Page 38 of Healing the Heart

“Oh...well... Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She frowned suddenly, hearing how that came out. “I mean the latter, not the safe part. Keeping me safe is the goal, after all. Right, Doc? I mean Master Sergeant. Or is it Master Noah—”

“Just Noah,” he interrupted, stopping her rambling. “I’m not a club master, and we aren’t at the club.”

“You Decadence people have too many names. I need a playbill to keep up with you.”

“Let’s go with Noah,” he suggested. “Or sir, if you make the mistake of not following orders to the letter.”

“Oh, but I plan to. Staying alive has been a goal of mine for years. Since birth, in fact, sir. Um, erm, Noah, I mean.” She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “I’m a little muddled—and chatty. I get that way when I don’t get enough sleep.”

She thought she heard Finn’s soft laughter, but Noah grinned at her, flashing straight white teeth, a hint of a dimple she never noticed before in his left cheek. But his smile, and the way his eyes glinted with amusement, made everything else—the conflict between them, the threat against her, the added Uber expenses that were really eating into her budget, and whether she’d ever sleep again—fade to white noise in the background.

Chapter 11

Dr. Noah Richmond

“ARE YOU A COFFEE DRINKER?”

She blinked up at him, her lovely mocha-brown eyes revealing her weariness, and quipped drily, “Only because I need it to live.”

Normally, he would’ve laughed, but, given the seriousness of her situation, he held back his amusement. “Will it keep you from sleeping?”

Suppressing a yawn, she vigorously shook her head, sending a cascade of lustrous wavy brown hair forward over her shoulder. The glossy waves contained strands of red and gold, the ends gracefully curling over her breast.

Damn. He’d noticed her beauty, her curves, and her sexy-as-fuck sultry voice, but he’d overlooked how fucking cute she could be. He wanted to scoop her up and cuddle her to his chest like a softy, drowsy kitten, as much as he wanted to protect her from the killer on the loose who may or may not be after her.

His phone alerted.

“That’s the police file,” Keiran advised.

He’d read the full report later, but he took a moment to scroll through the crime scene photos. They were gruesome, but nothing worse than he’d seen in Afghanistan or the many times he’d worked a trauma during his training. Until he saw Fiona’scar and another photo, with her in the background, covered in blood like something out of a Stephen King novel.

He and Keiran exchanged glances. Noah knew he was thinking of the problem they’d had not so long ago. A serial rapist had targeted submissives at the club. They’d felt helpless as one after another went missing. Four in all had turned up dead before they’d caught the motherfucker. More recently, Esme had stumbled upon something incriminating at her former job. To shut her up, she’d been threatened, shot at, and hunted. The last in a scary-as-shit car chase on the busy streets of LA, which could have ended tragically.

Since then, a woman alone and in danger quickly became their top priority, particularly a submissive at their club. No one fucked with family.

Fiona yawned—again.

Putting his phone and the gruesome pictures away, he took her hand and pulled her from the chair.

“I’m taking you home and putting you to bed,” he announced. When she staggered a little drunkenly, he slipped his hands around her waist.

Blinking up at him, dazed and a little breathless, she informed him, “I have to go by the police station and make my official statement.”

He grunted, not liking that she was dead on her feet, but it couldn’t be avoided, he supposed.

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