Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

I knew he was gone the moment I opened my eyes.

It took me several long seconds before I forced myself to look and then run my hand over JJ’s side of the bed. The covers were thrown aside and the clothes he’d been wearing the night before—the ones he’d taken off piece by achingly slow piece right in front of me—were gone. The small dip in the pillow next to mine was proof that he had been in bed with me for at least a little while.

That meant what had taken place in the shower really had happened. It hadn’t been one of my many dreams that had always led to JJ being safely wrapped in my arms.

I remembered all of it. Finding JJ on the floor the night before, his soft, pain-filled whispers calling out to me. Holding him in my arms as I’d begged him not to leave me.

Not again.

I remembered when JJ’s breath had evened out after I’d gathered him into my arms, and I’d logically known that he’d only fallen asleep. Unfortunately, logic hadn’t played a role in the cruel reminder that he and I had been in virtually the same position the night he had been shot. Even as the sun had begun to stream through the kitchen windows and I’d been lost in sleep, my mind had begged anyone who was listening to never let anything take JJ from me again.

After he had woken me from the nightmare, I’d been relieved to discover he was okay. I hadn’t been expecting him to help me to my feet, let alone use his words and touch to get me moving. True, I probably could have dealt with the pain on my own if JJ had chosen to leave me on the floor, but from the moment he’d started telling me in one way or another to shut up as I’d argued with him, I’d given up the fight.

In more ways than one.

Yes, I’d finally shut my mouth when JJ had begun rewarding my silence with bone-melting kisses, but that hadn’t been all of it. I’d given up the internal battle that had raged inside me. The one that tried to deny that my feelings for JJ had lessened in any way.

Not even when I’d been locked away in a place where I’d conveniently been written out of people’s lives. If anything, he was the reason I’d kept my sanity in that soul-sucking place. I might have left that police station with every intention of seeking revenge on the man I’d been so certain had betrayed me, but JJ had changed the game on me without even trying.

The brutal truth was that there’d never been a game. I hadn’t pursued JJ after my release because his brother had asked me to. I hadn’t done it to try and prove my innocence.

I’d done it because I’d needed to do it.

I’d needed to see him so I could prove to myself that he hadn’t been taken from me forever.

I’d needed to follow him because I’d needed him.

When the storm raging inside of me had been at its darkest in that cell, my JJ had been there. The one who’d let me see a side of himself that no one else had: his vulnerability, his fear of disappointing the people in his life, the resentment he’d carried for so long because he’d never been able to be his true self to his family and friends.

That JJ had helped me keep my head above water day after endless day.

Although he and I had only met up a few times before he’d been shot, I’d known from the first time he’d smiled at me that I was a goner. I hadn’t been a big believer in all that love at first sight nonsense or that there was some stranger walking the earth who was supposedly my soulmate, but JJ had been the reason I’d changed the way I’d viewed a lot of things before a bullet had torn our lives apart.

There was no use in trying to deny it anymore.

I was in love with JJ. Even when I’d been at my lowest, I’d loved him. During all the times my fist had slammed into a jaw or gut as my fellow inmates had tried to take my life, I’d let myself believe my rage had stemmed from the sting of his betrayal. Deep down, though, I’d been fighting for my life because I’d believed that someday I’d see JJ again. I’d believed I’d see my JJ again.

I sighed and took stock of the few aches and pains that lingered. My body had been and still was drained by the mind-blowing orgasm I’d experienced in the shower. The whole time JJ had been running his hands over me to help ease my stiff muscles as the warm water had rained down on our bodies, I’d been hard as a rock.

Painfully so.

I’d wanted JJ in a way I’d never wanted anyone in my entire life. By some miracle, I’d kept my hands to myself as his hands had begun massaging my ass but by the time he’d slid his fingers in my crease, I’d been lost. I’d wanted nothing more than to explore his body the way he’d been exploring mine. I’d wanted to taste, lick, feel every part of him. I’d wanted to hear his deep, throaty moans as I brought him to the edge of release over and over again. I’d wanted to bury myself inside of him in a way that no one could ever tear us apart again.

“Fuck,” I muttered to myself as my dick began to get hard all over again.

None of it should have happened. What I’d begged him to do to me in that shower, crawling into bed with him afterwards, falling into a deep sleep because I knew JJ was right there beside me—none of it should have happened because I hadn’t brought him up here for that. I’d brought him to the cabin for two things.

