“I found you at Rock Bottom an hour ago, Sadie.”
“I wasn’t in any danger! I mean, those guys were a little scary, but I didn’t think they’dhurtme. Not until you barged in all macho aggressive and threatened to kill Cash Bridges.”
And kissed me, I refrained from saying.
“Youwhat?” Jack asked, eyes widening as he glanced at his brother. Gideon ignored him and kept those blue eyes trained on me.
Bennett whistled. “Shit,” he murmured.
Knox just sighed and said nothing as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
I pointed at the screen. “We have a problem,” I said. “Someone is targeting me, and we don’t know if there’s any relation to Mr. Titty. Mr. Titty is also getting bolder and seems to be going after your grandma’s properties. First, we need to figure out if they’re related. Then we need to stop them.”
“I like her,” Bennett said to Knox. Knox ignored him.
“We’re not using you as bait,” Gideon growled. His eyes sparked as they held my gaze, and I felt a shiver course through me.
“It’s the easiest way of finding out who did this to my car. And once we have them, we can get them to tell us whether or not they’re Mr. Titty.”
“No.”
“Gideon.”
“I saidno, Sadie.”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to just agree with you, am I? Because you say no?”
Tension was thick enough to slice. Bennett broke it with a low whistle and a laugh, and Gideon used the opportunity to close the distance between us. He wrapped a hand around my arm and walked me toward the exit.
“What are you doing?” I protested. “We haven’t finished.”
“Oh, we’re done here, Sadie,” he growled.
“I donotlike this side of you,” I said as he opened the door to the stairwell. It closed behind us with a bang, and I realized that was a lie.
I liked this side of him very much. I liked the fire in his eyes, and the way he couldn’t seem to stop touchingme. I liked the way he caught me around the waist and pushed me up against the bare concrete wall.
“You,” he said in a quiet, dark voice, “are not bait. You’re never going to be bait. Understand?”
“I am a grown woman,” I answered, but my voice trembled. He was so close to me. So big. I wanted him so badly.
For a moment, I thought he felt the same. His eyes dropped to my lips and then skated away. I thought he was holding back from kissing me again.
But he wasn’t. He dropped his hands from my waist and took a big step back. Like being so close to me repelled him. He could only stand it for a few measly seconds.
I wanted to cry.
He glared at me once more and said, “I’m taking you home. I’m setting up a perimeter around the cottage, and you’re not going anywhere without me or one of my brothers by your side.”
Horror dawned inside me. Instead of the pleasant, relaxing time I’d had so far in town, I’d be stuck with a man I couldn’t help but desperately want. A man who clearly didn’t want me back. No matter what had happened in that room upstairs, or in Rock Bottom in front of an entire biker gang, or alone in the bedroom on our wedding night, the truth was that Gideon always recoiled. It was like he was trying to force himself to want me, but he couldn’t quite manage.
He was a one out of ten; he just didn’t want me that way.
If he’d kept his distance all the time, I would’ve been okay. My own desire for him would fade, and I’d find some sort of stasis in town. I’d settle for an okay life.
But this hot-and-cold act was driving me insane. Especially when I knew that even if wedidwant each other, I still hadn’ttold him about my malfunctioning body. We were never going to get our happily-ever-after, but I couldn’t stop myself from dreaming about it.
Maybe this whole thing had been doomed from the start. We weren’t a perfect match because I’d lied on my application. Gideon was just a microcosm of the whole town and the easy, quiet life it promised: something I desperately wanted that didn’t want me back.
