Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (53 page)

I’m falling forward—

"Claire!" Sawyer’s
powerful arms grab me. He drags me to his chest and holds me tight.

"The cops came to me this
morning," Sawyer says quickly. "They told me you went to see them. I
told them you were a hostage, but I didn’t know where he was holding you. I
tried ripping all of damn Westingham apart to find you. After I saw you in that
warehouse, I went back to the cops. I realized I needed them to help me—it was
the only way to save you. I couldn’t get you out of the warehouse. I was
blindfolded and taken there in the trunk of a car, so I had no idea how to get
there again. The cops figured the best plan was to rescue you here."

I’m sucking in deep breaths,
cuddling tight to Sawyer’s chest. Thank god he went to the police.

"If you hadn’t gone to the
cops—" Sawyer breaks off. He tenderly presses his lips to the top of my
head. "You were right. Right all along, Claire. I was a damned effing
idiot. Again."

"No, you weren’t," I
whisper. "You were trying to protect the people you love. And I am so damn
happy you brought the police here." I took a huge gamble going to the
police. That was the decision I made. I had to protect Sawyer.

I laugh then, with relief, but it
fractures halfway through and turns into a sob. I press tight to Sawyer. He’s
so big and we’re surrounded by the police but I start shaking with fear.

On TV, Helman would break free and
make one last attempt to hurt us.

But that’s not real. He can’t do
anything. "I’d like to get out of here."

"You’re shaking."
Sawyer’s arms tighten around me. "Claire, you’re terrified."

"I just keep thinking…I just
can’t stop being afraid that it’s not over."

"It is over," Sawyer
insists. "Helman’s going to be arrested for Jaxon’s murder, for kidnapping
you, for a hell of a lot more crimes. The cops think at least one of his
bodyguards will talk in return for a deal."

One of the police officers comes
and leads me to an ambulance. Sawyer follows. As I sit there while an EMT
checks me over, I realize Sawyer is being questioned. I shoot to my feet. "Don’t
arrest him. You can’t do that. He didn’t race—his bike didn’t leave the start
line. He was trying to protect me. He saved my
life
. Doesn’t that count
for anything?"

Sawyer puts his arms around me and
forces me to sit again for the EMT.

The police officer says to me, "Mr.
Tremaine is not under arrest."

Thank god for that.

"There’s nothing wrong with
me," I say finally. "I’m hungry, and my wrist and ankle are bruised,
but I’m okay. Admittedly I’m still kind of scared and pretty shaky, but okay."

They let me go to Sawyer, but I
know I have to go with the cops and give my statement. Sawyer says, "I’ll
go with you. I don’t want you out of my sight. I want to know you’re safe. I
want to know all night that you’re safe."

I want to be with him, so I can
feel safe. But there’s something I know I need to do after I finish with the
police. "I need to go home to my mom." I shiver. "But I can’t
face the thought of getting on a bus tonight."

"I’ll drive you," Sawyer
says.

"You can’t do that. My home is
almost six hours from Westingham and it’s almost midnight."

"No
problem, Claire. I’ve driven twenty-four hours straight before."

* * *

I plan to stay awake. Maybe just
because I need to keep looking at Sawyer to convince myself that it’s over, I’m
safe and unharmed, and he’s free. And alive.

But the warmth of the truck’s cab,
the endless dark road, and the glare of the oncoming cars make my eyes close. I
know I fall asleep because I keep waking up.

I’ll see Helman’s face in front of
me. Or dream I saw Sawyer crash. Each time I jerk awake and find it wasn’t
real.

"Are you okay?" I mumble
to Sawyer. How can he keep driving when I can’t even keep my eyes open?

"I’m good," he says. "Try
to sleep."

I close my eyes because I can’t
fight to stay awake.

Next time I open them, the sky is
streaked with red, and we’ve reached a sign that says, "Welcome to
Opeongo." The small town where I grew up. I’m home.

"I’ll drop you off,"
Sawyer says, glancing over at me.

