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  Which was where she still was, only she wasn’t alone.

  One of the boys had her pressed against the wall, his hand on her hip, in a posture not unlike the one Jordan had just had her sister in. Fuck. If the boy’s thoughts were anywhere along the same lines Jordan’s had been, he needed to castrate the damn kid.

  He settled for spinning him off Rose and pinning him to the wall with his elbow.

  “Um, Jordan? Overkill much?” Rose, in her ever-teenaged, overdramatic way was beating on his back like he was killing the kid.

  “Not likely. I know what he’s thinking.” Jordan’s voice was a low, warning grumble.

  “Dude, I was just talking to her,” the boy choked out.

  “Talking doesn’t equal touching. You just met her, and she deserves more than man-handling. Respect.” He bit out the last words so harshly, spittle flew from his mouth, landing on the kid’s face. To his credit, he didn’t flinch.

  “Got it, Sir. Respect.” At least he’d said Sir. There were some manners in there.

  “You ready to go?” Jordan asked over his shoulder before loosening his hold on the boy. He’d had about as much as he could stand. All the fluttery feelings had fled in a storm of lust and then rage. He needed to get out of here before he killed one of these punks.

  “Renegade,” Rose muttered under her breath.

  It had been two weeks since the mall, and Jordan and Mia’s life had become hectic, although it was a frenzy Mia could embrace. Rose had started school, and even though she was a grade behind where she should be, she was still enjoying it. In fact, she’d come home one day babbling about some after-school technology program she wanted to take part in, and to Mia’s surprise, Jordan had said it was his brother’s and his girlfriend’s program. So she was all into it, and they were even planning on having Evan and Paige over for dinner tomorrow night, since Mia was now the only person in the apartment who didn’t know them.

  But right now, Jordan was getting ready to hear his fate with the DA’s office and Mia could see his nerves in every clench of his bad fist. He was nervous, but he said Simon had sounded reassuring on the phone when they’d spoken. The Assistant DA had made his decision and was going to meet with Ryan, Jordan, and Simon to tell them over breakfast.

  Ryan and Krista showed up at their apartment with tons of shopping bags.

  “What’s all this?” Mia let them in the door, having met Ryan briefly before, but not Krista. She was expecting them to show up, as Jordan still didn’t want her to be alone. She hated to admit it, but she wasn’t ready to be alone yet, but she was getting closer.

  “Jordan said you baked. I brought ingredients, hoping you’ll show me a few tricks.” Krista was grinning at her eagerly, and Jordan’s smile was bigger than anything she’d ever seen. Before, she’d been too tired, now, she just didn’t seem in the mood. But if she’d realized her baking would make him so happy, she might have made herself do it sooner, as payback for everything he’d done for her.

  “Awesome. Is there stuff in there for chocolate chip cookies?” Jordan started digging around, only to be slapped away. Mia giggled, a sound she hadn’t made in a while and it felt weird, but not unwelcome. She needed more of that in her life.

  “It’s a surprise. Get out of that.” Krista’s raised eyebrow was almost too much.

  “Fine.” To Ryan, Jordan said, “You ready for this?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Ryan was in almost as much trouble as he was. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he’d been there, tossing grenades around just like Jordan. They both stood to lose their jobs and possibly go to jail for their actions.

  Mia saw both of the men looked uncomfortable, and she tried to ease Jordan as best she could. She was well aware part of his discomfort was because he was about to leave her for the first time in weeks.

  “I can go with you and talk to them, if you think that will help?” She’d already told her side of the story, but if it would make Jordan feel better, she would do it again. And again. God, she hated talking about it, but it seemed to help when she did. In fact, she’d finally told Rose about it all, but hadn’t prolonged the conversation.

  “Do you not want to stay here? Krista will be with you.” The concern in Jordan’s eyes was almost too much.

  She let out a resigned sigh. He wasn’t thinking about himself at all. He was more concerned with her feeling safe. And for that, she loved him. “I’ll be fine. Just let me know as soon as you hear, okay?”

