Mine to Hold

No, Claire was pretty sure she might shatter into a million pieces at any moment. “Someone tried to kill us.”

Noah slid from the bed.

Skye came closer. She started to touch Claire, then hesitated.

She knows I don’t like to be touched. Skye understood Claire far better than any other woman had. Maybe it was because Skye had been through her own nightmare. Stalked, kidnapped, starved…Skye had managed to survive, but the horrific nightmare had marked her.

We’re both marked. On the skin, and deep within.

Skye’s hand hesitantly curved over Claire’s shoulder. “You’re safe now. Trace has two men guarding your hospital room door, and he’s going to keep a guard on you until we can figure out what’s happening.”

Claire glanced toward the doorway. Noah was leading Trace back out of the room. “Noah?” Claire called.

He glanced back at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right outside.”

There was something…different…in his eyes. A wildness. A fury.

It scared her.

The door shut softly behind him.

***

“She nearly died,” Noah snarled as soon as he was out of that hospital room.

The two guards near her door glanced at him with wide eyes.

He glared at them.

Trace caught his shoulder and steered him toward the corner. “She didn’t die. You got her out of there.”

Noah yanked a hand through his hair. He couldn’t cool the rage that burned him from the inside out. “Only because you called. If that phone had rung two minutes later, hell, even one minute later, we’d both be dead.”

Trace crossed his arms over his chest. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you answered your old friend’s call.”

Noah surged toward him. “I won’t lose her.”

Trace’s eyebrows flew up. “Shit, who are you?”

“What?” Noah’s hands fisted. He wasn’t in the mood for any bull. Not even from Trace. “Man, don’t push me, I don’t—”

“You’re losing your control right in front of me. This doesn’t happen to the Noah York I know.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, it’s happening. Claire was in my arms, and she wasn’t moving.” He swung away from the guy. He wanted to drive his fist into the nearest wall. He did. When a nurse shrieked, he snarled, “I’ll buy a new wing!”

Because he might be destroying this one.

Trace’s hand settled on his shoulder once more. “Talk to me.”

Noah whirled back toward him. “When that bastard had Skye, when you thought you’d lose her…how did you stay sane?”

Trace exhaled on a rough sigh. “Is it that bad?”

It was worse. Noah felt like he was ripping apart. “She was bleeding. I couldn’t get her to open her eyes.” That image would never get out of his head. “Fire was lighting the sky, glass was raining down, and Claire was too still.”

Trace took a step back.

“I won’t let her go,” Noah said. He couldn’t. “No one is going to hurt her again. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll find the SOB. I’ll—”

“Watch what you say,” Trace interjected, voice flat. A wave of his hand indicated the folks lurking close by.

Hell, half of the hospital seemed to be staring at them.

“And you aren’t doing anything alone.” Trace gave a grim nod. “Because you know I’ve got your back.”

***

“I haven’t seen you since the funeral,” Skye said carefully. She gave Claire a faint smile. “And I was sure hoping when we met again, it would be under better circumstances.”

Claire realized this hardly counted as “better” than anything. “I’m scared,” she admitted. Confessing that truth to Skye wasn’t hard. She’d only met Skye a few times, but Claire had never felt as if Skye judged her.

She knows what it’s like to be helpless.

“What can I do?” Skye asked her.

“Help me to get away.”

Skye’s eyes flared. “You don’t mean—”

“Noah could’ve died because of me. They’re all dying because of me. The senator, Ethan, Sloan Hall—they were all tied to me.” The senator who harassed her, the lover who nearly killed her, and the PI who stalked her. Their one common denominator—it’s me. “Noah was the one who was supposed to go into that old hotel. He was the one being set up to die.”

“And how will you leaving help him?” Skye shook her head. “It won’t. It will just drive the guy crazy!”

“Or maybe it will take a target off his back.”

Skye’s breath caught. “And do what? Put that target straight on you?”

Maybe. Claire was sitting up on the bed now. She really wanted to make a run for it. “If I leave, if I change cities, then, yes, perhaps this guy will come after me and leave Noah alone.”

A furrow appeared between Skye’s brows. “Just how hard did you hit your head, Claire? Because I’ve got to say, that sounds like a real piss-poor idea to me.”

Claire blinked at her in surprise.

“Noah isn’t just going to let you walk away. I saw the way he looked at you.”

“It’s sex.” The words sounded hollow. “Noah trades up his lovers all the time.”

“Really? And how long have you been his lover?”

Just a few short days. Not long enough for him to really care, and certainly not long enough for him to put his life on the line for her.

“Claire, I can’t help you run. That would just be putting you in danger.”

Then she’d have to do it on her own. “You felt this way, didn’t you?” Claire asked her.

Skye stared at her with a troubled gaze.

“You knew someone was out there, and you just wanted to get away.”

Skye’s mouth tightened. “Trace has the best security firm in the U.S. He’s got agents working on this case now. He’s going to find the person doing this. I know he will.”

But how long would it take? And would the man hunting out there, killing out there, have a chance to strike again?

I lose everyone…I can’t lose Noah, too.

Chapter Nine

“You’re not supposed to sleep,” Noah told Claire as he leveled a firm stare her way. “Not for a few more hours.”

So the doctors had said. They’d agreed to release her, as long as Noah made sure that Claire wasn’t alone.

He didn’t plan to leave her side any time soon.

