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“No one will.”
Her stare drills through the dark between us. “How can you know that?”
I keep my eyes on the road. “Because that house has always been better at silence than company.”
The car goes quiet except for Metallica, the heater, and rain pelting glass.
Sera stares out at the streets passing in wet strips of orange and white. The lights catch on her face beneath the cap, and I try very hard to remind myself this is just me having fun before I have to publicly behave.
I know what I’m doing.
I’ve known since the first time I looked at Sera Tallon strung up in our barn and made the mistake of liking what I saw.
Stay out of her way. Keep my eyes off her mouth. Stop imagining what that temper would feel like with my hand at her throat. Never give her the time of day or a reaction, or the satisfaction of knowing she got either from me.
Those were simple enough instructions I’d given myself.
Despite them all, she tried to put distance between us, and I went to the pub to close it.
And when she looked at me.
That was all it took.
But this isn’t love. It’s a fucking unsatisfied appetite, violence, bad blood, and a woman I keep failing to leave alone.
Still, she’s in my car, coming home with me, and whatever happens after that belongs to me, not my father.
The road bends toward home.
“Will you take me home after I sort out your hand?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
The gates to my house come into view beyond the windshield wipers, black iron and wet stone caught in the sweep of the headlights.
“On whether you have the energy to leave.”
Sera’s hand slips from the door handle. She watches the gates divide, then turns to me, her gaze dropping to my mouth before rising again.
Once can be dismissed as a mistake. Twice means we chose it.
And if the wrong person catches her leaving my house, that choice becomes a betrayal neither family will forgive.
I drive us through anyway, my pulse kicking harder as the gates close behind us.
Chapter 21
Sera
We pull up outside his family home, and Fionn turns off the engine.
Rain pelts the Range Rover’s roof while the gray stone mansion waits to swallow me whole.
Getting into the car with him was a reckless move. Last time, he actually dropped me home, and I was foolish to think I could trust him again. I never imagined he’d bring me here. Even if Alasdair isn’t inside, it still counts as a Tallon betrayal.
And the way my pulse thrums when I look over at him, that’s worse.
