Charlee sighed and released his hand to squat beside one of the duffle bags and rifle through it. "What about the sirens we heard? Did you uncover anything about the cops that arrived?" She tugged out a black footless stocking thing and climbed to her feet. "I guess I'm not surprised the Craigs cleaned up that fast." She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down her thighs.

"No." Nathan paced a circuit in front of the curtained windows. "Since the police aren't banging down the door looking for a murder suspect, it's safe to assume they work for Roy."

The sight of her little red panties shot blood straight to Jay's dick. Heavy warmth pulsed through his genitals and heated his face. What in the hell was she doing? "Craigs?" he croaked.

Nathan stepped in front of him and blocked his view. "She calls anyone loyal to Roy a Craig."

Craning his neck, he could feel Nathan's glare, but fuck, Jimi Hendrix's 1968 Stratocaster wouldn't have pulled his eyes away from the leggings sliding up her toned legs. "Why Craig?"

"The Viet Cong were Charlie. Roy's adherents are Craig. That's all you need to know." Nathan cleared his throat in a useless effort to distract his eyes. "And the body disappeared in the time it took Colson to escort you up here, search the area for snipers, and return to the alley."

She gripped the hem of her shirt. "So the Craig dispatched the crowd, the dead Craig, and the police? The latter would've been a phone call from Roy to an inside guy on the force. I've watched him do this too many times to count." Her voice trailed off, quivering. "Now what? His thugs are out there waiting, without anyone to witness them attacking us when we come out?" She pulled off her shirt, unleashing waves of red hair tumbling down around her.

Sweet suffering Jesus. The trembling in her fingers nullified him somewhat, but he could see her nipples shadowed behind the lace. Heat surged through his dick. He was mindless with the need to pull it out and stick it in her.

Nathan droned on about blah snipers and blah blah tampered police reports and who the fuck cared? Her tits overflowed their red laced prison as she dug through the luggage. Any moment they would spill out in perfect servings for the cups of his hands.

His dick hurt. Could he slip a hand beneath his leather pants and make an adjustment without being obvious?

She stood, fumbling for the neck hole in a drapey-shaped shirt. Her leggings hung low on her waist, highlighting her fuck-me curves. With all that sleek skin stretching over her flat stomach and the arches of her tits, yeah, the chubby in his pants required some realigning. He reached for it.

"Charlee." Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please hurry. Your rock star's about to rip through his thirteen-year-old-slut pants."

What was wrong with his pants? Besides the painful nut-hugging?

Her eyes flew to his hand on his dick and widened. Then she looked down at her bra and tensed as if just realizing she was baring her assets to everyone in the room.

She righted the shirt and shoved her head and arms through. The ivory tunic hugged her ass and hips and hung loosely off her shoulder and around her tits. She was a fucking knock-out, which did nothing to cool his erection.

Face red, she scooped up her plaid Doc Martens and strode toward the kitchen nook. The apologetic look on her face shriveled him right up. She hadn't been teasing him on purpose. Something was wrong.

He side-stepped Nathan to follow, but the bastard blocked him again and leaned in.

"She was stripped of her modesty a long time ago," he whispered, low and stern. "Two months without clothes. She's immune to nudity."

Slivers of what Nathan had shared that morning about her captivity pierced through him, stabbing his heart. A lesser person would've hidden her pain in shame, but she bared hers with a grace that outshone everyone. "She's so fearless; it's easy to forget."

"I know." Nathan let out a sharp huff, but a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Don't beat yourself up too badly. I've had three years to get used to it, and sometimes..." He glanced over his shoulder and watched her rummage through the refrigerator. "I'm still a man."

That pissed him the fuck off, but the tension retreated when Nathan's eyes strayed to Tony. It was a lingering look he hadn't seen on the man before. Okay, Nathan wanted to fuck his bodyguard. That he could live with.

"What's the plan?" Charlee asked around a spoonful of yogurt and leaned her butt against the counter. Her posture exuded a deliberate calmness, but the way her jaw stiffened around each bite exposed her fear.

He closed the distance and rested his palms on her hips, emptying his face of his own fears. There could be men on the surrounding buildings with sniper rifles, hiding in dumpsters, riding by in passing cars. Hell, they could've been waiting in the apartment across the hall. If they couldn't trust the police, they truly were on their own. "The protective team will be ready to move us soon."

Charlee rubbed her temple. "How many bodyguards?"

"When we're traveling, they're a five-man team." He had another five on reserve at home. Lot of good that did him. He pulled her against him and a quickening buzzed through his body, making him gasp. Maybe it was the stressful energy bouncing between them. Maybe it was just Charlee and the pulse of life itself.

