Page 54 of Dangerous

“Louis is with her—it’s his turn.” Liam poured two mugs of tea and brought one over to me, before he returned to the frying pan as if he hadn’t said anything out of the norm. A promising scent of bacon was beginning to spread in the kitchen.

“Histurn?And she’s okay with that?” I regretted asking the second the words left my mouth, and flushed hotly.

The redhead flashed me a wicked grin. “Who says she knows? We’re identical, after all.”

“That’s…” Exactly the sort of shit I could imagine guys like the Steel brothers getting up to. I shook my head and cradled the hot mug. It wasn’t my concern—I had enough to deal with right now, without trying to school Blaine’s brothers on how to treat women. “Never mind.”

Liam winked at me, but thankfully didn’t comment further.

Blaine gotout later that afternoon.

Louis—who’d come back sometime during the late morning—poked his head into Liam’s bedroom just past two to let me know he was on his way to get me.

I spent the next forty-five minutes quietly freaking out.

I had no way of knowing how this would go down—howhewould react to seeing me, now that there was no immediate danger. I was positive what I’d seen in his eyes in that warehouse was love, and for him to risk his lifeandthe entire Steel empire to get me, there had to be more than hurt pride in it. But I was under no illusion that Blaine Steel was happy with me. There had been pure fury in his eyes too, and I was pretty certain it wasn’t all reserved for my father.

I had left him, after we’d bared our souls to each other. I’d run away with his child.

Whatever he may feel for me, I wasn’t sure it would be a positive outcome for me.

And then there were my own messed up emotions.

I had wanted him from the very start. I’d thought it was pure, physical attraction, because I’d been too scared to even consider the alternative. And then, when he’d finally let me in… I had been so overwhelmed with everything, so wrapped up in the way he made me feel safe and protected. The way my entire being sang for him.

The next time I’d seen him, he had been brutally torturing a man.

Even now, the thought of seeing the man I’d let myself be vulnerable with be so savage made my heart flutter with fear. If he was capable of such violence, would I ever truly be safe with him? Would my child?

As if the baby knew I was thinking about its father, it moved restlessly inside. I put a hand against my stomach to soothe it.

I wanted to be with him more than I had ever wanted anything else. No one had ever made me feel like he had. But I couldn’t let my own feelings come ahead of my child’s safety. I couldn’t be that selfish.

Maybe if my mother had been strong enough to put her children ahead of herself, none of all the horrible things in my life would have happened. Maybe Michael and Devlen wouldn’t have been messed up beyond repair.

I couldn’t repeat my mother’s mistakes. Even if it meant ripping out my own heart instead.

The faint sound of a knock on the front door tore me out of my thoughts.

I swallowed thickly and climbed off the bed, wiping my sweaty palms against my thighs.

There was no more time for thinking. Blaine was here.

He stood justinside the front door, arms folded across his leather-clad chest when I came out from the bedroom. Both the twins were talking to him, and from the frown on his face they weren’t discussing the weather. Marcus was nowhere in sight.

Blaine looked up as I came around the corner, his frown only deepening as he locked eyes with me.

My heart flip-flopped in my chest at the look in his eyes. It was dark. Yearning.

It made me forget every reservation and every fear I’d had for the past hour. Without thought, I launched myself across the room and into his arms.

The soft leather of his coat pressed against me as he closed his arms around me and lifted me up. I cradled my head against the side of his neck and closed my ankles behind his lower back. My bulging stomach pressed firmly into his, keeping me from getting as close as I needed to be fully secure, but Blaine put a hand underneath my backside and another around my back, supporting my weight perfectly.

He held me close, his head buried in my hair. His breath huffed against the shell of my ear in deep, shaky draws, and I knew he was fighting to stay in control of the onslaught of emotions that currently warred inside my chest, too. It took all I had not to start bawling like a baby.

Home.I was home.

“So… we’re gonna head out then,” one of the twins said. “Give you two some time to catch up.”

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