  He swept his lips across hers, and she wished like hell they would linger a little longer. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her today. Was it the prospect of a girls’ day and baking? Why hadn’t she done this earlier?

  It wouldn’t have helped. This was happening today because she needed it today. Not yesterday.

  “I love you.” His murmured whisper against her lips sent a shiver of awareness up her spine. He’d never said as many words to her before, and they made her so happy, even though a tiny part of her felt like she had no right to claim his love. He was leaning his forehead against hers, his deep blue eyes peering into hers. “There’s never going to be a perfect time for me to tell you that. I’ve been waiting for it, and it hasn’t come. I just needed you to know before my meeting today.”

  “I love you, too, Jordan,” she whispered, breathless, a little desperate. They’d spent weeks in their own little bubble with little outside interaction, except Rose. And now it was all threatening to be undone. With one meeting. She understood his need to tell her now. While everything between them was still relatively perfect.

  Mia dug through bags, sorting things, working out a system.

  “What was the plan? What do you want to bake?” Mia reached under the cabinet for the one cookbook she’d brought from her apartment—the Bible of Baking, a four hundred page tome that had been her best friend since she was Rose’s age.

  “Cake. Ryan loves cake, and so help me God, I can’t ever get it to come out right. Granted, part of that is his oven, but he seems to think I don’t have the basics.” Krista’s smile was bright, and Mia warmed up to the woman immediately, glad she’d be spending the day distracting her from Jordan’s fate and her guilt associated with it.

  “And apparently, Jordan likes cookies…” Mia mused.

  “Yeah, I got enough stuff for double everything and more bread because we eat a lot of bread. That’s one thing I’ve got down.”

  “You can do bread but not cake?”

  The women had a lovely afternoon, talking and giggling in Evan’s amazing kitchen. Mia really couldn’t figure out what had taken her so long to bake in here. With double ovens, they were making great time.

  About the eighth batch of cookies and the second cake, Krista set aside a bowl of bread dough to rise and turned to Mia. “Let’s do something girlie. I haven’t been around another woman in a while. I’ve been stuck out in the woods, by myself, which is awesome, but I need some girl time.” She poured Mia a glass of wine as she spoke.

  “Baking isn’t girlie?” Mia smiled at the woman’s excitement. She’d readily admit she also hadn’t spent time with another woman, except her sister, in a while. Before the incident, she couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been working like a dog and actually had time to do ‘girlie’ stuff.

  “Baking is girlie, but I needed to learn some stuff. I want to play with hair, go through your shoes, and maybe we could do our nails?”

  Mia admitted it sounded like a great idea. She wanted more to keep her mind off Jordan’s meeting. If the DA decided to prosecute, his life wouldn’t be the same, and it would definitely be because of her, and she didn’t know how to deal with that guilt on top of everything else.

  “There’s an old-fashioned dressing table in the master bedroom. Let’s go in there,” she said as she slid off the barstool she’d been sitting on, talking to Krista.

  “You have beautiful hair. I’ve been dying to curl it. Does it hold a curl?” Krista was talking as she followed Mia up the stairs
to the bedroom.

  “Sort of,” Mia allowed. Truth was, it had been so long since she’d done anything besides a ponytail, she wasn’t sure what her hair would do. She hadn’t fixed herself up much since the incident. Part of her would freely admit she didn’t want to look attractive enough to tempt another man to lose control and try again. She knew that was flawed thinking, but it was ingrained in her that she should have done something to keep it from happening. If she hadn’t been what Mike was looking for, she wouldn’t have been grabbed.

  Sitting at the dressing table, she looked at herself from different angles, turning her head this way and that. “What do you think of me dying my hair? Do you think I could do blonde?”

  “Don’t you dare!” Krista took handfuls of her hair and bunched them up over her head. “You have such pretty, glossy-black hair. Jordan would kill me if you dyed it because I said it would look good.”

