Mine to Hold (Mine 3)

“Um, not a damn bit.” He kissed her neck. “No one saw anything else at the senator’s hotel, and the car from the hit and run turned out to be stolen. It was wiped clean, no prints.” His mouth lifted from her skin.

Her breath rushed out. She wanted that mouth back on her.

“But at least I wasn’t ten feet away from a car explosion.” Now his words roughened. “Do you know how much that shit scared me when I found out what happened?”

“It was a targeted attack.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “Just aimed at taking out Ethan Harrison.” And the two poor cops who’d been with him.

Lane grunted. “We know how easy it is for innocents to get caught in the crossfire.”

Yes, she’d seen that too many times.

“Someone’s cleaning house,” Lane mused.

She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see the move. “Yes.”

“You think it’s York? Because if it is…it’s gonna be real hard pinning anything on him.”

Because he was such a power player. But power players didn’t intimidate her. Never had. Never would. “If it’s him, we’ll nail him.”

“Damn straight.” He lifted her into his arms, surprising her with his strength the way he always did—the way she loved. “But let’s leave the killers alone for a while. Right now, I need you.”

His mouth pressed to hers.

“I missed you, Gwen.”

Her heart ached at his words. She’d seen so many people killed in crimes of passion. Seen others nearly driven to the breaking point of sanity because they’d lost someone close.

But Gwen had never understood those powerful emotions, not until Lane.

Now she knew all too well how emotions could twist a person. They could blind you to a lover’s faults. Make you desperate to do anything to protect your lover.

Even make you kill.

Is that what you did, Noah York? Did you kill for a lover?

Lane kissed Gwen again.

And she knew the stark truth…I’d kill for him.

***

Noah dreamed of death. Of a field covered in snow, and of the blood that stained that snow.

He dreamed of Claire. Claire with her deep, blue eyes and her blonde hair.

He tried to get to Claire. But she lifted her hands toward him, and blood dripped from her wrists.

“You did this,” she whispered as tears slid down her cheeks. “Why?”

Noah shook his head. He wouldn’t hurt Claire. Not ever. Things were going to be different with her. So different from the way they’d been before.

“You killed me,” she told him as the blood dripped from her wrists. She was standing in the middle of the snow, and her blood dripped down from her wounds, falling slowly.

Then Claire fell, and Noah was too far away to catch her.

***

Noah jerked awake, his heart racing. Claire was by his side. She was breathing softly as she kept sleeping.

He ran a shaking hand over his face. He often dreamed of that damn, snow-covered field. He’d lost a friend on that field. Barely managed to get another away from the carnage.

But Claire…

You killed me.

He turned to look down at her. Her hand was near her face, positioned loosely on her pillow. Her hand rested, palm up, and with the early morning sunlight filtering through the window, he could see the scar on her wrist.

Noah swallowed and tried to shove the images from his mind. He wasn’t going to hurt Claire. He wanted to protect her.

Protecting Claire helped him to atone for the sins of his past.

And…

I just want her safe.

He bent his head and pressed a kiss to the scar along her wrist.

I will keep you safe. No matter what.

Chapter Eight

“We should talk about it,” Noah said carefully. He’d been hesitant to broach this subject before, but they were nearly back in the city, and he had to man up and face facts.

I lost control with her.

“It?” Claire echoed. He could feel her stare on him, but Noah kept looking at the road. “What is ‘it’ exactly?”

His teeth clenched. “No protection,” Noah gritted out. “You know I didn’t use a condom last night.”

“Oh. That.”

His gaze snapped to her. The woman sure didn’t sound concerned.

“I told you I was safe,” Claire told him with a shrug. “There hasn’t been anyone for me in years.”

And he never went without protection. Well, he hadn’t. Until her. “I’m talking about the risk of pregnancy, Claire.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Uh, yeah, I do. I was the guy fucking you last night.” He forced his gaze back to the road. “So if you get pregnant, we’ll—”

“You don’t have to worry,” Claire said again, cutting through his words before he’d been able to finish his sentence. And that finish would’ve included…

We’ll get married.

The idea had come to him as he’d stood on the balcony, watching the sun rise. After his nightmare, sleep had been an impossibility. He’d had plenty of time with his thoughts.

His thoughts had focused on her.

“Are you on the pill? Some sort of contraception—”

“I don’t need anything.” Her voice was totally devoid of emotion. “I can’t have kids, okay? So, again, you don’t have to worry.”

His hands tightened around the wheel as his knuckles whitened. “You can’t have kids?”

“No…I…I was pregnant before.”

He slammed on the brakes. Car horns behind him blared. “What?” She’d been pregnant with Ethan Harrison’s baby? That hadn’t been in the reports he’d read.

Claire glanced at him. Her cheeks had paled. “That part didn’t make the papers.”

Or my reports.

The cars kept honking.

Noah started driving again. “No, it sure as shit didn’t make them.” His guts were twisted into knots. “What happened?”

“The pregnancy was one of the reasons my parents sent me away to my grandfather’s fishing cabin. I’d found out I was pregnant, and I was trying to figure out what to do.”

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.