"Oh. I thought—I thought you
might stay. You should get some sleep. But you don’t have to come in,
obviously, if you don’t want—"

"I didn’t think you’d want me
around. And I’m pretty sure your mother won’t. When she finds out what I
dragged you into, she’ll probably want to kill me."

"Of course not. You saved me,
Sawyer. And she’s probably going to thank you for that. As well as feed you."

"What about you, Claire? If
you want me out of your life, I understand." He rakes his hair back out of
his eyes. He isn’t looking at me—as if he’s afraid of what he’ll see in my
face.

"Out of my life? Sawyer, I—"
I want to say I love you, but I hesitate. Will it scare him? Is it too early?

Hell, I didn’t know how to kiss and
I don’t know how to do relationships, since I have so little experience. Maybe
the best thing is to be honest.

"Sawyer, I love you."

Chapter
Eight

What is he going to say?

He’s driving and he hasn’t said
anything for several minutes. I gave him directions to my house and that’s
where we are headed.

I’m scared I’ve blown it, just like
I did with that impetuous kiss I tried to plant on Trey weeks ago. I’ve said
too much, gone too far, and scared Sawyer. Impetuous things do not work for me.

Of course, if I hadn’t bestowed
that awkward, terrible kiss on that idiot Trey, I would never have
propositioned Sawyer.

Nervous, I glance at Sawyer. He
keeps looking from the road to me and back again. Finally he asks, "How
can you be in love with me?"

I gape at him, drinking in his
gorgeous profile. "Maybe because you are an amazing guy. Because—because I
just am!" My cheeks are burning, I’m blushing so hard.

He lets out a deep breath. "I
am so in love with you, Claire, it hurts. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I
love you."

I’m astounded.

His hands are tight on the steering
wheel, his knuckles white. "It makes me realize what an effing jerk I’ve
been. I thought I loved Kerry. I was so scared I would lose her that I wanted
to be her whole world. I didn’t want her spending time with her friends. Her
family was pretty screwed up and when she felt bad, I wanted her to come to me
instead of talking to them. I told myself I knew best because I loved her. I’m
scared that what I really needed was for her to need me. That doesn’t make me
deserving of love now."

I realize he has told me his
darkest secret. He has completely opened his heart to me. This is what haunts him.

"Why?" I ask bluntly.

"What do you mean, ‘why’?"
He hits the brakes for a traffic light.

"Why did you need all of her
attention? Why couldn’t you share her, Sawyer?"

"I was a selfish bastard."

"No, you aren’t. I don’t
believe that. You were scared for some reason. You were scared and on top of
that, you were afraid to lose her love. Did someone break your heart before?"

"No." He says it shortly.

"What about your dad and your
mom?"

"My dad walked out. It broke
my mom’s heart."

"I lost my dad. It made me
very protective of my brother when he was sick."

Sawyer focuses on traffic as he
drives. Then he says, "I guess I was afraid of losing her. Afraid she
would leave me like my dad did. I didn’t understand the danger of what I was
doing. I just wanted her to be happy and I thought I could do that for her."

I lean over and kiss him tenderly
on his cheek. "I love you," I whisper. "For your strengths and
your vulnerabilities. They are what make you special and beautiful and amazing."
I realize that he doesn’t believe he is worthy of love. "You deserve to be
loved intensely," I say. "And you deserve more than one night stands.
I don’t think you had one night stands because you were protecting women from
the dangerous world of street racing. I think it was because you feared the
women you were with wouldn’t love you. Well, I do."

He reaches out and holds my hand,
threading his fingers through mine. He kisses my hand, then releases it. "I
love you so much, Claire."

Now I’m blushing again. Suddenly I
realize I forgot to point out one of the turns to my house, and of course
Sawyer wouldn’t recognize it. "Actually, we have to turn around. We should
have turned left at that last intersection to get to my house."

He grins. "Sorry. When I’m
with you, I can barely focus on anything else. You give me a bigger adrenalin
high than street racing."

I am stunned.

Ten minutes later, I am standing at
my front door with Sawyer. I ring the bell. I phoned my mom to tell her I was
coming home so she probably hasn’t slept. I hope she did a bit, but I doubt it.
To my surprise, my little brother answers the door. He’s wearing red pajamas
with large black spiders printed all over them. 

