Page 39 of Forbidden Wish

“Almost got you killed today, Squirt.”

“Stop calling me that.” He only called her that when he was really scared, which just stimulated the tingling in her sinuses. “Did you call Dad?”

“No!” her brother was quick to answer. “Call Dad? Fuck, no! You want the goddamn army out here?” Would be an army of miscreants, but an army all the same. “Be happy it’s just me you’re getting.”

“Yeah, well, I say she can’t stay in her own apartment while this is going on.”

“Agreed,” Ford said.

“I offered to stay with her but—”

“No, she’s staying with us,” Ford said. “‘Til I can get her out of this damn mess she’s caused.”

“I didn’t cause any damn mess,” she said, opening her arms. “I wasn’t even the victim! No one was aiming for me!”

Her brother’s chin tipped to the side. “Thought it was an accident.”

She sneered at his goading. “I’ll show you a fucking accident…”

When she raised her fist, aiming for his arm, she fully intended to make contact. Jagg caught her mid-swing as Ford and Lachlan made some nodding motion and disappeared to the other side of the corridor.

“Manzani?” Jagg asked under his breath when they’d put distance between them.

“I don’t know,” she said on an exhale, her shoulders and head dropping. “It was a setup. I told her it was a setup.”

“You can’t make someone hear you if they don’t want to.”

“I know,” she said, not sure she believed it.

“Look at me…” he said, the heat of his body crowding in closer to her as his finger slid under her chin to raise it up. “You are not responsible. But you are in danger. Don’t fight Ford on this… Come stay with us until this is over.”

“No, I won’t give up… Mila’s not dead, she has a chance… just like Yvonne Ingham. Maybe she’s still alive.”

“I didn’t ask you to give it up,” he said. “I asked you to come stay at mine… I need to know you’re safe… please, baby.”

Shit, that soft pleading, that tender need. The only thing in the whole world that could make everything okay would be the taste of the lips begging her surrender.

“I needed you,” she confessed the truth that would never have been voiced if it wasn’t for the trauma of the day. “I told her I needed you and… I should’ve gone with my gut.”

“I’d have been there.”

“I know.”

When he got even closer, too close for polite distance, her eyes closed again. Just being in his orbit set a heady concoction of hormones and heartache swirling through her bloodstream.

“Say yes, baby,” he murmured, his voice more timbre than words. “If you don’t, I’ll move into yours. I’ll be your shadow. Everywhere you turn, I’ll be standing there watching your ass.”

“I thought you were more of a rack guy,” she said, feeling something other than despair for the first time since the accident.

“That too.”

Her head fell back, loose on her shoulders. “How would you explain that to my brother?”

“I don’t give a damn. Let him ask. I’ll tell him the truth. You’re mine and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”

When he edged back, the tilt of his eyes betrayed Ford and Lachlan’s return.

“You’re staying with us,” Ford said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jagg. “Scream at me, fight all you want—”

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