Page 41 of Reckless Pawn

I was still standing there with my mouth hanging open too stunned to speak. "Uhh—I guess but—"

"Perfect." He turned back around and proceeded to place an order, ignoring me completely. God, he was so frustrating. He had no business showing up here and ignoring what I had to say. I turned away and headed into the kitchen. Clearly if he wasn't going to leave then the rest of this night needed wine.

"Hey, babe," he called. "I'm ordering an assortment of burritos and enchiladas. What's your poison? You want anything specific?"

I shook my head. Mostly because I was annoyed, but some because I was enjoying the view. I had dreamed about this very scene for weeks and now he was here, in full living color, mere days after I negotiated his release from the club.

Which now forced me to process the anger and resentment I felt all over again. I poured more wine into my half full glass. I definitely needed a lot more wine.

What. The. Hell. Was. Going. On?

He finished the call and placed his cell phone on the coffee table. "Come here, princess. I want you sitting next to me."

I gulped more wine. I didn't care how pathetic I must look. It wasn't easy using anger as my defense when it came to the man I craved. Which, of course, still made no sense either. One brief fling did not make a relationship. But for some reason he'd come after me in that hellhole. And in that moment I'd come back to life. He'd given me a reason to live and then took it away again in a matter of minutes.

"Why did you do it?" I blurted before I had a second chance to reconsider my words.

He turned his head and stared at me.

"Do what?"

He asked the question but I could tell by the look in his eyes he knew exactly what I meant. But for some reason he wanted me to say it.

I placed my glass on the counter and braced my hands along the edge. Fine. If he wanted me to say it, I would and then some. "Why throw your life away and come after me if you were just going to hand me off to strangers? It made no sense then and makes even less now."

His voice hardened. "What was I supposed to do? Turn my back on you despite knowing what kind of people had taken you? That's not me, Izzy. I didn't want to come back to the club, but it was a better choice than leaving you in hell."

"You should have walked away. We barely knew each other. You owed me nothing."

Instead of answering me right away he stood and stalked around the couch in my direction. "Seriously?" he growled. "You disappeared in the middle of a damn fine day, pretty much the best I'd ever had and I was supposed to walk away? Would you be happier to have become the whore Marco groomed you for? Or possibly dead by now? Cause that's where that shit was headed."

I shrugged, the blood in my veins now ice cold. I had thought about my death more than once in the past few months. "Yeah, why not? At least we'd both be free."

He reached for me and pulled me against him. I stiffened, shocked to feel his hard body pressed to mine.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Izzy. But you need to get something straight in your head. I did what I had to because in the moment it was the right thing to do for both of us. We may not have known each other well, but you were withme. And when you're with me, that means you're mine and I am not going to roll my ass over and let some rich, motherfuckers steal or hurt what's mine. Fuck that noise. For a few days or forever, in that moment it didn't matter, you belonged to me." He took a hard, deep breath, obviously grappling with his anger. "I'm only sorry it took me so long to get there."

A strangled cry slipped out of me at his words. What was I supposed to say to that? I had nothing. I was nothing. Why didn't he know that?

"Shhh. It's really okay now. I'm not letting anything else happen to you." He brushed my infernal curls out of my eyes and tucked the hair behind my ear. A really big part of me wanted to melt into his touch. Let go. I could still remember how fun our time had been. The only real part of my life.

Then I remembered itwasn'treal. Because he wasn't real.

"You're safe here," he whispered against the shell of my ear, sending tiny electric shivers racing down my arms and back.

I pulled back and looked up at his eyes. Some of the anger dissipated and I felt the sorrow shining out clear to my bones. "My future is not more important than yours."

He opened his mouth and started to speak but I interrupted before he got a word out. "Don't. Don't tell me I'm wrong. And don't tell me it was nothing for me to worry about, or club business or any of the other hundred excuses you probably have. Just promise me you'll never do that again."

His shoulders dropped an inch, a subtle but clear signal that he was resigned to telling me something. "I traded my life for your safety and I would do it again in a heartbeat." His body went hard and unforgiving. "That may not be what you want to hear, but it's the truth. I agreed to come back here, be a part of the club and help them with a particular case they were dealing with. It wasn't a hard deal to make."

I shook my head. "Why would you do that?"

"Are you listening to anything I'm saying? What part of I do whatever the hell I want are you not getting? If it feels right to me I do it. Whatever it takes to help me sleep at night. That can range anywhere from making sure someone who needs it doesn't take another breath on this earth, to in your case, making sure a motherfucker pays for taking and hurting what's mine."

"But you're the one who hurt me the most!" The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He winced, taking a few breaths of his own before he responded. "Yes, I know. Your feelings were the casualty in all this. I get that. But I'd still do it again if I had to. Your safety is more important than your feelings."

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