“First of all.” He crosses the threshold and closes the door. “Ihaveseen men cry at war. More than a few times. I don’t judge them for their emotions during the scariest fucking minutes of their lives, and I won’t judge you for the same. Andsecond, I have a sister, remember? She calls me for the same reasons you called Ry, and if, for whatever reason, I’m not around to help her out, I’d like to think a friend would swing by and make her feel safe without judgment. I’d break his fucking hands for hugging her and thinking she’s kinda pretty,” he admits with a chuckle. “But the helping her bit? I’d want that.”
He thinks I’m pretty.
Goddammit, he thinks I’m beautiful.
“You blush, even in the dark, Nova Nichols.” He feathers the tips of his fingers across my cheek before stepping around and wandering through my house. “It’s endearing as hell and confusing right along with it.”
“Confusing?” Like an eager little puppy, I follow him to the kitchen and past the table in the middle. “Why is it confusing?”
“Because I’m the proxy brother, remember?” He stops by my back door, wrapping his hand around the knob, but glancing back to search my eyes. “I don’t think brotherly things when I look at you. Which is wildly inappropriate, not only because I know Ry would Hulk Smash me for it, and not even because you have absolutely no interest in entertaining non-brotherly stuff right now, but because your electric box isn’t the only thing going through a crisis. That makes me a shitty person.While you’re fighting to catch your breath and trying your hardest to get through another day, it seems I’m more interested in flirting with a pretty girl and coaxing a smile to her lips.” His eyes flash with regret before he turns to pull the door open. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Stay here.” He crosses the threshold and moves into the dark. “I’ll fix your power real quick and get you back on track.”
“Wait!” Panic propels me forward before he can close the door. “I don’t wanna stay inside alone.”
10
LINCOLN
DON’T TOUCH
She makes it too easy, which, honestly, makes me feel like an absolute pile of steaming shit.
I don’t mind screwing with people who deserve it, and I have no qualms about making a man bleed if he’s the reason someone else, someone far more innocent, is bleeding.
But Nova Nichols has committed no crimes. If she possesses the code her brother left behind, I doubt she even knows it. She has nothing to do with Richard Aster and whatever the last of the five keys unlocks. She’s just an innocent, thrust into someone else’s war, and left alone in no-man’s-land with no fucking clue how to defend herself.
Worse, she doesn’t even realize sheneedsto defend herself.
I switch my phone flashlight on and retrace the steps I’ve already walked today, but this time, I do it with a shaking woman on my heels, her fingers wrapped through the loop of my jeans. Though fuck knows, neither of us mentions them. I’llbe her safe space in a scary world, and I’ll never tell her I was the one who messed with her power box in the first place.
I needed an invitation into her home, and even if I feel like a fucking douchebag for securing it this way, it’s better than kicking her door in and terrifying a woman already so close to the end of her tether.
If Richard Aster becomes desperate enough, he won’t care about her trauma, and he sure as hell won’t feel bad for sending Tank in to do the job.
“I haven’t always been afraid of the dark, just so you know.” Nova’s words come out in a whisper, though there’s no real reason for it. We’re here alone. “I’m not even afraid of the dark right now. I’m just…” She bumps into my back when I slow down and pretend not to know where to go. “That way.” She points. “Ya know, when you expect something to be a certain way, and when it’s not, your body goes into a kind of panic mode? I could be sitting in the dark any other time, and it wouldn’t bother me. But I was expecting the light to come on, so when it didn’t… and now the sun is completely gone, and?—”
“I understand.” Idiscoverthe power box attached to the side of the house, so I adjust our direction and flash the light over the uneven ground to make it look like I have no clue where I am or what I might stumble on. Opening the heavy steel cover, I offer the phone over my shoulder and smile when she hesitantly takes it. “Can you hold that for me?”
I already know how to fix her problem, but it’s important I take my five minutes of being her hero and buying a little trust, and with it, I may be able to secure an invitation back tomorrow.
“Do you know much about this stuff?” Her hand shakes,which means the light does, too. But I don’t mention it. “Power is for electricians, right? Not a ‘he’s a guy and my neighbor, so he’ll do’.”
“That’s like saying I’d expect you to cook dinner instead of ordering in.” I pull the breaker free of its little slit and blow on it, just like we blew on Nintendo 64 games back in the day. “Since you’re a woman and you’ll do.” I peek over my shoulder and smirk. “I know what I’m doing, within reason. If I electrocute myself, that would be a good sign I messed up, and you should call a pro.”
“Shut up.” She uses the loop of my jeans to step closer, peering around my shoulder while I tap a few things and wiggle a few others. “Please don’t electrocute yourself. I’m begging you. I can’t handle anything like that right now.”
She just watched her brother die, dickhead.
“I’m sorry.” I hold her eyes and let her see the genuine remorse beating in my blood. “I’ll be careful, I promise. I was having similar issues with my rental, too. It’s probably just because the houses are so old. Since I intend to buy as soon as this chick at the bank gets herself together and approves my loan, I didn’t bother calling the landlord just so he could do a cheap patchwork job. I want it fixed properly. Not temporarily.”
“Thischick at the bank,” she plays along, “is doing her job, smarty pants. You can’t expect me to give you half a million dollars just because you said so.”
“I mean…” I wiggle something else and buy myself a little more time. “It would make my life much easier if you did. Renting the house I’m about to pay a mortgage for feels superfluous. And if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t ask for half a million. I asked for three hundred thousand. The rest I’ll cover on my own.”
“It takes time.” She grins in my peripherals, her quivering jaw relaxing and her supple tits resting against my back. I’m not sure she realizes it yet. But I feel her. I’m brutally, dangerously aware of how close she is.
She’s a doe in the wild, and I’m the hunter. But at least in the real world, the doe knows they’re being hunted.
“I wouldn’t mind that meal you mentioned, though.” I grab a perfectly functional breaker and give it a little jiggle. “I got home only a few minutes before you called, and I haven’t eaten since lunch. I’m so hungry I might eat my arm.”
