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  “Well, I didn’t know that. I thought you probably figured that I was a telemarketer or something. So, I told her that I would take her out tonight at seven. Here I am.”

  Sean scratched his jaw and jerked his head toward the stairs. I followed and leaned in so he could keep things quiet. “Look, I don’t want to do this, but you don’t seem to be getting the hint. I won’t book you, but you’re gonna have to come to the police station with me. I’ll call Cap to pick you up.”

  I turned back to Reese in confusion. “What about our date?”

  She shut the door in my face and Sean started pulling me down the stairs.

  “I’m gonna have to find a new way to convince her to go out with me.”

  “Maybe she’s not the right woman for you,” Sean grumbled. “She’s obviously not impressed by your muscles or good looks.”

  “You think I’m good looking?”

  Sean rolled his eyes and opened the back door, shoving me inside.

  “Hey, gentle. I’m a big guy. There’s no reason to be rough.”

  I watched Reese as she stood in the window and watched Sean drive me away. There had to be some way to reach her. I knew that she was the one I was supposed to be with. It was clear to me, so why wasn’t it to her?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Reese

  I let the curtain drop back in place as Sean pulled out of my driveway with Craig in the backseat. I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t fathom how he didn’t get my message back at the school. I picked up my phone and called Brooke, my best friend. I’d known her since we were kids, and that meant that she knew exactly how much I was freaking out right now.

  “What do you want?” she said in fake annoyance.

  “He was here.”

  “Who?”

  “The stalker. Craig.”

  “Seriously? He showed up?”

  “I know! I don’t understand.” I started pacing the floor like I always did when I was nervous. “Sean had to come take him away.”

  “Isn’t Sean a detective?” she asked in confusion.

  “Yes, but his wife is a teacher at the high school. We met at the beginning of the school year during conferences.”

  I was a kindergarten teacher, new to the district. I had been teaching in Pittsburgh, but I found that I really didn’t like teaching at such a big school. Our little town had grown a lot since I was a kid, but it was still small enough that the class sizes were manageable. I only had eighteen kids in my class, but in Pittsburgh, those classes were more around thirty kids per teacher. And with kindergarteners, you didn’t want that many at once.

  “I’m sure that he heard my address and came over.”

  “I don’t know how you work with those snot-nosed kids all day long. I can’t imagine wiping my own kid’s nose, let alone someone else’s.”

  “And that’s why you don’t have kids and probably won’t ever.”

  “I’m good with that,” she retorted. “Maybe send Stalker Man over my way and he can throw that sexy grin at me.”

  “How do you know he has a sexy grin?”

  “I looked up his profile on the Reed Security website.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat down in my chair, trying to control my jitters. “It figures that you would be just as much of a stalker as he is.”

  “Hey, I get my kicks where I can.”

  “We really need a new nickname for Craig besides Stalker Man. It’s not very sexy and it reminds me of a serial killer. Not that I need a nickname for him. He’s not going to be in my life anymore.”

  “Sure,” she said knowingly. “You want him. Admit it.”

  “I do not. I mean, sure, it’s nice to be wanted. But I want a man that wants me on my terms.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?”

  “Why would you want that? Mr. Boring Man that only comes to you when you call for him? No thank you. You need a man that stalks you like prey in the night. A man that needs to devour you. You need a man that won’t back down and lay down at your feet.”

  “That’s…it’s not…” I sputtered, trying to come up with a logical comeback. “Not gonna happen.” I stood and started pacing again, but I could hear her smug grin through the phone. She had me and she knew it.

  “It didn’t work out with Daniel. He worshipped the ground you walked on and you were bored out of your mind with him.”

  “That was different. He lived at home with his mother.”

  “Mhmmm. And Jason?”

  “The man had a tattoo of aliens on his back. I mean, come on. We both knew that wasn’t going to work out.”

  “Yet he was always there for you when you called and respected your boundaries. How long was it before he made a move on you?”

  “Six months,” I muttered.

  “Uh-huh. Yeah, that was a real slow burn. So slow burning that not even the sex could save that relationship.”

  “That’s not a fair-”

  “And then there was Thomas, George, Henry-did you plan on dating men that had names like kings? Boring,” she said in a sing-song voice. “You need this guy. If only for the amazing sex that you’ll get out of it.”

  “You don’t know that the sex will be amazing.”

  “He’s hunting you like a wolf. Trust me, the sex will be so amazing, you’ll have multiple orgasms before he even touches you.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “You won’t know until you try. And you know what my momma always used to say-”

  “Can’t never did anything. Try killed him,” I said mockingly.

  “That’s right. So, you need to let the Wolf come to you and do with you as he wishes. Let him sink his teeth into you and devour you like the beast he is.”

  “A clueless beast,” I reminded her.

  “Doesn’t matter. I say that a clueless beast is better than no beast at all.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to get me thrown in a trunk and carted off to some cabin in the woods where I’ll never be heard from again.”

  “Okay, one, that would be so sexy with this man. And two, there are worse ways for a date to end.”

  “Such as?”

  “Body bag?”

  “The cabin in the woods ends with me in a body bag,” I stressed. “We’re trying to avoid that.”

  “Look, he wouldn’t work at a security company if he was a guy that went around kidnapping people and killing them.”

