“Dante are you okay? You’re shaking!”

“Huh? What?” He snapped into consciousness with a gasp. “Oh, sorry. Must have just slipped into a nightmare.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Nothing—it was just a dream.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about that with her this morning. “No nightmare last night?”

“No, not that I can remember. I guess I didn’t have one.” Laurie ran her hand through her tousled hair. “Should we have breakfast?”

“Sure.”

They climbed out of bed. Laurie went to the bathroom to change while Dante pulled on his usual jeans and a t-shirt. He holstered his gun as he tried to think of how he would explain to this new group of men why he slept in Laurie’s room. It wasn’t something he thought he could explain to men he didn’t know.

When Laurie came back, she threw her nightgown on top of her bag, and they went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Laurie got her first look at the squat one level she was now living in. The roof was rather short. If Dante was a bit taller he’d have to duck. Daintily flowered wallpaper covered the walls, yellowed with age.

The hallway of rooms opened up into a living room and front door on the right, the kitchen on her left. They turned into the kitchen, which was quite large. There were two ovens, an extra-large dishwasher and two mismatched microwaves. There were a dozen cabinets, and a long counter along the wall that separated it from the living room. Toward the end of the counter was a kitchen table with ten chairs. Beyond the table was a sliding glass door leading to the patio.

“Let’s see what we have here.” He pulled open a pantry door beside the double door refrigerator.

He pulled out a moldy bag of bread and tossed it in the trashcan. Then he pulled out a box of cereal and read the expiration date. That, too, went straight into the trash. So did the next box. As he pulled open the fridge door, Laurie started to hunt down everything she needed to make coffee. She found the coffee grounds. There were a couple of filters in the cabinet. Dante pulled out the milk, and after taking one whiff of it, that went into the garbage.

“Laurie, I’m not having much luck here.” He pulled open the freezer. “Well, it looks like we have frozen waffles.”

“That’s fine.”

Dante pulled out the waffles, syrup, and a tub of butter that had about a tablespoon left. He microwaved their breakfast in both microwaves.

“You must have families come here.”

“Yes.” He set their breakfast on the table. “We usually have large families come here. Ones with more than two kids.”

Laurie sat down at the table with him.

“Are more men going to come, or are we on our own?”

“We’re on our own for today. Two more men should join us tonight and another is coming over from California tomorrow morning.”

“What happened to Max and Cheyn? Did Rick say anything?”

“Rick said they’d be fine. I’ll call them later. Maybe we’ll be able to talk to them.”

“I’d like that. Can we visit them in the hospital?”

Dante looked at her and shook his head.

“I’m afraid were not going to be able to leave the house very much, Laurie. I don’t even want to go to the grocery store today, but we have to. There has never been an attack on a safe house in Hawaii’s history, and we’ve harbored plenty of witnesses. Kaimi’s obviously very afraid of what your testimony could do if they find him.”

Laurie took a bite of her breakfast, staring down at her plate. She blinked at it, a puzzled look on her face.

“I wonder how they found us.”

“I don’t really know, but I’m willing to bet they followed Evan James. There are many reasons a victim shouldn’t have contact with a witness and that’s one of them. I know he fucking knew it too.”

Laurie flinched, but said nothing. They finished their coffee in silence. Then Laurie cleared away their dishes.

“I’d like to show you the safe room before we do anything else.”

Laurie nodded and followed him back to the hallway.

He led her into her room and opened the closet door at the far end. It adjoined her room to the one beyond it. As with the linen closet at the other house, there was a trick door hidden behind the shelves. Dante lifted the shelving up and forward. The door to the safe room swung toward him. It was a small, cramped space, with all of the same emergency supplies crammed in there.

“I hope we don’t have to use it.” Dante gestured inside. “But this is the only one we have. If anything happens, you’ll be in here.”

Dante closed the door. They stood there for a minute or two, both of them lost in thought.

“I hated being in there. I know you had to put me there, but last night was awful.”

She spoke softly, staring at the door to the safe room.

Dante nodded.

Laurie played with the sleeve of his shirt, and then placed her hands on his chest. She looked up into his eyes.

“Thank you for protecting me,” she said, her voice quivering. “I know it’s your job, but you risked your life for me. It would have been awful if…”

She choked up.

He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush against him. He didn’t tell her he would have done anything to protect her. He ran his hands up and down her back, kissing her forehead.

Laurie looked up at him again, her sapphire eyes glazed with tears.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

Half hypnotized by her eyes, half wanting to comfort, Dante reacted out of instinct. He bent his head down and kissed her gently.

Laurie gasped when his lips whispered over hers. Then she melted against him as his lips settled there.

Dante thought of nothing except how good it felt to kiss her, the rush of pure pleasure it brought him. He deepened the kiss, one of his hands wandering into her hair while the other pressed against the small of her back.

He was dizzy and breathless when he pulled away. A tingling sensation crept down his spine. He felt a flush of heat wash over him. When he kissed her again, she kissed back hungrily, parting her lips and letting his tongue play with hers. She ran her hands up his chest, interlacing her fingers behind his neck. After a few minutes of enjoying each other’s tongues, they parted so Dante could kiss a trail down her jaw line.

Dante kissed Laurie’s neck, running his tongue in slow circles over her skin. He could feel her rapid heartbeat beneath his lips, and he smiled. When he sucked at the base of her neck, Laurie let out a small moan of pleasure. Then he kissed her mouth again, long and deep. The hand that pressed the small of her back sank lower to squeeze her soft flesh.

Dante nibbled and sucked his way along her neckline again. Laurie gasped when he hit a soft spot next to her clavicle. He stayed there for a while, teasing her until she trembled. Desire settled in the pit of his stomach. He wanted more, much more.

Laurie started kissing his neck, and when she began nibbling on his ear, he groaned at her. She kept at it for a while, until he broke away from her neck to kiss her more insistently.

Dante started backing Laurie toward the bed. He needed her so much he trembled. When they got to the bed, Dante wrapped his arm around her waist. He lowered her to the mattress while kissing her breathless. He pressed his desire up against her inner thigh. They laid there, licking and kissing each other, until Laurie grew impatient. She tugged his shirt up. When she finally got it off him, Dante gathered up the last bit of his good sense and placed his hand on her stomach.

“Wait, wait.” He locked eyes with her. “I don’t know if we should really do this.”

Laurie reached up, placing her hands on his shoulders.

“Please,” she said. “Please.”

Her eyes were full of passion and need. Her grip on his shoulders was insistent, painfully tense. The simple plea broke the rest of Dante’s strength. He lowered himself to her again.