"Claire?" Charley frowns.
"Claire, why are you here in the middle of the night?" Then he looks
at Sawyer. Way up at Sawyer. "Mom!" he shouts.

My mom comes into view. She has a
terry cloth robe belted around her. Her hair is loose and shows streaks of
grey. She looks older and worried. She sees me and rushes to me, giving me a
hug.

"Oh my god, Claire, when I heard
about what happened to you—I should have gone to Yardley to be with you. I just
want to kiss and hug you and make sure you are real—"

She squeezes me even tighter. "I’m
okay, Mom." I told her this on the phone. "Nothing happened to me. I
didn’t get hurt."

She releases me and she glares at
Sawyer. "Who are you?" she asks. I’ve never heard Mom be rude.

"Mom, this is Sawyer. Sawyer,
this is my mom and my little brother Charley."

"You are the boy who was
involved in street racing. You’re the reason a crazed man kidnapped my
daughter."

"Mom, it wasn’t Sawyer’s
fault," I protest. But she pulls me into the house, then she grips the
doorknob. I realize she intends to close the door on Sawyer.

"I want you to stay away from
my daughter," she says.

"Mom, that’s ridiculous.
Sawyer is not to blame."

Mom grips my wrist and holds onto
me, as if I’m going to run back outside. "He is when he chooses to get
involved with men like that."

"I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomas."
Sawyer speaks softly, but he looks as if he just got kicked in the gut. "I
never meant for Claire to be in danger."

"Mom, he broke up with me and
tried to push me away to protect me. I made the decision to be with Sawyer. I’m
not a child anymore. The person to blame is that lunatic Helman, and he’s going
to prison."

I pull away from her and I step
outside to stand beside Sawyer.

Charley is watching us. And he
says, "Mom, it’s not going to help anyone to argue."

My mother and I both stare at
Charley. "He’s right, Mom. We should listen to Charley." For a
thirteen-year-old, my brother is astoundingly wise.

Mom’s gaze goes from me to Sawyer.
She bites her lip. Then she says, "All right. Come inside, both of you."

"I’m going to make Sawyer
something to eat," I warn her. "And I think he should spend the night
here. I don’t want him to drive back to Yardley tonight. He’s tired from being
up all night to bring me home and he could have an accident."

"I don’t want to be any more
trouble than I’ve already been," Sawyer says.

Mom hesitates. "Both you and
Charley are right, Claire. Why don’t we order a pizza from the 24 hour place?
Sawyer, you can use the fold-out couch in the basement."

While we eat, Sawyer explains to my
mom and Charley why he got into the illegal bike racing world. I make sure mom
understands Sawyer did it to help his mother. That seems to change her opinion
of him.

After pizza, my brother goes back
to bed—to get some sleep since it’s almost morning and he was so worried about
me that he couldn’t sleep all night. I take a look through his door after mom
tucks him in. He drops off to sleep instantly.

I take sheets and blankets
downstairs for Sawyer’s bed. We make his bed together. My heart pounds hard. I
want to come to him at night. I want to be with him. But I feel strange. Last
night at this time, I was a prisoner.

Sawyer kisses me tenderly. He takes
me back up to my room, kisses me one more time at my door. "You could come
up to my bed later," I whisper. "When my mom is asleep."

"I won’t have sex with you
under your mom’s roof," he says gently.

I nod. I guess, in a way, I’m not
ready for it yet either.

The next day, when Sawyer goes to
leave, my mom touches his arm. "Claire has made me see that you got
trapped in something that was out of your control. You were as much a victim as
she was. And you tried to protect her. That does mean a lot to me."

"Thank you," he says. "I’m
really sorry for what happened to Claire. Mrs. Thomas, if you want me to keep
away from her, I understand. I’ll respect what you want for Claire."

"I want her to have a decent
young man who stands by her. I have no problem with you dating Claire. As long
as you are not involved in any other…criminal activity."