They were back in his suite. Claire was wearing a pair of yoga pants and a loose top. There was a small bandage on the side of her head. The doctors had stitched her up, but the wound was right on her hair-line, so no one would even be able to see it once she was healed.

Heal fast, baby.

“Since I don’t feel sleepy, that shouldn’t really be a problem,” Claire murmured. She was gazing toward the large windows that looked out over the skyline.

Claire hadn’t looked Noah in the eye, not since he’d left her hospital room in order to talk with Trace.

When he’d gone back, Claire had been too quiet. Withdrawn.

Afraid?

“You’re safe,” he said, and his fingers trailed over her arm.

Claire flinched. “It’s not me that I’m worried about.” Then her head turned and she finally stared into his eyes. “It’s you.”

He had to laugh. “I’m not afraid of this guy.” If Claire only knew how many hell-holes he’d fought in during his military days…

But I don’t want her knowing.

The laughter stilled as she gazed at him.

“Maybe you should be afraid.” Claire’s body shifted slightly against the couch. “If you nearly die, it’s okay to fear some.”

He hadn’t been afraid, not since his parents had died. Even when he’d been battling the enemy—in ice, in sand, in the dankest forest he’d ever imagined—Noah hadn’t been afraid.

But I was scared when she was so still on that sidewalk. Fear had come back then, and he wouldn’t forget the feel of its icy claws raking into him.

“I don’t want you to die for me,” Claire said.

He leaned toward her. His finger slid down her arm. She didn’t flinch at his touch that time. So much better. “I have no intention of dying for you.”

He thought some of the tension left her shoulders. “Good.”

But I would kill for you. I think that would be far more effective.

“The police are working,” he murmured, “bringing in their bomb experts. I’m sure they’ll compare this blast with the one that took out Ethan. Bombers often have a signature. It’ll take some time, but the authorities will be able to determine if the attacker was the same.”

“What if we don’t have time?”

His fingers lightly caressed her. “We have all the time we need.”

“Not if he’s hunting.”

He hated the fear in her eyes. “I’m good at hunting, too.”

Her teeth pressed into her lower lip. “Your time…in the military.”

“And after.” He had his own demolitions expert coming in. Drake had stayed down in Alabama to learn more about the blast that killed Ethan, but he was already on his way up to New York.

“You killed, didn’t you?”

He glanced away from her. “Men die in battle all the time.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“And you shouldn’t ask questions that you don’t truly want answered.” He looked back at her. “You don’t want to know, not really, do you?”

Her fingers curled around the pillow on the couch. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. People like to see the surface, not the darkness underneath.” Life was easier that way.

Claire shook her head. “I’ve seen your darkness all along.”

Her words caught him by surprise.

“But you have to tell me your secrets,” Claire said as her eyes gleamed. “You know every one of mine. No matter how painful, you know. Don’t you think I deserve to hear yours, too?”

He rose from the couch. Paced away from her. “What if you don’t like what you hear?”

I don’t want to lose her.

He hadn’t actually had anyone to lose, not since his parents. But Claire—she mattered to him.

“Have you liked what you’ve heard about me?” He heard the rustle of the couch cushions as Claire rose. “A woman who tried to kill herself when she was sixteen. I mean, hey, she’s got to be some prize—”

“Stop.” He whirled back toward her. “You’re a survivor. Everything I’ve learned about you has just strengthened that belief.”

Her gaze searched his. “Most people pity me…or else they think I’m…pretending. That I’m a manipulator.”

“I see you for what you are.”

“Let me see you that way, too.” She stepped toward him. Kept coming until her fingers lifted and pressed against his chest, right over his heart. “I’m going to ask you some questions now, and I want you to know that your answers won’t ever leave this room.”

Her touch singed him.

“Have you killed?”

“Yes.”

“In battle?”

“During my tours, and then…after. Trace, Drake, and I set up a security team of our own.”

She waited, watching him with a gaze that seemed to see straight into his soul. The way her gaze always did.

And he found himself saying more. “We focused on retrieving very high-end assets. Businessmen, dignitaries who’d been in the wrong place and been taken. Some of those guys were held for money, some held in hopes of a power swap.”

Her head tilted as she studied him. “And your job was to get those people out?”

“Normal channels wouldn’t work. Uncle Sam didn’t want the wreckage coming back to his door…so our team worked those cases.” His lips twisted. “That’s how I got my start in the hotel business.” Talk about a career change. “One of those guys thanked me with a hotel.”

“Um, that’s quite a thank you.”

He inclined his head. It sure had been, but seeing as how he’d taken two bullets for the guy on that mission, Noah thought they’d come out of the deal square. “I had my own money, too, money left from my parents. I saved every dime while I was working with Trace and Drake, and then one day, I decided that I was done with that world.”

The world of killing and death and blood.

“I got out. I started fresh.” He looked down at her hand. It looked so delicate against him.

“You don’t seem so bad to me,” Claire told him.

Tell her. “I’ve killed with guns. With knives. I’ve attacked with my hands when they were the only weapons left to me. Killing is a talent I have, one that the government just honed even more for me.”

“But that’s not who you are now.”

“That’s who I will always be. When I see a threat, I want to eliminate it.” He couldn’t get more blunt than that. “And that’s what I do.”

Her lashes lowered. “Why don’t women last more than a night with you?”

“What?”

“Drake said—”

Drake talked too much.

“He said that your lovers come and go. One time is it for you.”

“I like sex.” She’d asked for his secrets. He’d give her what he could. “I satisfy the need, then I move on.”