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“Yeah, I know. Lawson and all.” I sigh. “Don’t worry, love. I won’t get you hurt, okay? I get how it works.”
The fact no one had come to rip her off me yet surprised me, but then maybe Archer put in a call. The man seemed to have an invisible and unending stream of clout that far exceeded his geographical territory.
She shrugged. “No one ever comes to see me. I just know they’re there. It’s scary. I hate it.” She shivered in my arms, and I wrapped her tighter.
“You want to head back?” Another answer I knew. Maybe she was right about the trust thing. About knowing each other.
“Not yet.” Decisive. Saying, not asking. We’d definitely established a baseline of trust even if it was forged on a decade of fairytale worthy hopes and dreams.
“Okay. Whatever you need, love.” I turned her back around to stare up the tree.
We didn’t move for an age. Not when the small choir of school aged children came by to serenade us, or the herd of baby reindeer paraded by, though she made cooing sounds. Or when a string quartet played a few carols before moving along.
Only when everyone started to pack up and the wind turned icy did she finally look up at me, the night’s stars—real ones, not the fake—reflected in her eyes as she nodded and said, “I’d like to go in now.”
So I took her hand, leading her all the way back to my room, and made sure I locked the door behind us.
CHAPTER 6
BONNIE
Nash’s room looked as utilitarian as mine, though he’d likely occupied it for a far shorter time. Both our rooms appeared the same way: like no one lived here beyond the outward shell of us. My fingers trailed the basic bench bolted to the side of the wall, the matching TV that sat in my room.
A mirror image in all things, except for the box he kicked back under his bed the moment he flicked on the lights.
“Your father isn’t gonna come in here and bitch slap me for stealing you away?” Nash muttered.
His back turned to me as he tidied the few personal belongings scattered across one small coffee table, reshuffling a laptop, a spare belt, some chargers.
Nothing I could use to work out who he’d become other than what I’d seen of the man himself.
He turned back to me, his fingers working the next button on his shirt, though he stalled when his gaze coasted along my body to reach my face. “Bonnie?”
I didn’t realize I’d started to retreat until my butt bumped the opposite wall of the suddenly cramped room. “I haven’t?—”
He was across the room, standing in front of me, his hands flexing on my waist before I managed to expel my next breath.
“We don’t have to do anything,” he promised me, his words at odds with the need that strained his voice, reflecting in the darkest corners of his eyes as he tried to shut the emotion away, and failed.
“I said I would,” I started, but he cut me off a second time.
“No. No way am I pushing a girl who says she wants something and then changes her mind. No chance. Especially not you.” Nash’s touch softened as he pulled me a little closer, still caging me in with his body, though his hold became less threatening. “Nothing you don’t wanna do, Bonnie. Everything is your choice.” His voice roughened, but he held my gaze with that same formidable, inner strength he’d had even as a wayward teen.
Not that Nash Mercer ever had a rebellious streak, exactly, more the exact opposite. Nothing ever got past him, much as right now.
“I understand,” I whispered.
He nodded and lowered his mouth to brush mine in the lightest of kisses, giving me plenty of time to back away. “You want me to take you back to your room now?” His gaze stayed fixed steady on mine.
Whatever he felt inside, he showed nothing on the outside. Maybe that was part of whatever job he took on. At least we’d stopped lying to each other, if only for now.
“Not yet.” My fingers twitched at my sides. Before I could question my own motives I buried them in his shirt, digging my fingers into his stomach in a way I was certain couldn’t be comfortable. “I just froze up.”
“Freezing up is fine.” His thumbs skated over my ribs, through the thin material of my dress, beneath my borrowed jacket that still smelled like him. Whiskey and sea salt and Texassunshine all at once. A terrible and beautiful dichotomy of all the things I loved and hated that left me homesick for a place I could barely remember. “Wanna watch something old? I have no idea what the resort has on streaming services.” He backed off a step, or tried to, but my hands tangled in his shirt, stopping him. The corners of his mouth hooked up when I said nothing, and I didn’t move an inch. “Gotta let go, Bonnie, or I’m gonna get the wrong idea.”
I tugged at his shirt that loosened from his jeans, and found skin beneath. “So get the wrong idea.” I had no idea where the daring words came from, but with Nash, even with that layer of hardness beneath that hadn’t ever been there before, he wassafe.
Safe, in a dangerous kind of way. The sort of man my father kept me away from for all these years under the guise of protecting me when really he just made a cage for a girl who wasn’t seventeen wearing ripped jeans and getting a cop to drive her past the prom she couldn’t attend any more, but wishing she was still intact like everyone else there that night.
