Secret Admirer

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You haven’t been with anyone since the Secret Admirer?”

She flinched. Alice couldn’t help it. She tried to think of him as Hugh. If she thought of him as just Hugh, then she could almost pretend the Secret Admirer had been someone different. A monster she hadn’t met. A monster—

I didn’t have in my bed.

But lying wasn’t going to help her. “I haven’t been with anyone since the Secret Admirer.” There. She’d said it. Chill bumps rose on her body. “So, um, if I was…um…” God. Her cheeks were burning. “If things weren’t good enough—” She started to slip from the bed.

But Zander yanked her back. He tumbled her onto the mattress and leaned over her, staring down at her with glittering eyes. “The sex was more than good enough. It was fucking mind blowing.”

Wait—it had been? Her lips curled. “I…thought so, too.”

“You are good enough. Never doubt that, Alice. Never. Do you hear me?”

She swallowed. “I hear you.” His voice had been nearly booming. It would have been hard not to hear him.

Zander pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Glad we got that cleared up.” Then his head lifted, and he stared at her as if he were trying to figure out some puzzle. “Why in the hell did you pick me?”

“Pick you?”

“To have sex with, baby. You’re fucking gorgeous. I’m sure there have been guys fighting to be with you.” He caged her with his body.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she thought this through. Oh, hell, why hesitate? Just be honest. “After the news broke, there were plenty of men who were interested in me. Turns out, there’s a whole group of guys out there who are fascinated by killers. And getting to fuck the ex-fiancée of the Secret Admirer?” She had to swallow twice in order to get the lump out of her throat. “Well, that to-do item was suddenly on the minds of those men.”

He swore.

“Yes, exactly.” She eased out a breath. “You know how there are those women who want to have sex with killers? The ones who want to marry them? There are plenty of men who want that same, dangerous thrill. They thought that by being close to me, they’d get that rush.”

“You told them all to fuck off.” His gaze blazed.

“I absolutely did. Some didn’t take the news too easily.”

A line appeared between his brows. “What happened?” An angry growl.

“A few break-ins at my place. Some underwear was stolen. Things that creeped me the hell out.” Her tongue swiped over her lower lip. “All signs that told me I needed to get out of that town and start over some place new.”

His fingers brushed over her cheek in a tender caress. “You still didn’t say why you chose me.”

“There were some other guys who didn’t seem like total freaks.” Not that she had good radar for determining that, obviously, seeing as how she’d almost married a serial killer but… “I wasn’t exactly looking to join the dating game at that time.”

“And you are now?”

“I honestly have no idea what I’m looking for right now. I just know…” She couldn’t seem to find the right words to make him understand. “You were different. You are different. You’ve been there every time I needed you. And you…you didn’t give up on me.”

He pressed another kiss to her lips. “I won’t ever give up.”

She didn’t feel cold. No chills. His words had warmth spreading through her.

“I’m going to make you breakfast.” Another kiss from him. This one was slower, though. More sensual. “I think I’ve got some cinnamon rolls in there. Should be perfect for your sweet tooth.”

She gave a little laugh. It was crazy. She was in bed with a lover, laughing, acting so normal. This was what she’d been missing for the last year. No, Zander is what I’ve been missing.

He slid from the bed, giving her a stellar view of his tight ass. She whistled, and he glanced back, smiling at her.

The man had a killer smile.

***

As soon as he left the bedroom, Zander’s smile vanished. He’d palmed his phone before he exited the room, and he glanced down, seeing the line of missed texts. All from Randall. Shit. Zander called his partner and put the phone to his ear as he hurried into the kitchen. Randall answered on the second ring. “What the hell, man?” Zander demanded before Randall could even say hello. “Seven missed texts?”

“Glad you’re still alive,” Randall snapped.

Zander fired a quick look over his shoulder. “Don’t start this shit with me. I kept her in the house, just like you ordered.”

“And did you keep your hands off her?”

He pitched his voice low as he snarled, “The profilers have been wrong about her. She’s not like you think. Not like they think.”

“Dammit. You fucked her.”

“Randall, you don’t understand her. Alice isn’t cold and calculating. She’s—”

“You’re talking like a blind, lovesick fool, Z.”

“I’m not blind. I’m telling you—she’s not like you think.” She hadn’t even been with a lover since Hugh. Not until me. She was scared and shy, and when she looked at him—fuck, he felt like a bastard.

“Have you considered that maybe she’s just a good liar?”

Yeah, he had considered that shit. Especially since Zander happened to be a good liar, himself.

“Question her. If you fucked her, shit, at least use that to our advantage. If she’s seems to trust you, grill her. This is your chance.” Randall hung up.

Sonofabitch.

Zander slammed the phone down on the kitchen table. He’d always wanted to be an FBI agent. Wanted to make a difference. But right then, he damn well hated the job.

Chapter Five

Alice’s tongue swiped over her lower lip as she licked away a trace of cinnamon icing. Zander’s whole body tensed, and he tried not to think about all of the things he wanted her to do with her sexy little tongue.

“Breakfast was delicious. Thank you. No one has made breakfast for me in a very long time.” She flashed him a wide smile. He loved her smiles. She’d smiled a lot that morning, and every time her lips curled, his chest seemed to ache. “But, um,” Alice glanced at the clock, “I think I’d better be going home. I need to make sure there wasn’t any damage from the storm.”

“I’ll walk you over.”

Her smile stretched a little more. Her eyes seemed to gleam. “Thank you.”

Hell. She was looking at him like he was some kind of white knight. She didn’t realize he was the lying asshole who’d been sabotaging her life. She helped him clean up in the kitchen, and a few moments later, they were walking through the woods. The air was crisp, a little cool, but the sky was a bright blue overhead.

He took her hand and threaded his fingers with hers. Her hand was so much smaller than his, but it oddly seemed to fit perfectly against his.

“The calm after the storm,” Alice murmured as she glanced up the sky. “Always my favorite part.”

He kept pace with her, moving slowly, and then… “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.” Another smile from her. But the gleam in her eyes had dimmed.

“You really didn’t know? I mean, about your ex. You didn’t know the guy was—”

She stopped walking. The sunlight fell down on her. “I didn’t know Hugh was a killer. I had no idea that the man in my bed, the man I was going to marry, had been torturing and murdering women.” Now her smile was gone. “If I’d known, I would have stopped him. I would have gone to the police. I would have tried to help those victims.” Her chin lifted. “He’d just killed the last one the night before, did you know that? If I’d just realized what was happening…I could have saved her. Her dead body was—” But she broke off, shaking her head.

She’d turned pale in the sunlight. He was a total bastard, and he pushed her as he said, “Photos were found at your place.”

Alice took a step back. She pulled

her hand from his. “I didn’t know they were there. Hugh must have hidden them under the floor. I…I went to a shrink once. I was so scared, all the time, and he told me—the shrink said Hugh had probably put them there because he wanted to relive his crimes. He liked having the photos close to me. Since I looked so much like the victims, Hugh could think about the crime photos, he could think about me and—”

Fucking sonofabitch. A tear had just slid down her cheek. “Stop.” Zander knew this theory. It had been floated around at the FBI office, too.

Victim or killer. The eternal debate when it came to Alice May.

Her breath came a little too fast.

“Why’d you only go see the shrink once?” A softer question, and he watched her carefully.

“Because by the end of the session, I realized he was talking more about Hugh than me. Everything came back to Hugh. The shrink—I swear, he was obsessed with killers. He thought there was something about me that had drawn Hugh and I together. That I was just as twisted inside.”

Zander swore. “He told you that shit?”