Full Exposure

She held herself stiffly against him for a minute, while his hands gently rubbed her back. “Just let me hold you, ’tite belle. I was so worried.”

Serena relaxed gradually, sinking into Kevin’s warmth despite herself. All afternoon she had told herself that she didn’t need him. Not when she’d seen obscenities scrawled all over her car. Not when she’d found the cum and urine drenching her front seats. Not even when the insurance company had told her she’d have to call the police and file a report. As she’d sat in that police station and listened to the police talk about the psychos in the neighborhood, she’d been thrown back to those long, difficult weeks after Sandra had been killed. But she’d gotten through it, had kept her composure when all she’d really wanted to do was run screaming for the nearest door, Kevin’s name on her lips.

But as he held her against him, the steady beat of his heart soothed her spirit in a way nothing else ever had. Warning bells went off in the back of her head, but she was too tired to heed them. With a sigh, she laid her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around his powerful waist. “I’m glad you’re here.” The words escaped before she could censor them.

“I would have been here a lot sooner if I hadn’t had to hear about this thing from Steve.” He pulled back and leveled the full power of a Kevin Riley glare at her, the same glare that froze paparazzi from fifty feet away and made art critics weep at his lack of accessibility.

Strangely it neither intimidated nor frightened her as it did so many. Instead, it warmed her—made her feel safe and secure.

“You were working. I didn’t want to bother you.”

If possible, the glare grew fiercer. “You couldn’t be a bother if you tried and you know it. You wanted to handle this all by yourself, just like always. Big, bad Serena. She can handle anything the world throws at her.”

“That’s not—” The instinctive protest died in her throat as his eyes caught fire beneath the lowered eyebrows. “All right. Maybe that was part of it.”

“All of it.”

It was her turn to glare as she pulled away. “Part of it. I’m not used to having someone there to lean on.”

He pulled her back. “Well get used to it, Serena, ’cuz I’m not going anywhere.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Okay. Enough said. Now do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not really. It was nauseating. Disgusting. Absolutely horrifying.” She shuddered. “Can we eat first? I’m starving and I don’t want to lose the first appetite I’ve had in hours.”

“Sure.” He settled her at the table and snagged the two bags, making quick work of distributing the burgers and fries. They ate in near silence for a while, Kevin keeping an eye on Serena to ensure that she actually ate the food, rather than playing with it as she usually did when upset.

After he’d eaten his food and she’d done fairly good justice to hers, he cleared the sacks away and she let him pull her toward the living room couch.

“I’ve waited long enough. Now tell me exactly what happened.”

Serena bit her lip and clasped her hands together, but her gaze was steady as she looked him in the eye. “I’ve been working like crazy taking very few breaks, not eating much. I—” Her voice faltered for a moment. “I missed you and wanted to get back as soon as possible so I was working as hard and as fast as I could.”

There. She’d said it and he wasn’t running for the hills, wasn’t trying to put as much emotional and physical distance between them as possible. In fact, his grip on her hands had tightened and those beautiful, blue eyes seemed to warm gradually. She cleared her throat, fought against the rising panic clawing at her throat.

It was just typical that she’d managed to face her desecrated car and a legion of police without a whimper, but one look from Kevin and she was nearly panic-stricken. She cleared her throat, took another sip of her Coke as she bought herself some time. But when she looked back at Kevin, his gaze was just as steady, just as encompassing as before she’d admitted her feelings.

She reached for the silver throw she always kept on the back of the couch and dropped it over her legs. She’d been freezing for hours, despite the overwhelming heat and humidity.

“Anyway, it was about four o’clock and I was hungry. I’d been working since six-thirty, when I got back from the gym.”

His eyebrows rose. “You were at the gym before six a.m.?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged. “And I haven’t been getting much exercise at your place, since you take up every free minute of my time.” Her look was pointed.

“Point taken.” He grinned, reaching a hand up to stroke her hair away from her face. “So it’s four o’clock and …”

“And I don’t have any food, since I’ve been staying with you. So I thought I’d run out for a sandwich. When I got to the street …” Her voice wavered, but she steadied it with sheer will. “When I got to the street, the damage had already been done. My car was totaled.”

“You didn’t hear anything while it was going on?”

“I was in the darkroom at the back of the house. I had music playing.” She shrugged again. “And when I’m working …”

“A bomb could go off and you wouldn’t notice.”

“Pretty much.”

“Your neighbors? It’s hard to imagine that no one saw anything.”

“Harder to imagine that they sat back and let it happen without calling the police.”

“Speaking of which, I’m proud of you for calling the police.”

She avoided his eyes. “Don’t be too proud. I called the insurance first and they insisted I file a report with the police before they’d take a claim from me. If they hadn’t …” Her voice trailed off.

