He’d worked the streets for two years, training like he didn’t have anything to live for— which, maybe, at the time he’d believed to be true. He’d gotten punched in the gut and in the face, blasted with pepper spray until he was sure he’d be blinded for the rest of his life. Then he’d moved up . . . and up . . .
And now he wouldn’t drive off, goddammit. He shut off the engine only a second after he’d powered it up, got out of the car, and slammed the door shut as his cell began vibrating at his hip.
He slapped it to his ear. “Rivers.”
The silence, the breathing behind it, had his body tightening in instant response.
“Um. Detective Rivers?”
The pink hue of sunset was creeping across the skies as he glanced up at her window, noting the sheer drapes were drawn. “Zach,” he said quietly.
“Ah, Zach . . .”
She seemed to be searching for words. Zach gradually followed the walkway up to her house. “Open your door, Paige. I’m here.”
“Oh.”
She hung up.
When the door opened, Paige stood wide-eyed and breathless, staring at him with the look of a woman who’d sold her soul to the devil and somehow feared he’d come to collect.
Zach braced a hand on the door frame, his heart ramming against his rib cage. He hadn’t felt like this in seven. Years.
He ached to grab fistfuls of her hair and draw her up against his body, to take her lips with his, to slide his tongue into her sweet, warm mouth and remind her what she had felt for him, to do with her everything they’d done before and everything they hadn’t.
Instead he said softly, so softly, “Did you want to talk to me?”
“No.” One nervous hand briskly tucked a strand of wayward strawberry hair behind her ear. “I mean . . . no, I don’t have anyone to stay with tonight.”
It took Zach one full heartbeat to absorb this.
She could’ve called Cody. Who was older, friendlier even. But she’d called him.
Reeling with this, Zach jerked his chin toward the house. “Go get your things.”
CHAPTER 2
THEY’D BEEN DRIVING for a couple of minutes. Minutes Paige had spent stealing covert glances at the detective. Minutes she’d been inhaling the intensely masculine aroma of his intoxicating person and his leathery car. Minutes that felt like hours she spent suffering in baffled silence.
He’d been on the phone— first with someone at the lab, then with his lieutenant, who got a very thorough brief on the “situation.” The silence, when he hung up and simultaneously powered off the police radio, had her scrambling to speak.
“I’m sorry,” she began uncomfortably, facing the window as they passed a gas station. “I didn’t know who else to call and suddenly I felt . . .”
“That’s all right.”
Biting her lower lip, she chanced a look at him and fairly dissolved to putty in her seat. His shoulders were broad, his biceps bulging as he maneuvered the wheel, stretching his T-shirt to capacity. Awareness of him as an excruciatingly handsome man brought forth an awareness of herself— being a woman. Not dead. Not in a coma. Very much in her five senses.
All of which he stirred.
“I realize I grew up here,” she admitted. “I should have a friend to call.”
He shot her a sidelong glance, giving her a full view of that fantastically somber face for a heart-stopping second. “Again. It’s all right, Paige.”
His husky timbre had her suppressing a shiver. Who was he?
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried distracting herself with the buildings outside. None seemed familiar— not the modern glass structures, not the weathered brick office buildings— and her failure to recognize them increased her discomfort. Having a big black hole in your brain was incredibly frustrating.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.