Alexei leered. “I am aware, but this is not school, and you are not a teenager anymore with scissors in your pocket. What if you were pregnant and they came for you?”
I wasn’t pregnant. And I never would be, but Alexei didn’t know that, so I let it pass, ignoring Nash’s concern bleeding across the table. “What happens now?”
“You leave,” Cam growled. “You shouldn’t have been in here in the first place.”
I sent him a middle finger. “You’re not God. If this is about me, it affects me, and I want my information first-hand.”
“All right. First-hand this: Locke is on you permanently now, everywhere you go, unless you’re with Nash orme.”
“You expect him to work twenty-four seven?”
“No. I expectusto spend a lot more time together.”
He couldn’t be serious. Cam had literal scars from what happened whenever we spent too long in each other’s company. But I knew better than to argue with him right now. If there was one soul on earth more stubborn than me, it was my pig-headed big brother.
I pushed my chair back. “Whatever. Just don’t keep me in the dark. If someone really wants to kill me, I deserve to know.”
Juana rose with me, and we walked out together. I was riled enough that it took me a second to register that we had company.
Six-foot-five company, with blond hair and sea-green eyes that held too many emotions for me to pin down.
Locke spread his hands. “I come in peace.”
I didn’t want him to come in peace. I wanted him to come inside—
Wow. Okay. Talk about a mood shift. I kept my gaze ferocious to disguise the fact that the end of that thought was ambiguous. Nash and me... we’d spent way too many nights rolling around my bed, drinking rum, and whispering dirty fantasies in each other’s ears, all of them hot as hell. Every single one of them about Locke.
Nash had a thing for watching Locke fuck me. For fucking me while Locke fucked him. I had a thing for all of it. Whatever made them happy.
But what did make Locke Halliwell happy?
Juana disappeared to retrieve her children from River.
I stepped into Locke’s orbit and tapped a fingernail to his chest. “You don’t really have to follow me around. Not here.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Why not?”
Locke’s gaze descended to where my touch had come to rest in the dip of his pecs. “Lots of reasons.”
“Give me three.”
“That the magic number?”
“It’s the only number.”
Locke held my stare.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then he shook his head. “This is happening because people care about you. Everything else is just noise.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