“What’d the cops say?”

His voice was even, but she could tell he was annoyed with her idiocy. But that was too bad—she didn’t trust cops and had a pretty damned good reason for her distrust. He’d just have to learn to deal with it. “They wanted to know who I was seeing now, wanted to know about previous boyfriends and any sour relationships. The usual. Especially with the crank calls—” She broke off mid-sentence, but the damage had already been done.

“Crank calls?” he demanded, eyes suddenly blazing. “You’ve been getting crank calls and you haven’t told me? For how long?”

Serena cursed the tiredness that made her say things without thinking. She tried to shrug it off, to think of something, anything else to say, but her exhausted brain wasn’t working well enough for that. So she tried to underplay it. “Look, it’s no big deal. He—”

“How long, damn it?” He grabbed her arms, turned her so that they were face-to-face.

“A few weeks.” She shrugged out of his grip. “They started before I met you, and at first I thought it was just some kids. But now—”

“Now that’s not looking real likely, is it?”

She shook her head miserably.

“He calls you at home?” He looked around her condo suspiciously. “But you haven’t been here.”

“He calls on my cell too.”

“He’s got your cell number?” He stared at her incredulously. “Has he called you while you were with me?”

“Kevin …”

“He has. And you didn’t tell me. What’s wrong with you?”

Her spine stiffened and her eyes turned cold. “Nothing is wrong with me, Kevin. Despite appearances to the contrary, I am not in the habit of spilling my problems on anyone who walks by.”

“That’s the biggest bullshit you’ve ever handed me.” His hands clenched on her upper arms and he shook her gently, fury rolling off him in waves. “You don’t sleep with everybody who walks by either, but you’re sleeping with me. That entitles me to some privileges when it comes to you.”

She’d never seen him so angry and a long-forgotten part of her wanted to soothe him. To let him pull her in and take care of her. That feeling—that utter neediness—had her straightening her spine before she could think twice about it. She wasn’t Sandra, desperate to make some guy love her. “You only have the privileges I give you.”

“Fuck that.” His hands clamped more tightly on her arms and though he was careful not to hurt her, she definitely felt the dominance in the gesture. “You’re mine, Serena.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re going to want to back off.”

“You’re going to want to fall into line.” His eyebrows lowered and he stared straight at her with eyes even narrower than hers. “Because I’ve got no give in me about this, cher. Not when it comes to your safety.”

They stayed that way for long moments before she pulled away, unable to maintain eye contact with him for another second. Desperate for a little space, she sprang to her feet and crossed the room. Seconds passed slowly as she stared at the painting above her dining room table, concentrating on the colors as she took one breath and then another and another. In, out. In, out. She fell back on the familiar mantra.

When she finally had herself back under control, she turned to walk back to the sofa and ran directly into Kevin’s broad chest. He’d been right behind her the whole time and she hadn’t even known he was there. The knowledge pissed her off like nothing else could have.

When had she let down her guard enough that he could sneak up on her like that? When had she started feeling so safe with Kevin that she stopped noticing every move he made?

“Back off.” She ground the words out from between clenched teeth. She was suffocating under the weight of everything that had happened these last few weeks and he wasn’t making things any better. “Can’t you see I need a little space?”

His eyes were pained as he stared back at her. “Can’t you see that the more you run the more I want to chase?”

She sighed disgustedly. “Look, I don’t have time for your poor, abused boyfriend act. You came to me, remember? I didn’t call you and ask you to come. If you don’t like how things play out, that’s not my problem.”

Kevin gritted his teeth, her words making him even angrier because he knew she was right. She hadn’t called him, hadn’t asked him to be here with her. He walked to the window, thrust his hands through his hair as he tried to get his rampaging emotions under control.

“You’re right,” he said.

“What?” she asked incredulously.

“You’re right. You didn’t ask for help and I don’t have any right to expect you to. It’s not like we’re in a real relationship, right?”

“That’s not what I meant.” She sighed, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of her neck. It was a gesture she made only when she was nervous and confused and it melted his anger despite his best efforts to hold on to it.

“I’m frightened for you, Serena.” He kept his voice soft, compelling. “It frightens me to think of some psycho gunning for you.”

“You’re not playing fair.” Her eyes were sad, her mouth trembly as she studied him. She was waiting for the other shoe to fall and he was suddenly, overwhelmingly disgusted with himself. How had he managed to make her crisis all about him?

“I’m not playing at all.” She stared at him, eyes wounded and searching, and he could no longer hold on to even the pretense of being pissed off. So he sighed, tucking the hurt away as he pulled her into a loose embrace. “I’m sorry. This thing blindsided me. If I promise not to act like an ass anymore, will you tell me what else has been going on?”