Remember Ramsey by Cynthia Eden
Chapter Three
Observation notes: Ramsey is disagreeable, arrogant, and can’t be trusted. He also…
He gave me a rose today. It was random, and I just…
I love that stupid rose. And why am I including this in my notes? Irrelevant. Completely irrelevant.
***
“Closing time.”
She glanced up at his voice. There was something about his voice. That low and rumbly voice that seemed to sink right into her core.
Ramsey stood at the edge of her table. “Time for you to leave.”
Whitney didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay with him. That was becoming more and more of a problem. “I…I found a rose at my office.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know how you’re getting past the security there, but I do know the roses are coming from you.”
“The security at your college is shit. It should be upgraded.”
He hadn’t denied giving her the rose. “Why?”
His brows climbed. “Because anyone who wanted could get inside. Because sometimes you work too late, and you need better protection than the security guard who looks like he’s pushing ninety and can barely shuffle through the building.”
Her breath caught. “That description was very specific.”
“I’m a pretty specific kind of man.”
He was a pretty interesting kind of man. “When I asked why, I wasn’t talking about the security upgrade.” Her gaze darted around the bar. Everyone else had left. She’d watched them all leave. She’d wanted to be alone with Ramsey. “I wanted to know why you were giving me roses like some kind of secret admirer.” A pause. “Or secret stalker.”
His lips curled. “Do you think I’m stalking you?”
No, if anything, she was stalking him. Did he know that? Did he know that she sometimes snuck off to tail him? Because surely, Ramsey wasn’t as bad as the stories said. Before she’d met him, yes, she’d feared him. But the more she got to know him…
The more I want him.
“I’ll take the silence for a yes.” His hands were loose at his sides. “You don’t have to worry.” His voice had softened. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”
She believed him.
“You’re like a rose,” he told her, surprising her with words that were sweet. Not his style. “Beautiful on the outside. Vibrant and so bright, a fucking light drawing me in.”
Her breath had frozen in her lungs. And when he gave her a slow grin, she could have sworn her heart jumped right out of her chest.
“But you’ve got thorns, don’t you, my Whitney?” He leaned toward her and put his palms on the top of the table. “Beautiful but strong, and if someone comes at you too hard, I think you just might cut them…”
She forced a laugh. “I’m hardly armed with a knife.” Or thorns.
“Um. Force isn’t the way to go with a rose. You don’t just grab it. Don’t hold it too hard. You do that, you’ll crush the rose. Destroy the petals. And you’ll bleed.”
There was no way she could look away from his eyes.
“You have to be careful if you want to touch a rose. Go slowly. Carefully. Be more tender than you’ve ever been with anything in your life.”
Holy crap. He was hot. His words were seducing her as he leaned forward and rumbled to her in that deep, sexy voice of his. She was craning up toward him, and all she wanted was his mouth on hers.
But if he kissed her, what would happen next?
Whitney couldn’t wait to find out. Her lips parted, and she could practically taste him.
“Do you want my mouth?” he rasped.
Wasn’t it obvious?
“If you do, then ask for it.”
Fine. “Kiss me.”
His lips brushed over hers. Careful. Tender.
Whitney wanted a lot more. “I’m not going to make you bleed,” she whispered against his lips. “I won’t hurt you.” Her lashes lifted, and she stared into his gaze. “I want you.”
His mouth came back toward hers again. He caught her lower lip with his teeth. Tugged. Then his tongue thrust inside, and desire exploded within her as—
***
Whitney jerked upright in bed. Her breath panted in and out, and she put her hand over her racing heart. For a moment, she was lost as she stared into the darkness around her.
The dream was fading. Only bits and pieces remained. But she wasn’t convinced it had been a dream. She thought it might have been a memory.
Sensory memories.
Her therapist had told her those might be coming. Of course, she’d already known about sensory memories. Memories that could come from the five senses. Like when you smelled something and then that scent got associated with an event. Or a particular sound could stir a memory of a place. Or a person.
She could remember kissing Ramsey. When she’d kissed him that night, had it triggered something in her mind? Triggered the flashes she’d had while she slept?
Because for a while there, everything had seemed so real. She struggled to hold on to the pieces. To pull them back to her.
Roses.
Whitney shoved aside the cover. Jumped out of bed. Her bare feet flew across the hardwood floor as she bounded into her kitchen. She hit the lights.
A red rose waited in a vase on her kitchen table. A single red rose. She’d found the rose on her doorstep the previous day.
Had Ramsey left that rose for her? If so, why had he turned her away when she’d been at his bar? What game was he playing?
***
The kitchen light had just flashed on in Whitney’s house. Ramsey’s eyes narrowed as he stared at that light. It was close to four a.m.
Why was she awake? He knew why the hell he was awake. When she’d first disappeared, he hadn’t been able to sleep at all.
At first, he’d thought that she’d just left him. Changed her mind about them.
Then…then the truth had come out.
Whitney Augustine had been the presumed victim of a serial killer. His Whitney had been taken. When he should have been protecting her.
