He nodded as though he’d read something in her face. Then he grasped hold of her chin and leaned in close. “Do you know that I’ve only ever wanted to kiss one person in my life.”
“What?” she asked.
“Yeah. The man holding you right now. He’s the only man I’ve ever wanted to kiss. The only person I’ve ever trusted not to harm me. He’s going to take good care of you.”
“I know he will,” she said.
“Better care than I ever could.”
Oh.
Did he think he might scare her?
“I’m not scared of you.”
He tilted his head to the side, studying her like she was a bug under a microscope. But she didn’t take offense. She let him look at her while she wore her certainty on her face. It seemed thatthese two guys were experts at hiding their feelings. Especially North. She figured that what they all needed was some honesty.
“You’re not scared of me?” North asked.
“No.” She made certain that she had no doubt in her voice. Because he would pick up on any small nuance.
There seemed to be very little that North didn’t notice.
“You should be. You don’t know the things that I’m capable of. The things that I’ve done.”
“Will you hurt me, North? More than what I ask for, than I can handle?”
He sucked in a breath as though he hadn’t expected her to come straight out and ask him that.
“No.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. Because even though I might not know everything about you, I do see you, North. And you have a lot of good things about you even if you don’t see them. You’re loyal and smart and strong.”
“I’ve done bad things.”
“Haven’t we all?” Jared said.
“Things even you don’t know about,” North told Jared.
Oh. She could tell Jared didn’t like that.
“Right, but are you going to do bad things to me?” she asked quietly.
“I already have. I kidnapped you.”
And that was bad. There was no other way to put it and if she sugar-coated what he’d done, well, he’d see through it. And he might try it again. With someone else.
“And you won’t be doing that again, will you?” she said.
“Well, not to you. But I can’t say that I won’t kidnap anyone else.”
“You can only kidnap bad people,” she declared.
North stared at her for a long moment. “Are you giving me orders?”
She raised her chin into the air even though she was nervous as heck. “Yes.”
Angie noticed how tense Jared had grown.