To keep him safe.

And to find the proof he needed that would make him finally believe I wasn’t the monster he thought I was.

I’d promised myself—not to mention Sully—that the time we spent at the cabin would only be about focusing on the case. Since Sully apparently had some kind of third eye when it came to my attraction to JJ, the chances were high that his big brother wouldn’t give a shit if JJ found the proof he needed to finally believe me.

Either way, I was leaving the cabin in a body bag or as an innocent man. Hell, knowing Sully, it could be both. The asshole would probably be thrilled to learn that his little brother no longer believed I was a soulless murderer, but he’d kill me anyway because I’d done things to JJ that I’d promised I wouldn’t.

Since I was probably a dead man either way, I regretted that I hadn’t at least followed through on all the things I’d wanted to do to JJ in that bed before we’d fallen asleep.

I hadn’t kissed him again.

I hadn’t touched him.

I hadn’t even spoken to him when he’d taken my hand in his and led me to the bed.

Nothing had been said as we’d slid our still damp and very naked bodies beneath the sheets. It had taken only one move after that to know JJ regretted what had happened.

He’d turned his back on me. He’d gotten in that bed and faced the opposite direction. His message couldn’t have been clearer.

It had been a mistake.

All of it.

From the moment I’d kissed him after he’d confronted me on that canyon road to the second our bodies had slid beneath the covers just a handful of hours ago, JJ regretted it. He’d turned his back to me, so I’d done the same.

That hadn’t been the case when I’d woken up a little while later. Since we’d lain down in bed while it was early in the morning, it had still been light outside when something had stirred me awake. It’d been JJ draping his upper body over mine, his warm breath drifting over my nipple and both his arms wrapped around my body as far as they could reach.

Holding me.

So I couldn’t leave him.

I’d fallen back to sleep more quickly than I would have liked and now here I was.

Empty bed.

No naked JJ.

No arms snaked around me because I was wanted right where I was.

I forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed. My clothes were sitting neatly folded on a small nearby table. I tried to tell myself to take my time getting dressed because JJ was still in the house, but shards of doubt were invading my thoughts.

What if he’d left? I doubted he could have figured out the code for the wall safe that held my gun and the satellite phone that would be the only way to get reception in the area. What if he’d left on foot even though I’d warned him not to? I’d grown up in these woods, so I knew them like the back of my hand, but JJ didn’t. He’d get turned around in a matter of minutes, and it would take him days to find his way back to the cabin or reach the road for help.

I quickened my pace as I pulled my clothes on and then I rushed down the stairs. I nearly slipped on the linoleum floor when I reached the kitchen but managed to catch myself before I landed on my ass.

“Sorry,” I heard JJ murmur distractedly. He was sitting at the table, his eyes glued to a file. “When you got that pack of frozen vegetables for me, I think you forgot to close the freezer, so water leaked all over the floor. I toweled it dry but apparently not dry enough.”

His voice was disinterested at best, but it wasn’t the tone of someone trying to shoo another person away as if they were a pestering gnat. Instead, he sounded like someone deep in thought but also at the ready.

He definitely had his cop hat on.

Before I could even respond, JJ rose to his feet and with the file still in his hand, he went over to the kitchen door and opened it all the way before returning to the table.

“There’s coffee,” JJ remarked as he pointed in the direction of the coffee machine. I wanted to laugh at the irony since I’d said the same words to him less than twenty-four hours earlier.

“What time is it?” I asked carefully as I moved toward the coffee pot.

“Three o’clock in the afternoon.”

We’d only been asleep for a handful of hours? How was that possible after the events of the night before and, more importantly, what had taken place in the shower this morning?

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Fine,” JJ said simply. He didn’t seem angry or embarrassed. In fact, he acted like the events of this morning had already become a distant, if not completely forgotten memory.

It pissed me off even though I had no right to be. I should have been glad he was focused on the case files scattered all over the top of the table.

“How long have you been up?” I asked as I sat down in the chair across from JJ.

“A while,” was all he said. Now he sounded curt, even a little angry.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“Can’t really interrogate you if you’re not in the room, can I?” JJ responded snidely.

“Fine,” I said as I settled into the chair. The little spark of hope that maybe something meaningful had changed between us was snuffed out just like that.

