Want Me (Dark Obsession 2)

“I fought him off, but he caught me at the top of the stairs.” Her hand dropped back to her side. “I fell and tumbled right down those steps. I didn’t break anything, so I was lucky. I managed to get out of the brownstone, and I hailed down a car outside.”

He uncrossed his hands. Lowered them to his sides. Instantly, his hands clenched into fists. Some sonofabitch had been in her house?

“By the time the cops arrived, there was no sign of him. Hell…” She jerked a hand through her hair, sending the heavy, dark mane sliding over her shoulders. “Detective Chestang couldn’t find any indication that the guy had ever been there. At first, she even tried to hint that maybe I’d just imagined him, because of Daniel.”

Just the mention of Daniel’s name had him seeing red. That guy had hurt too many people before the cops had thrown him behind bars.

Hurt. Killed.

Now it’s your turn to suffer, Daniel.

“I didn’t imagine my attacker,” Sophie continued with grim pride. “He was there, spouting some bull about needing to make certain I was safe. And he said—he said he was going to kill Daniel for what he’d done to me.”

Now his brows shot up. “The guy said that to you?”

“He promised me.” She pushed back her shoulders. “I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone killing for me.” Her gaze burned as she stared up at him.

“Tell me more about your attacker,” Lex ordered softly.

“I never saw his face. I didn’t recognize his voice. He was whispering, rasping, so I don’t think that was his real voice.”

Lex waited. If he disguised his voice, then that means he was afraid you would know him. Shit, it means you do know him.

“He shouldn’t have been in my house.” Her breath whispered out. “He had a knife.”

For an instant, he didn’t move at all. Or, at least, he didn’t think he had. But Sophie tensed and then she backed up a step, her gaze widening a bit as she stared at him. “Lex?”

He should unclench his fists. He should give her some kind of reassuring smile. But he was too busy choking back his fury. “You didn’t mention his knife before.”

Again, she took a small step back. “If he wanted to keep me safe, why break in during the middle of the night? Why come armed with a knife?” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I know evil, Lex. I know it intimately. And I know that man, last night…he is very, very dangerous.”

Because the guy sounded like an insane asshole. One who was fixated on Sophie. Maybe it was one of her clients. Maybe it was an obsessed ex. No matter who the prick was, Lex would be stopping him.

“VJS…” Sophie murmured. “You guys are the ones who cleared Ethan.”

Ethan Barclay. The guy with enough dangerous connections of his own to make Lex’s gut knot. He didn’t like Ethan. Yeah, they’d proved the guy was innocent in the stalking of another client—a client who just so happened to now be engaged to Lex’s best friend, Chance Valentine—but they sure as hell hadn’t proved that Ethan was good. Just that he hadn’t been guilty in that particular case.

Unfortunately, during the course of their investigation, Lex had learned another thing about old Ethan. The guy was Sophie’s fucking BFF. “Why aren’t you turning to him?” The question came out, and yeah, he was man enough to know it was fueled by jealousy. He didn’t like the connection that Sophie had with Ethan. Not one bit.

She looked away. “I don’t want Ethan knowing about this situation.”

A man broke into her house, with a knife, and that was a situation?

“I’m hiring you for your discretion.”

“And here I thought it was because you wanted me watching your ass.”

For just an instant, her full lips twitched a bit. “That too.”

He’d never seen her smile. Not really smile. The punch in his gut told him that if he did see that, hell, he’d be in serious trouble.

But the faint twitch in her lips had already vanished. “Ethan doesn’t know about what happened last night. My colleagues don’t know. I want things to stay that way. We keep this confidential. You keep me safe and your associates…” She waved her hand toward the closed door to his office. “They work with you to track this guy. When we have evidence, we’ll turn it over to the cops, and I’ll get back to my normal life.”

“And until that normal life returns?” Lex pushed. “You’re going to have me at your side, day and night, and you don’t think anyone will get suspicious about that when—”

“My colleagues know we met weeks ago. When you were investigating Ethan.” Her head inclined toward him. “And when you saved my life.”

He waited.

“Thank you for that, by the way,” she said, her cheeks tinging a bit with color.

“You’re welcome.”

Her gaze slid from him, then slowly returned. “If anyone asks, we’ll just say that we’ve continued seeing each other. That we’ve become lovers.”

