Page 73 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
Trembling, I stood there staring at this man who I’d known was trouble the second I saw him, and I didn’t have space for any more trouble in my life.
“Why?” It came out a challenge.
“Because I asked you to.”
Disbelief scraped off my tongue, and I shook my head in incredulity.
Theo suddenly moved, flying up the porch and coming to tower over us.
A stronghold of malice and the darkest light.
The danger I felt emanating from him from the beginning rebounded at full force.
The man looked like a weapon.
All sharp edges.
Ferocious and wild.
“Need you to trust me,” he ground out.
He moved in so close that he ripped the breath from my lungs.
Finn had his face buried in the right side of my neck, snuggled close as he tried to get warm.
And still, I stood there, staring up at Theo.
“Why should I trust you?”
The wings of the moth tattooed on his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, as if he didn’t know which lie to tell. “Because I would never hurt you.”
It seemed like the most blatant one. Because it became so glaringly clear right then just how badly he could.
“Who is Alicia to you?” It was out before I could stop it.
Ferocity flashed through his dark, menacing gaze before something else entirely slipped into his features.
Something that appeared entirely too satisfied as he basically growled, “You jealous, Pipes?”
“No.” It didn’t even come close to sounding casual, my own falsity firing free.
The truth was, the thought of him with her made me sick to my stomach, and I had zero right to that reaction.
Smugness pulled to the edge of that ridiculously lush mouth, and he leaned in closer to my left cheek.
“Little Liar.” He grumbled it like praise, and I couldn’t form the rebuke I was trying to conjure considering my knees nearly gave when he reached out and let the pad of his thumb trace along my jaw.
His voice was a scuff of seduction as he muttered, “It’s not what you think.”
Then something ruthless took to his features. “But I take care of those who come here and need extra help.”
I could hardly swallow. “Is that what you’re doing for me? Taking care of me because you think I need extra help?”
His expression morphed again, and that time there was no mistaking it.
The lust that curled between us.
A keening bow that only gripped me tighter when he leaned down to murmur in my left ear. “Oh, the ways I would take care of you, Piper Whittman.”
