blinked up at him with dark, gold-tipped lashes. “What are you talking about? You don’t have a brother.”
“It’s a long story, but I’ll explain on the road.” Well, he’d explain some of it. No way in hell was he telling her everything.
“Cian.”
“Listen. Next time, he won’t send a bunch of human thugs. Those guys were just a game to him, Sayre. A message meant to let us know that he’s found you and has you in his sights. But he won’t play the game for long. Eventually, it will be him, in the flesh, and I know you don’t trust me, but you can believe me when I tell you that going head-to-head with Aedan isn’t something we could walk away from without paying for it first. Not here. Not alone.”
She cut her gaze to the side and frowned. “I—”
“Damn it, Sayre, look at me!” He worked his jaw as her narrowed gaze locked with his, then grated out, “I can’t let that happen. I won’t. I will throw you in my damn car and tie you up if I have to, though I’d rather you come on your own. I don’t want to hurt you, but there’s no way I’m letting you stay here. He’s not getting you.”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. He could see the indecision shadowing her gaze, her intuition battling against her desire to be rid of him. He could understand her anger, but he couldn’t let it get in the way of keeping her alive.
“If not for yourself, then think about Jillian. About Jeremy and their kids,” he told her. Jillian had been pregnant when he’d left, so he knew the couple had at least one child. “You don’t think he’d go after them if he thought it would hurt you?”
Color leached from her face, making the spray of freckles across her nose stand out in stark relief. “What the hell do me and my family have to do with any of this?”
“He wants to hurt me, and he thinks you’re the way to do that.”
A bitter laugh burst from her pink lips, and she shook her head in disbelief. “Then he’s a fool. I didn’t even mean enough to you to fuck. I was just a troublesome little girl you wanted out of your way.”
Christ, she couldn’t have been more wrong, but he couldn’t tell her that. And he sure as hell couldn’t let himself think about that four-letter word that had just fallen from her lips—a word he’d never heard her say before. “Sayre, we don’t have time to argue. We need to be on the road ten minutes ago.”
She stared up at him as the seconds stretched out, each one seeming to last longer than a lifetime while his hands itched with the need to reach out and grab her so that he could get her to safety. “Fine,” she finally agreed, looking as if someone had just thrown her firstborn off a cliff. “I hate it, but I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.”
“Smart girl,” he murmured with relief.
“Woman, Cian. Smart woman. I’m no longer a child.”
“Uh, yeah. Got it.” Then he tacked on a “sorry” for good measure.
Jabbing him in the center of his chest with her finger, she said, “You’re damned right you had better be sorry. Because this is all. Your. Fault!”
Guilt settled heavily in his gut, and he knew he needed to tread carefully. “I know, and I’m sorry. But can we please just get on the road?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No.”
“No?” He sucked in a sharp breath, struggling not to shout at her again. “I thought we just went over this.”
“I believe that you’ve landed me in the middle of a freaking problem, but that doesn’t mean I’m running back to the Alley. However—” her voice sounded like she’d swallowed a handful of razor blades as she held one hand up to him in a hold-it-right-there gesture “—I’m willing to let you come inside and talk to me.”
“I’m not letting you stay here alone, Sayre.”
“Then you had better not piss me off,” she huffed as she walked over to where he’d tossed her gun and picked it up, “because I was planning on letting you take the sofa until we have this figured out.”
Shit, he thought, shoving a hand back through his hair. Staying here wasn’t what he wanted. He needed her in the Alley, where he knew it would be easier to protect her. “It’s safer there, Sayre.”
With the gun propped on her shoulder, she turned back to him, her expression impossible to read. “That may be. But I’m not going to let you rush me into any decisions right now. I will give myself some time to process this, and then I’ll let you know what I’ve decided to do.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, dropping his head back on his shoulders, and counted back from ten.
“While you’re struggling with whatever’s going through that thick head of yours,” she told him, sounding as if she were gloating a bit, “I’ll just run inside and grab my keys, then take you down the road so that you can grab your car and bring it back here.”
Opening his eyes, Cian lowered his head and watched her walk away, wondering how she made the money to pay for the truck and the cabin, knowing she wasn’t the type to live off her parents. Then again, the truck that was parked beside the shed was fairly ancient, so he knew she hadn’t unloaded a ton of cash on it.
“You were wrong,” he said in a low voice, when she came back outside, keys in hand.
“About what?” she murmured, keeping her gaze focused straight ahead as she made her way over to the faded blue Ford.
“When I first saw you today,” he muttered, following after her, “you said we’d never lied to each other. But we did. I did. I lied to you all the time.”
She didn’t ask what he’d lied about as she opened the driver’s-side door and climbed behind the wheel, and he wondered if she knew.
He’d told her time and again that he didn’t want her.
And each time, it’d been a lie.
In his entire life, he’d never wanted anything like he wanted Sayre Murphy. In his bed. Under him. Completely full of him, his body packed so deeply into hers she could feel him in every part of her. Every cell and breath and thought.
He just didn’t want the rest of her.
The last thing in the world that Cian needed was a woman’s heart, because he knew exactly what he’d do to it. And while he might not love Sayre Murphy, he liked her too much to want to see her crushed, which is what would happen. It wasn’t arrogance or his ego talking; it was a simple fact. She was too young to clearly separate sexual need from higher emotion, and he knew that if he touched her, she’d likely end up thinking she was in love with him. Wasn’t there a saying about how hate and love were simply two sides of the same coin? So while she might hate him now, that feeling could be twisted into the other. After everything he’d done, he owed it to her to keep that from happening.
Does that mean you plan to keep your hands to yourself? his wolf demanded, prowling beneath his skin. ’Cause I gotta tell you, that doesn’t work
