“Genna, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—”
She snatched her hand away, shrinking from him. Please let this be a dream! Please let this be a dream!
“What is going on?” she whispered. No reason for that except she could barely breathe, much less talk.
Lindsey and Ivan glared at Bruin, who flushed bright red. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
The world flared, her vision suddenly bright, her senses aware, desperate fear kicking in. She sat up, pushed past them, and raced to the door. “He said Lester would be out by tonight. I have to go. I have to move, now!”
She blinked and nearly ran into Bruin. How the hell did he beat me to the door?
“Genna, we have to talk first.”
She shoved him. He caught her hands, holding her close. Despite his unbreakable grasp, it felt like he barely touched her. “You can’t leave. We will protect you. I will protect you, I swear.” It was too tempting to melt into his arms, but this wasn’t her Dream Bruin. This was her boss.
She twisted, trying to pull free. “Let me go you son of a bitch! I don’t know what you did to me! He said there was a video, that they bugged my apartment. That we’re sleeping together! I thought those were just dreams!” Someone in the room sobbed, and she realized it was her.
Anguish painted his face. “I’m sorry, Genna. I was wrong not to be more careful. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you, and I didn’t realize you were innocent.”
Love? The word stopped her struggles as she stared at him. “What the fuck kind of sick man are you? What, did you drug me? Hypnotize me? Lester’s attorney told me you’re related to the victim. That’s how you knew who I was, isn’t it?”
He nodded as she renewed her frantic struggles. This time he let her go, and she bolted, barely pausing to grab her purse and keys before racing for the elevator.
Despite her tremors, Genna managed to drive home without wrecking. She struggled with her tears as she stared at the apartment. She’d have to take only what she could carry in the car.
Her legs failed, and she sat in her living room and cried, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking. She thought she had a handle on her emotions when she glanced at the clock and realized it was after eight o’clock and she’d lost several hours of time.
Startled, she clambered to her feet and raced to the bedroom, yanking her suitcase from under her bed and throwing it open on top. She grabbed armfuls of clothes from her dresser and dumped them in. She had garbage bags in the kitchen. She could fill them and take as much as she could jam in the car—
The back door thumped, glass breaking. She reached over and flicked the light switch off and crouched beside the doorway, silent tears coursing down her face.
“Oh, Geennnnaa. Where are you, darling?” Lester’s sarcastic tone told her more than anything that she was going to die. “I enjoyed the video. Bet you never thought you’d see me again, huh? Fucking whore, you couldn’t even wait until I was in jail a week to start screwing around, could you? Did you fucking set me up or what?”
It sounded like he was moving toward the kitchen. If he did, she might be able to make it out the back door.
She held her breath and listened. He was in the kitchen. She heard his steps on the linoleum.
Praying, she launched herself through the doorway, angled for the back door. She’d made it five feet from freedom when a foot caught her in the kidney. She fell to her knees, crying out from the pain.
“No you don’t, you fucking cunt.” Lester kicked her again, in the stomach, and she gasped, trying to curl up into a ball and protect herself. He punched her in the head and kicked her several times before he stopped to catch his breath.
He stood over her, shaking his head, a gun in his right hand. “Treated you right. You would have had a good life, even with me inside. You didn’t flip, a little loyalty was all I asked for—”
“Leave her alone.” Through pain-teared eyes, Genna looked at the door and saw Bruin standing there, his fists clenched.
Lester raised the gun. “Good. Now I can take care of both of you. Saves me time and trouble.”
Behind Lester, the front door exploded in a snarling, swirling mass of black fur. Lester turned, swearing.
“Jesus Christ!”
“You wish,” Bruin growled, suddenly shifting into the brown dog, his clothes falling away.
Genna shrank away from him as he leapt over her toward Lester. The man turned, screaming as Bruin struck, his jaws on the man’s throat. Lester’s startled shout immediately changed to a strangled, pained cry.
Ivan grabbed Lester’s wrist, the one holding his gun. She heard bones crunch as Ivan bit down, the gun falling to the carpet.
A red haze clouded her vision as she watched the two massive dogs hold Lester down. His heels beat against the carpet, a staccato tempo she thought would drive her totally over the brink of insanity until it eventually stopped with one last, gurgled gasp.
When it was apparent Lester was dead, the two dogs released him and turned to her. Ivan shifted back first. He crouched there, naked.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
Bruin shifted to human form, wiping a hand across his bloodied mouth and spitting on the carpet.
“Genna, honey, are you…”
The red haze over her vision transformed to purple, then black.
Oh, she longed for the good ole days, the simplicity of the hot, sexy Jeremy Bruin dreams, where he simply fucked her brains out before leaving for the night and didn’t rip her convicted ex-boyfriend’s throat out in her new living room.
Will I get my security deposit back if the bloodstains don’t come out?
Genna refused to open her eyes. She hurt. All over. Pain contradicted the firm version of reality she wanted to maintain her stranglehold on—crap, horrible choice of word. Death grip? Hmm, not so much either.
She sensed a presence outside her closed eyelids and tried to keep her breathing steady. She wasn’t lying on her bed. She knew that. She didn’t think she was back in Bruin’s office.
Men did not turn into large fucking dogs. This did not fucking happen. None of this happened.
Maybe she really was dead. Perhaps Lester had killed her before the trial and this was some funky version of Purgatory.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. That makes sense.
She moved and moaned. Nope, it was real. Her body hurt like hell where Lester had punched and kicked her.
A large, gentle hand slipped around hers, and she tightly gripped it for no other reason than she hurt and didn’t want to scream.
“Genna, honey, please wake up.”
Bruin’s soft, pleading voice.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes. He’d washed his face and changed clothes, but she didn’t know where she was, didn’t recognize the room.
In response to her unasked question he said, “We’re at my house. Our house. Ivan and Lindsey are outside.”
She would pull away from him, but it hurt too much to even think about doing that.
“What. The fuck. Is going. On?”
“We need to talk.”
They talked most of the night. Lindsey and Ivan brought food and pain medicine and ice packs for Genna. Genna repeatedly asked many of the same questions, unable to grasp the reality, thinking it was the medicine or a psychotic break.
Jeremy shifted back and forth from large dog to man as many times as she asked, sometimes while holding her hand, each time taking her breath away.