Last night hadn’t happened. He didn’t need to say it and he sure as hell didn’t want me to.

JJ lowered the file but only to turn the folder in on itself so a specific page was viewable.

“What happened to Officer Lewis?” JJ asked. He handed the report to me. “These are the witness statements taken the night I was shot. Most of them are just people who called 911 because they’d heard some noises. Not gunfire, just ‘noises,’” he continued. “Why isn’t Officer Lewis’s statement in here? He was the officer assigned to take the shift after mine. He’s a good cop, so he would have known what the popping sounds meant⁠—”

“He’s dead, JJ. He died the night you were shot. He was on his way to relieve you, but he never made it. His patrol car was hit by a dump truck at an intersection. It rammed his car into a telephone pole. They never found the driver of the truck.”

JJ began shaking his head. “No,” he said defiantly, then repeated, “No.”

I wasn’t sure if he was in denial because he’d been friends with the officer or if he was calling me a liar again without saying it directly to me.

He fell quiet for several long beats. I handed the file back to him.

“I didn’t know him that well but even if I can’t remember that night, I know myself. I was a good cop. I knew how to do my job. I never would have left my post until I was sure my relief had arrived,” JJ insisted.

He began ripping through the pages in front of him. “There’s no mention of him anywhere. Even if it was just an accident, there should still be some mention of that,” he added in frustration. “And I sure as hell would have known what those popping sounds were. The other guy, the agent, he would have heard them too.”

JJ was in full cop mode as he put down the file and began rifling through the stack of other folders he’d piled up in front of him.

I hesitated to say anything. Sully had already come up with his own theory about JJ being shot first because he had been the gunman’s real target. As much as I wanted to push JJ in the right direction, I couldn’t give him theories. He needed to come up with those on his own or he’d probably think I’d falsified all the records or lied to him in some way. All I could offer were facts.

“Okay,” JJ muttered, more to himself than anything else. He grabbed another file and then looked at a notepad where he’d jotted down some notes. He looked between the notes and the file. “Let’s switch to something else,” he said. He looked up at me, his eyes burning with determination.

Just like when he’d been ordering me around that morning, his steely gaze turned me on. I’d never let a guy take control of me in bed. I couldn’t even remember if I’d ever fucked a guy in a bed. Most of my hookups had taken place on whatever surface was available at the time. I’d never gone home with a guy, and they’d never been allowed into whatever personal space I’d had for myself at the time. I’d also never let a guy fuck me. I’d never even been interested in what it would feel like to have some guy’s dick in my ass.

I was interested now.

I wondered if JJ had liked giving me orders. Had he been able to see the burn in my eyes as he’d told me what to do or maneuvered me into a certain position? I was good at masking my emotions; I’d had to be. You couldn’t be yourself and an Ashby at the same time. I’d learned that very quickly as a child. But with JJ, I’d automatically found it easier to talk to him, to tell him things I’d never told anyone else.

“Cass!” I heard JJ call.

I snapped out of the trance I’d been in. God, this man held so much power over me, yet he had no clue.

Because he didn’t remember.

“Cass!” JJ snapped. I jerked my eyes so they met his pissed-off ones.

“Yeah,” I finally said. I automatically looked at the kitchen door to make sure it was still open.

“Jesus,” JJ muttered in irritation. He looked back down at the file in his hands before snapping it shut and lifting his head so he could look me straight in the eyes.

“The reports and witness testimony said you were found a couple of blocks from the scene. An off-duty cop who lived in that neighborhood arrested you after an APB was put out.” JJ leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “A former Marine shoots four people and then leaves the scene on foot, covered in blood, only to get arrested by some random rookie cop who was out walking his dog and also happened to be carrying his radio with him even though he wasn’t on duty?”

JJ paused for a moment. I could feel the intensity of his gaze. He was studying me. Looking for some kind of reaction from me. I let him look. That was, after all, why I’d brought him here. I was a suspect he needed to question.

Just a suspect.

The reminder was like a punch to the gut. I automatically looked at the kitchen door again.

Still open.

I forced myself to settle my eyes on JJ and then donned the mask I’d been wearing nearly my entire life.

And just like that, I was back in that cell… waiting. Waiting for something that was never going to appear.

Always waiting.