“I’m never bending over in front you again.” Harley flipped Brass off. “And that’s not an offer. I have way higher standards.”“Enough,” Trisha laughed. “You guys are starting to make my stomach hurt. Why don’t we give my tummy a break and pick up our card game? I was kicking some serious ass.”
“You were not.” Harley stood. “I’ll get the cards.” He strode to the stairs. “We were letting you win.”
“He’s a sore loser,” Brass whispered.
“I heard that!”
Chapter Sixteen
Slade turned when Moon crept up next to him. The wind picked up. Slade hooked his thumbs inside his jeans pockets, having gone home and changed before he’d returned.
Moon took a deep breath. “Are you enjoying standing out here listening to us cheer her up?”
Slade said nothing.
“You really upset her when you made nasty accusations. She treats us as though we are brothers and I can promise you there is nothing between her and Justice. I’ve been on her security detail for weeks and she just hangs out with us when she’s not working. I knew she was sad but I didn’t know why until today.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have left her the way you did. Why would you do it? She’s amazing.”
Minutes passed. “I was afraid that being with me would endanger her. It made sense at the time but it was all for nothing. I feared for her safety above my desire to be with her. I’ve put her in much more danger now that she’s carrying my child. She’ll be a target for the hate groups and I unknowingly put her in more danger by not being there when she needed me.” Slade’s voice softened. “I also wanted to give her time to make certain how she felt about me but I really needed it myself too. Does she know I’m out here?”
“No. We told her we scented a storm coming. It is hard to want something very much when we have learned anything we value gets taken from us.”
Slade silently agreed.
“She thinks you used her for sex and you don’t care about her. She is carrying your child and hurting. Do you realize she is a miracle?”
Slade turned his head to glare at the other male. “Of course I know, damn it.”
“But you left her alone.” Moon shook his head in disgust. “I wouldn’t allow anything to stand in my way to be with her if I were lucky enough to find a woman similar to her who cared for me, especially not my own fear. I know all about loss with our shared past. I know how terrifying it is to feel anything because it opens us up to the possibility of deep pain.” He took a breath. “I would risk anything for a woman I loved.”
“She was attacked for her association with us. I believed being with me would only increase the danger. It wasn’t just all about my fear of growing attached to her.”
“She knew the risks when she took the job. She is smart, Slade. Homeland had been attacked before she arrived and it can happen again. She watches the news, sees the protesters spew their hatred of us to anyone who will listen when they make their threats, yet she still came to us. She allowed you to touch her knowing what Ellie and Fury faced and still do. She was present when Fury took the bullets meant for his mate. You may have believed you were being honorable but you were wrong. She’s already in danger and the degree doesn’t matter. What does matter is having a strong male at her side to protect her if someone tries to harm her. You failed in that.”
Pain lanced through Slade at the truth of the words. “She won’t forgive me.”
Moon glanced at the house. “You need to make her understand how much you care and that you’ve learned how much she means to you.”
Slade glanced at the cabin. “Any ideas on how to do that?”
“Actually, yes. I’ll go inside and talk to the guys. I’m sure they will do what I say. They care about Trisha and want her to be happy. I believe you can make her understand if you love her as much as I suspect. It might not sit well with Brass though because he is very close to her as a friend. Stop growling. There is nothing between them.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I am going to talk to them and we will camp outside tonight after she goes to sleep. You are going to go in there to get your female back when she is alone.”
* * * * *
Trisha turned over on the bed and came up against a warm body. Her hands touched hot, bare skin. She gasped as her eyes flew open but it was too dark to see anything. She’d fallen sleep at some point and the men had gone downstairs. She scooted back.
“I guess the floor was too hard for you? You better be dressed from the waist down,” she warned the guy sharing her bed. She wished she had their keen sense of smell or sight to determine which of the three she spoke to.
“Mmmm,” the voice murmured softly. The body adjusted closer and an arm slid over her waist.
