Page 109 of Bad Men

“Can wait,” he cut in sharply. “The only thing that matters right now is you.”

“I’m fine!” Both men shot me dubious glowers. “I promise. Yes, I’m sore and my hands hurt, but staying here isn’t going to change that.”

“Well, even if we leave, you’re coming home with us,” Davien declared. “I mean it. You have a shit ton of explaining to do and I plan on hearing all of it.”

“Can I see my parents first?” I negotiated.

The two exchanged glances.

It was Nero who agreed gently, drawing my fingers to his lips again. “But afterwards, you’re getting your stuff and you’re coming home, agreed?”

Had he made such demand two months ago, I would have called him crazy; I wasn’t going to just move in with them. Now, the idea of being separated from them for even a minute felt like torture. Even still…

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

The two eyed each other again for what felt like the tenth time. I wondered if this was something they hadn’t discussed yet and were going along with it as it happened.

“Well, either you come home with us or we’re moving in with your parents. Which do you think would work better?” Davien teased.

“And we’re not asking,” Nero added.

I eyed one then the other, but both seemed so serious, so absolutely sure. “What about the rules?”

Nero sucked in a breath which was better than the frown Davien shot me.

“Do you honestly think the rules mean a damn thing to us anymore?” Davien said slowly. “If you had stayed and talked to us, we would have told you…” he broke off inexplicably and looked away.

“Told me what?”

With their help, I wiggled myself up into a sitting position. Nero stuffed pillows along my back to keep me propped. Davien tucked the sheets across my nearly naked chest. Upright, I was almost level with them and the hesitation rippling between them.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Davien said instead. “You shouldn’t have just…” He shot a glance at Nero as if willing him to offer the proper words, but before Nero could open his mouth, Davien was plunging on, “You should have answered my messages!”

I blinked. “You messaged me?”

It was his turn to recoil. “Every fucking day, woman!”

The guilt and warmth burned my throat. It drew hot tears to my eyes as I stared into the pain radiating in his. “Davien—”

He shook his head. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? For all we knew, you were being kept locked up in some cupboard under the stairs. We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again or how long you’d be gone. Your message told us nothing! I mean…” he scrubbed furiously at the furrows in his brow with the tips of three fingers. “You can’t tell a guy you love him and then fucking vanish.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathed around the choking lump. “I never meant to hurt you, you have to know that.” I glanced at Nero and got a stony glance in return. “I was following the rules, your rules! I didn’t think you would care or worse, you’d tell me you didn’t. It would have killed me to hear that from you.” I drew in a breath to calm myself only it sounded more like a sob on the exhale when I rushed on. “I have been in love with you since I was sixteen. It’s literally all I’ve wanted or known for seven years. To be that certain of something so impossible and then finally have it, the thought of losing it is terrifying, but it’s worse to think I could be discarded and replaced. I thought if I walked away first, if I let you go first, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much, but it hurt. It hurt so much, and I promise I will never do that again.”

“Fucking right you won’t,” Davien growled before capturing my face between his warm hands and pulling me to him.

The kiss was much gentler than the hold he had on me; it was featherlight across my bruised mouth.

“And I didn’t get your messages,” I whispered when he pulled back. “My phone was … I didn’t have it.”

“That doesn’t explain what possessed you to face Cortez alone,” Nero interjected, looking less forgiving.

“I told you, I wasn’t going to let him—”

“That was not your choice to make,” Nero snapped. “You had no business—”

“What? Protecting you?” I shot back, matching his fury with my own. “If you had been in my place, would you have—?”

“This isn’t about me.”

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