| Chapter Ten Heidi jerked awake, her breathing labored, her body covered in a fine sheen of sweat. The dream had been so real. Nick had been tied to a chair, his mouth gagged and his eyes pleaded with her to help him. A man stood to the side of him, a gun in his hand. She tried to move, but found her feet wouldn’t move. No matter how hard she had tried, she couldn’t get to him. She had begged and pleaded with the man to let Nick go. He sneered and cocked the pistol, pointing it at Nick’s head. She woke up then, thankfully, and now the cold chill wouldn’t leave her. Moving carefully, so as not to wake Nick, Heidi got out of bed. She was missing something; she just knew it. Quietly she left the room in search of something to drink. After finding a can of Coke in the mini-fridge, she walked back into the bedroom and settled in the window seat. She didn’t want to leave Nick incase he needed her. As she sipped on the cold Coke, she stared at the stars shinning over the city, letting her mind clear. Whatever she was missing would come to her eventually. She just needed the quiet of the night and some time to sort things out. Her mind was like a steel trap, it was one of her best assets, and she intended to use it to keep Nick safe. She just had to put the few scant clues she had together and pray that they were enough to solve this case, or at least give them a clue to the motive. Finishing the can of Coke, she set it aside and set her mind to going over everything she knew about the stalker. One: up until the prior afternoon, the threats had been very vague, more of a nuisance than a danger. Two: whoever he was, he knew too many things that he couldn’t possibly know without being on the inside. Things like Nick’s code names; they had changed them four different times in the last few weeks, but the stalker still had figured them out, Nick’s home address and his family’s whereabouts. Either this guy was on the inside or he was a computer whiz. Those were the only two things she and Billy had been able to come up with; and it left them at square one. She replayed what Nick had told her that afternoon and her mind centered on the comment about Aaron. “I hope he has sense enough to stay away from married women.” ‘Why would someone say something like that about a young kid? Could that comment have more to do with Nick than it did with Aaron? Was it a clue? What if Nick had had an affair with a married woman, the husband found out and now was out to get Nick? Could that be it? No! Nick might be a flirt, and he might have experience, more than half of it coming from fans, but a married woman? No, she didn’t think so.’ Everything she knew about Nick shouted family. He wouldn’t knowingly sleep with a married woman. ‘But what if he didn’t know she was married?’ her mind asked. ‘Maybe’ she thought. Her heart began to accelerate. She was onto something. She could just feel it. Whether or not Nick had taken part in it knowingly or not was another story. One she was going to have to ask him about, and with the way things were between them right now, she wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Since the night she’d locked him out of his room and she’d told him they couldn’t be anything more than friends, they had both been very careful of how they acted with each other. In public, they kept up the charade, but behind closed doors they were little more than polite strangers. Employee and employer, nothing more, nothing less. And it hurt; hurt more than Heidi had ever thought possible. She could lie to Nick, she could lie to the guys, but she couldn’t lie to herself. Since that first kiss on her first night as Nick’s undercover girlfriend, she had been lost. And now she was going to have to question him about his past relationships, ask questions she’d rather not know the answers to and she was very uncomfortable. But what else could she do? She had to know if she was going to protect him, if they were going to make any headway in catching this guy. Heidi sighed and leaned her head against the window. The strain of hiding her feelings, of pretending to be something she wasn’t, but wanted more than anything, and the stress of the threat hanging over Nick’s head wore down on her. Before she knew it, her eyes drooped closed and she fell asleep. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Nick stirred in his sleep just before dawn and he reached for Heidi. When his hands met with cold sheets, he sat up and looked around the room. He frowned when he found her curled up on the window seat. ‘How long had she been there?’ he wondered as he climbed from bed and grabbed the blanket. He gently laid the blanket over her and tucked it around her feet, being careful not to wake her. He sighed sadly and shook his head. He just couldn’t understand how she could deny her feelings for him. He saw right through her every attempt to convince him that there were no feelings. He knew she had them, for they were in her eyes. All he had to do was look into her blue-green eyes and it was there, just as plain as his own feelings shone from his own baby blues. He wished there was no stalker, he wished he were safe and that Heidi didn’t have her job to hide behind. But then again, his stalker and her job had brought Heidi into his life. He looked at her and ran his fingertip over her cheek. “When this is all over, what excuse will you use then?” he asked aloud, before moving back to bed. He settled under the sheet and spent the dawn hours watching her sleep. