I hated when people pitied me. It was a senseless emotion.
"I just hate that you have to deal with this."
I wasn't a fan of it either, but it was what it was.
"It's fine. It will only make me stronger in the end."
Nolen cupped both of my cheeks with his hands. "I'm absolutely in awe by the strength you possess."
There he went, making me blush again. At the rate we were going, I was going to spend all my time with pink cheeks.
"Enough about me. What are we going to do about this problem?"
Nolen stepped back, and his hands dropped. Immediately I missed having his hands on me.
"We are going to find all of Joel's known contacts and figure out which one is responsible for this. Everything has to be connected, so it's just a matter of time before we find him."
"And if we don't?"
Nolen puffed out his cheeks and blew a loud exhale. "Then we wait for the next time he contacts you, and I go with you."
I wasn't sure I was a fan of that idea. Mostly because I didn't want to meet my blackmailer if I didn't have to.
Suck it up. You want this to end,don't you?
Hell yes, I did. I was absolutely over this whole ordeal.
"It should be any day now, right?"
I lifted one shoulder and dropped it. "I'm not even sure anymore. I didn't expect to get a beating the other day, so who knows what the asshole is thinking?"
"Well, I can promise you that's not going to happen again. Until we have this guy in cuffs, I'm not leaving you alone."
"But what about your job?"
"Maverick isn't going to care, and besides, this is what I do for a living."
"Yes, I know, but I'm sure there are other things you need to be doing." I don't know why I was fighting about this when I wanted nothing more than for him to stay with me so nothing else happened.
Nolen rubbed my arm. "Right now, nothing is as important as making sure you're safe."
I melted at his words. There was something immensely sexy about a man who put others before himself.
"Which reminds me, Lex is coming over to install a security system."
And then he had to ruin it by saying that.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You need a security system with everything that's going on, so Lex is going to come over and install one."
I needed to take a shallow breath before I said something I couldn't take back.
"Don't you think this is something we should've talked about before you called him?"
"Would you have said yes?"
"Of course I would've said yes. I'm not stupid."
