“I would’ve come to get it earlier, but you are one hard woman to find. I was beginning to think you were just a hallucination,” I admit, refusing to release her thigh. I threw every resource at my disposal toward searching for her, driven by a need I couldn’t name and didn’t want to understand.
“You were looking for me?” She asks, genuine surprise lighting her face.
The innocence in her question nearly undoes me. Of course, I was looking for her. I’d turned the city upside down, called in every favor, and threatened every contact. I’d become a man possessed.
“Of course, I was looking for you. The least I owe is a thank you for talking some sense into me and saving my life.”
She looks up at me with a strange expression that I can’t seem to place, and it’s maddening. I’ve built my reputation on reading people, on knowing their thoughts before they do, but she’s a mystery I can’t solve. It should frustrate me. Instead, it only makes me want to study her more, to learn every expression, every tell, every breath.
“What?” I ask, finally giving up on trying to figure out what’s going on in her head. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrible at reading someone, and I don’t think I’ve ever cared this much about failing at it.
“I’m just trying to figure out why I was so scared of you before.” She answers softly, and my weak, degenerate heart melts in my chest.
Because you have perfect instincts, Little Menace. Because you should be terrified of what I’m capable of, of what I’d do to keep you. Because you looked at me and saw exactly what I am—a monster who could paint the world in blood.
“Almost everyone is scared of me, but you never have to be,” I murmur, searching her gaze, memorizing the way trust blooms in her eyes.
She hesitates a moment before holding up her pinky to me, a conspiratorial smile on her lips.
“Promise?” She asks.
I don’t waste a second, looping my littlest finger around hers. The simple touch sends electricity through my entire body, and I’m struck by how such an innocent gesture can feel more intimate than anything I’ve ever experienced.
“Promise.”
Leading her into the kitchen, I head over to my office, retrieving her bag from the night before. The action earns me another shocked smile, and I realize I would sell every piece of my soul to keep that look on her face if I had any left to give. Hell, I’d probably sell someone else’s soul too.
“How did you get this? I don’t even remember when I last had it on me,” she says, reaching for her purse.
“You left it at the bar. I had Ivan grab it before we left.” I explain, settling on one of the kitchen barstools. What I don’t tell her is that I’d also had him collect every piece of surveillance footage from the club, that I’d studied every frame of her face like a man obsessed.
“Oh. Was that the man who was driving?” She asks, and immediately, I regret taking her back to the painful memory of last night. Her face visibly disintegrates, but she mutters, “Please tell him thank you for me.”
The fact that she’s thanking the man who helped save her life while she’s still processing her own trauma makes something protective come alive in my chest.
“I will,” I say gently, watching her dig her phone out of her bag. When she reads the screen, she gasps.
“Shit, my best friend’s been texting all morning wondering where I’ve been. We were supposed to start the drive back by now,” she spills out, her fingers moving fast over the screen to type out a reply.
The words crash through me like frigid water. Drive back? Leave? The thought of her walking out of my life sends panic clawing up my throat.
“Drive back?” I ask, my voice carefully controlled despite the chaos in my head. “I can give you a ride home if you’d like.” The offer sours in my mouth. I’ve barely just found the girl. The last thing I want is for her to leave.
“No, it’s okay. We have to head back to campus upstate. We just came down for the night,” she explains, still texting her friend.
Campus. She’s a student. The realization that she has an entire life an hour away from me, full of people and places and experiences that don’t include me, makes my jaw clench. I want to know everything—her schedule, her friends, her professors, her favorite places to study.
“Where do you attend school?” I ask her, my mind already working on how to extend my reach, how to ensure her safety even from a distance.
“I’m in my last semester at Riverside U. I’m studying business,” She says, emitting a sigh and finally pressing send on her paragraph-long response.
Damn, it’s no wonder she was so difficult to find. I was focusing most of my resources within the city limits, expecting her to be somewhere in town. I had tapped the databases of many universities given her expected age profile, but I hadn’t thought to extend it towards the suburbs. The thought of her being an hour away from me with no one to watch over her makes my skin crawl. I’ll have to rectify that. Discreetly, of course.
“Let me at least drive you back to your friend then,” I say, but the offer sounds more like a plea. I need more time with her, need to memorize every detail before she slips away from me again.
Thankfully, she nods her head.
“Thanks, that would be great. Can we leave now?” She asks anxiously. I run my gaze over her, studying every detail, any indication of how she’s feeling.
