Page 17 of Forbidden Confessions, Volume 2 (The Forbidden Volumes #1)

Vanessa

D on’t be afraid? I’m terrified—until the stranger’s voice penetrates my haze of fear. “Rush?”

His grip on my arms gentles. His heat warms me. “Yeah. What’s going on?”

As far as he knows, we’re acquaintances by virtue of working under the same roof.

My horrible high school embarrassment aside—one he seems to have blessedly forgotten—we’ve rarely spoken more than a passing greeting.

Why is he at my house now? How did he find out where I live?

And why is he staring at me as if he knows what I look like naked?

Then I realize that, other than my transparent bra and tiny, soaked panties, I am.

Heat splashes across my cheeks, and I thank god for the dark. “W-what are you doing here?”

His big fingers slide down my body to clutch my hips. He tugs me closer, his skin burning mine. Immediately, I know three things: He’s one giant slab of muscle, his heart is beating quick and strong, and his cock is steely hard between us.

Suddenly, I can’t think.

“That will wait until you’ve told me what’s scared you. Talk to me.”

Normally, I’d be dying to know what could be compelling enough to make my work crush hunt me down at my place on a Friday night, but I have a more pressing issue. “Someone’s been in my house.”

Instantly, his demeanor changes. He tenses. Every sense goes on alert. “You’re sure? Did you see anyone?”

“No, but?—”

“Has something been tampered with?”

No one trashed the place or robbed me blind but… “Everything.”

As I whisper the rundown, Rush scans our surroundings, even more watchful. I have the distinct impression he also feels me trembling, that he knows my body is covered in goose bumps. I’m sure he can tell my nipples are painfully hard, too. “That’s all I noticed.”

“Were you changing when you realized what was happening?”

I shake my head. “I got caught in the rainstorm, and I came in for dry clothes but…”

“You realized your house had been breached and left. Have you given your alarm code to anyone? A friend or neighbor?”

“No.”

“Handyman?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Lover?”

I don’t have one of those, either. Is he asking because he suspects someone I’m seeing is unhinged? Or because he wants to know if I’m taken?

Stop being ridiculous. He’s head of hotel security; he’s doing what he’s trained to do .

“No.”

“Is your intruder still in the house?”

“I-I’m not sure.”

“Have you called the police?”

I shake my head. “I was coming out to my car to do that.”

Suddenly, he’s got a gun in his big hand. “Call now. I’ll search inside.”

The second he nudges me aside and steps over the threshold, standing alone on the porch in the dark while mostly naked doesn’t seem wise. “I’ll go with you.”

He hesitates. “Tell you what, I’ll search the perimeter first. You stay right behind me and call nine-one-one.”

I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll find, but I feel a lot safer with him than I do exposed in my front yard by myself, so I nod and fumble around on the porch until I find my messenger bag.

As I pluck my phone free, he tucks me behind his broad back and heads down the porch steps for the side yard, illuminating our surroundings with the flashlight on his phone.

I manage to control my trembling fingers long enough to dial for help.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

“There’s been a break-in at my house.”

“Address?”

I answer that question, along with subsequent others while following Rush around the back of the house. No, I can’t tell if the intruder is gone. No, I didn’t notice anything missing. No, I don’t know how he got into the house.

Rush checks the last window on his circle around my cottage, then dims his phone. “There’s no obvious entry point. No forced doors or broken windows.”

Then how would anyone have gotten in and disarmed my alarm? I’m struggling to figure that out when the dispatcher tells me the police are en route and should be there shortly.

I end the call…and I’m still wearing next to nothing. “They’re on their way. I need to get dressed.”

He curses under his breath. “Where are your clothes?”

Vaguely, I gesture to the porch. It’s so dark I can barely see where I dropped my stuff. But if I use my phone for light, Rush will see everything . Why did I pick today to wear my sexiest bra?

Whatever. Now isn’t the time to be shy. Tossing on enough clothes to talk to the police so we can get to the bottom of this break-in is way more urgent than my modesty.

With a sigh, I engage the flashlight on my phone and grab my clothes. I try not to dwell on Rush, but being so near him makes me achy and anxious. What can he see…and what does he think?

As soon as I have the garments in hand, I darken the device and tug on my skirt. As I reach for my T-shirt, I hazard a glance his way. He’s scanning my side yard, his gaze aimed just over my head…but there’s no way he can’t see the outline of my breasts and their hard tips in the moonlight.

I yank my shirt into place, then face him. “Anything out there?”

“Not that I see. But it’s awfully still.” Finally, he fixes his stare on me. “Listen, once the police start investigating, it’s possible they’ll move things around. Do you want to breeze through the rest of the house and tell me what else has been disturbed?”

If I don’t, I’ll never know what else my intruder touched.

At the thought of a stranger in my house uninvited, his hands on my personal things, I feel sick and violated—and angry. But I’m also scared. “What if the intruder is still inside?”

He holds his weapon tighter, maintaining great trigger discipline. “I’m here.”

Maybe that shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does—not just because he’s a man with a gun but because I’ve seen him in action on the job.

He knows what he’s doing. Plus, there’s this rumor going around that he spent a few years as a Marine before doing some dangerous work for the government at one of the three-letter agencies.

