A sudden influx of feelings for him welled up, filling her with a perverse sense of intoxication. His admission was the steel that made the man. He had no idea how courageous he was. "Everyone has vulnerabilities. A strong man isn't afraid to show his."

He chewed the inside of his cheek, making his adorable dimple more pronounced. "I don't like feeling this way, Charlee." His body drew ever closer, and she realized she was doing the same.

"Putting your trust in someone is the most vulnerable thing you can do." She placed her palms flat on the counter behind her and spread her knees in invitation to stand between them.

The shadow of Roy's forceful hand coiled around her, inside her, strangling her. She shook it off and focused on the man before her. "Dare to be vulnerable with me." Was the quake in her voice as noticeable as the trembling in her legs?

A vibration seemed to ripple over his body. She might've been relationship handicapped, but she knew what arousal looked like on a man. It was evident in his sharp gasp, the softening of his gaze as it lowered to the apex of her thighs, and the way he carried himself through his pelvis as if all energy and thought were concentrated there.

Desire resonated from him as he followed his hips into the triangle of hers, holding her eyes until their faces were close, so close his breath became hers and their lips brushed through their exhales.

Wedged between her legs, he smoothed his palms along her jeans from her knees to her thighs, around her waist, and hooked his fingers beneath her butt. Then he yanked her to the edge of the counter until the zipper of her jeans was flush with the strain behind his leathers.

It was hard to remember not to touch him as his lips fell over hers and his tongue caressed back and forth, taking over her mouth and stealing her breath. She tasted the familiarity growing between them and savored the potency of it.

His fingers grazed her jaw and he rolled his brow against hers, panting heavily as he caught her licks and deepened them with the flat of his tongue. Her own fingers were locked, curling against the countertop.

They came up for air, slowly, breathlessly, and smiling like fools. His body was rigid. Pulsating. Ready. And at that moment, it was all hers. She rubbed her chest against the chiseled wall of his, her nipples hardening through her t-shirt.

He groaned and floated a hand over her breast, holding her eyes in silent question.

The imploring way he looked at her and the caution that preceded his actions made him someone she wanted to place her confidence in. She dropped her head back on her shoulders and pushed her breast into his waiting hand.

He chased the swollen nub with his thumb, flicking and squeezing. Then he went after it with his mouth, swiping his tongue against the fabric and dampening it with his gasps.

The hard muscle embracing her produced a kind of tranquilizing effect. His arms supported her. The pillar of his body was her strength. Without lifting her hands from the vanity, she loosened her limbs and let her butt slip off the edge and into the waiting cradle of his rocking hips. The sculpted surface of his stomach contracted against her, invading her headspace and simmering heat in her pussy.

Too soon, he raised his mouth from her breast and nipped at her chin with a grin on his beautiful face. He brushed her hair from her ear with a gentle hand and checked her wounds. Satisfied, he moved to her lips, tracing them with a finger, watching her steadily. "You build me up and turn me inside out. I've never felt so defenseless and yet...so daring at the same time."

Wasn't that what intimacy felt like? She smiled, her skin hot and flushed. "Mission accomplished."

He curved his upper body around her with his hands on her hips, seemingly oblivious to how desperately she wanted to hug him back. His voice whispered over her cheek. "You said everyone has vulnerabilities. What's yours?"

Slick with sweat, her hands slipped on the counter behind her. She adjusted her grip and straightened to sit. If she were going to trust him, she needed to do it in the most important way. "Do you know what happens when you open up?" She looked pointedly at her legs, spread around his.

A smile danced on his lips. "You get laid?"

She snorted. "If you're lucky." She placed her lips against his, held them there for a long moment, drinking in the spice of his breath. Then she leaned back to look in his eyes. "There was a time when I wouldn't have willingly sat like this with an aroused man between my legs."

His body turned to stone, and hers hardened in kind. His nostrils flared, but she pushed on. "I've been raped sixteen times in this position."

The hands on her hips curled into fists. He closed his eyes, and his chest rose and fell through rapid breath. His body shook against hers. Was he going to explode? He looked like he might puke.

"Hey." She squeezed his hips with her thighs. "Don't shut me out. If I can't talk to you, this stops. We stop." She wanted him to have access to the place inside her she never showed Noah. A mistake she wouldn't make again.

