Page 73 of His to Protect

“Do you like him?” Suzanne asked.

Next to me, Blue snickered. “You should see the way they stare at each other.”

“What?” I turned my head toward her.

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, you look at him like he’s your real-life hero, and he looks at you like he’d be willing to step in front of a grenade if it’d keep you safe.”

“Yes!” Suzanne shouted. “That’s the kind of guy he is. Exactly, and with his looks…and come on…that body, you have to like him.”

“Have you been with him?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

At the question, the entire table burst out in laughter.

Suzanne lifted her hands, palms out. “No way. I’ve known Dec since we were kids. Lucas is it for me, as initfor me, but I’d be blind if I didn’t notice how incredible Declan has turned out to be, and not just his body, but in the kind of guy he is. Lucas is amazing. Protective and kind and sexy as hell, but Declan…that man is on a whole other level of awesomeness.”

“You’re sort of freaking me out,” I replied.

Her words also confirmed the kind of guy I had already assumed he was.

“So tell us, then,” Chelsea said, cutting in. She pushed a hunk of blonde hair behind her ear and smiled. “What’s going on with you and why wouldn’t you want to stay with him?”

I paused for a moment, trying to decide again how much honesty they could handle, when Blue whispered, “We might be loud and crazy, but I can guarantee you that these women will never speak a word of anything you say to anyone else. You can trust them.”

I blinked rapidly, my eyes stinging a bit from the kindness they were showing me. “I just recently left my husband who hit me,” I admitted softly.

Harsh inhales of breath echoed around the table and I found it difficult to lift my eyes to meet their gazes. Regardless, I soldiered on.

“Declan’s been helping me. I like him, Ireallylike him, but I’m having a hard time trusting myself, leaving one guy to fall for the first guy I meet, even if he is a good guy. And yeah, I think he likes me, but I’ve been under someone else’s control for so long that the idea of being by myself, living on my own for a while, is appealing. Yet that means having to leave Declan’s house.”

“But not Declan.”

I lifted my eyes to Suzanne’s and shook my head. “No, it wouldn’t mean leaving Declan.”

“Just his bed at night.”

I chewed on the inside of my lip. Since we’d been back from Chicago, we shared a bed every night, but we hadn’t been intimate again. I thought being with Declan in Chicago would change that aspect of our relationship, but it seemed as if Declan was taking a step back. At the very least, he hadn’t pushed us forward.

I simply liked sleeping with Declan’s arms around me. I liked being with him, even if I still worried it was too soon. But the fact that Declan hadn’t touched me again in anything more than a comfortable way had me worried. Was he having second thoughts about us? Second thoughts aboutme?

As if sensing my nervousness or my embarrassment, Blue spoke up. “You’ll decide when you know what’s right. But I’m with Suzanne on this one. Since I’ve known him, Declan seems like the best of the best, and if he’s said you can stay at his place, he means it. He doesn’t throw bullshit around and say what he doesn’t mean. He’s not that kind of guy. But if you need to live on your own for a while, feel the independence that most women want, he’ll get it. Based on what I saw today, it won’t change anything about the way he feels for you.”

The way he felt for me. The words rattled inside my brain and made me dizzy.

I wanted to ask her what she meant by what she saw today. Based on Declan’s behavior the last few days, I had my own questions, yet I was too chicken to ask.

Maybe she saw what she wanted to see, not what was really there.

I bit my tongue, shrugged, and took a sip of my drink. “I’ll figure it out soon, so you can find another sublet if you need to.”

She grinned. “No worries. We’ve got time.”

I opened my mouth to ask her when she was planning on moving in with Tyson when, from across the table, Chelsea cursed. “Ouch! You brat!”

Paige giggled and I looked up to see Chelsea scowling at her while rubbing her bicep.

“What?” Blue asked and then turned her head in the direction of the bar, looking where Paige pointed and where Chelsea’s eyes were fixed.

I twisted around, following the movement of the rest of the women, and saw Aidan and Derrick standing at the bar. Derrick reached for a stack of food containers while Aidan slid his credit card toward the bartender.

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