Cop Appeal by Ava Meyers Page A

gained
by dwelling on them. “Keep going.”
    “I’d always denied my feelings for you in
the past, but that night I no longer wanted to. I told him that he
was right. I told him the truth.” She scooted around so she kneeled
in front of him and braced her hands on his shoulder. His hands
encircled her waist. “I told him I thought of you every hour of the
day, but that I thought of you most when any other man, including
him, especially him, touched me. I told him it was the only
way I was able to bear his touch. By imaging it was you I was
kissing. You I was loving.”
    His fingers on her waist tightened
convulsively, and his heart almost stopped at how angry her
response would’ve made Richard. “Jesus, Sarah, you had to know he’d
lose it. Any man would.”
    “I was done living a lie and I wanted him to
know it. He slapped me. Hard.” She paused and touched her cheek as
if remembering how it felt. “He’d yelled, threatened and threw
things, but he’d never hit me before. I didn’t feel pain, all I
felt was anger. I fought him. Scratched his face. He pushed me down
and he… the look in his eyes, Luke. He was going to kill me.”
    He closed his eyes. It was all he could do
not to grab his car keys and search for the fucker. But he knew
Sarah needed him. Needed to get this out.
    “So I screamed. I yelled out his name and
badge number, over and over again. When he covered my mouth, I bit
him. There was no one in the parking lot up to then, but I saw
headlights appear. He ran away. Then the phone calls started,
followed by notes. Sick declarations of his love. Claims that my
life belonged to him and that if he couldn’t have me, he’d make
damn sure no one else ever could.” The fear came back with full
vengeance, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “He started
threatening my friends. Even you. He said he’d hurt anyone I cared
about if I breathed a word of what he’d done. I believed him, for
awhile.”
    He pulled her into his arms, practically
crushing her with his hug.
    “I was so scared that I even left town.” She
shook her head. “I thought if I got some distance I’d feel safe,
but it didn’t help. He’s insane, Luke. I think he’d find me
anywhere I went. Then, I heard you were back in town…”
    Thank God she’d had the good sense to
finally go to the police and confess everything to Noah. Thank God
she was safe. “When did he assault you in the parking lot?”
    “Two weeks ago.”
    “Right around the time my mother called me
and started hounding me to come back into town.”
    “She did?” She tensed against him. “Do you
think your mother knew?”
    The timing seemed strange, but he doubted
it.
    “I’ve run into her a couple of times…” she
said. “She was always pleasant.”
    “She knows how crazy I was about you.” And
his parents had been pretty crazy about her. Granted, they’d only
met her once before Sarah had broken up with him, but they hadn’t
cared about her past or believed what people said about her. They’d
seen how happy she made him. It was too bad Sarah hadn’t.
    A tense silence followed his statement until
she sniffed. Panic surged through him. Had he said the wrong thing?
Driven her away again with careless words? “Hey, that wasn’t meant
to make you sad.”
    “I know. It’s just, I’ve been such a fool.
Four years we could have been together, all wasted. How can you
ever forgive me?”
    “Easy,” he said. “Just spend the rest of
your life making it up to me. You can start in bed, of course, but
we can work our way around the house—”
    His breath whooshed out of him when she
elbowed him in the gut. He laughed and rubbed his side. “Man, you
can be mean.”
    “If you’d rather, when you piss me off, I
can try withholding my, er, sexual favors instead—”
    He pulled her in for a swift kiss. “The
elbow’s good. I love the elbow. Come on, do it again…”
    She shrieked with laughter and pounced on
him, smothering him with kisses. When