Page 94 of Twice the Rivalry

He quickly grabbed her wrist and pinned it down, then grabbed the other one to keep it in place. She struggled for a moment before she finally settled enough to glare daggers at him. “I never said you weren’t a strong ass bitch that could take care of herself. You might have confidence in your team, butthey are not here, and they might not be here when these assholes show up. Because as much as everyone seems to think they are, they’re not superheroes, and they can’t teleport. Which means you’re stuck with my club, and me. And you damn well better understand that I will not stand back and let you face these bastards by yourself. They come at you, I’m going to be fighting them too. If, God forbid, something happens to my club and your team, and it’s just you and me at the end of it, I’m going to fight like hell to keep you safe. Because you can’t take on five fucking men at once. Especially not crazy fuckers like them. As for the sex with no strings, I’m reneging on that. Because, kitten, you and I? We’re going to have some major fucking strings.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t—”

“Don’t tell me what I don’t mean, and don’t put words in my damn mouth,” he snapped, interrupting her.

“Then stop talking in fucking riddles,” she yelled in his face. “You don’t care about—”

“Of course I fucking care about you,” he yelled back, wrenching his hands away from her. “ I love you, so you don’t get to tell me I won’t do anything to keep you safe.”

CHAPTERFORTY-TWO

GLITCH

She stared at him in shock, unmoving, as his words slammed into her like a damn wrecking ball. She wasn’t sure she was breathing, or if her heart was still beating. Her entire body seemed rooted to the spot. Did he just say what she thought he said? That helovedher? No, that was impossible. He didn’t love her. How could he?

He thrust a hand through his hair, looking at the floor, his face a flurry of emotions. “Fuck,” he sighed. “Nevermind.” Then, without looking at her, he headed for the door.

Maybe it was the defeated look in his eyes, or the fact he wouldn’t look at her at all after dropping his little bomb, but that state of frozen shock melted instantly, and she was moving. Before he could reach the door, she launched herself at his back, using a move that Jag taught her a long time ago to shift her momentum to pull him back and down, so that Code stumbled and started to fall back toward the floor. She braced herself for the impact, but somehow, at the last second, he managed to twist his body, get his arms around her, and fell so he took the brunt instead of her. It still knocked the wind out of both of them, but thankfully she recovered quickly.

She moved to straddle him, looking down at the man who was now rubbing his head and glaring at her. “What the fuck, woman?” he rasped, pain in his green eyes. “Have you lost your mind?”

“You clearly have,” she tossed back, glaring at him. “You don’t love me, Code. You can’t.”

Pain was quickly replaced by fury. “There you go again putting words in my mouth,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, his jaw hard as granite. “You don’t get to tell me shit about how I feel or what I think, Glitch. But like you said, you don’t need me at all, so what does it matter? Let me up before I make you.”

Her gut twisted but she didn’t move. There was something bubbling up inside her, something she was too scared to name. Something she had been suppressing for a while now. But staring down at this man, who was pissed at her but still careful not to hurt her, did weird things to her chest. To her mind. Because even now, with all that, she could see the hurt under his anger. The blow his ego took from her words and reaction to him.

Her mind was screaming at her to get up and walk away. Let him go, and get back to what she was doing. She was right, she didn’t need him. She had her team. But her gut was saying something else. Her gut was telling her that she would be making a huge mistake if she didn’t talk to him. If she didn’t ask the questions that were bouncing around inside her. But a small part of her almost didn’t want to know the answers, too afraid to hear what they might actually be.

She was no coward, though, so instead, she simply asked, “Why?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, his jaw clenching and unclenching a few times before he finally asked tightly, “Why what exactly?”

“Why do you think you love me?” she asked softly, her heart pounding in her chest. There was a vulnerable lilt to her voice she wished there wasn’t, but at the sound of it, she watched some of the anger fade and his jaw unclench.

