“Usually you don’t have a problem charming the ladies.”
“No.” Drake glanced toward the shut bedroom door. “But I don’t think she’s one for charmers.”
Noah dropped his bag. He was so tired his bones ached, but he’d been determined to get back to Claire as fast as possible.
“Want to tell me about your mystery trip?”
Now Noah was the once glancing toward the bedroom door. “Is she asleep?”
“She’s been that way for a few hours now. Tried to get her drunk with some wine,” Drake confessed. “Didn’t work. The woman didn’t even touch her glass.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed. “We need to be clear on something.” He’d thought it was obvious when he asked Drake to watch Claire. “You don’t f**k with her, understand?”
Drake laughed softly. “But you do.”
“Only me.” He tossed aside his jacket. “Claire is—”
“A broken bird, a woman who needs your protection.” Now Drake was mocking.
“No,” Noah snarled. That sure wasn’t what he saw when he looked at Claire. “She’s a survivor. She’s been through hell, and I want to make sure she never has to suffer again.”
Drake seemed to absorb that. “And you’ll do anything to keep her safe, is that it?”
“Yes,” he rasped.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” Now Drake rose and paced toward Noah. “I don’t give out advice often, but for you, I’ll make an exception. Seeing as how we go back so far…and you’re one of the few people who can—”
“Actually stand your psychotic ass?”
“Understand me,” Drake muttered. He heaved out a sigh. “You were smarter than Trace and I were. You didn’t get wrapped up in a woman. You kept your distance. You played it safe.”
Noah waited.
“You need to keep playing it safe. Opening yourself up to a woman like Claire, that is a big mistake. She’ll rip your world apart, man.”
Noah didn’t speak.
“When Trace almost lost Skye, you saw what it did to him.” Drake’s face hardened as worry glinted in his eyes. “Do you really want that shit to happen to you?”
His back teeth had clenched so hard they ached. “I have no intention of losing Claire.”
“Aw, hell, it’s already too late for you, isn’t it?”
It had been too late for Noah the moment he’d met Claire—and she’d taken a swing at him in that Chicago alley.
“What are you doing?” Now real concern was in Drake’s voice. “Don’t let her push you too far.”
But how far was too far?
“Reporters were at the Towers most of the day, trying to get to her. They even asked me if she was involved in the death of a certain Senator Colby Harrison.” Drake’s brows rose. “Seems he died in D.C., right during your recent little visit there with the tempting Claire.”
Noah fired another fast glance at the bedroom door. “When she was sixteen, Claire’s boyfriend killed her parents. He put a gun to Claire’s head, and he was going to kill her, too.”
“What?”
“That boyfriend was Ethan Harrison, Senator Harrison’s younger son. Instead of just admitting that he had one screwed-up kid, the senator tried to paint Claire as a seductress who’d led the boy down the wrong path.”
Drake rocked back on his heels. “She said her past was blood and death.”
“It is.” Her future wouldn’t be. “The senator harassed her for years, and now she’s free of him.”
Drake absorbed that, then muttered, “Free, right at the same time you two hook up.”
Noah didn’t let his expression change. “Sometimes, that’s how fate works.”
“Don’t be cute, Noah…did you do it?”
“If I had, then I wouldn’t be so worried about keeping a watch on Claire.” He did not want Claire overhearing this conversation. “Before she moved in here at the Towers, someone trashed her hotel room at the Hamlet. That ass**le Ethan Harrison, he’s been watching her—from prison. He’s got a PI on her. Ethan had photos of her, recent damn photos, all over his cell.”
“So that’s where you went on your little trip.”
“I needed to see him with my own eyes. Needed to talk to him.”
Drake assessed him. “You were measuring your enemy.”
It was the way they’d worked when they were in the military. Know your enemy. Learn his weaknesses. Exploit them.
Take out that enemy.
“He’s as obsessed with her now as he was nine years ago.” Actually, the guy might even be more obsessed. Time should have made the bastard let her go.
The bedroom door squeaked open. “Noah?” Claire slipped out of the darkness and into the light of the main room. A smile swept over her face. The smile that he loved. The one that started with her lips, that flashed her dimples, and made her eyes shine.
Every muscle in his body locked down.
“I don’t think he’s the only one obsessed,” Drake said, voice low. “I’m telling you…watch yourself. Because you’re headed for an implosion.” Then Drake raised his voice as he drawled, “I’ll be seeing you again soon, Claire Kramer.”
Then he left them.
Noah drank in the sight of Claire.
“How was your trip?” Claire asked him as she crept toward him. A few seconds later, she stood in front of him. Her hands lifted, then hesitated.
He didn’t want Claire to hesitate when it came to touching him. He started to reach for her, but Noah locked his muscles down. He wanted the next move to be hers.
After a moment, she pressed herself against him. Hugged him. It only lasted a moment, but he felt the impact of that embrace rock through his whole body.
“I’m glad you’re back.” Her words were faint as she drew back. She put her hands behind her. Stared up at him with those big blues that always seemed to make him a little weak.
I missed you, Claire.
When he’d never missed anyone, not until her.
This wasn’t about just repaying some debt anymore. Wasn’t about trying to fix the hole in Claire’s life that her sister’s death had left behind.
It was about more.