Page 70 of Forbidden Want

The back door opened. Connel surprised her by sliding in next to her, forcing her to the middle seat.

Daly closed the back door and disappeared from view.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “I thought I was going home.”

“You are.”

Like last night? “I didn’t know you spent the night at mine. As much as I appreciate—Lachlan will probably come over. I don’t want to hide you in my bedroom closet or something. That’s ridiculous.”

“We’re not going to your apartment. Unless you need to pick anything up.”

“I have pain meds in my bathroom.”

“Drugs are not a problem, babe,” he said, wry in the declaration.

Well, yeah, drugs, legal or illegal, would be easy for him to get his hands on.

She had a bottle in her purse, which should still be somewhere in the car. “I don’t understand. If we aren’t going back to mine and we’re not staying at the club… where are we going?”

“Mine,” he said, reaching over her to snag her purse, which was apparently right there. Her head was so not in the game, any game. “Text your brother. Tell him you’re fine and going to bed early.”

“Yours?” she said, retrieving her phone to do as he said. “I thought the club was yours.”

“It is. Sometimes I don’t leave for days. Call it my second home.”

“Second?” she said when he looked at her. “You have a first home?”

“I’m going to take care of you.”

Like he’d said last night too.

“I’m not a prisoner.”

“No,” he said. “Don’t you feel free with me?”

In so many ways, his lack of rules was liberating. Yet there was security too. A comfort in his attentive embrace. In the power he held. How far would he go with her? For her? He’d killed for her, twice. Rather than repulse her, that fortitude seduced her. This man, the one sitting at her side, probing her with his certainty, knew no limits.

“I do. Take me to your place.”

He exhaled. “Aye.”

TWENTY-FIVE

BY THE TIME the car got to wherever they were going, her eyes were closed. It wasn’t until he moved from beneath her head that she awoke.

“Can you walk?”

“What?” she asked, shaking her hair from her face. “Yes, sorry.”

He got out first and opened a hand to help her out. The towering building they went into barely registered. In the gleaming white hall, the elevator was the only option. They got in, he input a code and then they were ascending. Where were his people? His guards? His guys?

At the top, they got out on the opposite side and had only one option again, a broad black door maybe ten feet ahead.

“Locks are easy to pick,” he said. “Here, we use a fingerprint and a code.” Which he did. That was interesting. Or it might be if her head wasn’t fogged. As she went inside a few steps, her eyes sank shut again. “Come here.”

He swept her feet from under her. As she braced to fall, his body supported hers, carrying her across the sleek living room, upstairs to a bedroom. A huge room. Massive black blinds were closed over the full-height two story windows.

“You spent days in the hospital…” he said, tossing her onto the bed. “In bed, recovering…”

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