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ After they had both showered and breakfast had been delivered, Heidi broached the subject she dreaded. “Nick, I’ve been thinking and I need to ask you some very personal questions. This is going to be difficult for you, and I’m sorry, but I need to know the answers. Last night it occurred to me that the stalker’s comment about ‘married women’ might be a clue as to why he’s doing this. I don’t think it was a random comment. I think he wanted you to know why,” she said as she picked at her food. “What would married women have to do with me?” he asked, clearly lost to her direction of thought. “Have you ever been involved with a married woman?” she asked baldly. She knew the way it came out was going to put Nick’s back against the wall, but how else was she supposed to phrase it? “What? You have got to be kidding me,” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Come on Nick. I know that you and the guys occasionally take women back to your rooms, have any of them ever been married?” she asked again. “Is that what you think? That I invite women back to my room and have one night stands?” Heidi could tell this interview was going to hell in a hand basket and it was going that way fast. “For your information,” he rushed on without letting her answer, “I was involved in a serious relationship for a little over two years and I was completely faithful to her.” “What about before or after that?” she asked, refusing to let the subject go until he gave her a straight answer. “I can count on one hand the number of women I’ve had one night stands with,” he said as he held up his hand, two fingers waggling in the air. “Two, and they were both single. Legal, and single,” he stated. Inwardly Heidi sighed in relief. She knew her instincts about Nick weren’t wrong. “I’m sorry Nick. I had to ask. That comment is just so out of place, that I know in here that it’s connected,” she said as she tapped her heart. “But how?” Nick asked, his frustration with the conversation coming through. “I don’t know Nick. I just don’t know,” she said as she clenched her napkin in her hands. “This is so frustrating,” he raged as he pushed away from the table, knocking his chair over in his hurry to stand. “Don’t you think I know that?” she raged back. Her lack of sleep and her seesawing emotions were getting the best of her. “Don’t you think I want this to end just as much as you? I hate seeing that look of fear in your eyes, knowing that I can’t do a thing about it. I’d like to catch this guy and put him away before he gets any closer, but I have nothing to go on,” she shouted as she stood in front of him. The sight of her all worked up did more to turn him on than anything else ever had. He felt his body harden and he fought the urge to reach out and hold her, to kiss her. He fought, but he lost. He reached out and pulled her flush against him, his lips slanting across hers, his tongue sweeping inside, taking advantage of her gasp. God it felt so good to have her in his arms, to feel her responding with a passion that stunned him. Her arms were wrapped tightly around him, pulling him as close as they could get. Her tongue was stroking his and he groaned deep in his throat. He let his hands wander where they would and he enjoyed the feel of her body under his hands. Her muscles tensed and relaxed as his touch caressed lightly over her back and down her sides. On the next sweep up her sides, he didn’t stop. His hands found the underside of her breast and his thumbs stroked over their fullness. Heidi gasped softly at the contact and her breast swelled, as her back arched into Nick’s touch. The voice in her head warned her she was about to make a mistake, but she ignored it and pushed herself closer to him. All she knew was that right now, she needed him, his touch, and his possession. She could no longer fight what she knew in her heart was right. “Nick,” she whispered as his lips left hers to trail a path down the column of her neck. Hearing his name fall from her lips, heated Nick’s blood and he nipped the tender skin just above her collarbone. He soothed the bite with a flick of his tongue and Heidi shuddered as shafts of heat traveled through her veins. Needing to feel his skin, she tugged at his shirt until she got her hands underneath. His stomach trembled at her touch and he stilled his lips, concentrating on the feelings she was evoking in him. Her hands moved torturously slow up his abdomen to his chest. Her fingers flicked his hard flat nipples and Nick moaned. “God Heidi.” Heidi’s knees went weak with the knowledge that she could affect him as much as he affected her. Nick felt her knees give way and he bent to pick her up. Her carried her swiftly to the bed and lowered her gently. He stood next to her, looking at her, wanting her. “Are you sure?” he asked. He waited a breathless minute until she gave her answer. SNC Index Chapter Eleven Main Page |