“Shhh, it’s okay. Ridley, you’re safe.” He whispered to her and stroked a hand up and down her back. After a few minutes, she calmed. When he looked down, her eyes were open but wild and though she was looking directly at him, he couldn’t tell if she really knew he was there.

Finally her eyes focused and she whispered “Jackson?”

“I’m here. Ridley, I’m right here.”

She squeezed her eyes shut again and tears slid down her cheeks. “I woke you. I’m so sorry. It was just a dream. A stupid dream.”

He held her tighter. It seemed completely inadequate, but in that moment it was all he had. He couldn’t fight the demons for her, but he could hold her and let her know she wasn’t alone, at least. He knew what it was like to feel utterly alone.

As if you were standing in the midst of a storm with nothing to anchor you.

“You want to tell me what it was about?”

Ridley was quiet for a moment, then a shiver wracked her slender frame. “They tried to burn down my apartment.”

“What?” Jackson pulled back slightly so he could see her face.

“I keep a small apartment in Florida. My landlady called yesterday. There was a fire the day after I left. The people who killed David are looking for me. They’re going to kill me, too.” Her eyes welled with tears again.

“Shh, now. You don’t know that for sure. Either way, they don’t know where you are, and they’re not going to find out if I have anything to do about it. It’s okay, Ridley. You’re safe here.” He made soft noises as he rubbed her back.

She took several shaky breaths, then finally exhaled the long rattling sigh of the truly exhausted. After a few minutes, her breathing finally slowed to a normal rate. He looked down at the top of her head, a profound sense of peace washing over him.

“You don’t have to stay. I’m okay now. I know you don’t want to be here.”

“That’s not true. I wasn’t asleep anyway. I was trying to decide whether I should take another cold shower or not.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Well, that’s your own fault.”

“I know, baby girl.” He kissed the top of her head.

Her fingers danced gently over the tattoo on his chest. “I’ve never been into tattoos but this fits you.”

He looked down at the design he’d gotten in his first year of college. “I was called ‘Treble’ because I was a music major. I was always humming bars and scribbling pieces of songs on napkins. Eventually it became less like ‘treble’and more like ‘trouble’. I have no idea why, of course.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Relief swept through him when she smiled in response, looking more like herself.

“What about you?” He tilted his head in her direction. “Tell me something about you. Something no one knows.”

She sighed and laid her head on his chest. “I love to garden.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What you can’t imagine me gardening? I don’t mind getting a little dirty.”

“I just bet you don’t.”

She smacked his chest playfully. “I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

He squeezed her. “I’m just teasing you.”

“I’ve been saving to start my own landscape design business. I had the perfect location picked out and everything. Who knows how long before I can go back though? I feel like my whole life is on hold.”

He stopped rubbing her back and turned them so they were laying side by side, facing each other.

“If you’re passionate about this, then don’t let anything hold you back. You can start a business here. I’ll be your first client. You’ve seen what my yard looks like. I need all the help I can get.”

“You know I’d love to help you but this is exactly why I wanted to open a business in Florida. To the people there, I’m just Ridley. No one could say I was successful due to my modeling contacts.”

“When I was first starting out and needed the money to buy professional equipment, Nick was the first in line to help me out. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Everyone needs help in the beginning. There’s no shame in that. That’s what people who care about you do. They help you.”

“And you want to help me? Because you care about me?”

“Yeah, I do. You deserve to get everything you want.”

“But I can’t have what I want,” she whispered.

“What do you—” Jackson broke off with a strangled sound when the soft hand that had been resting against his chest reached down and gripped him through the soft cotton of his sweatpants. “Whoa.” He gulped when she turned her face and kissed his chest. “What are you doing?”

She tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants gently.

“Getting what I want.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TO THINK THAT she’d gone so long without knowing how crazy passion could make you, and how hot and hungry you could feel when that passion was denied.

Even at their best, none of her previous boyfriends had come anywhere near the way Jackson made her feel with just two stolen kisses.

And they didn’t have abs like these.

She traced each one and then followed the same path with her tongue.

He reared up off the bed. “I thought we agreed that this was a bad idea.”

She looked up at him innocently. “You agreed. I didn’t.”