TWO
“Meg?”
Cody rubbed the tension in the back of his neck as he waited for the microwave to ping, then he scanned the staircase, expecting Megan to appear, her clover-green eyes bright and excited as she came up with an explanation—and it had to be a good one—for breaking and ente
ring into his home.
He knew himself well enough to know that he’d glower at her only for a minute—or perhaps a couple of minutes more because, dammit, she could’ve gotten hurt! Plus where the hell did she learn how to pick locks? Especially his state-of-the-art locks?
Then again, Megan Banks was the kind of woman who always surprised a man, and he knew that even if he glowered for a whole damned hour, as soon as she flashed one of those pearly white smiles, he’d be done for.
Heck, he might as well just give her a key so she could come in and make herself at home whenever she’d like to. You wish, don’t you, asshole? Come home to her for a nice warm meal, a long, wet kiss, and then it’s upstairs together to make a couple of babies.
His treacherous blood began to boil at the thought. Yeah, Megan was the kind of girl any man would kill for. Would travel worlds just to be able to come home to. The kind of girl for whom any man would spend a lifetime doing hero work, putting scumbags in jail, just so a girl like her could sleep at night.
The kind of girl Cody would never, ever, touch with his callused, bloodied hands.
Since the night of his parents’ murder, Cody knew that he would never get married. He would never get the girl, the kids, the dog, or the happily ever after.
He would get the killers.
There were always casualties in a story, and his personal life would be one of them.
It seemed a small sacrifice at the time, in exchange for justice and capturing his parents’ murderer. Now, the criminal—his brother—was behind bars, and although he hadn’t gotten the death penalty due to his being a minor at the time of the crime, the bastard had gotten life. Which was mighty fine with Cody.
And yet Cody’s thirst for justice was still not appeased. He needed new cases, tougher cases, meaner criminals, all to keep his head buried so deep in work, he wouldn’t think of what he’d lost in the blink of an eye. With one bad call. One bad day.
He heard footsteps up in his bedroom, and he cocked his head as he pictured Megan coming down the stairs, doing that hip-swing thing she did that drove him crazy. His eyebrows furrowed when she took her goddamned time. What in the hell was she doing up there? Wrestling?
“Megan?” he growled, annoyed.
Ding.
He ignored the microwave when a thump was followed by an eerie silence, and a chilling premonition slid up the back of his neck. His hackles rose. Legs tensing as his blood began to pump faster through his veins, he yanked his Glock out of its hip holster and climbed the stairs, two at a time, silent as death.
All was quiet upstairs—unnaturally quiet. Not natural, when Megan was around, for things to be still for more than a second. If she gets hurt … He pushed the thought aside, narrowed his eyes and scanned the hallway, dark at this time of night.
A window screeched from the guest bedroom, but it had been the master bedroom where he’d heard the noise, and it was from that direction that he heard a soft moan.
He parted the door and peered into the darkness, gun carefully doing a one-eighty-degree turn. “Megan?”
Again, that damned tickle in the back of his neck. It had happened far too many times to ignore. Something was wrong. Megan wasn’t answering.
The moan became louder, as if pained. He hit the light switch and he saw, sprawled over his duvet and pillows, a little bundle of flawless white skin and loose honey-wheat hair.
“Megan?”
He froze one step into his bedroom, and his cock shot up like steel. Holy Mother of God, I’m not seeing what I’m seeing.
But he was.
Megan. With skin that looked air-brushed and sweet. Hair you could wrap yourself in. Sweet little Megan was in his bed—wearing the cutest, sexiest, out-of-this-world outfit.
His heart pounded as his mouth watered, and for this moment, this one moment, he didn’t wonder what she was doing there. It felt like she belonged there, like every time he had dreamed her there had summoned her to do it for real. Make his every wet dream come true.
He pulled his eyes away, off her chest—a chest he wanted to taste with his tongue—no, he didn’t just think that, fuck, this was Megan! Meg, dammit, not some bimbo, and he glanced up, swallowing thickly.
His voice came out raspy, and what he said made not one lick of sense. “That’s my bed you’re in.”