hit the pavement so hard he’d torn through his slacks, but it didn’t look as if he needed stitches. The bleeding had thankfully stopped. “I have no idea. He wasn’t very smart, though. He got the cheaper of the two bags I was carrying. This purse is actually vintage Versace. Joy bought it for me as her maid of honor. It’s worth a small fortune, much more than the laptop itself.”
“Was that the only thing in the bag?” His low voice sounded monotone. He’d been distant, almost removed ever since the asshole had gotten away.
Holland wondered if he was angry or embarrassed that he hadn’t brought the bad guy down. There was nothing more Dax could have done. “My laptop, an extra battery, wireless mouse. That’s all. My phone was in my purse, thank god.”
“Was it a particularly expensive laptop?”
“It’s government issued, so what do you think?” she asked with an acidic little grin. “It sucked. And don’t worry. I already called the office. They shut down any access from that system and changed every one of my passwords. It’s really more of a hassle than anything. I bet he was actually trying to get my purse and missed.”
Dax finally cast his gaze on her, his eyes chilly. “He wasn’t. I watched him. He knew exactly what he wanted.”
A tinge of disquiet rolled through her. “Are you saying someone followed us? How would they even have known where we were?”
His mouth tightened. “Don’t forget, someone took a picture of us going into Antoine’s. It was up about five minutes after we entered the restaurant. We were there for two hours. Unfortunately, it’s not hard to follow someone like me around. All you have to do is watch the gossip sites.” He glanced at his phone. “I’m glad no one snapped pictures of me fighting that asshole. That would have made for awesome press.”
With a wry nod, Holland closed up the first aid kit and sat back on her couch, trying to figure Dax out. He’d been so heroic and intent on saving her. Now he seemed all but shut down and she couldn’t stand it. She needed to come at the problem from a different angle.
“I was scared for you,” she murmured.
He stared her way through narrowed eyes. “I know you like to think of me as a spoiled rich kid, but I am a captain in the Navy. I know how to handle myself in a fight.”
As the truth behind his mood hit her, she softened. He was still feeling the adrenaline. She’d seen this time and time again after a battle or fight, felt it herself a few times when she’d gotten into dangerous situations. He needed calm and she was going to give it to him.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have shot you. My laptop wasn’t worth your life. I back everything up. Every note I had, every file I’ve gathered is saved to an alternate storage system. Even the notes I took during the interview with my uncle are saved there. I’ll pull it all onto my home system tonight, so it’s not a big deal. You were amazing, Dax. I appreciate you for trying to come to my rescue but I never want you to put yourself in that position for me again.”
His body language softened slightly. “Didn’t like watching him pull a gun on me, huh?”
Her heart had nearly stopped when she’d caught up to them. “If I never see it again, it will be too soon.”
She’d stood at the entrance of the alley helplessly, knowing she couldn’t get to him or her own weapon in time. If the assailant had wanted to pull the trigger, she couldn’t have saved Dax. In that moment, she’d realized she could lose him. And something had shifted inside her. Yes, she was afraid that a relationship with him could end in heartache, but was she willing to go her whole life without knowing what it felt like to wake up beside him? To wrap her arms around him and know he belonged to her? To surrender utterly to the one man she knew would make everything else worthwhile?
As if their kiss at Antoine’s had taken place mere moments ago, she could still feel his lips on hers, tempting her as his big body had pressed her, hot and hard, to the wall. She’d almost been willing to do anything to have him right then and there.
“He got lucky. If I’d been closer, I would have gotten that gun out of his hand and grabbed your laptop,” Dax vowed. “If I ever see that asshole again, I’m going to wipe the floor with him.”
She gave him a placating smile, intending to make sure they stayed far away from the guy. “Like I said, there’s nothing important on that laptop that I can’t get back. So if this was some nefarious plot to steal my secrets, they failed.”
He fell quiet for a moment. “I find it interesting that you start investigating my father’s case and someone immediately assaults you.”
He sounded a bit suspicious, like he was looking for conspiracy theories all around him. She had a few theories of her own. “It was very likely a random street crime. It’s the season, and we happened to be on the perfect street and at the right time of day. Or if they were targeting me, it was because of your media attention. If a reporter thinks we’re dating, they likely want the laptop to get information on me. Or in case we have stuff stored on it.”
“Stuff?”
She felt herself blush. She really shouldn’t have to tell him what she could potentially have on her computer that a tabloid might pay tons of money to own.
His lips curled up into a broad, male grin. “You think someone hoped that you had a sex tape of us?”
“I’ve heard that there’s a bounty out on any of the president’s friends. Well, except for Mad. He practically has a YouTube channel devoted to his sex life. If we’ve already hit the tabloid pages, it makes sense that some asshole reporter would try to get a scoop. He did have a camera bag on his bike.”
“Stupid bicycles should have license plates. I didn’t get that great a look at the asshole once we turned down that alley. It was too dark and he was wearing that douchebag helmet. I don’t like that someone is already stalking us. Holland, I should go.”
“Leave?” She blinked at him and resisted the urge to pull him close.
