No mutilation was a perfectly acceptable limit. Especially for people like us.
“You need limits, Foster,” he said again, mouth opening into a yawn that looked so satisfying it had me feeling the weight of his exhaustion too, “or else I’ll destroy us both.”
Chapter Twenty
Sage
Foster Golden looked like the devil in my bed.
With his curly hair against his forehead and a happy trail of hair on his stomach that led straight where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, he looked like a man who could kill me.
He still might.
Nothing had changed, I reminded myself, untangling his arms from the possessive way they’d wrapped around me in his sleep. He offered a quiet snore and rolled onto his back, arm falling straight across the bed. My stare landed on the gauze bandage wrapped around his left bicep and I frowned. Someone had tried to take a shot at him. Someone had missed, but that only bought them enough time until I found them.
I padded into the kitchen and made some coffee, then sat on my couch and stared at the wall, warm mug between my hands, until Golden pulled himself out of bed and came stumbling into the living room. His sleepy eyes saw my coffee, and he detoured into the kitchen before joining me on the couch.
“Do you not getmecoffee?” he asked, taking a deep inhale of the caffeinated brew.
“No,” I said simply. “I don’t.”
There were a lot of things Golden and I needed to talk about, starting somewhere around who wanted us dead and ending with sleeping arrangements.
“Who shot you?” I asked, after he didn’t move to say anything else.
“Either a man in a ski mask or my boss. Could go either way.”
“You don’t know?” I shifted on the couch to face him better. Our knees bumped, and it was then I realized Golden wasn’t wearing anything besides a tight pair of black briefs. Had he been wearing those last night? I hadn’t bothered looking.
“They both shot at the same time.”
I bristled, growing generally annoyed at his avoidance. “Why did they both shoot at you?”
“They were shooting at each other,” he clarified. “Or the man in the ski mask was trying to shoot at me. Sharp was trying to shoot him. I was clearly in the middle.”
“You think this is cute?”
“I’m alive.” He shrugged. “And you’re here.”
“Technically, you’rehere,” I corrected. He was, after all, in my apartment.
Golden rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers against the mug in his hands. “I have to admit, I didn’t like being away from you, but I don’t think it’s safe for us to be together. I just spent the past few days thinking I’d be able to make more sense of everything if you were with me…” he trailed off.
“Can you?”
He shook his head. “Just more questions.”
“Some of those might be easier to answer,” I said.
“They’re so much more complicated,” he muttered, leaning forward and setting his coffee on the table. He dropped his head against the back of the couch and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
“Just tell me I was right.” I reached over him and curled my fingers around his waist, and hauled him across the couch and onto my lap. He straddled me with a quiet protest, flattening his hands against my chest. His shoulders relaxed and his lips curved into a despondent little smile.
“About what?”
“I own you, Foster Golden.”
His nostrils flared and his chin dipped toward his chest. His dark lashes fanned out across his cheeks and he stilled. I didn’t know if this was acquiescence or agreement or something else entirely, but I knew what I wanted it to be, what I needed it to be.
