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Sexy.

Hunter shoved the phone into the front pocket of his jeans. “I was good,” he told her. “Promise. My hands did not rove. I held you. I kept you safe.” A pause. “I will always do that.”

“Bodyguard.” He protected her because it was his job. “You keep me safe because it’s your job.”

He stared at her. “Fuck the job. I’d keep you safe no matter what.”

“I, um…” She tucked a lock of hair behind her right ear. Then immediately caught herself. She started to pull the hair forward again, to hide the hearing aid as she so often did because when people saw it, they asked questions. Or they suddenly looked at her with pity. What those people didn’t understand, though, was that she was so glad to have the hearing aid, it made her feel⁠—

Hunter was there. Catching her hand before she could pull her hair forward. For a big guy, he could sure move quickly. “You don’t need to hide any part of yourself from me.”

“I had a knife.” Quick words. They tumbled over each other. “In—in my nightmare last night. I was in the kitchen. I’d…called for help. Phone in one hand.” She looked at the hand Hunter held. “A knife in the other.”

He just nodded.

“I was in the kitchen.” She’d already told him that. Why repeat it? Her tongue swiped over her lower lip. “I…slipped in Jenna’s blood.” Something she had not remembered, until last night. The blood had been all over the kitchen. Smeared on the floor as if...as if Jenna had tried to crawl away from her attacker.

That was the way it had been described in court. Only Shelby hadn’t remembered the scene—until now. Last night, I dreamed it like I was there…because I was. “I got off the floor. I found her phone, and I called nine-one-one.”

“You talked about the call with Jonah. Might be why you dreamed about it.”

Maybe. “The kitchen door was open—the exterior door that led outside. I was thinking I’d run out that door, but someone was there.”

“Nate?”

She bit her lower lip. He still held her wrist, his fingers stroking lightly. “I…don’t know. I’d run into the kitchen.” How many times was she going to tell him that? Why did she keep going back to that? “I fell down. The exterior door was open.”

“And he came in from outside?”

She tried to push the jagged pieces together so they would make sense. “I ran into the kitchen.” Dammit. Wait, wait…“I ran in there, so that means I was running from someone, doesn’t it?” Her heart beat faster in her chest.

Hunter stared at her. Waited.

Her stomach twisted. “But if he was in the house, chasing me, then how could he come in through the exterior kitchen door? How could he come from the outside? If he was already in the house?” Another painful twist of her stomach.

“Maybe he left the house from another exit because he knew you were planning to flee. Could be that he circled around to stop you. Just because he was outside, it doesn’t mean we aren’t looking at Nate,” he said, clearly following her own thoughts and fears. “Doesn’t mean there were two perps. Could just have been one.”

“I didn’t remember him being in the doorway of the kitchen. Not until now.” It didn’t make sense to her. “All of these years, and I don’t remember someone being in that exterior kitchen doorway.” Why not? She’d tried so hard to remember. “Why am I remembering now?”

His expression softened as Hunter gazed down at her. “You saw a dead woman in the fountain, baby. With her throat slashed just like your friends. That’s bound to stir up memories. Hell, if it didn’t stir up the past for you, I’d be surprised.”

“You…” She did a double-take. “You called me baby.”

“Did I?” He let go of her hand.

“And you’ve called me sweetheart before.” Something Jonah had pointed out.

“Um. I may have done that very thing. A slip of the tongue. I’ll try to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

She wasn’t asking for it not to happen. Truth be told, she liked the way his voice had roughened when he called her baby moments before. She’d liked it when he called her sweetheart, too.

But that wasn’t real. The words didn’t mean anything. He probably called all his girlfriends baby or sweetheart. Not that she was his girlfriend. She wasn’t. They’d had a one-night stand. A fabulous one-time encounter. Nothing more. Nothing less.

“You’re looking quite angry all of sudden,” he noted. “Did the endearment piss you off that much?”

No, the idea that he called all his lovers baby had sent her temper spiking. “Are we going to talk about it?” He’d asked her that question moments before, so it only seemed fair that she get to throw the words back to him. But this time, the “it” wasn’t the nightmare that she’d had. It was the phenomenal sex.

He scraped a hand over his jaw. What a smooth jaw. Square. Hard. Strong. “Gonna need you to define the ‘it’ in question for me.”