Her voice didn’t change. Neither did her expression. But Lex changed. The fire inside of him wasn’t about fury any longer. It was about pure, unadulterated need. Because he’d been fantasizing far too much about being Sophie’s lover in the last few weeks. Dreaming about her. Thinking too often of her.

“Does that plan work for you?” Sophie asked.

Seriously, did it work?

She offered her hand to him. “If so, then we can have a deal.”

It wasn’t a deal, but he knew that was the way Sophie thought, in terms of deals and contracts. But life wasn’t always like that. Still, he closed that last bit of distance between them and curled his fingers around hers. Her hand was so soft, so small in his. And when he touched her, a sensual thrill shot through him. Because he was watching her so closely, he saw the slight widening of her eyes. The faint flare of her nostrils.

It was good to know that Sophie responded to him. It would make things so much easier.

“Deal,” he whispered as his hold tightened on her.

***

“Sophie Sarantos is our client?” Devlin Shade asked as soon as he entered the conference room. Lex was already inside, along with the third partner in their growing firm, Chance Valentine.

VJS Protection. V for Valentine, J for Jensen, and S for Shade. They hadn’t bothered coming up with some clever name for their business. They didn’t need a clever name. They offered protection, plain and simple.

They also hunted.

“She is now,” Lex agreed quietly. “Some jerk broke into her place last night and scared her.”

“Scared her?” Dev repeated as his brows rose. He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. “I’ve heard stories about that woman. I think sharks are afraid of her.”

Lex’s jaw locked. “He had a knife.” Now he turned his gaze on Chance. Chance had been silent for the last few moments, as was the guy’s usual style. Chance was the old strong and silent type, while Lex was the one who usually went running straight into danger. The unrestrained and wild type. Yeah, he knew his issues. “And, according to Sophie, the guy made a threat while he was there.” Threat or promise, Lex still hadn’t decided which yet. “He told her that he’d kill Daniel Duvato.”

Chance’s emotionless mask cracked. Right. Because if anything could piss off the guy, it would be the mention of Daniel’s name. Daniel had hunted and nearly killed Gwen Hawthorne—the woman Chance loved. Daniel was a sick freak and the guy who just happened to be Ethan Barclay’s half-brother. Of course, Ethan hadn’t known that shit, and he hadn’t known that Daniel had spent years working to take out every one of value to Ethan. When Ethan loved…Daniel destroyed. Because he’d thought that Ethan was interested in Gwen, Daniel had stalked her.

But Chance had stopped that SOB. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been stopped before Daniel had hurt Chance, Gwen, Sophie, Ethan…

And Dev.

Too many casualties.

Lex’s attention shifted to Dev. Like Chance, the guy now looked seriously pissed.

“Daniel Duvato is behind bars,” Chance said, his voice rumbling. “No one will be getting to him.”

Lex wasn’t so sure about that. And there was something in Chance’s closed expression…something that told him Chance knew a bit more about Daniel than he was saying. What the hell was up with that? He, Chance, and Dev had been best friends since they were kids—when they’d been tossed into the same group home for a brief period. Their stay there hadn’t lasted, but their bond had.

“Maybe Sophie is the one gunning for Daniel,” Dev murmured. “She certainly has cause, right? The guy left her to die.”

Lex’s shoulders snapped back. “By that logic, you’ve got cause, too.” He pointed at Chance. “So does he.”

Chance just stared back at him.

“Cool down, man,” Dev said quickly to Lex. “I’m just saying...”

“What the hell are you saying?” Lex didn’t like the way Dev was talking about Sophie. Not a bit.

“I’m saying Sophie Sarantos is smart. Crazy, scary smart.” There was admiration and wariness in Dev’s tone. “She defends the worst criminals in the city every day, and she gets them off. Daniel Duvato hurt her. Worse—at least I think she’d view it as worse—the guy went after Ethan Barclay. From all my research on Sophie…”

And Lex knew Dev had done plenty of digging during that last big case.

“He’s the only person she cares about. Daniel hurt him, and knowing what I do about her, well, she just might be the type to want some revenge.”

Lex swiped his hand over his face. “You’ve got this all wrong. She wants protection—”

“Or maybe,” Dev said, “she wants an alibi.”

What? That was the last thing Lex had expected Dev to say. He rounded on the guy.

Dev lifted his hands. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay? You know this shit. Most folks think she got away with murder once, and if Sophie wanted to kill someone, I’m sure she’d set the stage nicely. I can’t think of anyone she’d want to kill more than Daniel Duvato.”