I want to break him in two. Instead, I turn my hands into inescapable manacles and watch Sami. Because how I want to deal with Allen may terrify her.
Confusion knits her eyebrows, and she shakes her head. “Why, Allen?”
“Sams,” he rasps, straining toward her as far as my grip will allow him. “It’s not… I just…”
She frowns. “You set fire to the cabana at my cabin, didn’t you.”
He bucks against my hold again. “You were meant to come tometo be protected, not this mouth breather!”
Oh, mate. You’re on borrowed fucking time here.
A dry laugh bursts from Sami, and she shakes her head again, hugging her elbows. “So all of it? All the boxes, the concern, the offer to help, the offer to housesit, to look after my axolotl, was what? Just to get into my pants?”
Allen squirms. “You were meant to bemine, Sams. I didn’t realize you’re just a slut who likes to fuck geriatrics.”
“Enough,” I snarl, spinning him around and grabbing a fistful of his hoodie. “You need to apolo?—”
“Let him go, Tony,” Sami says, her voice low.
I uncurl my fingers. Allen staggers backward, glaring at me. “Bet you’re as dumb as two planks of?—”
Sami steps between us, grabs Allen’s shoulders, and slams her knee into his groin. “Sod off, Allen,” she says as he crumples to the ground in a moaning pile. “And don’t come near me or my axolotl again.”
Chapter Ten
Sami
Standing at Gibbo’s living room window, I watch Sergeant Moore escort Allen across Gibbo’s yard, deposit him in the backseat of his police Landcruiser, and then turn to talk to Gibbo.
Gibbo.
My gaze lingers on him, and an invisible band squeezes my chest.
Tall, muscles on muscles, the most amazing, gentle, funny, intimidating man I’ve ever met. He’s still only dressed in his boxer briefs, but there’s no shame or self-consciousness in his body language. He owns the space around him. He towers over Sergeant Moore. He’d towered over Allen as well. Could have snapped Allen over his knee without breaking a sweat. He’d looked like he wanted to.
Was Allen lucky I was here? Or amIlucky Gibbo was?
I jiggle my car keys in one hand and chew on my thumbnail on the other as the sergeant and Gibbo shake hands. I watch the police officer climb behind the wheel.
The engine of the 4x4 kicks over, and Sergeant Moore begins driving away, taking Allen with him.
The band around my chest squeezes tighter. Dropping my head, I study my keys. Allen had planted a Tile tracker under the back wheel arch of my car and followed me here. If not for Gibbo, who knows what might have happened.
What do I do with it all? Not just the Allen thing—holy shit, the Allen thing!—but my unexpected feelings for Gibbo. I’m in love with him. Which is even moreholy shit.
No, it’s impossible. People don’t fall in love that quickly. It’s stress-induced adrenaline. Think of the reason you came up here—to escape a possible creep. And then Gibbo saves you from one at the pub and then saves you again from Allen. You think you love him because he protected you when you felt vulnerable. That’s not love, that’s…that’s transference.
Closing my eyes, I jiggle my keys again. I write horror for a living. I know how powerful the deluded mind can be. Allen was deluded about us, and I’m deluded about how I feel for Tony Gibson.
But what if he feels the same?
“Stop it,” I mutter, opening my eyes and closing my fist around my keys. I pivot on my heel, hurriedly collect my stuff—thank God, I travel light—and head for the front door.
I stop as Gibbo walks through it.
His eyes jump from my laptop bag, to my suitcase, to me. “Hey.”
Aching want flutters in my chest. He is incredible, but if he knew how powerful my feelings for him are, after a mere night, he’d be running for the hills.Iwould.