Eventually, a confession had come. A confession about her murder. Her body had been dumped in the Gulf. And all he’d wanted to do was rip apart anyone and everyone who’d ever hurt her—
I hurt her. I let her down. I pulled her into my world.
When he’d learned that she was alive, that she’d survived—because his Whitney was such a fucking amazing fighter—
He stopped the thought. She’s not mine. He had to stop thinking of her that way. He had to—
Movement caught his eye. Someone was sneaking toward her house. A shadow creeping carefully forward.
Fury pumped through his body. Some asshole intended to break into Whitney’s place? Oh, hell, no. Without making a sound, Ramsey left his spot beneath the heavy branches of a nearby tree and rushed toward that figure. The jerk dropped something on her porch and spun to bound away. He wasn’t even looking where he was going.
So Ramsey just lifted one arm, and he let the creep plow straight into it. The guy was rushing so fast and hard that when he hit Ramsey’s arm, he immediately flew backward and slammed down onto the sidewalk.
He also screamed.
Ramsey bent and grabbed him by the shirtfront. “Hey, asshole. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
The front porch light turned on, almost blinding in its brightness. The pad of footsteps rushed across the porch. “What is happening out here?” Whitney’s shocked voice.
She’d actually just run outside? Run straight to danger? “Get in the house,” Ramsey snarled.
“Help me, lady!” The guy on the ground twisted and heaved beneath Ramsey’s hold. He didn’t get free, though. No way would he get free. “This psycho just attacked me!”
Ramsey studied the man in his grasp. Early twenties. Thinning hair. A stupid, bright shirt with a big, red bird on the front. “You tried to break into her house.”
Whitney gasped.
She still hadn’t gone inside. “In the house,” he ordered.
“No, thank you,” Whitney snapped back as she came even closer. “I’m calling the cops!”
“Yes!” From the man on the ground. “Please, do it! He attacked me! I was just doing my job and he—”
“What job?” Ramsey demanded.
“D-delivering the flower. Just like last time. I was—”
Ramsey hauled the jerk to his feet. “Who the hell delivers flowers at this time of night?”
“Uh, I do?” Fearful. “Guy said it was a surprise. W-wanted them here for his lady when she went to work first thing. Was just easier for me to stop after my shift, so I brought the rose now and—”
“There’s a rose on my mat,” Whitney said.
Finally, Ramsey’s head whipped toward her. Mostly because the woman just would not listen to reason and go inside like she was supposed to do so she could be safe. And when he saw her…
Legs for days. Long, perfect legs.
Whitney was clad in a loose, silky robe. The robe stopped at her thighs and showed off her gorgeous legs and her bare feet. One of her hands clutched a phone.
From what he could tell, she hadn’t made a call yet. Not that he needed the cops to handle this prick. But first… “Clothes.”
Her brow furrowed.
“Could you put on clothes?” he managed to grit out.
“I have on a gown and I’m wearing a robe. Those are clothes. Focus on the important matter, would you?” Whitney snapped right back at him. “In case you don’t know what that matter is…it would be the man you’re currently holding captive.”
Like he’d forgotten the SOB. Ramsey turned his focus back on his prey. “You were hired to deliver a rose.”
“Y-yes. So please, pretty, pretty please, let me go?” His glasses were slipping off his nose. “Please?”
“Who hired you?”
“I, um, I don’t know.”
Ramsey growled. “Not good enough—”
“OhmyGod. You’re going to punch me, aren’t you? You’re about to break my nose. Or my jaw. Or all of me.” He was shaking. “Please, God, don’t.” His head bobbed toward Whitney. “Talk your boyfriend down, lady! I’m begging you! I swear, I didn’t know that you were involved with someone. I took the job off the freelance site. It was a delivery job. Paid one hundred bucks for the delivery of just one rose. That deal was too sweet to pass up.” His chin sagged down. “I knew it was too good to be real. Should have realized she’d have a jealous lunatic of a boyfriend who would want to wreck my face because that is just the luck that I have—”
“Stop rambling,” Ramsey blasted.
“I can’t! You’re scaring me and when I get scared, I talk a lot! Oh, God, please, can we just call the cops? I don’t think they’ll let you hurt me.”
Whitney’s steps shuffled closer. “Let him go, Ramsey.”
The hell he would—
“He’s a delivery person. I’m sure he’ll tell us everything that he knows if you just stop terrifying him.”
“I like terrifying people.” His flat reply. “It’s half the joy I get out of life.”
The man whimpered.
“Ramsey…” Whitney sighed.
Fine. He let the bastard go. “Tell me your name.”
“R-Ronald Rudolph. But my friends call me Rudy—”
“Are you shitting me?” Ramsey’s hands went to his hips. “Does it look like we are friends?”
Rudy shoved his glasses back up his nose. “No.” Low. Miserable. Rudy rubbed his chest. “I think you bruised me.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t do more than that. You were sneaking onto her porch in the dead of the night. Like that shit doesn’t look seriously shady?”
“And he’s done it before,” Whitney added.
Ramsey’s shoulders stiffened. “Are you kidding me?”
“Just once!” Rudy rushed to say. “I was hired to do it last night, and then now and—”
“Give me your driver’s license,” Ramsey cut through the man’s words.
