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  I nodded. Tears welled up in my eyes. In a time of so much confusion, I hadn’t expected her to offer me anything at all. But her kindness was something that I felt like I didn’t see enough of in the world. “Thanks,” I said softly. “I mean it. This helps a lot. Thanks, Liz.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I’ve gotta go wake up Amy,” she said. She looked away. Emotion always made her nervous.

  “I gotcha,” I said, leaning in for a hug. She handed me the bag, and I noticed that it was surprisingly heavy. “Thanks again.”

  Elizabeth saw me off with a nod. I hadn’t been planning to go home again because of my visit to Tinder’s, but I couldn’t leave the food in my trunk. I might have to watch for a while; Lucas had instructed me to find out when the clerks left for their breaks.

  When I got home, I opened the bag of food and found Elizabeth had put in an uncooked package of ground turkey and a couple of boxes of spice mix and noodles to cook with it. There was also an apple and a couple of bottles of water. My heart was touched, and I drove off to the jewelry store with a renewed enthusiasm in my heart. Maybe everything really would be okay.

  To my relief, Carson was nowhere in sight as I crossed the threshold of Tinder’s. The security guard was an unfamiliar one: a black guy with short dreads that I hadn’t ever seen before. He barely glanced at me as I walked inside.

  Keeping a low profile, I slunk behind a group of people gaping at one of the necklaces in the display case. It was gorgeous: clusters of pearls and diamonds in marquee settings with tiny emeralds twinkling around it. I knew it because it was one of the items that Lucas had asked me to keep an eye out for.

  One of the employees, a tan girl in her late 20s, turned her head and called something about being back in fifteen minutes. The other clerks waved to her, and I checked my watch. It was exactly noon.

  “Miss!” I called to her as she walked out of the store. “Miss, can I request your help with something?”

  An annoyed look crossed her face before she plastered on a more professional-looking smile. “I always take my lunch at noon,” she replied, scratching at her chin. “But I’m sure one of my colleagues would be more than happy to help you!”

  I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. She turned around and burst out of the store, clearly relieved to be away from her job for the moment. When I turned around, none of the clerks had noticed. The security guard was staring at me, and I looked away, hoping that I wouldn’t blush.

  When the crowd thinned out, I realized that there was only one more clerk behind the counter. It wasn’t the cute guy who had helped me the first day, but kind of a scrawny-looking teenager. Right now, he was deeply entranced in his iPhone. When I glanced back up, the security guard was scanning the parking lot. The employee still hadn’t noticed me standing there and watching him.

  With a sigh of relief, I headed out to my car. Instead of getting inside, I looked around. Lucas was sitting in his parked car a couple of rows away. When he saw me, he nodded his head in my direction. I bit my lip and walked over quietly. I didn’t want to get in a car with him, but with the security guard scanning the lot, I couldn’t afford to be seen hanging out.

  “You’re good,” he said, nodding after I’d filled him in on what I’d seen inside. “You ever think about doing this for a living?” He grinned at me; the bruise on his face had faded to an ugly yellow-green. “You’d be good,” he repeated. “You already are.”

  Not that good, I thought. But I didn’t say anything about Carson. Thankfully, he didn’t ask. “I’m sure,” I said flippantly. “But I’m not interested, Lucas. Sorry.”

  Lucas grinned at me. “Just tellin’ it like it is, baby,” he said with a whistle.

  “I just want to be done with this,” I grumbled. “We’re business partners this once, nothing more. You understand?”

  Lucas laughed. He tapped his pocket lightly and I thought I heard the rustling of paper. Wincing, I turned away. “I got you, baby,” he said in a teasing voice. “Besides, you wouldn’t want these little photos escaping, now would you?’

  “Definitely not,” I said, turning away and letting myself out of Lucas’s car. “Definitely, definitely not.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Carson

  I was getting dressed to go to the clubhouse when my phone rang. Shit, I thought, narrowing my eyes. It was the store number at Tinder’s. What do they want?

  “Yo,” I said, answering my phone. “What’s up?”

  It wasn’t my manager, but Eddie, the guy who filled in for me sometimes. Lately, they’d hired him as a temp. Sometimes on busy days, we even worked together. “Yo, man,” he said after introducing himself. “So you wanted some intel on that redhead?”

  My stomach sunk. As much as I’d been thinking Caroline was involved in something wrong, I didn’t want to be right. I was hoping that she’d wise up and never cross the threshold of Tinder’s again. But apparently I was wrong. Dread filled my stomach and I started to really wonder what was going on.

  “The redhead?” I repeated dumbly. “What happened?”

  Eddie laughed. “Nothing, man,” he said. “She just came in a little before noon. Walked around for a while, looked at a necklace.”

  My heart started to thud in my chest like a caged animal. “Look at it?” I asked. “Like, did she take it out of the case and try it on?”

