As I did, some of the tension left him. His face softened. I didn’t know Creighton’s face could soften. He raised a hand to cup the side of my face, ran his hand down my chin. His words came out soft too. “Is this the final goodbye? Have you decided to leave me? I moved heaven and hell to keep you safe from them, and the second the war is called off, you have a nice little chat with Tristian West. From a battle perspective, it’s slightly genius. From a personal perspective, not a fan.”
I took his hand in mine and settled back on his lap. “Stop.” My other hand slid down the front of his chest, and I ignored how his hands moved up underneath his hoodie on me. My heart skipped a few beats. My body began to heat up. “He showed up at the center when I was leaving. Said some things, but the gist is that he wants to move forward with all of us being civil.”
Creighton still wasn’t happy, eyeing me. “He said ‘some things.’ What things?”
Fisting the front of his shirt, I pulled him toward me, off of the wall. I began to lean in, intending to kiss him, but I remembered that I couldn’t. Not just yet.
Except . . .
Screw it.
I gave in.
I bit his bottom lip, ignoring his groan. “He was informative. Very informative.”
“Still not liking this conversation, but I’m enjoyingthispart of it.” His words were a cold challenge, but his eyes were molten.
I rocked over his lap, closing my eyes, because that felt good. He felt good.
I grinded over him a bit more.
His hands helped me, moving my body over him, and I was starting to forget he was annoyed with me.
He pulled back. “We need to talk.”
I growled briefly, but stopped and slumped over him. My hands went to his chest, toying with his shirt. “I know. I’m sorry. I knew when I came home that I’d need to talk to you about what West said, but ... I wanted to talk to you. If anything, I wanted to thank you for helping with Satya and her sister.”
“That’s it? Just to thank me?” His hands went back to touching me, kneading my hips. “You were giving in? Just now? Or was this a onetime thing and then what? Back to telling me to stay away from you?”
“No.” I shook my head. That wasn’t fair to him. “I—” Okay. Let’s do this. Really do this. I moved to the side of the bed beside him, and positioned myself so I was facing him. My legs crisscrossed, and I pulled a pillow to my lap. Sinking my hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, I let out a sigh. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see you, but I needed time away to figure out what I was thinking and how I felt about things. Marshall was shot. My housemates were kidnapped. Levi is still healing. Lassiter is ...” He was spending time with someonewho wasn’t us, and I couldn’t talk to him about Pialto. “You took four innocent people.”
He cursed under his breath. “I didn’t kill them. Scooter’s fine, by the way.”
“Who’s Scooter?”
“Never mind. I didn’t kill Walden, West, or either of their women.”
“Like that makes it better?”
“No.” He sighed. “I’ve already told you that you can’t put a leash on me.”
“Rules were no one good and no one innocent.”
He looked away. “There’s a lot of good people who do bad things.”
“I know.” I leaned forward and cupped his face, turning him to see me again. “You and I have already come to a compromise. You not killing Walden after he put a gun to my head, that’s huge progress.”
His eyes burned, and I was seeing how much it pained him not to do whatever he wanted to do against Walden. Then, he blinked, and some of the burning had faded. “I’d already taken him and tortured him prior. I’ve tried reminding myself of those memories. I wish I had taken video and I could replay it as much as I wanted.”
My eyebrows went to my forehead, because that was morbid. “Uh.” I waved that off. Different topic for a different day. “I just needed space, and you gave it, and thank you. So West told you about seeing me, huh? That must’ve brought him such joy. Being the one to tell you before you were told by anyone else.”
He ran a gentle hand up the side of my face and tucked some stray hair behind my ears. “I got him back.”
I opened my eyes again. “What’d you do? And please tell me it’s not sending us into another war. Marshall already got shot. If Palma gets shot, I think Levi would revolt. So that leaves Heath, and I don’t think his brothers would be happy with you.”
“West’s brother-in-law is going to work for me.”
“Wha-what?” I blinked a few times. “His brother that you kidnapped?”