  “That’s exactly what he wants everyone to think! He looks like the good guy that protects people until I end up taped to some chair while he looks at me all crazy-like and tells me that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I can literally hear him saying it now!”

  “Reese, you’re on the crazy train and it’s time you got off. Both literally and figuratively. The man is super sexy and he wants you. Just go with it.”

  “The only place I’m going is to bed.”

  “That’s right. Go be a cat lady that goes to bed at seven-thirty at night.”

  “I don’t have any cats,” I shouted at her.

  “Listen, you’ve had a rough night. I’ll take care of this.”

  “No, I didn’t-”

  “Yeah, yeah, you can thank me later.”

  “Don’t you dare-”

  “Gotta go!”

  The line disconnected and I punched her number again, trying to stop her from doing something stupid. But she didn’t answer the phone. I dialed again, but this time it went to voicemail. I started pacing around my house. She wasn’t really going to do anything. This was insane. I mean, what would she do? Show up at Reed Security? I scoffed and then laughed to myself. That was insane. No way was that happening.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Craig

  I waited in Sean’s office for Cap to show up. I just didn’t understand what went wrong. I brought her a fucking wreath. It was gorgeous, just like her. I showed up in a fucking tie. So, what went wrong
?

  The door opened and I groaned. Alec walked in with a fucking shit-eating grin on his face. Arms spread wide, he spun around slowly, looking at the room. “I could be wrong, but I believe this is the police station. Didn’t I tell you I was going to be hearing from you?”

  “I didn’t call you.”

  “But you would have if Sean didn’t.”

  “Look, this is all a misunderstanding. She knew we were supposed to be going out on a date. I wore a tie and everything.”

  “And she still didn’t go out with you,” he said in amazement. “You’re lucky that Florrie went to grab your truck with Cap. If this gets around to any of the other guys, you’re in so much shit.”

  “I don’t see why. I just need to talk to her. I think maybe she got the dates wrong or something. Nothing else makes sense to me.”

  “Did she look like she wanted to go out with you?”

  “Well, no, but I think maybe she’s a little scared about going out with me. I think she’s not into the whole guns and strong man type.”

  “Then why are you going after her?”

  I looked at him stupidly. It was like he wasn’t hearing a single word I was saying. “Because we’re supposed to be together. Sheesh. Keep up. It’s not that complicated.”

  He shook his head and walked out the door. Assuming I was able to leave now, I followed him out the door and through the police station. Sean stopped me just outside the front doors.

  “I think this goes without saying that you can’t go see her again.”

  “Sure,” I nodded, though I had no intention of leaving her alone.

  “I’m serious. And I’ll know if you’re bothering her because she’s friends with my wife. And I really don’t like when my wife gets upset, so don’t do anything you shouldn’t do.”

  “Of course,” I laughed lightly. I saw Alec shake his head like he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t say anything. After getting in his truck, I waited for him to start in. I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long.

  “I know you’re not this fucking stupid,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

  “Here we go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I said ‘here we go’. You know, because this is the point where you lecture me about how I’m not giving up on my woman, when it’s so clear that you did the exact same thing with Florrie.”

  “I did not.”

  “The fuck you didn’t. You killed a man because you thought he hurt her. Face it, you chased Florrie for three fucking years and now you’re telling me to back away when I meet someone I like. Why can’t I have what you have?”

  “Well, first off, Florrie and I were already fucking. Your girl doesn’t even want to be in the same room with you.”

  “So, I need to work on that part,” I said with a nod. “I know that we’re supposed to be together. I just need to make her see that.”

  Alec sighed next to me, drumming his thumb on the steering wheel. “Fine, what can I help with?”

  “I need to figure out how to get her to stay and talk to me. When we were in that coffee shop, we were having great conversation.”

  “Before three men walked in and held the place up, and you used your ninja skills to take them out.”

  “Right. But I didn’t kill anyone, which I made very clear to her. And I didn’t throat punch anyone like I thought I would. With some therapy, those men are relatively fine.”

  “Yeah, but remember, this isn’t Florrie we’re talking about. This is a woman that has probably never seen an actual fist fight.”

  “There are people like that?” I asked.

  He nodded and sighed. “This is why I’m not so sure this whole thing is gonna work. Remember the woman I was dating before Florrie? She was terrified of weapons. And I know she would have made me get rid of my cannon. So, you have to ask yourself, are you prepared to be with a woman that won’t like your job?”

  “I just have to warm her up to it, that’s all.”

  He sighed and pulled through the gates of Reed Security. “Okay, so let’s put a plan together. We need a way for her to get to know you when you aren’t quite so…brutal looking.”

  I nodded, liking where he was going with this. “Okay, so nonthreatening locations. There are plenty of those. The gym.”

  “You could play ball at the park.”

  “A restaurant.”

  “If she didn’t want to go with you tonight, she’s not gonna want to later,” he pointed out.

  “Right. Okay, so, other locations that I won’t potentially kill someone…” I snapped my fingers rhythmically as I tried to come up with something clever. I noticed Alec was quiet on his end too.

  “You know, maybe we should just go for running in the park. I’ll do some background on her. She looks like she stays fit, so there’s a possibility she runs too.”

  “And if not?”

  “We’ll go for the gym. I mean, really, what are the chances that something would go wrong exercising?”