  “No, man, she just glanced. She left a little after noon. Got into some guy’s car in the parking lot. I don’t know if she left with him or what.”

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I gotta go. Thanks for the call, man. I owe you one.”

  We hung up, and I jammed my phone and my wallet in my pocket as I headed out to my bike. I had no idea what was going on, but I was about to find out. The whole drive over to Caroline’s, I kept thinking of what she could possibly have done to want to do this. She seemed like such a chill girl. Well, not chill exactly. I shuddered as I remembered how hot and responsive her curvy body had been. She had climbed me like a tree.

  “Caroline!” I yelled as I pounded on her front door. “You better let me in right now! Or you’re gonna regret it!”

  I heard small footsteps on the other side of the door. When it opened only a crack, I braced myself. “I can’t let you in,” she said in a small voice. “Go away, Carson. Go away and forget you ever met me.”

  I pushed on the door but it caught on the chain. Wedging my toe in at the bottom, I glared into her snapping green eyes. “Let me in,” I growled. “Or I’m going to break your door.”

  Fear flashed over her face, and she shut it momentarily before opening it wider than before. Sighing, I pushed past her and sat down on her couch. Caroline stayed where she was, flashing me a guilty look.

  “Sit down,” I commanded, pointing to the couch next to me. “We need to talk.”

  Caroline shook her head. “No, we don’t,” she said. Her voice was quaking and I saw a blush rising up her neck and over her cheeks. “We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

  “Caroline, come on,” I told her. “I know you’re up to no good. That security guard at Tinder’s called me and told me that you went back in there!”

  She blushed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I shouldn’t have done that.”

  I glared at her. “You need to tell me what the fuck is going on, Caroline,” I hissed. “I’m going to make your life hell if you don’t.”

  Caroline glanced at me. There were tears in her eyes. Suddenly, I felt myself softening towards her. She was obviously afraid of me, but more afraid of something else.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” I said, exhaling loudly. “I want to help you, okay? I know you must be in some kind of trouble. I can tell that you’re afraid of something, Caroline.” She bit her lip. I continued, “Wouldn’t it be better to tell me so that we can start to work through this together? Wouldn’t that be preferable to possibly comm
itting a felony?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “So tell me,” I pleaded. “If you tell me now, I might be able to do something. But if you wait, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to step in. You got that?”

  She nodded, looking closer to tears than ever before. “You promise that you’ll try to help me?”

  I nodded. “I swear,” I told her. “No lie.”

  Caroline took a deep breath. She folded her hands in her lap and I had to look away so I wouldn’t see how badly she was shaking. “Well, it started last Friday,” she said, biting her lip and looking into my eyes. “I was laid off.”

  I nodded. “I know. Remember? I asked around the at the bar.”

  She blushed. “I remember,” she said, looking away. “Unfortunately.”

  “What happened next?”

  Caroline swallowed hard. “I got home and there was an eviction notice on my front door,” she said quietly. I watched as a tear slipped from one of her eyes and trailed down her cheek. “Saying that if I don’t have the money by Wednesday, they’ll evict me.”

  I stared at her. Under my gaze, I saw her shiver. “That’s tomorrow,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

  Caroline looked away. “This is the part you don’t want to hear,” she said carefully. “Well, Saturday morning, I went to the bar and tried to beg Eddie for my job back.” As she spoke, a bright red flush worked its way over her cheeks. “It didn’t work, obviously,” she said.

  I could tell that verbalizing all of this was killing her. Reaching over, I took one of her small, soft hands in my own. Caroline looked up at me in surprise. Her green eyes were burning bright with tears and emotion. Keeping her gaze locked, I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ve gone this far.”

  Caroline flicked her gaze to the floor, then back to my eyes. “I know,” she said softly. “And, Carson, I’m really sorry. I never wanted you to know any of this.”

  I shook my head. “It’s fine,” I told her. I was getting anxious listening to her draw it out for as long as she could. “Just tell me.”

  “So, Eddie obviously said no,” Caroline said. She blew out a gust of air, sending her red strands flying into the air. “And then I ran into Lucas on the way out. He told me that he had a job for me. He said it was nothing sexual or nothing weird, and told me to meet him Monday morning in the park to talk.”

  My heart sunk. I didn’t like where this was going. Not at all. That scumbag Lucas was obviously up to no good, I didn’t want him to drag her into whatever schemes he had going on. While he obviously wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, he didn’t seem stupid. I bet he’d come up with something really diabolical. “What next?”

  Caroline eyed me. “I spent the whole weekend trying to find another job,” she told me. “I looked everywhere. I even thought about doing some bad stuff,” she added, blushing. Admittedly when she said the last two words, I pictured her naked in my mind. Delicious Caroline, trying to make money. Stop, I thought. She doesn’t need this right now.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Caroline shook her head tersely. “No, I didn’t. So I met Lucas on Monday at the park. He didn’t exact tell me what he was planning, but he told me what he needed me to do. He wanted me to go to Tinder’s and tell him where certain things were in the store. And when the employees left and went to lunch. You know. Scope it out.”

