and wait. “What do you want?” I replied.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Why?” I said, still not looking at him.

But I could feel him walking closer now, and my body was responding despite myself. My mind was shouting at me to get far away but my body was begging me to get as close as humanly possible.

“Because,” he said, and his voice was so close now, and I shivered.

I finally turned and looked at him.

He was wearing his leather jacket, but it couldn’t cover his muscular form, and I was aware more than before that he was sexy as anyone I’d ever met. Not just handsome and cocky and dangerous, but smoldering hot.

I swallowed, trying to pretend this was all normal for me. “You know, I had to lie to the police because of you.”

His mouth quirked up at the corner when I told him that. “Oh, yeah?” he said, tilting his head to the side. “You lied for me?”

“Not for you, because of you.”

He folded his arms. “I never asked you to, Caeli.”

“Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like we know each other. Like you know me.”

He nodded, and pretended to become serious, but the smile was still there, hidden somewhat, although his eyes sparkled mischievously. “I do feel like I know you,” he said.

“Well you don’t. And you should go before…”

“Before what?” he asked, and now his eyes had grown darker, intense and hungry.

I stepped backwards. “Before you get in trouble.”

“I don’t get in trouble unless I want to,” he said, his voice deepening.

“I should go.” I turned and walked up the short walkway to the steps to my apartment. I lived in a duplex and my apartment had its own entrance. One of the few perks of renting a place from my parents that I could hardly afford.

I grabbed my keys from my purse and saw that my hand was shaking. I stuffed the key towards the lock but it skittered away from the keyhole and then slipped out of my hand, dropping to the ground.

“Shit,” I said, wiping a few stray strands of hair from my face.

“Let me get it,” he said.

“I think I can manage to pick up a key,” I said. “Don’t you ever listen when someone tells you to back off?”

He was standing in the walkway now, but he didn’t move. “I listen. And that’s the first time I believed you. Okay, then, Caeli Powers. Goodbye and I hope you have a nice life. It was very nice meeting you, however short it was.”

He turned around and I realized that it was hurting my stomach to watch him leave.

Why was I feeling like this?

What the hell was wrong with my head?

“Zack,” I said, my throat constricted. “Wait. Don’t go.”

He stopped walking but didn’t really come back. “Which is it?”

“What you did to my cousins…it was scary.”

“They attacked
me
,” he said. “And I didn’t know they were related to you.”

I thought about it and realized that what he said was true, actually. My cousins ran at him first and attacked him before he did what he did in response. That detail had faded after I’d seen him so easily dispatch of each one of them, beating them up like it was nothing.

But he’d basically been defending himself, hadn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I probably should’ve thanked you for sticking up for me in the first place.”

Zack started walking towards me, and I felt my pulse quickening. He looked so dark and dangerous, with his shaven head and the relaxed but athletic movement of his muscular body.

I’d never been around a man like him before. He was something different, the kind of guy you dreamed of but then you also sort of hoped you never met him in real life.

Because a man like that would turn your whole world upside down and you didn’t have a prayer of coming out of it all unscathed.

“Let me get that for you,” he said, climbing the steps, kneeling down next to me, his shoulder brushing my thigh as he did so. He picked up my keys and then rose, looking at me.

Now we were so close that I could see his eyes, even in the shadows.

“Why did you come to my house?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, “I felt like we never had a chance to really get to know each other.” And then he was turning towards the front door and inserting the key into the lock, turning it.