“I’ve seen mosquitoes do more damage,” he bit back. “You could have gotten hurt.” His eyes flared. “Youdidget hurt.”
Was he serious right now? “What was I supposed to do? Watch you fight with a bullet wound?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not just going to cower when everyone is in troub?—”
He snatched my chin, tilting up my face and squeezing until my cheeks hollowed around my teeth. “You don’t gamble with your safety.Ever.”
The ferocity with which he gave the command made my stomach flip, but even still, my eyes narrowed in challenge. “Says the man who jumps in front of bullets.”
“If it threatens you, it answers to me.”
The bold statement knocked the breath from my lungs and any retort from my lips and staggered the rhythmic beating of my heart. How dare he say such darkly possessive things like he had every right to claim me?
He might have my heart… but the rest of me was mine and mine alone.
“Hiro.” My hand flattened over his stomach, fingers curling around his side. His skin was warm despite being bare, and even though the touch was meant to remind him he did not own me, suddenly, my mouth was dry.
“Tell me why you’re limping.” The edge in his voice was not gone. “If the person who did this to you is still living, he is living on borrowed time.”
I wondered what he’d say if I told him the person hurting me the most was me.
“Rett.” He was impatient, crowding me even farther against the wall.
“It’s not because of yesterday,” I confessed. “I must havetwisted my ankle when I was running.”
His eyes skewered mine, searching for a lie but coming up short. “You twisted your ankle,” he echoed, still probing.
“And maybe my knee,” I admitted.
His stare relented, melting into concern. It shouldn’t have been charming the way his dark brows dipped in the middle when he frowned. But consider me captivated.
The hand he used to wring me dry of pleasure just minutes before delved into his pocket to pull out a small bottle of pills. The ones Haz had tried to give me before. “And these?”
“Headache,” I replied, pointing to the bruise he’d already seen.
The lid uncapped with a pop, and he shook a few out into his palm. “Can you swallow them without water?”
“I already took some,” I told him, covering his hand with mine.
“You don’t need more?” he questioned. It almost felt like a test.
I shook my head. “You’re supposed to wait at least six hours between doses.”
He stared another second, the secrets in his eyes not giving an inch. Then he tucked the bottle away and bent down in front of me. “Let’s go.”
I plastered myself against the brick, eyes roaming over his broad shoulders and the tattoo of the dark angel covering his back.
“I’m not going with you,” I told him. I was trying to get away!
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“No, I—” The look he fired over his shoulder cut off my protest.
And when he spoke, the threat in his low tone was obvious. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Perversely, I wondered what the hard way was. But I decided against calling his bluff and draped myself over his back. He stood easily, as though he didn’t have the weight of an entire human to carry, and hooked his arms beneath my knees.
