Page 114 of Cruel Lies

Seeing her lying there in my bed, her head onmypillow, tucked in betweenmysheets, stirred possessive feelings in me, primal feelings in me, that no other woman before her ever had. I wanted to touch her, hold her, inhale the scent of her shampoo as she slept soundly in my bed. I needed to put my hands on her in some manner, to reassure myself she was okay. That she was real. That this wasn’t some sort of sick, delusional nightmare that I was living in my head.

Instead, I forced myself to pick up a phone and dial my brother.

Rowan picked up on the third ring.

"She gonna be okay?" he asked hesitantly, like he was afraid of what the answer might be.

I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me. "Yeah, she’ll make it. She’s upstairs now. The Surgeon hooked her up to a bag of blood?—"

"Did you tell him she’s an O neg?"

"Of course. Who the fuck do you think I am? Nash?"

Speaking of our eldest brother . . .

I could hear soft moaning and agonized, muffled crying amidst pleas for mercy and the soft whoof of someone being punched in the gut, expelling their air in a rush.

"I take it you two caught up with Bonnie and Clyde?"

Rowan’s dark chuckle sent a shiver down my spine. "Let’s just say these two regret ever laying eyes on our girl right now."

Our girl.

The sound of that pleased me more than I wanted it to.

"They’ll have to come back alive so they can answer to Lilly," I pointed out, and I could feel the frustration in Rowan’s sigh.

"Nash isn’t going to be happy about that."

"Yeah, so I figured." My eyes trailed over Harper’s weak figure, so pale, so bruised, scuffed up hands and knees where she’d fallen to the concrete in a fight for her life. "Those are the rules, straight from the boss lady herself."

"I’ll see what I can do. No promises."

I shrugged, forgetting he couldn’t see me again as I sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. "Not my problem. I’m just the messenger."

"We shouldn’t be long," he muttered, clearly distracted by whatever was going on wherever he was. "I hope."

"I’ll stay with her," I offered, knowing what he was about to ask. "You do what needs to be done."

"I’ll let you know when we’re on our way back."

When he hung up, the room was silent once more, and I found myself giving in to my more base urges, breaking all my own rules for a fuckingtasteof what the others had.

My body curled protectively around hers, and I carefully, slowly wrapped my arms around her, relishing the sound of her heart slowly beating in the hollow of her chest as I lay my head atop it. My own matched its pace, the two of us alive in unison, two hearts acting as one as I let myself drift to sleep with the knowledge that she would be okay.

I might’ve wanted nothing more than to get rid of her, but now that I knew what it was to almost lose her, I could never see myself letting go again.

Harper was ours. She wasmine.And when she woke up, I’d let her know.

I’d apologize for all the wrongs I’d done to her in my life as long as she forgave me.

She did this to me. Made me weak. Made me less than a man.

But was I really weak for admitting a part of her wasinevitably wound tight into the very fabric of my being? Was it weak to love someone so much it ached to be apart? Was it a weakness to give yourself wholeheartedly to the protection and well-being of another person?

If so, maybe I wanted to be weak.

Because a life without Harper in it was pointless now.

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