  I raked a hand through my hair and tried to take a deep breath, but anger was pulsing through me. I couldn’t believe that she’d kept it from me this long. “Jesus, Caroline!” I cried out. “Don’t you have any friends, or any family that could help you out? Isn’t there anyone?”

  Caroline bit her lip. Tears spilled over the edges of her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t. And I didn’t want to help him, Carson. But then he pulled out this envelope…and I knew I had to.”

  My stomach turned to ice. “What was inside?”

  Caroline looked away. “Some pictures,” she said softly, wiping at her eyes. The tears kept coming until she was sobbing. I pushed my anger aside and took her in my arms. In my arms, Caroline felt slight and delicate. “Some pictures I had taken when I was young and stupid for money,” she said. “And he promised me that he’d put them all up online and sell them and they’d be everywhere if I didn’t help him, Carson! He threatened me!”

  “I know, I know,” I said mindlessly as I stroked her hair. “It’s okay. It’ll be alright.”

  In my arms, she cried and cried. “I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “It feels like nothing is gonna be okay. I can’t go to jail, Carson! I can’t be homeless! I don’t know what I’m doing!” She snuffled and pulled her face back from my shirt, which was already damp with her tears. After she’d been crying, her green eyes looked even brighter than usual. Her eyelids were a delicate pink, and I wanted to run my hand over her face. She looked so beautiful and vulnerable that I couldn’t stand it.

  “I’m so scared,” she whispered, burying her face in my chest. “I’m so terrified, Carson.”

  “I know,” I told her, stroking her back. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Caroline

  As I curled up in his arms and pressed my teary face against Carson’s shirt, emotions ran through me. My whole body was tense, and I felt everything at once: anger, fear, arousal, and desperation. I had no idea what I would gain from telling him; it wasn’t like he was going to be able to save me. Hell, it wasn’t like he was going to be able to do anything other than judge me for having nude photos taken of me when I was younger. I sighed in frustration. Idiot, I thought to myself. You should have just kept your resolve and not let him inside!

  Carson murmured soothing, meaningless nonsense into my ear as he stroked my back. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered into my hair. The warmth from his breath tickled my scalp. It felt good, actually. To be honest, everything felt good except for the gaping wound of embarrassment in my chest. Being in his arms felt safe. It felt nice. It was maybe the most secure place I’d been in a very long time.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. He patted my back and traced light patterns around on my skin through my shirt. As his touch slipped lower, I felt a pulse between my legs. Sex should have been the last thing on my mind, but I knew that I was feeling stressed enough to want it. I purred and moved closer to Carson, nuzzling at his chest. He reacted with surprise, pulling back and looking down at me with his steely blue eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Actually no. I’m not fine. But this feels so good right now,” I said with a deep breath, closing my eyes. “I don’t want it to stop.”

  Carson wrapped his arms around me tighter. He planted a kiss on the top of my head and I felt my nerve endings flutter. When I wrapped my arms around him, I buried my face in his chest and inhaled deeply. He smelled strongly of musk, like he’d rolled out of bed and put on a shirt without showering. When I closed my eyes and focused on Carson’s manly scent, everything that was bothering me seemed to melt into the background. I dug my fingers into his back and scraped his skin lightly with my nails. My heart started to pound in my chest and I could feel the area between my legs growing warm and damp. Carson was so muscular that I could barely fit my arms around him comfortably. I hugged him tightly and then pulled my head back and looked into his eyes.

  “I want you,” I whispered quietly.

  Carson leaned close, bridging the distance between us. He was so near to me that his eyes merged into one giant Cyclops eye. Leaning closer, he pressed his lips to mine. I closed my eyes and moaned softly, pulling him as close as I could. Carson’s mouth was warm and salty, and I opened my lips, letting him slip his tongue inside of my mouth. He tasted a little like wood and tobacco, and I eagerly slipped my tongue against his before pulling away and nibbling at his plump lower lip. For a man, Carson had incr
edibly sensual lips. They were full and lush, and kissing him was making my whole body feel hot. As our kiss deepened, Carson let his hand slip to my ass. The familiar feeling of him squeezing my flesh tightly made me cry out into his mouth. Carson chuckled and pulled away.

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “Find it,” I whispered into his neck. “Carry me.”

  Without replying, Carson slipped his arms under my body and picked me up as though I weighed nothing at all. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling myself sway and dip dangerously close to the ground. Carson’s stride was so long that it was almost like being carried by a horse. As he walked through my apartment, he kicked my bedroom door open. It slammed against the wall, and Carson strode inside, bearing me. When we got to my bed, I clung onto him as he lay me down. Carson crawled on top of me and resumed our kiss.