Page 68 of First Touch

“I’ll do that.”

“And, Joe, I appreciate all you’ve done. Thank you.” I took another shuddering breath, afraid the real crying would start any moment.

I was about to hang up when I remembered. “I’m tossing this burner phone now. Is that good?”

“In a Dumpster some place you never go. Erase all your texts and history first.”

“Got it.”

The call ended and I gave myself exactly one minute to let the tears fall. I didn’t even know why I was crying exactly. Because I was afraid for Joe and Chris? For Amber? For myself?

More likely because I was alone in my search now.

As it should be, I told myself. No matter what men had come and gone in our lives, it had always really only been Amber and me. It was almost wrong to have involved anyone else.

I moved the car out of park, intending to drive behind the drugstore to throw the phone in the bins there. But a black car a few rows down started up at the same time and even though it left the lot ahead of me, I was suddenly paranoid. Because I was almost sure that car had followed me in the lot to begin with.

I waited to toss it until I found a car wash Dumpster a few miles away, when I was certain I hadn’t been followed. Then I drove home.

When I got there, I found Reeve waiting for me on my front porch, sitting in the same chair he had when he’d shown up the first time, dressed in a suit, as he had been that day. I smiled as I came up the walk. It wasn’t even forced. He did that to me, sick and sad as it was. He made me happy. He made me want to be transparent instead of hidden.

But Reeve didn’t return the expression. His body remained still, his face even. And I knew before I put the key in the lock, before I even got close enough to feel the rage radiating off of him, that I was in real trouble.

The urge to run passed through me with lightning speed – there one second, gone the next. It wasn’t even a thought I could feasibly entertain. I couldn’t run from someone like Reeve Sallis. Even if he weren’t standing five feet from me, he could hunt me down.

Besides, there was no logical reason to think that he knew anything about my afternoon, knew what I’d discovered about him. Sure, he was obviously angry, but maybe he’d simply had a bad day.

God, I was good at lying to myself.

Or you’re just excellent at survival, my head said, in that voice that sounded an awful lot like Amber’s.

If that were true, I wouldn’t be letting this probable killer into my house. And I was. I even held the door open, gesturing for him to go on inside.

Reeve moved behind me and took the door from my grasp. “No. After you.”

Only three words spoken and yet they said so much. They said, I’m in control here. I’m the one who’s calling the shots. And you’re the one who agreed to follow them. What’s more, you like it.

Did I still like it? Now that I knew what I knew?

Fucked up as I was, I still did.

So though dread curled in my stomach like the remnants of a bad meal, I walked past him into the house, leaving him at my backside where I was vulnerable.

I heard the door latch closed. The next thing I knew, he had me pinned to the wall with my hands held firmly behind my lower back.

“Hey,” I said, wriggling to get loose. “You’re hurting me.”

He only tightened his grip. Without a word, he leaned in. Leaned in toward my mouth. Relief flooded over me, and I lifted my chin to meet his lips, more than a little turned on by his rough greeting.

But he didn’t kiss me.

Instead, still holding my arms behind me, he slowly knelt, dragging his nose down the center of my body. When he was on his knees, his face in my crotch, he sniffed. Several times. Smelling my cunt through my clothing. Sniffing at me like a dog seeking out its bitch. It was weird and vulgar and depraved.

And damn if it didn’t make me weak in the knees.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, he let me go. He stood and backed away, distancing himself from me as though he were Superman, and I was his kryptonite.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “What the hell, Reeve?”