“I think I should,” he said grimly. “Maybe you should stop investigating and we shouldn’t see each other anymore. It’s too soon after the giant shit storm of my father’s scandal. Whoever wanted him dead doesn’t want the truth uncovered. I can’t risk you.”
Yesterday, she would have started singing hallelujah at the thought of Dax not dangling his tempting self in front of her anymore. Now she couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing him every day. She’d been a coward where he was concerned for nearly ten years, always running from this amazing man because she wanted him too much and she’d long feared he would leave her broken. Yes, he came with baggage. Granted, some phenomenally wretched baggage, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the loneliness on his face when he’d admitted that no woman he dated had cared about him enough to know his favorite foods. She knew far more about him and they’d barely flirted with anything beyond friendship.
But now Holland had found something she was more afraid of losing than her heart. She feared losing Dax Spencer forever.
“You’re not risking me. I agreed to help you. And you can’t let a random street thief derail you from getting the answers you deserve. I’m fine. Let me do my job. And don’t worry about the press, either. The truth is you’re a lesser Gentleman,” she joked. “You and Connor are the boring ones. You have a good job and you’re excellent at it. You don’t dance drunk in Italian fountains.”
“In Mad’s defense, it’s not just Italian fountains. He’ll swim naked in any public body of water.”
She laughed. His friends were crazy, but they were loyal to the bone. Would Dax be as loyal to the woman who snared his heart? Would he stand by her the way he did his friends? Would he forgive her even if she couldn’t give him the answers he wanted most in the world? “Dax, I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to, either, but it might be for the best. I moved too fast earlier. I meant what I said. I’m not going to push you again. Our relationship—in whatever form it comes—is too important to me to lose. I’ll take you a
ny way I can get you.”
Had he been this sweet all those years ago? Maybe he had been and she hadn’t wanted to hear it. Her younger self had been afraid of being another notch in his bedpost, but she couldn’t find the will to turn him away now.
She wanted more than a kiss. She wanted more than to have her body hum just being near him. Now she wanted to follow him down the hall and to find where that hum led, to finally know what it meant to be Dax Spencer’s lover.
The trouble was she’d convinced him that she didn’t. She might regret this tomorrow . . . but tonight had underscored the fact that life could be cut short in an instant. She’d rather regret what she did do, not what she hadn’t.
“Our friendship is important to me, too. That’s one of the reasons I walked away at the wedding.”
“I thought that was all about your career and my fast-lane life.”
“It was in part.” She’d held the truth in all these years. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Joy. She’d joked about flirting with Dax and made the easy excuse of not wanting to be in the spotlight, but there had been more behind her decision. “I knew I wanted to go into law enforcement. I’ve known since I was a kid. Other girls were playing princess and I was taking down the bad guys. Maybe I looked up to my uncle too much.” She shrugged. “Eventually, I realized that I wanted to venture more into the investigative part of the job. I like the mental challenge of solving crime. But it’s a tough role for a woman.”
He winced a bit as he sat up, but his gaze remained steady on her. “I can imagine. Especially down here. It’s still a good old boys’ network in the South.”
“Yes. Oddly, my last name buys me some goodwill. It’s one reason I wanted to come to New Orleans. Well, and because it feels like home. When you approached me at Joy and Zack’s wedding, I worried that being your girlfriend would negatively impact my coworkers’ perceptions of me. After all, if I was dating a playboy, how serious could I be?” She sighed, reluctant to carry on, but she owed him. “At worst, being in a relationship with you would have softened me. You always got me right here.” She laid a hand over her heart. “That vulnerability would have been a chink in my mental toughness. It was another hurdle I wasn’t prepared to jump.”
She hated how self-centered that sounded, but at that point in her life her career had seemed like all she had. She’d been driven to establish herself before she dove into a relationship.
His jaw tightened. “I understand that, but you dated other men. Why did you always refuse me?”
“I dated men I could never be serious about. I kept it casual. I never had pictures of them on my desk or called them my boyfriend. I compartmentalized my life. I kept my dates out of my professional life and vice versa. I wouldn’t have been able to do that with you. I knew it then. I know it now.”
A slight frown marred his dark brow. “I never meant to disrupt your life.”
“You’re not a man I can take or leave or have a good time with one night and totally forget the next.”
“You’re the woman for me. I’ve never forgotten you, not once since the moment we met. I’ve dated other women because I couldn’t have you, but I never forgot and I never really gave up hope that we would meet again.”
Deep down, she hadn’t, either. She’d always known he was the one man who could make her want more than her career. “I think if I’d stayed with you that day, I would be following you around from base to base now, waiting on you to come home. I know many couples do it. It’s honorable and sweet in a way, but I watched that life nearly kill my mother. She waited through her best years for my dad to retire but she died before he could. I feared living like I’m always waiting for something that never comes. I don’t know that I could be happy. And yet your service to your country is a part of who you are and what you do.”
“Do we have to make decisions today, Holland? Do we have zero chance unless I leave the Navy?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. I’m simply telling you how I felt. How I still feel from time to time. I’m also worried that if I don’t find a way to restore your father’s reputation, you’ll hate me.”
