Chase After Me - Cynthia Eden Page 0,2

Vivian said. Her voice was low, not quite husky, but definitely sensual. “I won’t keep you.”

He wanted her to keep him. That was the whole point.

She stepped around him. Made her way to the apartment on the other end of the hallway.

“I’m new in town,” Chase called after her. “Maybe later you can point me in the direction of some good restaurants?”

She stopped. He saw her shoulders stiffen.

Hell. Had that question sounded as desperate as it felt?

Vivian looked over her shoulder at him. She frowned, making a faint furrow appear between her eyebrows.

Chase kept his winning smile in place.

Come on, come on…

“I’ll be happy to help,” she replied. She didn’t sound particularly happy, though.

“And I’m happy to help you, too,” he told her quickly. “That’s what neighbors are for, right? So if you should need me for anything, just remember, from here on out, I’ll be right next door.”

She seemed to absorb that. Her green gaze slid from him to his apartment door. “I’ll remember.”

A few moments later, she was inside her apartment. The door closed almost soundlessly behind her.

He stood there a moment, just staring down the hallway.

“Did that go according to plan?” Merik sidled closer. “I am genuinely curious. When you came up with this scheme, did you secretly intend for her to compliment my tat, ignore your abs, and shut the door in your face?”

“She didn’t shut the door in my face.” Obviously. “I’m a good fifteen feet away from her door.”

Merik laughed and slapped a hand on Chase’s shoulder. “Tell me you have another plan.”

He had lots of plans. Always did. And Merik damn well knew that. Actually, Merik already knew exactly what the next step would be because they’d had to discuss it and plan for that step before moving into the building.

Unfortunately, the next step would involve Chase having to play dirty. Shouldn’t have been a problem. He’d played dirty on plenty of cases. In fact, he was very, very good at playing dirty but…

She’d blushed.

It meant nothing. He was sure that, under the right circumstances, even serial killers could blush. Not that Vivian Wayne was a serial killer. No, in fact, he didn’t believe that she’d killed anyone. At least, not directly.

But she was dangerous. Very, very dangerous. And his job was to stop her. By any means necessary.

Playing dirty? Yeah, it was almost time.

So why did the idea of what he was about to do…why did the idea of it make him feel like crap?

***

Focus. Be friendly. Smile.

Vivian rolled back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and rapped her left hand against the closed apartment door.

Then she shifted her stance and went back to carefully cradling the covered dish in front of her.

She could hear the pad of footsteps. And then—

The door swung open.

He stood there. The new neighbor. The guy with the dark blond hair, the rough stubble of beard on his hard jaw, and the most amazing golden eyes that she’d ever seen. Gold. When she’d first looked up and into his eyes, the hallway had seemed to narrow. Her heart had thudded hard in her chest, she’d trembled, and when they’d touched, when his strong, warm fingers had curled around hers, she’d thought—

Oh, so this is what everyone is always talking about.

“Uh, Vivian?”

She blinked. Oh, God. Had she just been staring at him? He’d put on a t-shirt. A white t-shirt that stretched over his powerful chest and all of those wonderfully sculpted muscles.

Sexy guy, dead ahead. In her world, sexy men didn’t just fall out of the sky and into her path. If only.

But…he had.

“Is everything all right?”

No, things were not all right. She was being an awkward mess, and she needed to take control of the situation, ASAP. He was her neighbor, and she could be friendly, dang it. Or, she could try. “I baked this.” Vivian shoved the welcome gift toward him.

One eyebrow quirked. “Thank…you?”

Chase made it sound like a question. Probably because she was being weird. She knew she was being weird. Weird was her thing. Once upon a time, she’d tried to fit in with everyone else, but that just hadn’t worked so well for her. She didn’t usually waste time with polite chitchat. Why be polite when you could be real? Besides, when people were being polite, they were often lying. White lies, sure, but they weren’t saying what they really meant.

She hated lies.

Mostly because of her family.

Do not go there right now. She had enough to handle without a painful walk down memory