Sweet Seduction Shadow (8 page)

"I can't help where I was raised," I growled back. "But at least I got the fuck out of there. You didn't!"

He opened his mouth to deliver some sort of pearl of wisdom and then slammed it shut again with a snap. His brow furrowed, his lips tipped down in a scowl and then finally he said, voice barely more than a whisper, "What the fuck?"

"Arghh!" I exclaimed inarticulately, throwing my hands up in exasperation all over again. Before they had a chance to lower, Ben had grabbed them and pulled me hard against his chest.

"Tell me this one thing, red, and for once don't lie." I blinked up at him, not even attempting to tug my hands free or step back from all that delicious heat. "Why are you running?" He said each word slowly, carefully, in case I didn't understand the - repeated - question.

I frowned up at him, but considered his words. Or more appropriately, the reason why he may have felt the need to repeat them again. Because this didn't make any sense at all. I felt like I was missing something and he clearly felt the same way. A strange feeling washed through my body. It wasn't exactly hope, I think I lost the ability to hope eight years ago, but it was something monumental. Something I never thought I'd experience ever again.

"You're not one of Roan's men, are you?" I asked and received one short shake of his head to say no.

I breathed. It was all I could do. I knew there could be other big, bad people out there who may have wanted me for some nefarious reason. And let's not forget Roan has enemies, if they cottoned on to his obsession with me, I would be a valuable tool in whatever fucked up war they had going on with him. But something alien, something deep down inside yet so foreign to me, made me think Ben wasn't one of those men. I had no evidence, no proof, that the emotion was true.

Except his strange reactions tonight. An almost self-righteous indignation that made me think he was sure he was on the right side of this equation and I was not. The kind of self-righteousness people get when they know the full might of the law backs them up.

"Are you CIB?" I asked, thinking maybe he was a detective in the Criminal Investigations Bureau, but just received another of those short, sharp shakes of his head.

"Then what do you want with me?" I asked, truly lost in more ways than I could count.

"That's three questions to my one, red," he pointed out softly. A tone I hadn't heard from him before. My eyes flicked up to his. Still chips of unforgiving granite, but somehow not. "How about you answer mine first, before I answer any more of yours? Only fair," he added.

I was still flush against his chest, still clasped tightly in his hands at my wrists. I felt warm in all the places you want to feel warm. And for some inexplicable reason, I felt safe.

I'd not felt safe for eight years. Even when my father looked out for me while I was still back at the Compound. Fear and anxiety had become my constant companions, from the night Roan visited me in my room.

But I had felt safe in my dreams. Dreams, I was beginning to realise, that featured this man.

"He wants me," I said, feeling like my world was tipping over sideways. Gone was the clarity of before, in its place a hazy murkiness that buffeted me from everything I knew I should be feeling, but wasn't. "I don't want him," I added, because Ben had gone silent statue again.

Then I admitted the one thing I had never,
ever
, admitted to another soul in the past five years.

"My Dad told me to run and hide. So I am."

Then Ben did the strangest thing. He released my wrists, but didn't let me go. Instead he wrapped me up in his strong arms and held me close.

It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for me.

The sound of an eighteen wheeler roaring past the intersection at Mach 5 brought us both out of the bubble we'd been floating in. Ben stiffened first, then jerkily pulled away from the embrace. Another hand went through his dark hair.

I shifted the shoulder strap of my satchel to get more comfortable and for something to do with my hands. Before I'd settled it into position, Ben reached out and tried to remove it from where it rested.

"Don't," I said, jerking my shoulder out of reach. I never let anyone else carry my bag. It had my life inside it. All that was left of me.

Ben scowled at me, but didn't push the issue, just thrust his hands in his jeans pockets, bringing my eyes to his groin. I hadn't meant to look there, the movement caught my attention, nothing more. But for some reason I couldn't seem to look away. It's not that I was seeing anything in particular, but apparently some part of me was aware of what lay beneath.

I really needed to get laid. It
had
been a while.

Fucking medication.

Ben cleared his throat, when my eyes finally lifted to meet his, amusement graced his face. I threatened the blush that started, with imminent death and hoped the tactic worked. His grin grew into a smirk.

I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, then asked, "So what now? If you're not Roan's and you're not CIB, what do you want with me?"

Strangely he chuckled. I had not expected a chuckle. It sounded nice.

"Truthfully?" he said and I just nodded, what else could I do? "I have no fuckin' idea." I grunted a not so amused sound out at that. His eyes flicked up to mine and I watched as they trailed over my face and then my hair. "I prefer the red," he said out of nowhere.

"Bully for you," I shot back. I preferred it too, but beggars can't be choosers and all that.

