Dare to Hold (Dare to Love 4)

“Well, first thing, let’s get this visit documented by the police. You want everything on record.” In case something else happened, which Scott wouldn’t say to her out loud. For one thing, he didn’t want to frighten her further. And for another, he wouldn’t let that bastard near her.

She eased back to meet his gaze. “I can’t prove Mike was here.”

“I’ll talk to your neighbors. See if anyone heard him yelling or recognized his voice. Okay?”

She remained silent, not looking at him. Clearly he wasn’t helping. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything.” She pushed off him, sliding into her own space on the sofa.

He immediately missed the warmth and heat of her body, but she obviously needed distance. “Tell me.”

She blinked her thick lashes. “I promised myself I’d stand on my own, and at the first sign of a crisis, I curled up in your lap and let you take over. How’s that for falling back into old patterns?” she said, frustration and annoyance in her tone.

“Listen to me.” Needing to touch her, to maintain the contact they’d been sharing, he placed a hand beneath her chin and tilted her head.

She met his gaze with wide brown eyes, and he was struck with a connection, a sense of knowing he’d felt from the first time they’d met. This woman tied him up in knots, made him want to fix things so he could see her smile and light up just for him.

Shit. He shook his head, not understanding how the hell he’d gone from never again to invested so quickly.

“What is it?” she asked, breaking into his too-serious thoughts.

He swallowed hard. Forced himself to concentrate on the thread of their conversation and not his emotions. “There is a huge difference between accepting help from a friend who is experienced in these things and falling back into bad patterns,” he explained.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

She nodded slowly. “I realize I barely know you, my judgment sucks, but that said, yes, I do.”

The notion was humbling. “Good. So go make yourself a cup of tea or get some water. I’ll talk to the neighbors and be right back.”

“I wish I could do something useful,” she muttered, but she rose and walked into the kitchen.

He couldn’t tear his gaze from the sexy sway of her hips or the way her hair swung against her back. He bit the inside of his cheek and spent the next few minutes getting h

is dick to calm down so he could to talk to her neighbors.

His canvass of the two next-door apartments yielded only one result, but at least it was a good one. A middle-aged woman had heard the whole thing. And, she informed Scott, she was the same person who’d found Meg’s phone and called her friend after Meg had ended up in the hospital because of her ex the last time. Scott told her the police would be by to interview her and returned to Meg’s to find her sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of juice in her hand.

“Good news. Mrs. Booth heard Mike, and she recognized his voice. I put a call into the station and asked them to send someone to take her statement. And yours.”

She blew out a long breath and stared at her glass. “Thank you.”

He didn’t like seeing her so down. He eased into the chair beside her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, just so he could touch her again.

Her cheeks flushed, and a flicker of awareness lit her gaze. There she was. The passionate woman he knew had returned. “So what were you doing before Mike showed up?” he asked, changing the subject while they waited for the cops.

“Online shopping. Browsing, really. Making lists of what I need for the baby, comparing costs on the big items. Things like that.”

“Sounds fun.”

A smile lifted her lips, and damned if his gaze didn’t zero in on that sweet mouth. The desire to kiss her sucker-punched him, but he remained in his chair, one hand clenched in frustration.

“It is. I don’t know the baby’s sex, but it’s been fun to look at all the cute little baby clothes and think about how I want to decorate for him. Or her.”

“Is this a two-bedroom?” he asked, before he said screw it, threw her over his shoulder, and hauled her back to bed, to hell with any damned statements.

All he wanted to do was bury himself inside her while making her come hard and often. Then spend the rest of the night curled around her, keeping her safe and protected.

“No, just one bedroom,” she said, oblivious to his sexual frustration and X-rated thoughts.