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As if my scars might be visible.
River pulled open the door, and he released my hand and swiveled around to hold it open so I could pass through, but rather than taking my hand again, he splayed his palm over the small of my back.
Fingers wide as if he could cover me whole.
Only the second I stepped out in the light of day with people all around, I had to fight against the current of anxiety that threatened to take me hostage again.
Run. Run. Run.
My rationale chanted it, urged me toward what had been my creed.
River’s mouth came to my temple, his voice a rumble that tumbled through the center of me. “Let me be your shield, Little Runner.”
I barely nodded against it, and I could feel the tension wind him in a fist as he sent glares shooting through the atmosphere as we walked down the sidewalk. A clear warning for people to stay out of his way.
He never allowed his scrutiny to wane, the man a steel barricadethat surrounded me, completely vigilant as we hurried down the sidewalk.
Groups of people parted before he even got close enough to touch them, the power of his being dividing them as he barreled through.
We passed by the couple businesses that were housed in the same building as River of Ink before we made it to Broadway.
It was the same intersection that I’d come running up from mere minutes ago, where in my panic I’d nearly gotten hit, but rather than heading back that direction, River took my hand and wound around the building to the right.
He dragged me along until I was standing at the side of a vicious looking motorcycle that was parked in an angled spot facing out.
Completely matte black and low to the ground.
River didn’t let go of my hand as he swung a leg over the machine, straddling the metal, before he patted the minuscule seat behind him. “Hop on.”
Incredulous, I gaped at him. “Excuse me?”
He let go of a low, scraping laugh. “Said, hop on.”
My head shook, and I tried to pull my hand from his hold. “I don’t do motorcycles.”
Those wicked eyes glinted beneath the rays of sunlight that streaked through the tops of the trees. The man was so cruelly beautiful that I felt like I was being impaled every time I looked his way.
“You do now.”
“Oh, I don’t think?—”
River was off the motorcycle and towering over me before I could make sense of his sudden movement, my hand released in favor of him gripping me by both sides of the face.
I gasped, the rake of air drawing his presence into my lungs.
Leather and ink and wicked things.
He dipped in close, and I could feel the whisper of his lips as he rasped, “Do you not get it yet, Charleigh? I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” He tightened his hold and brought meeven closer, his words a command, “I promise you, you’re safe with me.”
How reckless did it make me that for once I felt that way? After getting this sense twice in the last two weeks? One that I was being tracked? Hunted?
And there I stood, a trembling, brittle leaf that wanted to float in the security of his hands.
A smirk cracked at the edge of his menacing, beautiful mouth. “Now, are you goin’ to climb on the back of my bike or am I goin’ to have to make you?”
TWENTY-SEVEN
CHARLEIGH