He moved to sit beside her. “I could never hate you.”
The heat of his body surrounded her, and it took all she had not to lean into his strength. She wanted more than anything to let go of all her worries for a night, to see where it could lead. “Never say never, Captain.”
He shook his head and gently turned her face his way. “Don’t distance yourself from me. I don’t want to be a captain tonight. I don’t want to be a fucking Perfect Gentleman or tabloid fodder. I want to be Dax, the guy who wants so badly to be with Holland. Just the two of us, with no outside influences.”
“Those influences will still be around come morning, Dax.” She spoke his name because he was right. She had been trying to keep her distance. But if they spent the night together, there would be nothing between them for those beautiful hours. No investigation. No worries about the future. Just one glorious night with the man of her dreams.
“We’ll deal with them then.” His gaze had heated, but he made no move to kiss her. “But I won’t touch you unless I hear you say exactly what you want.”
She wasn’t going to pretend to misunderstand. She heard the need in his voice and it touched her. He probably craved hearing her say the words out loud because she’d pushed him away for almost a decade. Had she convinced him that he meant nothing to her? “I want to make love with you, Dax.”
He must have known the words were coming, but even so his body tensed. “I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you. Be sure, sweetheart. I don’t want a one-night stand. If we spend the night together, it’s because we’re going to give us a chance. That means you’ll be in the press. Unless we never leave this apartment again, they’ll snap pictures of us. But you’re right. Since I’m the boring Perfect Gentleman, after a few weeks, it will calm down. Everyone in your family and in your office will know about us, though. No getting around that.”
She would take some serious ribbing from her peers and with her uncle, but she could handle it. “Kiss me again and see if I run this time.”
His lips curled up in a sexy, dangerous smile. “We’re at your place. There’s nowhere to run. The first time I approached you, I should have locked the door and thrown away the key.” He sobered a bit as he met her gaze with a stare so hot and intent, her pulse jumped. “I wonder what would have happened between us that day if my father hadn’t interrupted. I sometimes wish I could go back and make sure Zack’s mom didn’t dive headfirst into a vat of Chardonnay.”
Like Dax’s father, Constance Hayes was dead, too. She’d perished on a road in England, years of alcoholism and poor decision-making finally taking their toll.
So much loss all around her, yet Holland had never reached out to grab life. She’d let the loss and the potential for pain frighten her, but now she was realizing how little life meant without some risk—and someone to share it with. “Are you going to kiss me?”
“The funny thing is, I’m nervous. I’ve waited all these years . . . You know?”
She was nervous, too. How long had it been since she had butterflies in her belly, her skin warming to a hot sting of a flush? And he’d barely touched her. She’d certainly had sex, and some of it had been good. But she hadn’t wanted any other man like this. “You’ve kissed hundreds of women.”
He brushed his fingers along her jawline, watching her as if he intended to memorize this moment. “None who mattered besides you.”
“You didn’t have a problem with shyness earlier today when you nearly showed those little old ladies on the food tour how Naval captains make babies.” Somehow his nervousness eased her own. Despite the ridiculous amount of experience he had, she would be new to him. They would make their own memories, their own rules and rituals.
He chuckled and leaned in, his arm curling around her back and over her shoulders. “It wasn’t that racy.” As th
eir laughter fell silent, he fused his gaze to hers. Hunger filled his dark eyes, tightened his big body. “I’m going to kiss you now and I won’t stop unless you tell me to.”
“I won’t say a word,” she breathed.
He lifted his free hand to her hair, sliding out the elastic band holding the low ponytail she typically wore. He gripped the strands. “Soft as silk. Just like you.”
“I’m not soft, Dax.” She didn’t want him to think she was like the other women he’d been with. They likely had been sweet, feminine creatures. Holland couldn’t afford to be.
“Yes, you are. You can be strong and soft and silky all at the same time. That’s who you are and one of the reasons I find you interesting. I want to know every single facet of Holland Kirk. I want to be the man you explore with, experiment with, be true with.”
She had the feeling he wasn’t merely talking about sex. This was why she’d always hesitated. Dax wanted all of her, even the parts of herself she’d shut down and hidden and told herself didn’t matter. He wouldn’t accept anything less than the whole of her soul.
But if he gave her back the whole of his, wasn’t that worth it? If they were both vulnerable, they could learn to trust.
She leaned in and his lips finally met hers. Slow and steady. He took her mouth like a man indulging in decadence, as though knowing they would share the pleasure of sex made him willing to stretch this moment out to something rich and sinful.
Gently, he fisted a hand in her hair, lighting up her scalp with sensation as he took her lips more fully, clasping her body against his own. She softened, giving in to the demand of his mouth, his hands. And when his tongue slid over her lower lip, demanding entry, she couldn’t stop herself from flowering open for him.
Dax pulled her up and onto his lap. She clasped her arms around his neck, bringing him closer. She could feel his erection pressing against her, thick and hard. So big. She couldn’t help but wriggle a little, trying to get closer to him.