Chapter Fourteen
Connor
She starts to come to just as I’m getting back to my car. Her eyes blink open and shut slowly before they suddenly fly open. She jerks in my arms, clutching at my shirt with a death grip, and I quickly place a hand over her mouth before she can scream.
“Easy, easy,” I mutter, bending down to lower her into the passenger seat. “You’re okay.” I make sure the blanket is around her and covering her before I gently close the door and step around to the driver’s side.
She’s freaking out in the car ride back to my place, her breath coming in fast, jerking hitches.
“Just breathe,” I say quietly. I feel like I should put a comforting hand on her or something, but it’s probably not the right time for that, and I’m probably the last person she needs doing that right now.
“Where-” she swallows, eyes brimming with tears as she glances around, before turning to me. “Did they-?”
“No.”
I grip the steering wheel hard, pulling off the main road, driving through Dorchester and heading out through the old trucking roads to my building.
And if they had, I’d have taken their balls with me, I think to myself.
I’m telling myself the reason I went after her is for my own good. I tell myself that she might have talked, that she could lead the cops right to me, and by proxy, the Saints.
I tell myself it has to do with the Ukrainians - that they could find her, and through her, me.
But I also know all of that is bullshit.
I went out tonight for her.
I went after her tonight because I wanted her back. It’s a strangely possessive feeling I’m not actually familiar with.
She’s wordless the rest of the way back. Part of me wondered if she’d fight me, even given the circumstances I found her in. And I wonder at every damn stoplight if this is where she’s going to make a run for it.
She doesn’t.
In fact, she sits there quietly the whole way back, hands twisting in her lap and her eyes out the side window.
I glance at her as she shivers when we’re in the elevator on the way back up to my loft. And again. I want to put my arm around her for some fucking reason and tell her it’s okay, but I don’t.
For one, because of who I am to her, and for two, because I have no idea how a thought like that even comes into my head.
I run a shower for her, and where before, I’d probably have handcuffed her to the towel rack or something to make sure she didn’t make a break for it, I’m pretty sure she’s not going to run again.
“Thank you,” she mumbles. “Look, I’m sorry I, you know,” She smiles wryly and looks at the ground between us. “Sorry I tased you.”
“You also bashed me in the head.”
She looks up, wincing. “I’m sorry, I just-”
“It’s fine.”
“Thanks for coming to get me,” she says quietly. “Those guys, they-”
“They’re not going to bother you again, trust me,” I growl.
Why the fuck do I feel like this? Possessive, protective - close to her. Why the fuck do I feel like I want to destroy anything that touches her?
“That was your ex?”
“It’s complicated.”
“They always are.”
She smiles quietly looking again at the floor, shaking her head.
“What?”
“Nothing, I just- I did some stuff I probably shouldn’t because I was angry at the way he ended things.”
I grin. “What, you keyed up his car or something? Sleep with his friends?” I chuckle. “C’mon, princess, whatever someone like you does to get back at someone, I have a hard time believing it’s that ba-”
“I burned down his band’s practice space with all their gear inside.”
I blink, and I think my mouth hangs open a little because she’s got a hint of a smile on those lips as she looks up at me with a shrug. “Still think you’ve got me all figured out?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I guess I don’t. I do think I’ll be locking down the matches tonight though.”
This time, she laughs, and when I turn to go grab her a towel, I can’t help but smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Sierra
“You can put these on when you’re done.”
I’m clutching the terrycloth towel he’s just given me in my hands as my eyes drop to the perfectly folded clothes he’s holding out to - white undershirt and a pair of boxers.
“You want me to wear your clothes?”
“You’re welcome to put your dirty ones back on.”
He grins.
“You’re also welcome to forge altogether, princess.”
I bite my lip and look away to hide the grin as I take them from him.