Janie Crouch - Protector's Instinct

She got right up in his face and shouted the words.

God, it felt so good to yell. To have someone yell back. To not have someone treat her with kid gloves like she was going to break any minute.

“You don’t, Zane,” she continued, poking him in the chest with her finger again as she said it.

His eyes flared as he wrapped his hand around her finger against his chest.

And then, before either of them realized what was happening, he yanked her to him and kissed her.

Caroline had been kissed since the rape. She’d even had sex with a couple guys since. But they hadn’t been Zane. Hadn’t been who, deep inside, she truly wanted.

And it sure as hell hadn’t been a kiss like this.

Zane’s lips were like coming home. His arms banded around her waist and hers slid up his chest and around his neck.

That hair. Thick and brown. She thought of how many times she’d flicked off his hat and ran her fingers all the way through it as he kissed her. Exactly like she was doing now.

He devoured her mouth and she couldn’t get enough of it, pulling him closer with fists full of his hair, moaning as his fingers bit into her hips in his urgency to get her closer.

He backed her up until she was against her truck, then grabbed her by the hips and hoisted her up to the engine’s hood. Now she could wrap both her arms and her legs around him.

Passion simmered through her blood as his lips nipped down her jaw to her neck. Not gentle, not timid. Just Zane. Fierce and passionate, the way lovemaking had always been for them. She moaned as one of his hands came up and fisted into her hair, holding her so he had better access to what he wanted.

Her.

And she couldn’t get enough of it.

Dimly she was aware that they were still in the parking lot of the Silver Eagle. That any minute her colleagues, law enforcement officers who generally tended to frown on sex in public places, were going to make their way out.

This needed to be taken back to her place. Or his. Or a hotel room.

Stat.

“Zane, we’ve got to stop.”

She sighed at another one of his nipping kisses, at the feel of him pulling her closer. She’d missed this so much.

But damn it, she didn’t want to get arrested.

“Zane, stop.”

She gripped some of his hair and gave it a tug.

She could tell the exact moment he came back to his senses. His hands dropped from her hair and he all but jumped back from her body.

But it wasn’t until she saw his face that she understood. He was ashen. Distraught.

“Zane—” She reached for him, but he moved farther back.

“Oh, my God. Caroline, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me, I—”

She jumped down from the hood of her truck, desperate to wipe the distressed look off his face. Zane hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d done everything right and she wanted more.

But at that moment Wade yelled from the open door of the bar. “Hey, Captain sent me out here to make sure the two of you hadn’t killed each other.”

Caroline rolled her eyes and turned toward Wade, waving her arm at him over the hood of her truck. “We’re fine. Leave us alone and you guys mind your own business.”

Wade’s chuckle rang out in the still night air as he went back inside.

“So I wasn’t saying, ‘No, let’s stop. I don’t want to do this.’ I was saying, ‘Let’s move this party someplace a little more...’” She turned back to Zane, her biggest smile in place.

But Zane was gone. She heard his truck start on the other side of the parking lot before his tires squealed as he sped onto the street.

Chapter Four

Zane woke from the nightmare, heart pounding, sweat covering his entire body despite the cool air coming through the screened windows of his bedroom.

He’d dreamed about the night Caroline had been attacked by Paul Trumpold a year and a half ago. It had been a while since he’d dreamed about it. Although it was no surprise that he’d had it again after what had happened in the parking lot of the Silver Eagle two nights ago.

He probably would’ve had the dream last night if he’d slept a wink.

The dream—really more of a memory—always started the same way: Zane sitting at his desk at the CCPD headquarters, even though it was late at night, doing some work, avoiding doing what he really wanted to do, which was accept Caroline’s invitation to go over to her house when he got off work. He hadn’t wanted to give her the upper hand in their relationship. Wanted to keep her a little off balance like she so often kept him. Wanted to let her know, for once, what it felt like to wonder what would happen next. She did it to him without even thinking. He wanted her to know—wanted himself to know—that he could do it to her.

It all seemed so ridiculous now.

The uniformed cop—a young kid, Zane couldn’t even remember his name—who’d wanted to give Zane a heads-up before he got the official call had run up to Zane’s desk, knowing Zane was lead detective in the case. The cop had been out of breath when he told Zane the serial rapist had struck again.

Zane always remembered that moment in his dream and in his life. Because that had been the last time he’d ever been okay. The last time his world had been whole.

He’d been pissed that the rapist had struck again before they could catch him, but his world had still had a foundation.

He could never stop the next moment in his dream any more than he could in real life: when the cop gave him the address of the rapist’s latest victim.

Caroline’s address.

He’d written down the first two numbers as the cop had said it out loud before he’d realized where it was, then had dropped everything and run as fast as he could to his car, driving way past the limitations of safety to get to Caroline’s house.

Praying the entire time that there had been some mistake. That the address was wrong. That the kid cop, in all his excitement to be helpful, had gotten the numbers wrong or something.

The numbers hadn’t been wrong.

The ambulance at Caroline’s house had thrown him. He’d seen an ambulance there before, one Caroline had driven. Hell, she’d even driven an ambulance to his house to meet him for a quickie once.

But she hadn’t driven this one. This time the ambulance had been for her.

The dream sometimes changed from there. He always had to cross her yard to get to the door of her house. Sometimes as he ran across the yard in his dream the ground swallowed him like quicksand, slowing him from reaching the door. Sometimes there were thousands of people all over the yard and he couldn’t get through no matter how hard he tried.

Sometimes he ran as fast as he could, but the door kept getting farther and farther away.

But no matter what happened, the rapist—Dr. Trumpold—always just stood there laughing at Zane. And when Zane would finally fight his way to the door, the man would turn and whisper, “You know why she opened the door for me? Because she thought it was you knocking. Thanks for the help.” Then he would disappear.

And in his place would be Caroline. Lying on the floor of her own foyer, beaten until she was unconscious. Clothes ripped off her small body. Being treated by her own EMT colleagues, handling her with care even though she was long past feeling any pain at that point.

Zane had just stared, watching his entire world lying broken at his feet. He hadn’t been able to move, hadn’t been able to say a thing, even if there had been something that could’ve been said or done.

In real life Zane had ridden in the ambulance with Caroline, had stayed by her side in the hospital until she’d finally woken up forty-eight hours later and helped them catch the rapist.

But in his dream he was always stuck there in the doorway of her house, looking down at Caroline’s broken, battered body. Knowing she would never be okay again, that they would never be okay again.