“You didn’t have to rush.”

He stepped inside and placed both hands on her shoulders. He looked her up and down. “Are you okay?”

“As soon as I calm down, I’m going to be livid.” She tried to smile.

His hands slid around her and in the next breath, she was pressed up against his chest. Much as she should probably pull away, she didn’t. Her arms wrapped around his waist, and any adrenaline left in her system spilled out.

She heard Dameon sigh. “I got ya.”

He held her in the open doorway of her condo and she let him.

A light from across the courtyard went on and broke the spell. “Come in,” she said as she pulled away.

He followed her inside.

She looked down at herself and back to him. Gone was the laughing, jovial man who was constantly trying to take her out. Replacing him was Mr. Concerned and Worried. His lips a straight line, his eyes searching hers. She pointed toward the back of her condo. “I, ah . . . need to change. Make yourself at home.”

Dameon ran a hand through his hair and removed his jacket.

In her room, Grace looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was a mask of white, no color at all. No wonder Dameon was looking at her like that. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

It took her less than five minutes to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater. She ran a brush through her hair and splashed the required water on her face. Looking slightly better and feeling more grounded, Grace walked back into her living room and found Dameon in her kitchen. He’d found a bottle of whiskey and had poured some into a glass.

He noticed her and pushed the glass her way. “This will help.”

She wasn’t about to argue. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, it’s your whiskey.”

That put a brief smile on her lips. The liquor was warm going down and molten once it reached her stomach. She finally released a breath that didn’t feel jacked up in her throat. She sat on the barstool at her counter. “I needed this.”

“Grace . . .”

She held up her drink. “I’m getting there.” She took another sip of the liquor. “I’m afraid what I’m going to say will sound stupid.”

“I haven’t known you long, but stupid isn’t a word I would use to describe you.”

She grinned, looked away. “Half an hour before quitting time, my boss, Richard, walked into my office, said I needed to meet with a landowner at five. A real prick of a guy who hasn’t maintained the road leading into his mobile home complex for years, and after last year’s storms, it’s impassable in the rain. He’d been warned multiple times that if he didn’t get it fixed, the city was coming in to do it for him.” She looked up to see Dameon staring at her. “I met with the guy last week, gave him his final warning. He was supposed to get everything in to us yesterday by five. Today is a day late. I’m ticked, but I go.”

She took the last sip in her glass.

Dameon took the glass and poured more.

“I get there. He’s not there. He shows up fifteen minutes late. He rolls out his plans. Bullshit stall tactics I knew were coming. He’s all little lady this, and I’m sure we can work something out. He stands a little too close . . . you know, intimidation tactics. I put some distance between me and him, point out once again what we need, and he starts waving his wallet in the air as if he’s offering me a bribe.”

Dameon continued to stare, his jaw tight.

“I’m pissed and I’ve had it with this guy. I tell him I’m done and walk back to my car. But my dad is a retired cop, so I give him space. Give myself space. I walk by and he does this jump thing.” She mimicked Sokolov’s movements. “I nearly screamed. It’s dark and cold and the guy’s an asshole. I get in my car and I leave. And I’m pissed that he got to me. Like I shouldn’t scare so easily. I’m even more livid that he knows he got to me. And it’s then I realize that I left my phone on the hood of his car. I don’t even know if he noticed it. For all I know it’s on the ground and been run over a hundred times by now.”

Her eyes met Dameon’s.

And he was pissed. Nose flaring, short breaths, white-knuckled fist gripping the neck of the whiskey bottle to the point she thought it would break pissed.

He released his hand on the bottle and laid it flat on the counter. “Let’s go get your phone,” he said in a voice so calm it was scary.

“It might not be there.”

“We won’t know until we look.”

She stood, glad to feel steadier than when she walked in. After pulling a long coat from her closet, she grabbed her purse and keys. Dameon opened the door and waited for her. Once the deadbolt was locked, she let him lead her to his car. His hand stayed on the small of her back the whole time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It took an incredible amount of restraint to keep his shit together. He knew when Grace called that something had to have gone down for her to cave and call him. Dameon knew he wasn’t at the top of her speed dial . . . yet. She further showed him how scared she was when she let him hold her. And now, when he was calmly driving in the direction she told him and paying attention to the speed limits when he wanted to pull a Mario-Fucking-Andretti to get there, he was showing restraint. And Grace sat quietly in the passenger seat of his truck. He hoped the bastard had hung around. He’d gladly ask Omar for bail money to drive his fist into the man’s face.

Men who went out of their way to intimidate women were some of the lowest creatures out there.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

He could lie. “I’m not a violent man,” he told her.

She sighed. “Good.”

“But I really want to break something right now.”

She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “You can’t. If he’s still there, you can’t.”

He wasn’t about to make that promise.

“Dameon, I didn’t call my brothers because that’s exactly what they’d do.”

“Have I told you how much I like your brothers?”

“You’ve only met one,” she said.

“What’s your other brother’s name?”

“Matt.”

“I like Matt. Nice guy. Takes care of his family.” He glanced in his rearview mirror. “How much farther?”

“Before you get to the last light, there’s a dark driveway on your left. Dameon . . .”

He pushed the speed limit since traffic had eased up.

“Dameon?”

“Yeah?”

She squeezed his arm. “Promise me.”

“I have a younger brother. He’s kind of useless now. Never really grew up. But when we were kids, we had each other’s back. If someone messed with him at school, they messed with me. That sounds a lot like how you describe your brothers.”

The first light cooperated, the second one didn’t.

“Dameon, I’ll lose my job.”

He turned his head and looked at her. He wanted to tell her that if she lost her job, he had her back. But that’s not what she wanted to hear.

“I won’t make you sorry you called me,” he told her.