  Mia was a bit taken aback. It was her hair, what did it matter what Jordan thought about it? She didn’t want to make herself unattractive to him, but why was that Krista’s first thought?

  “What do you mean?” She was utterly confused. This was one of the reasons why she didn’t date. Mia didn’t want to have to run everything by her boyfriend to gauge his approval.

  Krista looked uncomfortable to broach whatever she was about to say, and Mia got nervous, afraid of what was coming.

  “I’m just saying Jordan obviously likes you just the way you are.” Krista quit looking at her, choosing to focus on her hair instead, piling it up in a messy up-do that Mia was surprised actually looked pretty good. Krista finally took a deep breath, and Mia braced herself for whatever the woman was about to say.

  “So, Ryan told me what happened to you.” Krista held up a hand, pleading for Mia to listen. “I went through something similar, and hearing your story sort of helped me. A lot.” The woman looked at Mia shyly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Initially, she was pissed people were talking about her. But she could understand. Ryan was there, and he might be scarred by what he saw.

  She looked up at the other woman, slightly older, but not by much, and saw for the first time, a shadow behind her eyes. Then it dawned on her. She went through something similar. Mia honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to know. That reaction gave her pause, making her wonder if Grounds for Redemption would help her at all if she had to listen to women with similar stories all day long. Would they want to go in there and talk about that stuff? “Helped you?”

  Krista nodded. “I went through a similar situation, although not nearly as severe, about six months ago. Ryan saved me.”

  Mia was quiet. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about this, even though it was exactly what Grounds for Redemption was all about. So instead of talking about herself, Mia told Krista about the coffee shop. Baby steps, right?

  Krista was quiet through the telling, nodding in appropriate places. When Mia was finished, Krista said, “That sounds awesome. Your life is totally different now. You’re no longer just Mia, getting by. You’re a survivor. You’re the guardian for your sister. You’re Jordan’s girl. You have a new normal. You need to embrace that. And the coffee shop will help you regain some control that’s been lost.”

  “Nothing’s under my control anymore.” Even the coffee shop, really. Right now, it was just a pie-in-the-sky idea. Until it came to fruition, it was a fantasy.

  “You know these guys will do anything for their women, right? You can’t fight them.” Krista had listened quietly to her talking about her and Misty’s plans, nodding in the appropriate places.

  “I’m not his woman,” Mia scoffed, but she knew the truth. She was Jordan’s just as much as the sky was blue.

  “Whatever. I’ve heard Ryan talk about the way he talks about you. Ryan sees it. I saw it in the way he said goodbye to you when he left. I know he would do anything for you, just like Ryan would do anything for me. In fact, as much as he makes fun of my baking skills, I’m pretty sure he’d let me make cookies and muffins for your shop. Just because he loves me and wouldn’t be able to say no. Just like Jordan would move heaven and earth to make you happy. Hell, honey, he’s already killed for you. Now let him do some of the easier stuff.”

  Jordan left the apartment high as a kite, knowing it was inappropriate for the meeting he was going to, but still giddy nonetheless. Mia had said she loved him, and as much as that made him a pussy, he could sing to all of downtown Austin she was his and she loved him.

  The DA had agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the capital, and as Ryan and Jordan arrived, they saw Simon and a rather harried-looking man already seated.

  After introductions, Jordan discovered the harried-looking man was the Assistant DA assigned to his case, Mr. Jenkins.

  He flipped through a wrinkled legal pad as he spoke. “I’ll just get started. I’m sure you two are ready to hear it. Since Michael Bishop had already killed one girl and tried to kill another, and would have certainly eventually killed Miss Reyes, you guys are in the clear. I have no desire to waste tax-payer’s money on an investigation and trial when you were doing what you had been hired to do, which was recover Misty. I wish you had gone about it differently, and you will be stuck with repairs to the house and any civil suits Mr. Bishop’s family may bring up against you. But as far as the city of Austin is concerned, this is a case of justifiable homicide. You guys saved two lives who were in danger, so you did what you thought needed to be done.” He took a sip of the coffee in front of him. “For future reference, the correct thing to do is to call the authorities.” His raised eyebrows and pinched lips drove home his point.

