Page 69 of Piece You Saved

SAIGE

“Are things usually so exciting around here?” Harley asks with a lilt in his voice that makes me think he’s smiling.

I sink into my seat and reach for the laptop, turning it so I can check what’s happening in each room before I place the gun on the table beside me.

It’s strange to be sitting at this table after what Kade and I just did on it, but if I ignore the musky scent of sex in the air, maybe Harley will as well. All I have to do is think about the body outside and Dariel’s wolf howling with so much grief it brought tears to my eyes as I raged at Rylan for what he did to Leo. I manage it. If only barely.

“I don’t know.”

Harley is silent for a beat. “How’s the nasty bruise, Jane?”

I wish he would stop calling me that. Someone calling you Jane Doeshouldbe meaningless. It isn’t when Harley says it. When he calls me Jane, it sounds—and feels—intimate. Like I’m something to him when I’m as much of a stranger to him as he is to me. Or maybe it’s the look in his eyes, partly-amused, but wholly… focused.

As if all he sees is me, and all he wants is me.

He calls me Jane the way Kade once called me Angel Eyes. As if there’s something between us. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard not to think about what Kade and I did on this table while Harley and I sit here. Alone. Worse, I have no idea when Kade will come back.

Kade said he wouldn’t be long, but what did that mean? Fifteen minutes? An hour? Three? What if he and Dariel get into another fight, and instead of Dariel slicing up Kade’s back, he kills him? What then?

And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit here with Harley as we talk and ignore the scent of sex in the air? Why did he lead me in here? Wasn’t there another room we could go? And I’m not wearing panties. There’s no way he won’t know…things.

My heart is racing now, and I’m not sure what’s panicking me more. The thought of being stuck here with Harley for an indefinite period of time, or that Kade won’t come back at all.

I shrug in a way I hope looks casual and then remember he has shifter hearing as well as a sharp nose. He’ll know I’m nowhere near as calm as I’d like him to think.

Fake it until you make it, Saige.

I focus all my attention on scanning monitors where nothing is happening. I won’t wish something would because more than enough has happened today already. Still, a little distraction from the man sitting close enough beside me for our knees to almost touch under the table would be nice.

“Okay.”

“Okay enough for some extra-curricular activities?” He’s smiling now. Grinning, I think.

I stop scrolling, but I don’t lift my eyes from the image of the backyard. My cheeks burn hotter than they have in my life, and I clear my throat. I guess we’re not going to pretend nothing happened in this room. He wants to talk about it. Why does he want to talk about it?

“Uh…”

“No need to answer if it embarrasses you, Jane,” he says. “Just wanted to make sure it was two-sided.”

Two-sided?

I hadn’t thought anything would compel me to lift my gaze from the screen, but those words do. He’s reclining in his seat. Not like Kade relaxes, but his pose is easy. Almost as if he were truly at ease rather than playing at it. A hint of a smile curls his lips, but I trust it as much as I do his pose.

Is he faking too?

“You think Kade pushed me into sex.” I make it sound like a statement, but it’s more of a question. No. Itisa statement. If I’ve read him right—and I’m sure I have—some internal sense I didn’t know I had in me tells me he likes to wear masks as much as I do.

His lips quirk. “He seems like the forceful type.”

My eyes narrow, and my back stiffens as I sit up taller in my seat. “Well, he’s not.”

Harley studies me a little longer. After a searching gaze, he nods, and his shoulders relax. “Good to know. I just wanted to make sure.”

“Because you’re a doctor?” I raise my brow.

His eyes make a slow perusal of the room as he speaks. “Because I remember your reaction when we first met, Jane. And I recall you’d rather jump out of your window than have a man take one step into your room.”

I’d forgotten that.

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