He opened his eyes, and they were haunted and cloudy. He dropped his forehead to hers, and she could feel the tension sparking from his body. "Sixteen times?" A whisper.

"I stopped counting after that." The truth was empowering. It opened her chest and released the toxin. It also exposed her heart. Maybe Jay would crawl in and rip it to shreds. Or maybe he would fill in the cracks. "When I learned how to open up, do you know what happened?"

He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. "It made you incredibly fucking strong."

She smiled and kissed the soft skin below his jaw. "It made me strong enough to enjoy the feel of you between my legs."

His shuddering breath bathed her in warmth. He kissed her neck, nuzzled it, and kissed it again. "Please don't run off on me."

She cringed. "Your sunglasses are in my bag. I'm not sorry about that. You know why I did it."

"Yeah, Charlee." He straightened, rubbing his hands along her spine, fingers circling her back. "It was brave and...romantic." His eyes glimmered. Then they turned to brownstone. "And it nearly cost you your life. Until we bury Roy Oxford, you'll be wearing a bodyguard."

Until we buried Roy. The we sounded dreamy and ...brash. But his hell-bent expression dissuaded her from arguing. She wasn't sure the bathroom wall would survive another Jay Mayard tantrum. "Shouldn't your security team be done sweeping?"

"They'll turn over every stone within a ten block radius before they let us out of here." He kissed her lips and explored her face, her neck, her shoulders with his mouth and hands. Her fingers tingled to touch him back.

"Can I put my hands on you?" she whispered when he returned to her lips.

A struggle of emotions swirled in his eyes and tightened the muscles in his cheeks. Maybe she was pushing, but pushing was what he needed.

His flawless complexion glowed beneath the loose strands of his dark brown hair. After a few thudding heart beats, his deliberation settled into smooth skin and a soft gaze. "Hold your hands up, palms facing you."

She remembered how strong the angles of his jaw felt beneath her fingers the previous night as she held up the backs of her hands. "I touched your face last night when you were sleeping."

He widened his eyes, but they were smiling. "Next time, I'll be awake." He interlaced their fingers, palms to palms and brought the backs of her hands to his chest. "Baby steps, okay?"

With all that thick brown hair curling around the tips of his ears, his dark round eyes and clear golden skin, he was way too beautiful to not be touched. She strained toward him. "Baby steps."

He moved their hands from his shoulders to his cheeks, flinching as her knuckles stroked his velvet skin. Then he gathered her fingers at his mouth where he nuzzled and kissed each one, sending trickles of pleasure over her hands and up her arms.

What he did next, cut her breath. He let go briefly to turn her wrists, pressed her palms against his cheeks, and dropped his hands. He stared at her out of penetrating eyes, pinning her in place.

A fever bloomed beneath her fingers, and his facial muscles bunched and lolled. His breath sped up, quietly at first. Then the whoosh of air pushing through his nose carried noisily through the small space.

There was something pulling at the edges of his eyes, twitching the skin there, stretching from the corners, and spreading through his face. It settled on his mouth, twisting his lips away from his clenched teeth.

She jerked her hands back. "Jay?"

He was looking at her but he didn't see her.

"Jay, talk to me."

Not a blink. Not a twitch.

Dammit, she wanted to wrap her arms around him. Since she couldn't, she tried to warm her voice with the comfort of a hug. "I'm here. Please, talk to me."

He closed his eyes and cupped his ears. One hand dropped to the front of his pants, rubbing whatever the bump was in his pocket.

Fucking hell. Holding her arms out and away, she circled her legs around his hips, hooked her boots behind his knees, and closed the gap between their bodies, trapping his hand against his pocket.

No response. He was lost in his head. Could she climb in there with him and pull him out?

She stretched her neck to reach his slacked jaw and kissed his bottom lip. "Where are we, Jay?"

He stopped breathing. He held his breath so long, she filled her lungs to shout for help- "The shed." he exhausted in a shuddering gasp.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. The shed? "Who's with us?"

"Alone. So dark." His voice sounded small, younger. He brought his arms up between them and hugged his chest, rocking.

Oh God, what memories was he hanging onto? "What are we doing in the shed?"

"Hiding."

The childlike whisper chilled the room and coated her spine with ice.

