it, Jaci,” he growled, jerking her over his shoulder and slapping her hard on the rear end when she shrieked and began kicking his front and pummeling his back. “I warned you. You’re not leaving unless I say so.”
“Put me down, you bastard!” Jaci screamed. “I’d rather die than remain stuck in this house with you! I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you!”
“Yeah, yeah, well, too bad,” he shot back. “And if you don’t stop wiggling around I swear I’m going to hog-tie you naked!”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me.”
She landed a good kick against the hard planes of his stomach and he grunted but otherwise kept his forward pace to the bedroom where he tossed her none too gently onto the bed. She bounced with a shriek and tried to scramble away but Nathan grasped both ankles and yanked her toward him. She kicked and hissed with rage even as tears stung her eyes but she didn’t let up. She hoped he got a faceful of flying feet for his trouble.
“Damn it, Jaci!” he roared when she refused to stop. He lunged and straddled her, shocking her with the sudden weight of his body across hers. He captured her flailing arms at the wrists and wrenched them over her head, stretching her so that she couldn’t move. Her breath came hard and fast as a long curl of her hair landed across her face, obscuring her vision in her left eye. She angrily blew the hair from her eye and ignored the uncomfortable awareness kindling to life in her body. She would not allow even a spark of attraction to flare, no matter that he remained a stable fixture in her most erotic dreams. It was much too easy to remember how it felt to lie beneath his solid strength, clinging to him as if her life depended on it. She bit down on her tongue and tasted blood. Remember the pain of his rejection, she told herself with blunt force. Remember how you cried for weeks.
“Are you finished?” he asked in a hard voice. “You need to get a grip. Do you hear me? This is serious. Get that through your damn head. Do you want to die? Is that what this is about? You’ve just stopped caring about whatever happens to you? That you couldn’t really care less if you live or die? Is that why you’ve been hanging out at sleazy bars and drinking yourself into a stupor every chance you get? What the hell is wrong with you, Jaci?”
She stared up at him, unable to believe what she’d just heard. Had he forgotten how he’d left her? Had he spaced on how he’d ripped her life apart and walked away without caring about the damage? A separate train of thought followed the first as she rapidly blinked away the tears and stared at him with open suspicion. “How do you know I’ve been going to sleazy bars?” He seemed to realize he’d revealed too much information and faltered for a split second, long enough for Jaci to put two and two together. “Have you been...watching me? Like some creeper stalker?”
His gaze darkened as he scowled. “I’m not a stalker.”
“That’s what stalkers do, they watch people without the other person’s knowledge. Why would you do that?”
He buttoned his lip, clearly unwilling to reveal his reasons, but she didn’t care anymore. She couldn’t possibly make heads or tails of anything Nathan did or why, nor was she going to start trying. Those days were long gone. “Whatever.” She glanced away. “Get the hell off me. My legs are going numb, and if I recall, you were tired of spending any length of time on top of my body, anyway.”
Nathan hesitated, his scowl remaining, but he finally climbed off her and she rolled away from him. This time she didn’t try to run, but simply stared, waiting for answers.
“I never said I was tired of being on top of you,” he said, his mouth compressing to a tight, almost bitter line.
“You said the idea of monogamy with me was more than you could handle. You also said you were bored,” Jaci said, trying not to wince at the pain the memory of that day still caused. Holy hell, it felt as if two months had only been two days ago. How pathetic. She’d enabled him to turn her into a weak, pathetic female and she hated him for it. But damn, it still hurt. Did she care? She shouldn’t but she did. A part of her needed to know that there was a sliver of humanity inside him that was remorseful for breaking her heart the way that he had. “What’s really going on?” she asked. “There’s no need to hide the truth from me. We’re not a couple. Just tell me so I know what I’m dealing with. Don’t you see how it’s not fair to drag me from my life without warning and keep me here against my will without at least clueing me in to what’s going on?”
“I already told you—”
“You told me the bare minimum, which wasn’t an answer at all. Who is after me and why?”
“I’d have to tell you more than you’d want to know. It’s better this way,” he said, adding quietly. “Trust me.”
Had he no idea how impossible his request was? How incapable she was of blithely following him simply because he crooked his finger and patted her on the head with a promise that if she did as she was told like a good girl, everything would be fine? He obviously didn’t remember a thing about her personality because never in a million years would she ever be so docile. “The thing about trust is, you have to be willing to be vulnerable with the other person,” she said. “And I would never allow myself to be vulnerable with you again.”
“You would be willing to jeopardize your life just because you’re still pissed off about our breakup? I thought you were smarter than that.”
“I thought I was smarter about a lot of things. You, Nathan, proved to me that I’m as stupid as they come.”
* * *
Nathan heard the ragged pain under her subdued tone and he looked away, unable to hold her stare. If there’d been any other way to keep her safe, he would’ve done it. Walking away from Jaci had been like tearing off a limb and leaving it behind. And he’d been a bear to be around since then. His personality had never been what one would describe as cuddly, but Jaci had managed to bring out the softer side in him—one he hadn’t even known existed—and it’d been that soft, mushy side that had made him realize that if anything ever happened to her because of him, he’d follow her to the grave.
He’d learned long ago that life was filled with pain, but Jaci had been a bright shiny star in a dark universe. How could he possibly allow his feelings for her to put her in jeopardy? The night he’d surprised a man lying in wait in her apartment, Nathan had realized she was no longer safe with him around. The fact that the guy had managed to catch Nathan with a quick uppercut and escape before Nathan could put a bullet through his brain had only served to make Nathan even more on edge. “Are you hungry?” he asked gruffly. “I have food.”
“No.”
He accepted her answer, even if he knew she was lying through her teeth. Jaci had always loved food. Nathan had relished her softly rounded curves and the way she didn’t pretend to pick at a garden salad, protesting how full she was after nibbling a piece of lettuce. No, Jaci had ordered steak and potatoes and then had often eyed the dessert menu. She was the kind of woman who set his blood on fire. “You should eat,” he said.
“I said I wasn’t hungry. I want to go home.”
“It’s not safe.”
“What about my roommate? He’s going to notice if I suddenly go missing.”
Nathan scowled at the mention of the man she lived with. He didn’t know if there was anything romantic going on but he had his suspicions. What normal red-blooded male