"So there are three of us...we're principals?" She glanced up at him, arms folded behind her. "That's what your bodyguards call us?"

He nodded.

"Three principals and five bodyguards." She unlocked a hand from her back to chew a fingernail. "That's doable, right? I mean, there are four in your band with five bodyguards."

He tugged her finger from her mouth. "Guarding the band means holding back energetic crowds and photographers, not snipers and kidnappers." He thought back over the worst scenarios he'd been in. "I've had moments, trapped at the center of closely packed crowds, when I thought I would die, actually thought I would keel over and stop breathing, but my team always escorted me out unharmed."

What a coward he was, buckling under something as benign as an enthusiastic mob. How many times had she held her shit together while looking in the eye of a rapist and murderer?

At that moment, he realized he could change their current situation by changing himself. There were no easy solutions. But there was an obvious one. "Tony, contact the paparazzi agencies and tell them where I'm at."

Tony glared. She didn't like it, but she would follow his orders.

He looked down and floated in the depths of Charlee's huge eyes. "You've been hiding for a long time. You ready to start living?"

"When you have to hide to live, you're ready for anything." Her jaw set.

Damn, he loved her fire. "Good, because Roy Oxford knows where you are, and he's going to watch you walk out of here on whatever camera shit his men have set-" He faltered when she closed her eyes. Fuck, he forgot about the cameras in the penthouse. He raised her chin and waited for her to look at him. "He's going to watch you walk out of here and there's not a damned thing he'll be able to do about it."

Her lips pinched in a line and the wheels spun behind her watchful eyes. Then she sucked in a breath. "The Craigs can't nab me if we're at the center of paparazzi attention."

"That's right." He nodded to Tony.

She pulled out her phone and dialed. She'd called them before, giving them false locations so they could move around effortlessly. This time would be legit. He stood taller, lengthened his backbone.

A frown scrunched Charlee's face. "You'll be mobbed. Exactly the kind of thing you avoid."

He knew she was thinking about his trigger. It was a valid concern, but she would be there to help him transform his stardom from oppressive to useful. "Avoiding isn't living. I want to live, Charlee, and I want to do so deeply." With her.

"You don't have to battle the shit in my life to live yours."

He pushed the hair from the side of her face, careful of her injuries, and settled his hands on her hips. "Won't I be battling my own shit at the same time?"

"Yes, but-"

"Do you know what happens when you open up?"

She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. "It makes you strong."

He kissed each lid and whispered against them, "Dare to be vulnerable with me?"

She opened her eyes, looked up into his, and smiled so brightly, he knew the glow from it would stay with him forever.

He decided to push his luck. "Come to L.A. with me."

She rolled her eyes to Nathan, who was rubbing his jaw, watching her. His reaction was pivotal. Better be the right one. Jay didn't want to beat the shit out of the man who had protected her for three years.

Nathan chewed on his lip, stared at his sneakers, glanced at Tony, and sighed. Then he raised his eyes to Charlee. "You might be free of your chain, sweetheart, but we both know you aren't really free. Your life is yours to live your way. If Jay is offering you that freedom..." Nathan glared at him. "Under the protection of his security team..."

No wonder she listened to him. The dude knew how to woo her. Jay wanted to hate him for it, but he couldn't. And of course, Jay would protect her with the best security money could buy. He nodded his agreement.

Nathan looked back at her. "Then nothing else matters."

She smiled and mouthed, "Thank you." Then she directed that smile at Jay, and it was pure vibration in his body. "Let's go battle some crowds and Craigs."

If he had a fraction of her courage, he could battle anything.

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

Unseen commotion bumped and rattled the apartment door. Charlee stood before the looming thing, fingering the bandage on her ear, waiting to be escorted into chaos.

Dread gurgled in her stomach and tried to rob the strength in her legs. Her outlook wavered by the minute, so she distracted her nerves by perusing a mental checklist.

Five-man protective team plus Nathan? Check. Bodyguard 380 wedged in her butt crack? Check. Paparazzi vultures gathered outside? Check. Hot rock star with more balls than sense?

She bent her neck to look at him. He rocked on his heels beside her, clutching her hand and humming the tune he'd written in the bathroom, though the undercurrent to this rendition was darker, more subdued. His hand was sweaty and trembling, but his balls were present, outlined in his spray-on leather pants. Check.

What else would she need to accompany an agoraphobic-ish celebrity into the sights of cameras and sniper rifles?

Courage? Any bravado she was trying to hold onto would be left behind with their luggage in the melee of the evacuation attempt. "I can't believe you called in the paparazzi." Her voice choked on a mass of fear. She swallowed. She understood why exposing her to the paparazzi might work. The public eye would protect her a hell of a lot better than the dark corners she'd been hiding in. But as she stood there, preparing to walk into it, she was shaking in her Doc Martens.