  Jordan and Ryan both expelled their breath in a loud whoosh that ruffled Simon’s hair. It was okay, and he was beaming at them. It was the first genuine smile Simon had bestowed to Jordan, and it brought home the fact Simon wanted him to be a part of his team and had been just as nervous about the DA’s assessment as he’d been.

  “So you’re both off administrative leave. You can get your asses back into work,” Simon replied snarkily. Mr. Jenkins left with a smile and a handshake, and Simon turned back to Jordan. “Seriously, though, is Mia going to be okay?”

  Jordan smiled. “I think so. She may need a few days to adjust to me being gone, but I’ll see what I can do.” Honestly, he might worry about her more than she would worry about herself, but she had her sister, and she’d been talking to Misty a lot on the phone, and they’d been making plans for their new coffee shop. Evan had even said he and Paige might put up some money for it and become investors. He loved his brother for that and could almost forgive the whole fiancée fiasco with his mother.

  After lunch, he and Ryan were outside his apartment. “Hey, can you stay with her a while? I need to do some shopping.”

  “Sure. No problem, man. Hey, I’m really glad things are working out with you guys. She seems nice, and anybody who can show Krista a thing or two about baking is aces in my book. I fucking love cake.”

  With Ryan off to watch after the girls, Jordan was free to find something he’d been thinking of for Mia. Problem was, he had no idea where to look. He started at an upscale antique shop, and after explaining what he wanted to the shop keeper, all it took was a half dozen phone calls and a trip across town. Totally worth it.

  Two hours later, he was home, letting himself into their apartment, being assaulted by the most fabulous smell of his life. Yeast, chocolate, vanilla, sugar—you name it, if it could be baked, he smelled it. He supposed Mia homemaker was back with a vengeance and he was ready to meet her. Striding into the kitchen, intent on kissing the fool out of her, he was surprised to find bowls of bread rising, plates of gooey cookies, and a cake cooling, but no Mia.

  The panic gripped him first before he realized he would always panic where Mia was concerned. Before he could call out, a sultry voice he hadn’t heard in a while called to him from the hallway.

  “Jordan?”

  He turned to see Mia standing there wearing an apron and hold
ing a bottle of tequila, the shoes he’d bought her at the mall, and nothing else. He dropped his package as his left hand went limp, saying a mental thanks to the shopkeeper who’d wrapped it so well.

  Starting at the shoes, Jordan’s eyes tracked the length of her, lingering on the ankles he dreamed of licking, her lush thighs, the curve of her breast peeking out the side, her elegant neck, and her face. She wore makeup, and her hair was styled up in a tangle of shiny, raven strands piled on top of her head.

  He made a choking sound as Mia turned slowly, giving him a full view of her spectacular backside.

  “Where’s Ryan? He said he would stay with you until I got home.” Jordan’s voice sounded funny, but he ignored it. He was hard as a fucking rock, seeing Mia like this, and he hoped he knew what she was up to, but Ryan had promised he would stay, and he wasn’t here. Jordan hoped.

  “He and Krista wanted to get out of here, so I told them to go. I wanted to do something.” Her voice was low, husky, and sexy as fuck. It, and the bottle of tequila she was waving at him, reminded him of times past, when they teased the hell out of each other.

  “What’s up?” Faking nonchalance, she had the grace to giggle at him.

  “I think it’s obvious you like challenges, am I right?”

  “Right…” he said hesitantly, not sure where this was going but sure his voice gave away his horniness. As she turned to face him, he made a move to cover his straining erection.

  “I’ve never had an orgasm with a man before.”

  Her words left her mouth on a blush that flamed her cheeks. The red lighting her olive-skin was the sexiest fucking thing Jordan had ever laid eyes on.

  Was she saying what he thought she was saying? “You know what you’re asking me, right? I can make you come, but it’s—”