Hot Protector(75)

Now she was right back to the way she’d been before he’d shown her how much he loved her body just the way it was. He hated seeing her like that, but what could he do? He had no right to say anything. No right to have an opinion.

He finished his slice of pizza, stood, and carried his plate over to the trash and threw it in. When he turned around, several sets of eyes were on him. Except Sophie’s. She didn’t look at him at all. She picked at her pizza and didn’t look up.

“Going out for some fresh air,” he said, and then he turned and blasted out of the building before anyone could stop him.

There was a green space behind the building, adjacent to the parking lot, and he went into it, stood there with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. It was dusk, the sky awash in orange at the horizon. His breath frosted in the air, curling around him as he stood and tried to clear his mind.

What the fuck was wrong with him anyway? What the fuck did he care if Sophie picked at her pizza? What the fuck did he care if he never tasted her again? There were other women. Plenty of other women.

The door behind him opened and closed. He didn’t turn. He expected Hawk or Matt to come and stand beside him, tell him he was being a moody fucker and that it needed to stop.

He was wrong. Her scent hit him like a blow and he sucked it in, holding his ground. He thought she might touch him, but she didn’t. She came to stand beside him, her hands shoved in her own pockets.

“You okay?” she said.

He glanced at her, his body tightening almost painfully. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

“Nobody else thought it was a bad idea.”

It probably wasn’t a bad idea for anyone but him. “You weren’t hungry?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“Bullshit. You’re back to thinking about Justine and Tyler and your fucked-up childhood. Thought you were over that. Thought I proved to you it didn’t fucking matter.”

“Nobody gets over shit like that overnight, Chase. Besides, maybe I’ve got new reasons not to be hungry.”

He turned to look at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

She faced him, her eyes flashing. “This is a lot to process, Chase. You, us, everything. It’s been a whirlwind few days, and I’m not quite sure how to feel about any of it.” She sucked in a breath. “I don’t like where we are now, how we’re acting toward each other. There’s a damn elephant in the room and everyone knows it. I’ve been asking myself just exactly why we have to pretend like nothing happened between us, why there’s no possible way forward. You aren’t my brother; I am not your sister. We aren’t related—we’re no more than two kids who knew each other once. But now we’re grown, and there’s no real reason we can’t have more.”

He stared at her. “Other than the fact you live in New York—or is it LA now?—and I live here? And then there’s my mother, who’s already put up with so much shit from Tyler that I can’t begin to heap more shit on top of her.” He shook his head vigorously. “No, no way. It’s not that fucking easy—and besides, who said I wanted more? It’s pussy, Sophie. I can get that anywhere.”

She stared at him, her eyes glittering like diamonds as she straightened, her head going back and her chin going up. “Okay. Well, I can see I was mistaken then. My bad. You just go ahead and go back to fucking around, and I’ll pretend like none of this ever happened.”

Her voice broke on the last and it about fucking killed him. He wanted to reach for her, but he didn’t. Jesus, she was tearing him up—and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.

“I thought you were brave, Chase. I thought you were strong and unafraid of anything. I see I was wrong. I see that you’re just a little boy who’s still running scared. Your daddy ignored you—news flash, you aren’t the first person who had an uninvolved father. I never even met my real dad—and Tyler, hell, he tried sometimes, but he wasn’t much better with me than he was with you. I got over it. But you—you let it control you. All that talk of being your own man—and you let it control you!”

She goaded him into action then. He reached for her, but she stepped out of his way, stumbling backward, away from him.

“Go to hell, Chase,” she hissed. “Fucking go to hell!”

She turned and strode away. He started after her, but his body was suddenly on fire, frozen in place as lightning bolts rolled through him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—

And then he couldn’t see her anymore as the world blinked out of existence.