“You can’t monitor everything,” I said softly.
He tipped my chin up, eyes steady and unblinking. “Watch me.”
It landed like truth, not ego. A promise from a man who’d, apparently, lived his life at thresholds—protecting, anticipating, eliminating threats before they had a chance to breathe.
“Gideon …” My voice shook.
He leaned his forehead to mine, breath warm against my lips. “He won’t touch you. Not while I’m breathing.”
I swallowed hard. “You can’t stop him from existing.”
“No,” he said, eyes steady and frighteningly calm. “But don’t mistake that for inability. If I wanted to end him, Hazel, I could. Quickly. Cleanly.”
His fingers brushed my jaw, gentling what his voice didn’t. “For now, I’m settling for keeping him away from you. But understand something—if he forces my hand, I won’t hesitate.”
Heat pooled low in my belly at the casual violence wrapped around me like a blanket. I shouldn’t have liked it. I did.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“First? We shower. We eat. You get your strength back.”
“And after that?”
“We meet Elias and his people,” he said. “Figure out a plan.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He kissed my forehead like he’d just negotiated a contract. “Come on,” he said. “We should get moving, before my backup gets here.”
He seemed buoyed by the reinforcements. A muscle jumped in his cheek. “You’ll like them.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
His mouth curved. “Only if they forget whose girl you are.”
The words shouldn’t have hit me the way they did. I was a full grown woman, not sixteen. I’d changed my name in front of a judge. I paid my own taxes. I owned a whole dilapidated inn. But hearing him saymy girlin that low, matter-of-fact tone rewired something inside me.
“I am, huh?”
He rolled, pinning me under his weight in one smooth move, bracing on his forearms so his body covered mine without crushing. There was nothing playful about the way he looked at me then. He was deadly serious and a little unhinged and all mine.
“Hazel Bradford,” he said, voice gone quiet and lethal. “Listen carefully. You are not available anymore. Any man who looks at you like you’re something they can take?” His mouth brushed mine, a near-kiss that made my toes curl. “They’ll have to answer to me.”
A laugh caught in my throat, tangled with something softer. “That’s a very specific policy.”
“I’m a very specific man.” He kissed me then, slow and deep, not morning-gentle at all. His tongue swept my mouth like he was reminding both of us exactly who I belonged to. By the time he pulled back, my thoughts were liquid and my body was two steps from begging.
“We don’t have time,” he said against my lips, sounding personally offended by the concept. “They’ll be here soon.”
I exhaled shakily. “Whoever ‘they’ are, I already don’t like them.”
He chuckled, a low rumble I felt everywhere. “Shower,” he said, nipping my lower lip. “Before I change my mind and barricade the door.”
He let me up reluctantly, hands sliding off my hips like he was leaving fingerprints only I could see. I padded toward the bathroom, legs wobbly, heart doing complicated choreography. At the doorway, I glanced back.
He was watching me, propped on one elbow in the bed. His gaze was hot and unapologetic.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