“Hey,” Trisha protested and shoved at his chest. “Roll to the other side of the bed. I don’t mind sharing but I’m not a body pillow you can curl around.”
He didn’t put space between them. “I’m trying to get some sleep, sweet thing. You’re making it impossible to do with you pushing on me.”
Trisha gasped and tried to sit up, her hand fumbling for the lamp on the nightstand. The arm moved from around her waist and she twisted away. Her fingers brushed the base of the lamp and almost knocked it over in her haste. She blindly reached for the switch and pressed. Light blinded her for a few seconds.
She turned and gaped at a bare-chested Slade. Tan, muscular skin was revealed to his waist where the sheet pooled and covered the rest of him. She wasn’t sure if he wore pants and didn’t want to know. The fact that he was in her bed shocked her.
“What are you doing?” She couldn’t believe he was sprawled on her bed. “How did you get in here?”
“I strolled inside the front door I helped fix after you fell asleep.” Slade rested on his side. He propped his head on the palm of his bent arm and smiled at her. “Turn off the light. It’s the middle of the night and I want to hold you.”
Trisha gawked at him. “You leave me high and dry and now you want to hold me? You dare climb into bed with me? Are you for real?”
“Yes.”
“Have you lost your mind? I haven’t. Get out!”
“Come here, sweet thing.”
Trisha tried to scramble out of bed but Slade gently grabbed her, hauling her flat onto her back on the mattress. He pinned her under his big, warm body, careful not to hurt her when he did it. Two things became instantly clear to Trisha. One, Slade was totally nude. And two, he was aroused since she could feel the thick, hot erection bump against her inner thigh. They were skin to skin where her nightshirt had ridden up. She sucked in a breath, beyond stunned that he’d dare pull that kind of stunt.“I missed you.” His beautiful gaze studied hers and his voice came out gruff.
I want to hate him for sounding sexy and looking so attractive. Remember—he abandoned me. That wasn’t hot or sexy. It was mean and cold. “You knew where to find me.” Trisha flattened her hands on his chest, pushed with all her might, but he didn’t budge as she glared at him. Her teeth clenched. “I’ll yell for help if you don’t get off me.”
“I hope you have a really loud voice because I sent them away. I wanted us to be alone. This time I didn’t want to have to put my palm over your lips.”
Memory was instant of the last time he’d done that to keep her quiet while he fucked her. Her body instantly responded when her belly quivered and she hated it, wanting to hate him. She glared into his eyes.
“You left me and now you want me back? Is that what you’re saying? For how long this time? Do I wake in the morning and what? Not see you again for weeks? Maybe months? No. Get off me, Slade.”
He shifted his weight to make certain he didn’t crush her stomach and cupped Trisha’s face. “I was scared. You frighten the hell out of me and that’s the truth.”
“Scared?” She took a deep breath, trying to calm, and resisted the urge to smack him. She was tempted. “So you were afraid? Of what? You’re a foot taller than I am and outweigh me by a good hundred pounds or so. What did you have to be afraid of?”
“Being with me puts you in more danger. That was the main reason I stayed away from you. You nearly died in the woods, could have died when the SUV crashed, and I didn’t want to be the cause of more assholes targeting you.”
She just stared at him, trying to take in his words. It didn’t matter though because he’d hurt her. She wasn’t about to allow him to do it again.
“It was more than that though. I’ve had a lot of time to think. I never dared to allow myself to get attached to anything or anyone. I saw too many die and too much pain. I never owned anything, could never count on anyone being there in the next moment, or even the next day. They used it against me if those assholes who kept me prisoner realized I cared about another person at the testing facility. Hell, they used it against all of us to try to control us. I know you can’t really understand what a lifetime of that does to a person but I can tell you that it messed me up bad. I’m screwed up. I was afraid of what I wanted from you and that you might not return those strong emotions. I wanted to give you time but I’m the one who needed it. I thought if I walked away that I would stop thinking about you and that you would be safer without me. I said you’d be better off if I wasn’t a part of your life. That’s not what happened.”