He pushed her down the hall, leaving Reese to deal with Alex.
The detective could become a problem. Trace would have to watch him, carefully.
Because no one could be allowed to interfere with his plans for Skye.
***
She should have expected the penthouse. The elevator doors opened up, and she stepped out onto the top level of the high-rise. Trace was right at her side.
“No one can get up here without passing my guards,” he told her as his fingers curled around her elbow.
Right then, she was sure glad to hear about that security.
They entered the penthouse. Her gaze swept around the place. Everything looked expensive. Everything smelled expensive.
And the view was killer.
If she hadn’t been scared to death, literally shaking apart on the inside, she would have appreciated that view more right then.
As it was, she just wanted to go someplace and collapse.
The door shut behind them. She heard the sound of the alarm engaging. Then…Trace’s hands slid down her arms. Her bare arms because all she’d had to wear out of that hospital were her workout clothes. “You’re safe, Skye.” His words whispered into her ear.
And the fear deepened. Because she remembered him. The man in the dark. His mouth at her ear. His whisper.
I will be the one.
She pulled away from Trace and headed toward the big, floor to ceiling window that looked out over Chicago.
He didn’t follow her.
His voice did. Trace told her, “I’m having a top-of-the-line security system installed at your studio. And a damn electrician is going in to check your lights.”
She rubbed her arms. No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to shake the chill from her body. Her gaze stared out at the city. It seemed like she could see forever from this vantage.
“You don’t have to drop your life for me,” she made herself speak when she just wanted to stand in silence. “I’m sure having me here…in your home…it’s going to cramp your style.” She’d read the papers. She knew all about his many, many exploits.
Trace certainly wasn’t a man living in the past.
He was too busy seducing in the present.
That was why she hadn’t told Alex about him. When the detective had asked for a list of lovers in the area, anyone who might be fixated on her, Trace had been the last man to come to her mind.
He wasn’t fixated on her. He’d been the one to show her to the door.
“You aren’t cramping my style.”
She could see her reflection in the glass. She looked lost. Carefully, Skye schooled her features before she turned back to face him. “Won’t the flavor of the week mind?” She’d seen him with some blonde just last week in the variety pages—
“Fuck it if anyone minds.” He’d braced his legs apart. He stood staring at her. Behind him, a fire blazed. When had he started that fire? “This isn’t about anyone but you and me.”
He acted as if the last ten years hadn’t happened. But not once, not once, had he tried to contact her. I missed you. She wouldn’t tell him that, though. She’d already broken her pride for him too many times.
He began walking toward her. His stride was slow, certain. She wanted to back up, but there was no place to go.
Sucking in a sharp breath, Skye lifted her head and stared into his eyes.
“Reese called me when he was rushing inside that studio. He’d seen the lights go dark, and he was worried. I was only five minutes away, already coming to see you, and I couldn’t get there fast enough.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d been in trouble. Back in New York, Skye had thought for certain that she was facing death. The memory of cold rain, of constant pain, flashed through her mind.
He hadn’t come to me then.
“Ten years is a long time,” she said. She hated the softness of her voice. Why couldn’t she act as if the past didn’t matter to her? “A lot can change over all those years.”
“And a lot can stay the same.” His fingers curled under her jaw. “I want you just as much now as I did then. When I saw you in my office, the same need hit me. Lust tore through me the way it always does when I’m near you.”
Her hands were trembling. She lifted them and put her palms on his chest. Skye wasn’t sure if she wanted to pull him closer or shove him away.
“Lust was never a problem for us, though, was it?” Skye whispered. His eyes were on her mouth.
Memories of their past flashed through her mind. She could almost taste him.
“I was your first.”
Heat flushed her cheeks.
“I thought about you over the years…”
His confession jolted her.
“I wondered what you were doing…who you were with…”
His gaze was still on her mouth. Still hot. Her hyperawareness of him pushed the aches and pains from her mind. “You don’t get to wonder about that.” Not when he’d been the one to tell her to hit the curb. He didn’t have that right.
“There are some things you can’t control.” His head bent toward her. “The way I feel about you is one of those things.”
She wanted his mouth. She wanted to run from him. “Trace…”
His lips feathered over hers. Not taking. Not demanding. Soft. Gentle.
“I can’t have what I want tonight, I know that,” his words were whispered against her lips. “But you came back to me. And you should know…that changes everything. I let you go once. You can’t expect me to do that again.”
Let her go? She pushed against him now. “You told me to get the hell out of your life.” Skye stumbled as she hurried away from him.
“I knew what your dreams were. I wasn’t going to stand in your way. You wanted the stage. You wanted to dance.”
His words froze her.
She looked back at him.
“I gave you what you wanted.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Isn’t that what I’ve always done? Given you every damn thing that you want.”
“No. You haven’t.” Because there was one thing she’d wanted desperately but never gotten.
The faint lines near his eyes tightened. His face was a dangerous mask in the firelight. “What did you want?”
You. He was the thing she’d wanted most, more than dancing, more than New York, more than getting out of the hell that her life had been when she’d been a teenager.