The jacket swallowed me whole. And for one ridiculous moment, wrapped in his warmth while dressed in clothes meant for people with nothing left, I felt less alone.
“Ready?” His face was only a couple of feet from mine.
I nodded my lie, and after a hesitation, Ryker opened the door and let the officers back inside.
The cuffs clicked open, the sound echoing in my chest like a death knell as they clicked shut around my wrists. This was really happening. I was being arrested for murder. And the man willing to risk everything for me could only watch.
The hospital room blurred into a tunnel of faces, but I had eyes for only one man: Ryker.
I wished I could go back in time, to when he’d first put his arms around me.
Did he think about that moment in the elevator as much as I did? That first touch in Axel’s building when everything between us shifted, when we crossed the threshold from friends to something inevitable? When he’d held me close and I’d felt safe for the first time in years?
I bet he never imagined it would lead to this. Me in handcuffs. Him staking his entire career on a woman who might be exactly what that detective implied: guilty as hell.
What had he been thinking that day? Had he known even then that I would destroy everything he touched?
8
RYKER
I watched the officers lead Faith toward the door, metal cuffs catching the harsh fluorescent light. Her shoulders held straight, chin up. Still fighting to appear strong.
But I saw what no one else did. The tremor in her hands. The way her breath hitched when the shorter officer gripped her elbow. The flash of raw terror in her eyes when they met mine one last time before the door closed between us.
Vulnerable. Afraid. Trying so damn hard not to show it.
I’d seen that exact look once before. During Axel and Dakota’s drama, when I’d arrived at Axel’s penthouse building after organizing a detective to come talk to him. What I hadn’t expected was to find Faith in the lobby.
I definitely hadn’t expected to see her with some guy.
And I really hadn’t expected my immediate, visceral reaction to it.
The asshole was leaning into her space with that practiced flirtatious grin that screamed,I peaked in college and never got over it. Then he reached down and touched her hip, and I swear to God, I’d never wanted to punch a complete stranger more in my life.
Something hot and possessive coursed through me, which wasridiculous. Faith wasn’t mine. I had no claim on her. We weren’t even technically friends.
So, why were my hands already curling into fists?
Maybe because Faith wasn’t smiling back at the guy.
Now that I looked past my own territorial rage, I could actually see what was happening. While this jackass was all swagger and smooth lines, Faith stood rigid as steel, her hand already coming up between them like a barrier. Her whole body language screamed,Back the hell off, in about twelve different languages.
She doesn’t want this.
The realization shifted something in my chest. This wasn’t jealousy anymore. This was something else entirely.
I started forward just as her voice cut through the lobby’s ambient noise. “Touch me again, and it’ll be the last time your fingers are attached to your body.”
I stopped. My lips twitched.That’s my girl.
Wait. What?Mygirl?
The idiot actually laughed, like this was some kind of foreplay. “Ooh, feisty. I like that in a?—”
“Let me be crystal clear,” Faith interrupted, grabbing his hand as he reached for her again. She bent his fingers back at an angle that made me wince from ten feet away. “When a woman you met thirty seconds ago tells you not to touch her? You listen. You back away. You definitely don’t put your hands on her hip like she’s yours to handle.”
The guy’s face went from cocky to pained in about two seconds flat.