"Do you even remember what your natural colour is?" he asked and the conversation started to take on that bizarre quality again.

"Every time I get in the shower," I replied and watched as his face transformed, a smile spread across his lips, his eyes no longer hard granite, but the most alluring shade of chocolate instead. It was mesmerizing.

"Is that right?" he drawled. I shook my head at him.

"It's Ben, right?" I asked, and he nodded, still looking quite pleased with whatever imagery he had going on inside his head. "Ben what?"

"Tamati," he said, then asked, "What name does this persona belong to?" His hand waved from top to bottom, indicating all of me.

"Chrissie, a bastardized version of Chrystal Kerr."

His eyebrows shot up. "Not Abi Merchant anymore, huh? I liked Abi."

"You did?" I asked and received a grunt and head nod in reply. "I liked her too," I admitted.

"Then why leave? Why not stay a little longer?"

"Truthfully?" I asked and watched his lips quirk at the edges. He nodded for me to continue. "I thought you were Roan's man. My cover was blown, so it was time to move on."

He scowled at me. "You always just drop everythin', no lookin' back, as soon as you feel threatened?"

"Of course," I replied, but didn't bother to qualify my answer. It was pretty self-explanatory. I wouldn't have lasted this long running, if I hadn't been able to walk away.

"But I'm not Roan's man, as you put it," he pointed out. "No need to run."

I snorted. Was he mental? "You may not be Roan's but you're shadowing me for a reason. And my guess is, it can't be good."

"Yet you haven't run from me tonight."

"What do you call me walking away from you back there!" I said, pointing in the direction of Carl's Nissan Pulsar.

"A hissy fit," Ben said with a smile.

I glared at him, his smile widened.

"So, Ben Tamati, I ask again. What do you want with me?"

He held my gaze for several seconds. I couldn't see what he was thinking behind that beautiful face he wore like a mask. I was sure the cogs were turning, but on the outside he seemed calm and still, nothing else. He was the most frustrating man I had ever met.

"You're not even meant to know I'm following you," he said quietly, when whatever he'd been working out in his head must have fallen into some sort of place.

"You're not that good," I said, but offered a smile to soften the words.

"Woman. I'm the fuckin' best," he shot back, all smugness and cocky confidence now. I rolled my eyes.

"So, now your cover is blown" - just like mine coincidentally - "what's the plan?" I asked.

He sighed and then rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "Nothin'."

"What?"

"I'm gonna do
nothing
," he emphasised. "Leave, don't leave. The choice is yours. But I'm not McLaren's. I'm not here to take you back to that scumbag. I'm just here to watch."

"
Why
?" I asked, dumbfounded.

He stared at me for a long time, it was difficult to meet that level of intensity. I wanted to shift my feet, scratch my nose. Do something to break the connection we had.

"Come back to Auckland, red. Let Abi live a little longer. You've no reason to run." Yet. The word hung unspoken at the end of his sentence.

God I was so tired of all of this. The temptation to believe him was almost too much. I
did
like Abi. I
did
want to go back. But who the hell was this man?

"You're
really
not Roan's?" I asked, out of desperation to believe in him. In this.

"I am not, nor have I ever been, associated with Roan McLaren." The words were so precisely spoken, not his usual lazy English. Almost as though he was pledging something, willing me to believe the truth in his words.

"Then who are you?" I asked after a long pause.

"Can't I just be a friend?"

A disbelieving laugh came out on hearing those words. Friend huh?

"Friends don't follow friends about, hiding in shadows," I pointed out.

"They do if they think their friend is in deep shit," he threw back at me.

"You don't even know me." How could he want to be a friend?

"You run because being caught ain't an option you'll survive. You hide in plain sight. You're good at it. You've lived a lifetime in the past five years, and yet you haven't
lived
at all. You're tired. You know the end is near, but you've got a strength inside you, something that makes you keep going, when all you really want to do is lie down and sleep forever. There's a reason why you keep doing this, and I'm guessin' it's a fuckin' good one. I'd like to know what. I'd like to know more. But I ain't gonna push you, because I've been there and those ghosts only get released when they're good and ready to be. You're a lot like me, red. I see it in you and for some fucked up reason I'm blowin' off
years
of professionalism and lowerin' my guard... around you."

That final admission, spoken with such a roughened, low voice, with such truth sounding out in each word, is what did it. Because I could see a lot of me in him too. The man who hid in shadows. He was there, you knew it, but you never saw him. But more importantly, I had lowered my guard around him as well. I didn't exactly know why and it scared me, like I think it was scaring him. But whatever we recognised in each other made us take this path to here. Now. Him staring at me and
seeing
me. And me staring right back.

And I think I saw him too.