"No,
I’m not." Sawyer looks at me and smiles. "I’ll come and drive you
back to Yardley whenever you’re ready," he says.

* * *

Two days later, I go back to
Yardley with Sawyer. I have to make up for lost time. Midterms are approaching.
I throw myself into studying. Sawyer helps me catch up in calculus and statics,
and I breeze through all my tests.

But Sawyer and I haven’t had sex
since I returned to school. I spend a lot of time at his house, but we study
until late, then I’m exhausted and he tells me to just sleep. We’re sharing the
same bed, but nothing is happening.

It can’t be that he doesn’t want
me. If he wanted to break up, surely he would do that instead of having me
sleep over. So why won’t he make love to me?

Finally, I go over to his place,
determined to be honest and direct. I find him in his garage.

Actually, all I can see of him is
his gorgeous ass and his long, long legs. The hood of his car is up, he’s
leaning over the engine, and his leather motorcycle pants are pulled tight over
his amazing butt.

My pussy gets instantly wet. I
can’t live without sex with Sawyer for another minute. I race over to him and I
cup his ass. He jerks up. The car hood jolts a bit as his head hits it.

Aak! So much for yet another
impetuous manoeuver. "I’m so sorry! So sorry! I shouldn’t have done that.
I keep doing this. I keep following my instincts and I fuck things up—"

"No, you don’t." Sawyer
stops rubbing his head and kisses me. He lifts me, his hands on my ass, and he
kisses me deeply.

The garage practically spins around
me.

He breaks the kiss just long enough
to murmur, "I like it when you do impetuous things like grab my ass and
ask me for a one night stand. Don’t ever stop being you, Claire."

I always hated being me in the
past.

"That’s what I love about you.
Everything that makes you Claire." Then he grins against my lips. "Fuck,
I don’t think that makes sense. When you said it to me, you did a way better
job."

"You did a fine job. It’s the
sweetest thing I’ve ever heard." My lips move against his as I talk and
that inspires him to open his mouth, kiss me hard, and do wicked things to my
tongue with his. Shivers tumble through me.

I reach down—not easy since my legs
are around him and my crotch is pressed tight to him. I manage to rub the bulge
in his pants. I want him to understand how much I want him.

But he sets me back down.

"Do you really want this?"
he asks. "I’ve been scared to ask you for sex after what you went through."

Now I understand. "You think
that I have something like post-traumatic stress? I did have nightmares, but
they’re going away. Being with you helps. Making love with you isn’t going to
hurt me."

"Maybe I don’t have the right—"

"Stop feeling guilty, Sawyer.
Everything I said to my mother is true. It isn’t your fault. I wasn’t just
making that stuff up to make her happy. You are not to blame. You had reasons
for what you did—noble reasons. And you tried to protect me."

I walk away from him and stand
beside his street racing bike. I know he’s selling it, using it to raise money
since he’s lost the income he made from racing. He was going to sell the house,
but his mom refused to let him do it. I made him call her and they talked for
hours. He apologized to her for getting into trouble, then she apologized to
him. She told him she was sorry for making him feel bad for his stutter, and
she told him that he was not the reason his dad left.

"We fought all the time,"
she said to him. "Your father blamed me for your stutter, but that was
because he and I blamed each other for anything and everything. He wanted a
reason to leave me, and when he was gone, I couldn’t admit to you that I made
mistakes too. I’m so sorry, Sawyer. So very sorry. And you don’t have to worry
about supporting me. I should look after myself and it’s my responsibility to
look after your younger sisters."

"No, Mom," he said. "I
want to help out."

Sawyer got a part-time job with an
oil-change franchise to bring in extra money. He’s an incredibly hard worker,
studying full time during the week, then going to work on weekends.

I want him to see that I love him
and
desperately
want to make love with him.

"You know, you’ve never taken
me for a ride on your bike." I run my fingers suggestively over the curved
gas tank.

He swallows hard. And I think I
actually see his erection buck in his jeans.

"Not that one," he says. "I’d
like to take you out on this one." He has a touring-style Harley. I know
he intends to sell it too.