Page 17 of A Sweet Destruction

In a flash of movement so quick it would have sent most people tumbling to the ground, I turned in the arms of my attacker right as they wrapped around me, shoving the barrel of my gun up and under their chin.

It wasn’t until my back hit the wall of the barn and I stared up into forest green eyes that I registered what had happened.

Too late to escape his fury, to find anywhere else to be than trapped in between the hard length of his body and a wall of wood as Ford sneered down at me, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter 6

Esme

“Be quiet,” I hissed back, my whisper so harsh it burned the edges of my vocal chords. “Someone is in there with Roger.”

Ford’s eyes didn’t even flinch from their hold on my face. Not one ounce of curiosity for what might lie in the barn behind us. Just searing, almost…no, was that panicked fury radiating off him?

I fought the urge to squirm at the full weight of his attention, choosing to channel that nervous energy to the back of my mind to wrestle with the Bond back into its coma.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked again, his hands flexing on my biceps like he was resisting the urge to snap my bones in half.

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” I muttered, though with my voice this low, I wasn’t able to effectively execute a quip under my breath and it came out breathier than I wanted. In any event, it sent wild look streaking across Ford’s expression.

“I don’t think it’s obvious,” Ford snapped back, his tone as firm as the grip he kept on my arms. “I think you’re losing your damn mind, coming out here by yourself, the night of an attack. What were you thinking?”

Telling the truth and saying I wasn’t would do me no good.

There was something distinctly off about Ford’s demeanor. It was a side of him I’d never met and I wasn’t sure I liked.

“I couldn’t just lay there with”—don’t say with you, I reminded myself, stopping just short of revealing too much—“with nothing to do and try to ignore what happened. We should try to catch them while they’re down. They wouldn’t think we’d go out for answers this early.” Sometimes my own ability to spin a story shocked me. A thread of truth, sure, but sucking the emotion out of the words took work.

Even then, Ford didn’t seem even the least bit placated by that. “Which is exactly why you should be wrapped in a fucking sleeping bag right now.”

“Well, too late for that,” I snapped, a fresh wave of anger surging in my chest. Where Ford got off lecturing me, I didn’t know.

He has a right to care for your safety. I didn’t know whether that thought sprang from the logical part of my brain or whether it was lobbed to the forefront of my mind by a protective, possessive little beast.

The fact that I couldn’t tell the difference, especially this soon, was scary enough.

“Clearly,” Ford muttered, the word sounding distracted on the back end when his gaze snapped over my shoulder at a rustling sound from inside.

“See,” I said, not even trying to hide the satisfied smirk that grew over my lips. “Someone else is in there.”

My little attempt at satisfaction was promptly quashed under fury when Ford stuck his finger in my face. “You stay right here.”

Apparently, petulance was my preferred course of action at the moment, because without missing a beat, I returned, “That’s kind of counterintuitive. Besides, you’re normally the one staying behind to watch.”

Ford, to his credit, barely let a breath pass before he responded, “I would be far more comfortable with a scope and a gun right now, yes. But since you insist on doing it this way, stay behind me and watch my back, sweetheart.”

He was already turning on his heel by the time the endearment left his mouth.

We bickered constantly, but this was taking on an edge that made my skin itch. It was like that last secret about the Bond had broken down all the walls between us and buried any sense of decorum under the rubble.

Ford had always been rather cordial, and now he was proceeding like he had a free pass to do whatever he wished with me.

That tingling sensation broke out again, spreading over my shoulders and crawling its way towards my chest.

Ford turned to see if I was following him, and his eyes immediately latched onto my shoulder, tracing the exact path that sensation carved and settling for a moment right on the line of my top, right over my heaving chest. Well, really, my heaving breasts, smushed as they were with a tight bra stretched over them.

“Go,” I muttered, sounding like a child in the middle of a tantrum. He’d ruined my fun, showing up here and distracting me. And pissing me off, let’s not forget that part.

With a final, too-observant sweep over my face and neck, Ford turned toward the front of the barn, his hand moving to the holster at his hip.