“You’re safe too,” he added. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know.”
I knew he meant it, but it wasn’t what I needed to hear. Not this time.
Because for the first time, “just sex” didn’t feel simple anymore.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure I could keep pretending it was.
Chapter 17
Unsteady – X Ambassadors
Wilder
The rage inside me was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. It wasn’t red, it was white. White, putrid and insistent like a wound that would never heal. I wanted to pull his head off and feed it to Davis Quinton’s pigs, but I knew that would only make things worse.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I checked, my eyes raking over Tally once more.
Chewing on the end of her thumbnail, she nodded. Distracted eyes looked through the window into the dimming light. Toward the stables.
“Brownie, he’s going to be fine. I swear, that little pixie won’t get his hands on him.”
“He won’t take care of him properly. He’ll probably get Bernard to sell him.” Her voice cracked like glass under a boot.
“He’s not going to get him.” My mind whirred over the options. How I could make Dream Maker safe for her. “There’s every alarm possible on those stables and he’ll have to get past me, Nash and Gunner first.
“He won’t give up. I know exactly what he’s like.”
The look in her eyes took my breath away. Nothing I’d seen in her before. It looked like loss. She was not going to lose that damn horse. Not while I had a breath left in my body.
“I wish I’d never damn well married him. I was so stupid.” She dropped her forehead to my chest and groaned.
“Got to admit I think you’ve had better ideas, Brownie. He’s only an inch taller than you for starters.”
She snorted a laugh and instantly relief seeped through me. Always so calm and strong, her worrying made me feel uneasy. And that thought made my world tilt on its axis.
“Do you know how damn cute you are when you laugh?” I blurted out. “How your nose crinkles.”
She blinked and blushed simultaneously. “I think you’re seeing things.”
“Nope, Brownie,” I said, resigned to the fact I was turning into a pussy around her. “My eyes are in great working order. Now, why don’t you go back to your cabin. There’s nothing here that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
She looked determined so I agreed. “Don’t stay too late. I’m going to make sure the leprechaun has left the property. Lock the door behind me.”
“He won’t come back tonight,” she told me, backing away. “He’s not brave enough.”
“Did he say how he got in here? Gunner and I were in the house, but there were plenty of other people around.”
She shrugged. “He’s so small he could easily have walked right under their noses.”
The burst of laughter from us both was short and loud and lessened someof the unease left by her ex.
“Go,” she said, patting my chest. “I’ll finish up here.”
I gave her a nod and turned for the door. When I reached it I paused and turned back to face her. “I-I erm, won’t be able to come over tonight.” I pushed my hands deep into my pockets, scuffing my boot over the floor. “I have stuff to do, I’m going to Sterling tomorrow.”
