“You think I don’t know that when you get extra scared or nervous that you talk faster or that you throw out some joke? You always did that. Always tried to laugh it off when you were terrified of something.”
She swallowed. “Excuse me for trying to find a bit of light in the darkness.”
She was his light in the darkness. Fuck me. “This is such a mistake.” He shoved back from her. Mostly because he’d been seconds away from kissing her.
She kissed me right outside of the church. He’d been so stunned that he’d frozen on her. When what he’d really wanted to do…Lock my hands around her. Hold her tight. Kiss her frantically. Hungrily. Desperately. Never, ever let go.
“What’s a mistake?” Her big, deep and dark eyes—yep, the hazel had shifted more to dark brown—stared up at him. “Helping me?”
“Wanting to fuck you into oblivion. That’s my current mistake.” He shook his head. “I’d help you any day of the week. You need me, and I’ll come running. Didn’t I prove that tonight?”
Her jaw dropped.
“Stay here.” He was pretty sure he’d given her that order before. But he wanted to make sure she remained in the motel room and out of sight. “I’m going to get the first aid kit. I’ll be back in three minutes. Three minutes.” Maybe two if he hauled ass extra fast.
Her hand flew out to curl around his arm. “What if…what if Kurt comes while you’re gone?”
“Then I’ll beat the hell out of him.” The way he should have done at the church. The way he would have done if he’d known that dick had taken a knife to Delaney.
He’d been operating in the dark. His only order from his sister Agnes had been…
Stop the wedding.
Something he’d already been planning to do before she called.
He pulled away from Delaney. Stalked out of room seventeen and made sure to lock the door behind him. In moments, he was back inside the small motel’s office. The guy behind the counter was scrolling on his phone, humming and bobbing his head. Young male, with wild, puffy hair—blue in a few spots—and with the saddest wisp of a mustache imaginable trying to sprout across his upper lip. When the clerk caught a look at Nash…
The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His eyes widened. “I know the room is shit, man. I tried to warn you. But there is no better room that I can offer. That is, like, it. And there are no refunds. Motel policy.”
Nash slapped a fifty down on the counter.
The kid frowned. “What’s happening right now?”
“I’m taking your first aid kit.”
“My what?”
Grabbing hard for his patience, Nash pointed at the red first aid kit behind the counter.
“Oh, would you look at that?” Real surprise in the teen’s voice. Hell, maybe he wasn’t a teen. Maybe he was in his twenties, but he just looked helluva young. “Wonder when we got that?” the guy asked.
“I’m taking the kit,” Nash said again. He slapped another fifty down on the counter. “And you are going to make absolutely sure that no one ever knows who stayed in room seventeen, got me? And if anyone comes around here before I check out, you alert me. Immediately.”
The kid handed him the first aid kit. The clerk also made the money vanish in a flash, as if he’d just performed a magic trick. “Are you like, wanted for some crime or something?”
Nash stared at him.
“You’re scary, man,” the motel clerk told him. “And you’re also not here. Not at this motel at all. Check. Understood.” A sly wink. “I will tell no one. Never saw you. Don’t know you.”
Nash grunted. He’d deliberately kept Delaney out of the guy’s line of sight. As far as Nash was concerned, no one else needed to see her. It was safer for Delaney that way. Armed with his kit, he hurried back to room seventeen.
Had Delaney followed orders? He entered the room, bracing himself to see her in those stockings and panties and the bra that made him want to get down on his knees and worship the woman.
Water was running in the bathroom. Nash could hear it. He locked the front door and hurried toward the sound of that water, only to draw up short when he realized that her stockings were on the floor near the bathroom’s entrance. Her stockings and her high heels.
Nash stopped. Swallowed. “Delaney?”
“It’s really not bad. I, uh, I cleaned away most of the blood. It’s not deep. Not too deep, anyway.” She moved into the bathroom doorway.
