Page 86 of Treacherous

His jaw ticked. "What about him?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ah…the guy'sminted," I said in a sardonic tone. "Couldn’t he give you a job?" Shrugging I added, "You're friends with his kids, I'm sure Kyle would help you if you…"

"No," Noah snapped. "I'm not asking Kyle for anymore handouts."

"What do you meananymorehandouts?"

"Exactly what I said," he shot back coolly and I could've howled in frustration.

"They were talking about your step-father, weren’t they?" The more I thought about it the more certain I was that his stepdad was somehow responsible for Noah's fucked up lifestyle…

"George is my stepfather. He's not my real dad. That title goes to the scum bag who left me to clean up his mess…"

"Do you have any idea of what it feels like to have a stepfather just shoved on you when you're fifteen – one that hates your goddamn guts? A guy who uses your mother's treatment as a goddamn bargaining tool?"

"Do you know what it's like – having to pay back the debt of the woman who spent the best part of your childhood shoving you into cupboards and locking you away in a basement for weeks on end because she's convinced the fucking world is against her?"

"Have you ever been afraid Teagan, truly afraid of your parents?

"What's he got you involved in, Noah?" I asked him. God, the guy was trouble with a capital T. Dammit Iknewthis, but instead of feeling fear for myself I felt it forhimbecause deep down I knew he wasn’t bad. Lee had been right when she said Noah was troubled… "Tell me," I urged him. "Let me…help you."

Noah let out a heavy sigh but didn’t reply. Instead he rested his elbow on the car door, placed his head in his hand and used only his thumb on the other hand to steer the wheel. I swallowed deeply and focused on the speedometer that was showing we were doing eighty in a sixty zone.

This made me nervous.

Very nervous.

"You can't help me, Thorn," he whispered finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. "You can't change me either…I'm never gonna be the kind of guy you take home to meet the family."

"So what's the plan," I snapped. "Fight for those men for the rest of your life?"

He shrugged nonchalantly but didn’t answer me.

"Tell me why you fight?" My voice was shaky and I couldn’t stand that Noah could make me feel this unbalanced. "Tell me – what's he got over you?" Because I just knew his stepfather and those men at the hotel were connected. "Tell me, Noah."

"Teagan, I..." Noah paused and inhaled deeply before speaking, "Stop asking questions you know I'll answer with lies."

"So don’t lie," I pressed as I folded my knees beneath myself and turned my body to face him. "Because I won't stop asking."

"I got mixed up in some bad shit when I was younger," Noah admitted, his tone gruff, his eyes dark and focused on the road. "This is my way out."

"What kind of shit?" I asked, leaning closer into his embrace. I was physically drawn to him. I couldn’t help it.

"The kind girls like you only read about," he whispered. "You wouldn’t understand, Teagan," he added. "So there's no point trying."

Anger bubbled to the surface. "That's so stupid, Noah," I hissed, both worried and agitated. I was feeling anxious – for him – and the knowledge of that was incredibly unsettling. "Don’t you care about yourself – about your body?"

Again Noah didn’t answer me.

"What about me?" I clamped my mouth shut the second those three pathetic words slipped out.

****

Noah

"What about me?" she blurted out and I sucked in a sharp breath. I felt more pain the moment those three words fell from Teagan's lip than I'd felt when JD and his gang were kicking the crap out of me.

"What about you, Teagan?" I managed to say as I turned onto our street, even though I was finding it hard to speak. I pulled into her driveway and killed the engine. I was finding it hard to breathe with her sitting next to me, so vulnerable, so fucking beautiful it hurt…

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