Shit.

"OK," I said and watched his lips tip up in a smile.

"You always make such quick decisions?" he asked, reaching out casually to grasp my hand and tug me away from the main highway and back towards Huntly itself. I let him. I'd come this far, why stop now?

"Yep," I said on a exhaled breath. "Life's too short to muck about."

He was silent for a while, still holding my hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

Finally he said, "You're still young, red. Lotta life left ahead of you to enjoy."

I didn't bother replying. He could think what he wanted. But for too long I've felt like I was living on borrowed time. And as much as I wanted to believe him, I knew my time was running out. I was tiring, making mistakes, getting so paranoid I was fucking things up. Case in point: Ben Tamati, hired to
watch
me from the shadows, holding my frigging hand.

I let him lead me to a black SUV which matched what I had determined of the man. Dark, strong, rugged, rough. He beeped the locks and opened the front passenger door for me and without even hesitating I climbed inside.
I was so damn tired
, even though a part of me was still so damn scared he wasn't who he was making himself out to be.

I felt the tears roll down my cheeks before I felt the burn of them, so quickly and unexpectedly they came. I prayed my father would forgive me this lapse in vigilance. I prayed it wouldn't end the way my deepest fears believed. But I
needed
someone to lean on. I had no idea if my chosen "giant" was the right one or not, but Ben made me feel safe, when he shouldn't. Ben made me feel alive, when I'd been dead for the past eight years.

I wanted with all of my being for this to be true, to be right. To be the one. But I just didn't know and right then, while I wiped the tears away before Ben made it 'round to his side of the car... I didn't care.

We were both silent as he pulled the vehicle onto the highway in the direction of Auckland City. My brief attempt at escape had backfired. The first time I'd ever dropped a persona, taken on a new one, and had to backtrack. Inside me, I was still Abi Merchant, but outside I was Chrystal "Chrissie" Kerr. I'd missed an afternoon of work, without phoning Angela to give her the heads up. Kelly would be wondering where I was, no doubt aware of my failure to appear at Pennyworth's and now close to one in the morning, still not coming home.

Even if I had every desire to return to Abi's life, it wasn't going to be smooth sailing. I sighed. It sounded loud in the confines of the car.

"What's up, red?" Ben asked, adjusting the heat vents so warm air washed out across me and kept me toasty.

"Life is hard," I admitted softly.

"That it is," Ben replied, returning his hand to the steering wheel, the other resting along the window ledge. I expected him to add more to that statement, but he didn't. He had no words of condolence, no words of comfort to keep me buoyed up. Just the simple knowledge that he agreed. That I was right. That life was indeed hard.

"I'm tired of hard," I admitted, for some reason wanting to fill in the silence with inane conversation, it seemed.

Ben's eyes flicked over to my side of the car briefly, then returned to the road out front.

"Do you want me to drop you at Kelly's?" he asked, voice low.

"Where else is there?" I said, staring blindly out the side window, watching dark shapes rush past in a blur.

Ben rolled his head on his shoulders, the movement making the leather squeak slightly.

"If you wanna time-out for a bit, you could crash at my place."

The air felt charged after that unbelievable statement. I don't think it was only me holding my breath. It took a concerted effort to turn in my seat and face him. His jaw was set, brow furrowed and knuckles almost white on the steering wheel before him.

I opened my mouth to give him the out he obviously needed, from the look of his stiff frame right now. And then I thought of his speech. How I'd lived a lifetime in the past five years, and yet I hadn't
lived
at all. I thought of all the opportunities I'd passed up, for fear of distraction, for fear of falling in a trap and being caught. And lastly, I thought of my vivid lifelike dreams. Ben Tamati may not be everything I wanted him to be, I couldn't be sure, he wasn't giving much away. But I wanted
him
, like I had never wanted a man before.

And I think he wanted me too.

"What are you asking, Ben?" The words were out before I could second guess them.

His eyes flashed to mine, and for longer than they should have, locked on to my face. I almost began to feel anxious that he wasn't watching where we were driving, but at the last second, before I could scold him, he flicked his gaze back to the road.

"What do you want me to be asking, Abi?" he said, voice still sexy low, rough and delicious. It wasn't lost on me that it was the first time he'd called me by my name. Not my real name, but the name of the person I would be when we made it back to Auckland.

I almost didn't do it. This was so far out of my comfort zone, it wasn't funny. But I wanted that feeling Ben had unleashed in me, that sensation of being
alive
, to last. I wanted the dreams to become reality. And to do that, I had to jump off the end of the world.

"Just a place to crash, or more?" I whispered. It sounded a little husky, I licked my lips to moisten them, in the hopes my throat would miraculously unstick as well.