Ten Tiny Breaths (Ten Tiny Breaths #1)

“Because we’re in a cool, damp underground laundromat in Miami. Creepy eight-legged things and things that slither and crawl hide out in places like this.

I recoil as I fight the shiver from running through my body, envisioning my hand re-emerging from underneath with a quarter and a bonus snake. Few things freak me out. Beady eyeballs and a writhing body is one of them. “Funny, I’ve heard creepy two-legged things lurk in these places too. They’re called Creeps. A plague, one might say.” Leaning far over in my short black shorts, he’s got to be getting a nice view of my ass right about now. Go ahead, perv. Enjoy it ’cause that’s all you’re getting. And if I sense so much as a brush against my skin, I’ll take you out at the knee caps.

He answers with a throaty laugh. “Well played. How about you get up off your knees?” The hairs on my neck prickle with his words. There’s something decidedly sexual in his tone. I hear the sound of metal against metal as he adds, “this creep has an extra quarter.”

“Well, then, you’re my favorite kind of—” I start to say, reaching for the top of the machine as I stand to meet this asshole face to face. Of course the open bottle of detergent is right there. Of course my hand knocks it clean off. Of course it splatters all over the machine and the floor.

“Dammit!” I curse, dropping to my knees again as I watch the sticky green soap ooze everywhere. “Tanner’s gonna evict me.”

Creep’s voice drops low. “What’s it worth to you for me to keep quiet?” Footsteps approach.

On instinct, I adjust my position so I can dislocate his joint with a kick and make him crumble in agony, just like I’d learned in my sparring sessions. My spine tingles as a white sheet sails down to cover the floor in front of me. Sucking in a breath, I wait patiently as Creep passes my left side and crouches.

The air leaves my lungs in a swoosh, and I’m left staring at a set of deep dimples and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen—cobalt rings with light blue on the inside. I squint. Do they have turquoise flecks inside them? Yes! My God! The blue floors, the rusty old machines, the walls, everything around me vanishes under the weight of his gaze as it strips me of my protective bitch coat, yanking it clean off my body, leaving me bare and vulnerable in seconds.

“We can soak it up with this. I needed detergent anyway,” he murmurs with a boyish amused grin as he drags his sheet around to saturate the spilled liquid.

“Wait, you don’t have to …” My voice fades, the weakness in it making me nauseous. Suddenly I’m feeling all kinds of wrong for labeling him creepy. He can’t be a creep. He’s too beautiful and too nice. I’m the idiot throwing quarters all over the place and now he’s sopping up my detergent off this dirty floor with his sheets to help me!

I can’t seem to form words. Not while I’m gawking at Not Creep’s ripped forearms, feeling heat ripple into my lower belly. In a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled and the top buttons undone, he’s exposing the beginnings of a killer upper body to me.

“See something that interests you?” he asks, his taunt snapping my eyes back to his smirking face, blood rushing to my cheeks. Damn this guy. He seems to flip flop from Good Samaritan to Evil Tempter with each new sentence out of his mouth. Worse, he caught me ogling his body. Me! Ogling! I’m around first-class bodies every day at the gym and they don’t faze me. Somehow, I’m not immune to him.

“I just moved in. 1D. My name’s Trent.” He looks up at me from under impossibly long lashes, his shaggy, golden brown hair framing his face beautifully.

“Kacey,” I force out. So, this guy is the new tenant; our neighbor. He lives on the other side of my living room wall! Gah!

“Kacey,” he repeats. I love the shape of his lips when he says my name. My attention lingers there, staring at that mouth, at his set of perfectly straight, white teeth, until I feel my face explode with a third wave of heat. Dammit! Kacey Cleary blushes for no one!

“I’d shake your hand, Kacey, but—” Trent says with a teasing smile, holding up detergent covered palms.

There. That does it. The idea of touching those hands slaps me across the cheek, breaking whatever temporary haze this Trent man has confused me with, pushing me back to reality.

I can think straight again. With a deep inhale, I struggle to reactivate my shields, to form a barrier from this Godlike creature, to end all reaction to him so I can just live my life and keep it untangled from his issues. It’s so much easier. And that’s all this is, Kacey. A reaction. A strange, uncharacteristic reaction because of a guy. An incredibly hot guy but, in the end, nothing you want to get mixed up in.

“Thanks for the quarter,” I say coolly, standing and sliding the pro-offered coin into the slot. I start the washer.

“It’s the least I could do for scaring the crap out of you.” He’s up and shoving his sheets into the machine beside mine. “If Tanner says anything, I’ll tell him I did it. It’s partially my fault anyway.”

“Partially?”

He chuckles as he shakes his head. We’re standing close now, so close that our shoulders almost touch. Too close.

I take a few steps back to give myself space. I end up staring at his back, admiring how his blue checkered shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, how his dark blue jeans fit his ass perfectly.

He stops what he’s doing to glance over his shoulder, blazing eyes leveling me with a look that makes me want to do things to him, for him, with him. His attention drags down the length of my body, unashamed. This guy is a contradiction. One second sweet, the next second brazen. A mind-blowing hot contradiction.

A warning siren goes off in my head. I promised Livie that the random one-night hook ups would stop. And they have. For two years, I haven’t given anyone the time of day. Now, here I am, day one in our new life, and I’m ready to straddle this guy on the washer.

Suddenly I’m writhing in my own skin, uncomfortable. Breathe, Kacey, I hear my mom’s voice in my head. Count to ten, Kace. Ten tiny breaths. As usual, her advice doesn’t help me because it makes no sense. All that makes sense is getting away from this two-legged trap. Immediately.

I move backward toward the door.

I don’t want these thoughts. I don’t need them.

“So, where are you …?”

I run up the stairs to safety before I hear Trent finish his sentence. Not until I’m above ground do I search for a breath. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, welcoming that protective coat back as it slides back over my skin, and takes back control of my body.





Chapter Two





A hissing sound …

Bright lights …

Blood …

Water, rushing over my head. I’m drowning.

“Kacey, wake up!” Livie’s voice pulls me out of that suffocating darkness and back into my bedroom. It’s three a.m. and I’m drenched with sweat.

“Thanks, Livie.”

“Anytime,” she answers softly, laying down beside me. Livie’s used to my nightmares. I rarely go a night without one. Sometimes I wake up on my own. Sometimes I start hyperventilating and she has to dump a glass of cold water over my head to bring me back. She didn’t have to do that tonight.

Tonight is a good night.

I stay quiet and still until I hear her slow, rhythmic breathing again, and I thank God for not taking her from me too. He took everyone else, but he left me Livie. I like to think he gave her the flu that night to keep her from coming to my rugby game. Congested lungs and a runny nose saved her.

Saved my one ray of light.

***

I get up early to say bye to Livie on her first day at her new high school. “You have all the paperwork?” I remind her. I signed everything as Livie’s legal guardian and made her swear to that if anyone asks.

“For what it’s worth …”