I’m not sure what made him leave, much less settle in St. Augustine and take a job at an upscale hotel.

Maybe he wanted something cushy and well paid…

but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to back away from a challenge.

“Then let’s look around.”

“We have to be quick,” he insists as he steps into the foyer. “Stay right behind me, fingers through my belt loops so you’re no more than a half step off my ass. We’ll start in the kitchen, circle back through the living room, then head down the hall and end in your bedroom.”

“Okay.” How does he know my floor plan?

I’ll worry about that later. For now, I nod and follow him inside, holding my breath. I don’t know what I’m expecting, maybe some deranged loon jumping out at us. But we hear silence, suddenly broken by scratching.

He tenses.

“That’s just Kitty Pie on her scratching post,” I whisper. “That’s normal.”

A moment later the lamp in my living room flares on. Rush stiffens. Kitty Pie scurries away in a blur of calico fluff, her tail bushed.

“My lights are on timers. There’s another in my bedroom, too.”

“At the end of the hall, to the right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I assumed since a light just popped on from there.”

Oh, right. I have to stop being paranoid.

He stares down the hall like he’s braced for trouble. “Show me what’s out of place.”

Now that light filters through the open space in front of us, I see even more things that aren’t as I left them.

“The shade in my kitchen window is drawn. I raise it every morning before I leave. My kettle should be on the back right burner, not the cooktop. I set it there as soon as I’m done making my morning tea.

” Then I see something really alarming. “There’s a missing knife in my butcher block. ”

Rush curses as he ushers me into the living room. “Anything besides the books been moved?”

“Those shutters have been closed, too.”

There are a few more things that have been messed with. Little things. Nothing destructive. Nothing threatening, but creepy all the same.

My bathroom is a similar story. The pink cami and boy shorts I wore to bed last night are missing from the hook behind the shower door. My towel has been moved, and I can almost picture someone touching it, sniffing it, thinking about me naked wrapped in it. I shudder.

“You okay?” Rush asks.

When I turn to him, his dark eyes hold me captive. They’re almost black. Intense. Somehow shiver-inducing and comforting at once. “As much as I can be. But my favorite scented lotion and a tube of red lipstick I sometimes wear are missing from my vanity.”

“Damn it. Duly noted. Let’s look in here.” He pulls me through the bathroom, into my bedroom. Shadows fill the corners where the light from my nightstand isn’t bright enough to reach, so I flip on the lights overhead.

I don’t see anyone hiding, and no one jumps out at me. But the drapes have been drawn, despite the fact I opened them this morning. They’re now flapping in the breeze.

“Th-the slider to the backyard is open.”

“Yep,” he growls. He’s already noticed—and he’s furious.

“It was closed five minutes ago.”

Rush gives me a grim nod. “Now we know when and where he exited your unit.”

Yes, and it’s obvious that if I hadn’t been so aware of my surroundings, I would have unwittingly put myself in the intruder’s clutches. God knows what would have happened then.

I grab Rush’s arm tighter as he slides my closet door open with his boot. At a glance, everything appears undisturbed. That’s a relief…until I look at my bed.

Rush wraps his arm around me. “He’s been under your covers.”

“Yes.” Clearly, someone else lay on my sheets, then inexpertly tried to make it again. The thought of a stranger in my bed, doing who knows what, makes me stumble with a wave of nausea.

Rush’s grip tightens, as if he’s lending me his strength.

It works. I feel safer, more protected. But I’m also aware that I’m small comparatively, that I can’t match someone like him in size and strength.

That if Rush wasn’t beside me now, I would have been completely alone to fend off this terrible intrusion.

I hate being afraid and vulnerable to a potential stalker or rapist. But with Rush beside me, I don’t feel helpless.

His presence makes me feel protected in a way I never have before, and that realization both comforts and unsettles me.

Swallowing back the sickening apprehension, I stare at my lingerie drawer like it’s a snake.

Relief fills me when I hear a car cruising down the street before pulling up in my driveway, cutting short my time to discover what else my intruder displaced.

I can’t bury my head in the sand forever, but at least I know that whoever invaded my home—my personal space—is no longer inside.

What about tonight, once everyone is gone?

“They’re here.” Rush settles his hand at the small of my back.

Despite all the upheaval and upset, I flash hot at his touch. “Yeah. I just need to look at one thing…”

I veer to my nightstand and inch open the drawer without touching the knob. My gun is still there, exactly where I left it. I breathe a sigh of relief.

At the slam of the car doors outside, Rush knees the drawer closed and leads me down the hall.

“Thanks for being here and helping,” I say.

“You don’t have to thank me. I’m glad I was here.”

I’m still not sure why he came, but there’s no time to ponder that. Instead, we meet the two officers in the driveway and exchange a few words. After a cursory search of the house that seemingly netted nothing unusual, they meander back out, ask a few questions, then shrug at one another.

Bottom line: since nothing was taken and there are no provable signs of a break-in that can’t be written off to my “forgetfulness,” there isn’t much they can do.

As soon as the police leave, Rush turns to me. “You okay?”

“I’m not thrilled, but I’ll be fine. Thanks for staying with me during all this. I didn’t mean to eat up your Friday evening.”

He waves me away. “Tell me what you want to do next, stay here tonight? Or come home with me?”