"I'm with you, Jay. I need you. I need you to hold me."

His eyes shot open, and his breath released in gulping waves. "Charlee."

"I'm here." With useless fucking arms hanging at her sides.

The sculpted cuts of his gorgeous face sharpened as he dropped his hands in her lap. "Put your hands back."

No way. She shook her head.

He bent until their brows touched. "We're so close. Please?" His timbre was stiff, forced.

Shit. Shit. Shit. She clenched her fists at her sides. She'd wanted to push him, but not like this.

Without warning, a hum vibrated in his chest. What began as a purr, warbled into quivering notes. The first inflection of his voice sent a shiver through her. "Cut me open. Dipping deeper." More soughing notes. "Heart in hand."

The pitch of his voice and its reflection of meaning wrapped around her, lulling her into a trance.

He licked his lips and sang the next verse against her mouth. "With you, I float."

The effect his lilt had on her was visceral. Immediate. Erotic. His voice stroked her body, saturating her pussy and seducing her into a dripping wet puddle. So hypnotized, she didn't register his arm moving until he gripped her wrist and placed her palm over his heart.

His humming broke when her hand made contact, and his heart pounded against her touch.

He began again. "It's the only way to swim." He held her eyes, his hand over hers, and murmured the rhythm as he sang. "In your blue seas."

Gasps broke through her parted lips.

Nestling closer into the triangle of her legs, he brushed his lips over hers. The low melody of the song vibrated through the press of his lips and the thrum in his chest. Her heart pounded and she returned his kiss while he hummed.

He leaned back and looked into her eyes. "That's where I'll be," he sang. "Don't disappear on me."

The tune reverberated through his closed lips. "Come to L.A. with me." He ended with a sultry hum.

Her chest tightened. She wanted more of his sexy voice, wanted more of this beautiful man. "When did you write that?"

"Just now."

Wow. Music had always had an effect on her but... "Your voice...I've never heard you sing live. It was..." Dark. Deep. Panty-soaking. "Profound."

"You inspire me, Charlee."

She kissed him and he answered it, led it. The thrusts of his tongue were as enthusiastic as the beat of his heart against her palm. The sensation was overwhelming. She was spinning, falling. She pulled back. "This is crazy. What is this between us?"

It was dreamlike, this moment, amidst of the chaos and dangers around them. On the heels of such a frightening and death-facing experience, they seemed to fall so easily into one another. Yet, wasn't that what she'd done in the penthouse? In the threat of Roy's presence, she'd focused on her memory of Jay, exploring it, growing it.

"I don't know, but it feels incredible." He squeezed her hand on his chest to punctuate his words.

A fist rapped on the bathroom door.

They broke apart. The moment was interrupted but not lost, if the promise in his eyes were anything to go by. They had opened a window, one they would never close again.

Nathan's voice muffled through the door. "We have a problem."

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

Nathan's interruption kicked Jay off his Charlee cloud and into the dregs of reality. If his protective team wasn't able to secure a safe evacuation route, the crowd must have swarmed out of control.

He clasped Charlee's hand and followed Nathan out of the bathroom.

"You need to get rid of those clothes, Charlee." Nathan glanced over his shoulder, his eyes flitting from the stain on her jeans to the smears on her shirt.

She lowered her chin and picked at a splatter of dried blood as if it were something she saw every day. She shrugged. "Yeah. Good call."

What kind of shit had she seen in her life to be so nonchalant about wearing a dead man's guts? Jay tucked the question in the back of his brain. He needed to focus on getting them out of there. Where was everyone? Other than his team leader, none of his guards were there. Not a good sign.

Tony didn't say anything as she left her post by the door and strode toward him. The lines etching her frown spoke for her.

Had someone recognized him? Did they know he was there? Tingling invaded his body, accompanied by the usual feeling of a loss of control. Some of that was the lingering effect of the coke. The reminder of his drug use bubbled guilt through his gut.

But he had Charlee's hand in his and her strength by his side. "How bad is the crowd?"

Tony was so exacting in her posture as she looked between Charlee and him, she could have been mistaken for a statue. "The crowd is gone. As is the body."

The crowd was gone? They obviously didn't know he was in the building. Wait. "What do you mean the body's gone? How does a dead man disappear?"