Page 62 of Craving Sin

“Are we going to talk about the fact that the doctor is still alive?” Conan asks, leaning against the arm of the couch in my living room. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s given me twenty-four hours before bringing it up.

He has every right to be upset. I would be irate with him if the situation were reversed…and the doctor would probably have already been dead. It is my job to protect this family, after all, but then, why didn’t I do that with Abbott?

“You saw him?” I ask, teeth gritting, hands opening and closing again into tight fists. Conan didn’t hurt him. I would have known if he had, and we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation right now, but the fury filling me is almost too much to contain.

He saw him, and I didn’t.

My closest friend wants to kill the man I…well, I don’t know what I feel when it comes to Abbott, but I do know he’s mine, and it’s my instinct to protect what belongs to me.

“No. I haven’t seen him, but I know you, Rian, and the way you came home yesterday tells me everything I need to know.”

I shove away from the wall, arm pressed against Conan’s throat, pushing him back against another wall. He stands there, eyes cold and angry, but doesn’t move, doesn’t try to fight me off, just stares at me in the detached way he’s able to do, which looks like he doesn’t feel as much as he does.

The truth is, Conan feels more than most of us.

“Don’t. Touch. Him,” I spit out before shoving away from him. “Don’t go into his house. He’s to be left alone. If anyone touches him, they have me to deal with.” I hold his gaze longer and add, “It doesn’t matter who it is.”

Conan stands up straighter, runs a hand down his shirt as though he’s trying to smooth it, then raises a brow. “He’s yours?”

The word yes is right there on my tongue, but I can’t push it off. He is mine. I know it and Conan knows it, but how do I wrap my head around that fact? I never thought anyone would be mine again.

Conan tries again, this time from a different angle. “He could ruin it all.”

“He won’t.”

“He could.”

“Fuck. I know. You don’t think I know that?” I tried so hard to do it. When I brought him to the woods—hell, up until the second I turned and snuck away—I’d thought I would do it. I was supposed to, and the fact that I couldn’t shows a huge fucking weakness that I’m not supposed to have. But he just knelt there, waiting for me to take his life, sacrificing himself. Not even trying to get away.

All I could think about was the taste of him, how it felt to be inside of him, the loneliness we both carry even when we’re in a room filled with people. I feel him in a way I’ve never felt anyone else, and I still don’t know what to do with that.

“He won’t,” I finally say again. “At least not you, Cillian, or anyone else. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, so we’re just supposed to sacrifice you? Let him roam the streets until he decides the dick he got wasn’t enough to keep this secret, and he tells them everything he knows about you?”

I roll my eyes. “Like the cops don’t already know everything we do.”

“Yes, but we’re not supposed to make it easier for them to put us away.”

Jesus, every single thing I’ve done since seeing Abbott is fucked up. I’m not acting like myself, yet I don’t know how to stop it. All I know is if anyone lays a hand on him, I will kill them myself.

“Rian,” Conan says as I sit down on the couch. He sighs, walks over, and takes the cushion beside me. “Bring him home with you. At least we can keep an eye on him better.”

“So, instead of being locked away in New Hampshire, I do the same thing here?”

“If you’re determined to keep him, yes. It’s the safest way.”

He’s right, but I also can’t do that to him. I can’t force Abbott to come here, to be with me, and what, leave everything else behind? This lifestyle would only hurt him the same way it had Moira. She stayed because she loved me, she wanted to help take care of the kids, and Fia was her best friend. She stayed for us, but she sacrificed things she thought were right or wrong.

“You haven’t been like this with anyone. Not since Moira,” Conan says, as though I don’t know it.

“Part of me feels guilty…like I should never want anyone again, but it’s clearly not guilty enough for me to stop.”

“She would want this for you. If he’s worthy of you, she would want it. I don’t trust him though, and I’m afraid of you getting hurt.”

“We can trust him,” I say, hoping, praying for the first time in too long, that I’m right.

“If we can’t…you know what has to be done. I don’t care if you kill me for it afterward.”