He kissed the top of her head. "Yeah. I'm starting to second guess myself. How will I be able to protect you while they're blinding me with flashbulbs? Especially when the beautiful girl at my side works them into a frenzyfuck." He flashed a cheeky grin.

Beautiful girl. How many times had she recoiled when Roy called her that? Yet as it filled her ears in Jay's deep timbre, it recreated itself. "Will I have my own Wikipedia page after this?"

The sexy rumble of his growl lifted her up on tiptoes and into the solidarity of their joining lips. She drew the flavor of his mouth into hers, drinking him in, and whispered against his exhales. "Thank you for doing this."

Eyes round and thoughtful, he shook his head and stroked his thumb over her jaw. "I don't know what you're doing to me, Charlee, but whatever it is melts everything else away. It's the best feeling in the world." A quiet seemed to collect around him. He straightened to his full height and his hand in hers stopped shaking. "Tony?"

"We have alternate evacuation plans lined up if riots break out." Tony positioned herself beside Jay. "And the chartered jet will be ready for our arrival. We're waiting for your visual signal."

Jay captured Charlee's lips in a quick kiss and patted his left shoulder with his right hand.

The sudden formation of bodies boxing them in wound up her nerves to the utmost point of tension. When the forward two bodyguards-Tony called them Vanderschoot and O'Neil-moved to the door, she thought her veins might snap from over-pumping.

He put his mouth at her ear. "Deep breath, baby." Then it was gone with the push of the door and the flashing of bulbs.

Click. Click. Click.

Vanderschoot, the guard in the lead, held back the mob for O'Neil to exit. In the next heartbeat, the two bodyguards barreled through the throngs in a choreographed attack, each pushing back photographers and carving a path through the crowd.

The vultures bumped into one another. Equipment clanked together. "Watch it. Back up. Back up."

"Clear." Tony held the door for Jay.

He released Charlee's hand, locked his arm around her shoulders, and guided her into the hallway. Edison, Colson, and Nathan brought up the rear.

"Go. Go. Go." The mobs shuffled with them, squatting to snap pictures and tripping over themselves.

"Jay Mayard. Look over here."

Click. Click. Flash. Flash.

What kind of hell had she walked into? Paparazzi crammed every inch of the hall. What if the Craigs prowled amongst them? How would the guards spot them? Her heart drummed a frenzied rhythm.

"Is that your girlfriend, Jay? What's her name? What happened to your ear, miss?"

She cupped her injury and blinked against the assault of blinding lights. Man, oh man, if he dealt with this every time he went out, no wonder he never wanted to leave his hotel room. She pressed closer into the mantle of his body, and his heart knocked against her cheek.

"Give them space. Give them space." The photographers' questions never slowed.

The cameras darted in and out of her face. There were so many of them. No way could the bodyguards hold them all back. Remarkably, the photographers didn't reach out, didn't try to touch.

She kept her eyes on her Doc Martens, scuffing them slowly along the concrete landing to the stairs. Jay's Chucks dragged alongside hers.

A photographer shoved another into the wall and shouting interrogations pursued.

At the top of the stairs, she and Jay waited behind the bar of Tony's outstretched arm while Vanderschoot and O'Neil cleared a passageway. Their eyes swept up and down, passing over the paparazzi as if they weren't there.

"You're doing well," Jay whispered in her ear.

"I don't know about that. How are you doing?" His smile was small and sad and held her heart hostage in her throat. "Do the paparazzi ever touch you?"

"It's generally against the law to touch someone without their consent. They're a nuisance, but they rarely break that rule." His lips brushed the shell of her ear, and he hugged her closer to his chest. "The fans are the law breakers."

A reminder that the worst was yet to come. The herd trailing them was mild, relative to the shouts thundering from the parking lot.

"Clear," one of the guards shouted from below.

Down the stairs and around the landings they went. Tony and Nathan flanked them. Every time their eyes flicked upward, Charlee's pulse spiked. Edison and Colson kept their positions always a floor behind.

The paparazzi leading the slow parade walked backward, scuffling while snapping pictures, some falling down the stairs and climbing their way back up. Jay ducked his head under his free arm, squinting against the invasive flashing.

She dug into her messenger bag and handed him the sunglasses. The way he hurriedly fumbled them on made her wish she'd never taken them.

The closer they came to the ground, the thicker and louder the crowd grew. The security team tightened their circle and the air clotted with unease.

They stepped off the bottom stair at the front of the building and a chorus of shrill screams rode in on the crisp breeze. Six rigid bodies backed into her and Jay, squeezing them in a tight box. Her breath came out in noisy pants. She couldn't see a damned thing around the wall of guards.