He didn’t say anything as they stared at each other. It was killing her, and she desperately wanted to tell him to hurry up, but she couldn’t get the words past her lips. Like she knew they would only break whatever this was between them. Finally, he said quietly, “Because when I look at you, I don’t just see Glitch, the expert hacker and former mercenary. I see a woman who cares deeply, who will work herself to the bone to keep everyone around her happy and safe. And when she runs that pretty little mouth and is a giant smartass, it’s because she’s standing up for what she believes in, even if everyone else disagrees. I also see a woman who is part of a team, a family, but who is also lonely as hell and wants someone in her corner. Someone to show up for her the way she shows up for them. I see someone who isn’t afraid to give as good as she gets. Even when it’s at my expense,” he added with a small smile. “Because all of that is you, Eliza. And I want that. I want it all, and everything else you’re hiding.”

Her throat was thick with emotion as she listened to him. He saw all of that? She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it, but a small kernel of something started to form in her gut, soothing some of the twisting. “You think I’m hiding something?” she asked him.

His lips pulled up into a knowing smirk. “Kitten, you’re always hiding something. That’s what makes you who you are. You’re damn smart, and because of that, you know how to hide things that most don’t.”

“All of that doesn’t mean you love me, though,” she pointed out, her mind still trying to sort through everything she was thinking and feeling. She felt like she was in the middle of a storm, desperately searching for something to hold on to until it passed. “Maybe we’ve just gotten comfortable with each other and realized we don’t have to hate each other,” she suggested.

She let out a soft yelp of surprise when he suddenly lifted and curled his body to sit keeping her straddling him. He brought his hands up to cup her face, staring into her eyes with amusement and determination. “Or maybe, all of that means I love you. Look, Glitch, I don’t say that to just anyone. The only ones I’ve said it to are my parents, my brothers, their wives, and my nieces and nephews. Growing up, those words meant something, and my father always said you don’t toss things like that around unless you plan to stand by them. Because they can land you in a world of hurt, and make you bitter. I did that with Hallie because I was young and stupid, and I didn’t know what love was. But with you, I’m not a little boy.

“I’m a grown-assed man, and I realized the other day when you were torn up about setting the girls back on their recovery. I saw you hurting, thinking that you damaged them somehow, and I saw the longing on your face when you were sitting alone in the gym after watching everyone else leave with people who loved and cared for them. You wanted that. You wanted someone who, when times get hard, would hold you close and make you forget. And it hit me that I wanted to be that man. I wanted to be the one that you felt safe with when everything weighed you down. Someone who would listen, who would understand, and who would distract you when you needed it.

“Then, when the Ghost team found you, I was so damn scared. The only thing I could think about was that you are in danger, and I couldn’t let anything happen. I couldn’t let them take you away from me before I got to show you how much you mattered to me. How much I want you in my life. And, you’re right, this is damn fast and maybe I’m confusing love for something else, but I’ve seen it happen here, and my feelings aren’t going to change. I see it with Razor, in the way he dotes on Karissa but lets her be the badass she is. I see it with Rogue, in the way he looks at Scarlett like she walks on water. I see it in the way Fury, Steel, and Savage look at their women as though they can’t live without them. And I want that for myself. But I only want it if it’s with you.”

She swallowed hard. “But half the time we hate each other,” she pointed out.

He sighed. “I know. And like I said before, in the beginning it was probably a little of that, but it was also because you came into my life like a damn tornado. All of a sudden I had this woman in my office, telling me my system was shit, and being all cute and sassy. Half the time I wanted to kick you out, and the other half I wanted to kiss your mouth to shut you up. It pissed me off, and I took that out on you. I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy our little battle, as much as it pissed me off. But I’ll give you points for creativity,” he said with a chuckle.

“And even knowing that, you want to keep me around?” she asked disbelievingly.

“Even then,” he said with a soft smile. “Just means I need to up my game, because I can’t let you get the upper hand too much.”

A small chuckle escaped her lips before she could hold it back. “I’ve been battling with Taz for years. You’ve got some catching up to do if you’re going to beat me,” she joked.

---