Shaking, nearly dropping the ID four times, Rudy handed Ramsey the license. Because Whitney’s porch light was so bright, he had no trouble reading the info on the license—or instantly memorizing everything there. Grunting, he handed the license back to Rudy. “I know where you live now.”
“Oh, God.”
“You’re going to tell me everything you know. I’m going to check out your story. And if I find out that you told me so much as one small, white lie, I will come to your house, and I will make you sorry.”
***
Ramsey strode into her house and slammed the door shut behind him. He’d grilled Rudy for a good half hour before letting Rudy go, and she knew Ramsey had watched every single moment until the other man had vanished in the ride he’d parked down the road.
“Where is the other rose?” Ramsey demanded. “He said he delivered one last night.”
“It’s in the kitchen.”
Without another word, he turned to the right, slid down the little hallway, then took a left into her kitchen. Whitney sucked in deep breath and followed him. “Well, that answers one question.”
He was glaring at the rose in the vase. But at her words, he looked up. “What question?”
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “The ‘have you been here before’ question. Because you’re walking around my place like you own it.”
His stare snapped back down to the rose. “Why’d you put it in a vase?”
“Because it was a pretty flower that I found outside, and I just—” Her lips pressed together. “It felt familiar.” Another sensory memory? “Finding a rose. Pulling out the vase. Putting it in water. It all just felt familiar, so that’s what I did.” She licked her lower lip. “I had actually thought…just a little while ago…that you were the one who might have left it for me.” She’d had that thought before the whole scene with the ever-so-nervous Rudy.
“Me?” His brows climbed. “Why the hell would you think I left it?”
“Because you used to do that…didn’t you?”
His low laughter filled the room. “Sure. Because I’m the type to wine and dine a woman with roses. Just call me Mr. Romantic.”
Anger flashed through her. Whitney marched across the room. Marched right up to him. “Stop it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Stop pretending. Drop the bastard image. I had a dream about you tonight—”
His grin was absolutely sexual. “Dreaming about me, huh? What were we doing and where were we doing it?”
She was grinding her back teeth. “It would all be easier if you just told me the truth.”
“Fair enough. Here’s truth. I didn’t hire that prick Rudy. I haven’t left roses for you last night or tonight. Looks like you have another admirer out there.” His darkening expression indicated he wasn’t pleased about that fact.
Neither was she. In fact, goosebumps rose on her arms.
“Don’t worry,” he promised, all confident. “I’ll find him. He won’t be leaving you any other unwanted gifts.”
The unease settled around her shoulders like a heavy weight. “Why would a stranger send me flowers?”
“Someone could have seen your story on the news. You’re a beautiful woman.” Said simply. As if it was the most basic truth in the world to him. “People get hooked on things they see. Maybe some guy thought he’d be able to get in your life. So he hired that prick for the deliveries.”
She thought about what Rudy had told them regarding his employer. “He did everything online. Sent the money through a secure app. There was no person-to-person contact.” A shiver slid over her. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“Just because he’s online, it doesn’t mean he can hide. I’ve got contacts who can help me. I’ll find him. Let him know that his gifts aren’t appreciated. That, in fact, they scare you and if he does it again—”
“You’re trying to protect me.” Her hand lifted to press to his chest. “Seems an odd thing for you to do.”
He looked down at her hand. “Shouldn’t you be asking why the hell I was even outside of your house in the first place?”
Okay. She could do that. “Why the hell were you even outside of my house in the first place?”
His lips twitched.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I was on my way home. Just driving by on my motorcycle. I always come this way.”
“No. Try again. You don’t always drive through a cul-de-sac on your way home.”
He was still looking at her hand. “I was…concerned that you were too upset when you left. Just wanted to make sure you’d gotten in safely for the night. I looped around your cul-de-sac. Saw the man on your porch and figured it would be a good idea to find out what the hell he was doing.”
If he hadn’t stopped, she wouldn’t have ever seen Rudy. “Thank you.”
His eyes lifted. “You won’t be hurt again.” Gruff. “I’ll make sure of it. Because maybe it’s just some guy who saw you and lost his heart, but it could just as easily be some freak with an obsession. I’ll find out what’s going on. I’ll make sure it stops.”
The last thing she wanted was more danger in her life.
It was odd, but standing right before him, Whitney felt safer than she’d felt since she came home from the hospital.
“Do me a favor?” he murmured.
She nodded.
“How about you don’t run outside—in your robe, without a weapon—when you hear people fighting?”
“I ran outside because I heard you.”
His incredibly thick lashes flickered. “You shouldn’t run to me.”
“Then why do I feel like I should?” This was what drove her crazy. “Why do I feel like everything about you is pulling me closer, even as you tell me to stay away?” Which hurt. Gutted. Messed with her head. “Why did I feel like I had to go to your bar? Like I had to kiss you? Why do I dream about you when I don’t dream about anything else but water that drags me under and floods my mouth?” Tears pricked at her eyes. “I usually wake up choking as I try to breathe, but right after I saw you, I woke up and I was almost crying out your name. Why—"
His mouth crashed onto hers.
