Page 48 of When He Defends
“Let me be very clear.” He knew his voice was too rough, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that situation. He felt rough. He’d tossed his dirty coat after entering his home. Taken off his ankle holster and secured his weapon, too. Now Gray jerked at the buttons on the ends of his sleeves. With quick, angry motions, he proceeded to roll up both sleeves. “There is every need for you to stay with me. Someone broke into your house tonight.”
“Yes.”
Just that. Her eyes—solemn, scared, sad—held his.
“He was good enough not to leave any marks at the doors, and he didn’t set off your alarm.” He’d watched her disarm the alarm right after their arrival at her condo. “That means you’re not dealing with an amateur.”
She shook her head, sending her hair sliding over her shoulder. Her hand rose to her neck. Then dropped almost instantly as if she’d just caught herself.
Screw that. He marched toward her. A hard, angry stride. His hand lifted toward her.
Emerson flinched.
Her flinch cut straight through him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I would never do that.” One vow he’d made long ago…
You never, ever hurt someone weaker than you.
Her long lashes flickered.
“I want to see what happened to you.”I want to utterly destroy the bastard who hurt you.The person who’d smashed the mirrors had been long gone by the time Gray searched the place but…
Sure seems suspicious as hell that Nathaniel Hadaway was at the scene of the crime.He’d told the cops about Nathaniel. They’d agreed to question the guy, mostly just because Gray was FBI—an FBI agent with a lot of power in that town—and they’d been intimidated as hell by him.
Gray fully intended to follow up their investigation with a questioning session of his own with Nathaniel.
“It’s hardly anything now, really. The scar is very old.”
Hardly anything. Bull. In all the time he’d known her, she hadn’t ever touched the scar. But now, with the events of this night, her fingers kept fluttering toward it. He understood. She’d deliberately trained herself not to touch it, not to draw attention to the scar because she’d wanted to bury that night and the fear it had caused in her. If she’d touched the scar too much, people would have noticed. People like him. And questions would have been asked.
His secretive Emerson didn’t like it when she was the one asked questions.Too bad, sweetheart. I have a boat load of questions I’m going to ask, and you will tell me everything.Because he had to know every detail about her. If someone was threatening her—and he was certain that someone was, in fact,after Emerson—then knowledge was what he needed so he could stop the creep dead in his tracks.
“I want to see what happened to you,” Gray repeated. His hand carefully brushed back her hair. The chandelier overhead provided plenty of light as they stood in his den. A place filled with one hell of a lot of personal mementos.
Emerson’s home had been empty, but his place…it was his refuge. Filled with items that he’d carefully selected over the years. Nothing random. Everything special. If a book made it onto his shelves, it was because that book was a keeper. Something he’d read and reread over and over again. The things he kept always had great value to him.
But, like Emerson, he hardly ever invited people inside his home. Only a select few crossed the threshold. His Marine brothers. His family.
Emerson.
Her head tilted to the side. “You probably can’t see the scar. It’s been years…”
He could see it. About an inch long. A little white line on her golden skin. His index finger brushed lightly over the scar. He found himself leaning toward her. “What happened?”
“A slice from a broken piece of mirror.”
His back teeth snapped together. That was exactly what hethoughthad happened. “Who did it?”
Her hands rose. Pressed to his chest. Not to push him away. Not to pull him closer, either. Just to touch him.
He felt her touch rock through his entire body. Her scent wrapped around him. Sensual. Jasmine. And still somehow—innocence.
“I-I never saw his face. I was seventeen.”
Seventeen?What the actual hell?
“I was at my mother’s home.”
Her mother’s home? Shouldn’t that have beenherhome? What an odd way of phrasing things. Gray filed that telling descriptor away, for the moment.
