Page 6 of Assassin's Prey
And this was the problem with us, right here. The only consideration should be her safety, not her feelings. Hurting her felt like stabbing myself, but I was used to pain—I hardened my heart and plowed on. “Anywhere you would go, routines, patterns, anything that could be tracked online is a way to find you. To hurt you.”
“Then my school, my home, my car—all those records lead right back to me. I can’t avoid them and still have a life.”
“No, you can’t.” That’s exactly why I lived the way I did. Why my brothers had no life, as she so succinctly put it. Because it was dangerous.
After her father’s death last year, I’d left Abby alone, thinking it was better for her to have her freedom. She was just getting started when the hunger became too much, when I couldn’t breathe another second without her, and I’d shown up on her doorstep, dragging her right back into my world like the selfish bastard that I was. I’d regretted that for the last three months.
But after today, after seeing her targeted and knowing there was no way for her to protect herself? I’d get down on my knees and thank God for making me a fucking asshole if I believed in him anymore. I hadn’t been able to protect my parents, but my brothers and Abby? I’d do it or die trying. Even if she hated my guts for a little while.
“I won’t give up everything I’ve worked so hard for because some dickhead has decided to target me for whatever reason,” Abby said.
Frustration turned her creamy skin a pale pink that made me want to run my tongue over it, see if she was as hot as she looked—and tasted as good. I let the need spark in my own eyes, throwing Abby off her game.
Her gaze dropped to my shoulder, but she didn’t give up. “Why can’t you just protect me at my place?”
“Because I have a job too, and I can’t be on top of you twenty-four-seven.”
She squirmed, and I knew my words had sent her mind in other directions besides leaving. Good. A solid hour in bed would help work out the frustration coiling me as tight as a drum.
Abby wasn’t that easily swayed, though. Stubborn to a fault, she strode for the door. “I’m not staying, Levi. That’s final.”
I stepped into her path, blocking the door, and folded my arms over my chest.
“Move,” she barked.
My blank stare answered for me, and Abby’s color heightened even more. She was pissed; I got that. But I wasn’t letting her leave. If she needed to take out her frustration, scream, yell, hit me…whatever. I could take it. But I wasn’t budging from this spot.
But she didn’t strike out. She threw her head back, fists white with tension, her angry growl ripping through the air, but it didn’t rock the warehouse. And when she lowered her head and met my eyes again, it wasn’t only anger in them. The surface roiled with it, but underneath, there was something else, something that set me on alert. A bomb was coming my way, and I braced for it the only way I knew how.
By tightening down even further.
“I can’t…” She squeezed her eyes shut. Blinked them open. “I can’t do this anymore, Levi.”
My breath caught in my throat, choking me. “What the hell are you talking about?” Because no fucking way did she mean what I thought she meant.
“This.” Her anger filtered away as she waved a hand between us. That something under the surface shot to the top—grief. “It hurts too much.”
I was giving her everything I had to give. That shouldn’t hurt. It should be enough.Ishould be enough.
“I can’t keep getting drawn into your world, Levi. The uncertainty. The instability. I can’t live without a life, without something that belongs to me.”
“I belong to you.” As much as I could belong to anyone. I’d given up fighting that after staying away from her for a year and nearly going insane.
She blinked, and a tear rolled down her heated cheek. “Do you?” She gave that little laugh/hiccup sound that had nothing to do with amusement. “You can’t even sleep with me. You fuck me and you wait till I’m asleep—if I’m lucky—and then you’re gone. You’re a ghost that visits when you want sex and hides from me when you don’t. I can’t live like this anymore. I need all of you.”
“All of me isn’t available to give, Abby.” The words might seem ugly, brutal even, but they were the truth. And that was the only thing I could give her. The only thing I was fully capable of giving.
I didn’t believe there was anallwhen it came to me.Allhad been chopped into tiny little pieces by life, scattered and lost, hardened and honed by death, and I couldn’t be put back together again. It wasn’t possible. If it had been, I’d have done it for Abby a long time ago.
Her fist came up to press hard over her heart. She closed her eyes, and I could see her mentally trying to pull herself together. To re-form the shell that protected her from hurt. From me.
The animal deep inside roared a denial.
“I can’t,” she finally whispered, the words as broken as she looked. “I can’t be with you, Levi.”
The animal tore free. “You damn well can,” I shouted, stalking toward her.
Abby backed up, her shoulders hitting the concrete wall. “Why? So I can lie there at night and watch you walk out the door? Why is it so easy for you to leave me? And I can’t do the same?”
