Page 68 of Hemlock

"They aren't my friends, and the danger that comes with them is forcing me to stay away from you."

"Because you're protecting me?"

He dips his head once, as if it's a burden but he's willing to take it on despite it being so.

I flinch when he scoots the chair across the floor, the noise echoing abruptly in the mostly empty room.

Then he's sitting right across from me, the gun tucked back into his waistband as he lifts his hand and cups my face.

I swear this man is my greatest weakness, the biggest challenge I'll ever have to face in my lifetime.

I should slap him again and leave, tell him to stay out of my life, but I know I won't. I'm trapped in his multicolored gaze, hoping he plans on keeping me.

"Why did you pick me?" I ask, wondering if he's going to be willing to tell me anything when he hasn't been very forthcoming with information in the past.

"You were connected to Tommy Wilkinson," he answers immediately, and it sends a thrill of victory up my spine.

"I just work at his bar. Why were you trying to get information on him?"

"He was running an illegal prostitution ring out of his bar. We found The Lost Kitten on a list connected to a very bad man, and we needed to find out what that connection was."

I nod my head. Hearing what Tommy was up to isn't that big of a surprise, especially not after his hints about clientele and offering me a different job. I sort of concluded he was doing something like that, and with Teena "interviewing" through sex, it solidified the idea for me.

"Was he connected to the bad man?"

He shakes his head. "The bar was discovered to be a possible acquisition."

"What does the bad man do?"

"Sex trafficking. Tommy is scum, have no doubt about that, but from what we can tell, he treated his girls fairly well. If that's even possible considering he was having them make money for him by selling their bodies."

I rub at the cold chills that rush up my arms with the news.

"You claimed to be dangerous."

"I am dangerous," he growls, his hand skating over the top of his head, eyes growing a little wild and unfocused. "I fucking hurt people for a living."

"You use them and throw them away, like you did me?"

"I… fuck. It was never my intent to hurt you. This job was supposed to be different."

"Different from what?" I ask, wondering just how many women he has gotten close to in order to take a bad guy down.

"This is Tennessee, but also New Mexico."

I shake my head in confusion.

"I was part of a group of men in New Mexico that went mostly to South America and Mexico and took down branches of sex traffickers, only every one of those fucking men and women in New Mexico all fell in love. I didn't want any part of that disgusting shit. All the smiles, and side-long looks, all the innuendo, and how they'd just rather stay in their rooms with their lovers than do anything else. It made my skin crawl."

I bite my lips between my teeth because as he talks about hating the way those other people acted, he's tracing hearts on my arm, making a shiver race up my spine.

"I was offered a job here. I was to be part of a program that worked on domestic cases rather than ones where we had to leave the country. It would take a little more finesse, meaning I couldn't do what it was that I do best."

"Hurt people?" I clarify.

"Exactly. I had to use my head more than my knife. We had to stay under the radar because local police weren't informed we were working cases in their jurisdictions until it was time for them to know. That sort of shit pisses a lot of people off. They don't like people slinking around their backyards without them knowing."

"And this is some sort of branch of the men in New Mexico?"

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