She stared at his lips, then seemed to catch herself and went rigid. “I was out,” she said, her voice a bare wisp. “Buying boxes to pack some of my mom’s belongings.”
“You were alone?”
She nodded.
He told himself he wouldn’t remember, not now, dammit. But he could still taste Paige inside his mouth. He could feel the weight of those little breasts in his hands, could hear her gasps as she suckled hungrily on his tongue and he sucked on hers.
Paige Avery had come home . . . and Zach was dying to come home to her.
She used to pass him with her eyes downcast in the school halls, and would not glance across the cafeteria, and when her friends talked to her she smiled and very rarely stole a glance at him. But when no one was looking, Zachary would touch her with his shoulders or his elbows or his hands or his fingers, and she would shyly touch back. And they would find a nook or a closet or a place to kiss and kiss and kiss each other’s heart out. Then the twenty-four hours before Zach had her lips on his again he spent replaying Paige’s gasps and how they tumbled down his throat and he would moan every night at the sheer agony of wanting her like he did.
“Detective . . . ?”
Zachary’s brows rose the moment he registered her softly spoken words.
“Your name. It’s . . .” She trailed off and signaled at his clothes. “You’re not wearing a tag. Your colleagues call you ‘Stalker’?”
He watched her carefully as he told her. “Rivers. Zachary Rivers.”
She cocked her head and regarded him. Her hands began to wring on her lap. “We’ve met before?”
“You could say that.” Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He had wondered, assumed, she would remember some about him. He’d imagined she would lie in her bed like he did in his, and . . . well, shit. Clearly, she didn’t. She did not remember Zachary Rivers. At all.
He numbed himself against the wrenching in his stomach and barely remembered to tape their interview. He felt like the biggest fool. Biggest fucking fool that ever lived.
She had not only forgotten the crime scene, as he’d read about, as was usual in the case of trauma-induced amnesia. She had forgotten everything. Everything Zach could not forget. Not their fights, not their kisses, their secrets, or the dozen times they’d been close to making love.
Clenching his jaw, he drew out his tape recorder and set it on his thigh. Get the job done and fucking stop with this bullshit— Detective.
“Taking it from the top again,” he said.
She smiled. It was a weak smile, and it made his gut twist with longing.
“How do we know each other? We were friends?”
She seemed baffled by this. Zach thought it best not to elaborate and simply nodded. But no. She had not been his friend. She had been Paige Avery and he had been in love with her.
Desperately in love.
With Paige.
Who had loved him back with every ounce of her heart and soul.
They’d been more than friends, more than lovers, more than a secret.
Aware of the other officers’ tomblike silence in the adjoining room, Zach pushed to his feet and abruptly cleared his throat. “Tell me more.”
“Detective.” By the way she dropped her voice to a whisper, they could’ve been alone somewhere. Necking. “I just got here,” she said. “To the city, I mean.” He could hear the rest of her unspoken thoughts. Why would anyone do this to me? Why aren’t you out there catching this bastard?
He stared into her eyes, still not believing he had them this close.
“I know, Paige. And I’m sorry about your mother. I heard.”
Her eyes shimmered, and her voice cracked around the edges. “I’m sorry, too.”