“You did everything you could.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t enough. He’s still free to terrorize people.” One of those people being her, but she didn’t mention that to Noah. He didn’t need to know about the messages. The dolls. The disturbing voice mails. The distorted videos sent to her e-mail. Besides, she honestly didn’t think K-Bar would try anything more than make scary, but idle, threats. She’d spent enough time studying him to know that if he’d wanted her dead, he would have convinced someone from his gang to get rid of her a long time ago. It would’ve been a quick, execution-style kill that she never would have seen coming.
So, no. K-Bar didn’t want her dead. Of that, she was certain. He just wanted her terrified.
Now if only she could convince her dad of that. He was just compounding her stress by inviting a bodyguard into the mix—one he expected to play her boyfriend, of all crazy things.
“Libby?” Noah’s hand passed in front of her face.
She blinked. “Sorry. What?”
“This zoning out… It isn’t like you, either.”
“I know.” Shaking off her fears over her father’s mental health, she bit her lower lip. “I’m okay. Really.”
“If you’re worrying about K-Bar walking, don’t. Your case is airtight. He’ll be back in jail before the end of summer. You got him,” Noah said and offered a shy, goofy smile. “You’re amazing.”
Libby laughed and patted his arm. “I already told you, I’m too old for you.”
His face flushed to a color that nearly matched his hair. “I-I didn’t mean…”
“Joke. Relax.” She gave his arm another pat, then ducked under it. Noah raced after her, stammering apologies for once again being unable to tell when she was joking with him.
“Noah, stop. It’s fine. You have no need to apolo—” At the other end of the hall, a man stepped off the elevator with Kenneth, and her heart did a loop-de-loop. The stranger was around six one, his wide shoulders tapered into slim hips, and his jeans clung to his thighs as if they never wanted to let go. His dark hair was short on the sides and spiky on top, and she could just barely make out the ink of a tattoo on the side of his neck. Another peeked out from under the sleeve of a dark blue T-shirt. The shirt declared, “Trust me, I’ve done this before,” in white letters. A wide, stainless steel hoop glinted from his earlobe as he nodded at something Kenneth said.
Earring? Tattoos?
Libby willed her heart to start beating again. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her, conjuring the image of the one person she thought about far too often but never wanted to see again, because for a moment, she thought this man was—
As if sensing her, he glanced up from his conversation and met her gaze with eyes the color of a cloudless morning sky. A flicker of unease passed over his expression before he gathered himself and straightened his shoulders as if preparing for battle. His dimples flashed, and the entirety of her existence flipped on its axis.
What. The. Hell?
Before she realized she was moving, she stalked down the hall and stopped in front of him. His grin only widened, and he snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her against all that hard muscle she remembered too well. He used to pull her in like this and kiss her every time he saw her, no matter if she had been gone for an hour or a week. It had made her feel special, wanted, adored.
What a crock.
“Hey, babe,” he said with the same crooked half smile that at one time made her go all gooey-kneed. Except there was something different about him now, a tentativeness as he held her, a trait she’d never associated with him before. “I missed you.”
She opened her mouth to tell him off—but his lips descended, hesitating only the barest of moments before lightly brushing hers. He lifted his head and stared into her eyes with an unreadable expression in his own. Then, with a groan, he drew her tighter against his body, and his lips dropped to hers again in an overwhelming, desperate kiss that crushed the last eight years into mere moments and short-circuited her mind with an electric pulse of sheer desire.
But she was…angry. Right? At him. Yes, the man who was currently rubbing his tongue over her bottom lip, seeking entrance, the man she didn’t want to want—she should be furious at him right now. She just couldn’t remember why as his kiss sizzled over her nerve endings and filled her head with white noise. God, did the man know how to use his lips or what? He always had, could always make the world melt away until she was nothing but a bundle of sensation.
Off to her left, Kenneth rudely cleared his throat, and the world snapped back into sharp focus.
Wait.
Babe?
Libby ripped away from the kiss and stared up into pale blue eyes rimmed with ridiculously long lashes. “Jude?”