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“Don’t touch me.” I shake his hand off.

Three dogs tear through the dark like hounds released from hell.

My heart pounds in my chest, and I take a step back. I know dogs. I love dogs, but these aren’t cuddly pets. They’re trained to hunt, attack, maybe even kill on command.

Fionn steps in front of me. “Down.”

The dogs skid, their paws ripping the wet grass. One drops to its belly. The other two freeze, heads low, ears forward, bodies vibrating with the need to obey and the instinct to attack.

My pulse trips, and I hate that he put himself between them and me. Fear I can forgive myself for but having an attraction to the enemy is harder to excuse.

He angles back to me, reaches behind his waistband and pulls out a gun.

“Walk,” he says, nodding toward the distant small holding.

I look from the gun to him. “So, you’ve gone from dry humping to threatening to shoot me? I’m guessing you're single.”

His eyes move over me as he shakes his head. “Even if I wasn’t already making future plans, I still wouldn’t want you.”

I swallow hard, not sure why the insult hurts, so I laugh it off and rebuild the walls I live behind. “Oh please, Fionn. If you were the last man on earth, and I was desperate, I’d still avoid you like an STD.”

“Start walking, Tallon.”

He keeps close behind me, the dogs moving at his command in a silent formation that makes my skin prickle.

The barn grows out of the dark ahead, moonlight bleeding across the yard. Fionn’s hand closes around the back of my neck, and he drags me closer, his mouth brushing against my ear.

“Start something and you’d better be ready to finish it.”

My skin tightens beneath his fingers. “I’ll happily finish it.”

He ushers me into the barn, where the air is warmer. The wind slips through the gaps, whistling and rattling loose boards.

Fionn removes the gun from my side and lets it hang by his hip.

“Who opened the kennels?”

He peels off his dirty shirt with one hand and tosses it onto a bale of hay.

My thoughts fail for half a second.

The man is built with strength that keeps its worst intentions hidden until it’s too late. He’s got smooth muscles across his broad shoulders and tattoos crawling over one arm and along his ribs.

There’s mud on his stomach where his shirt tails rode up when we wrestled, a red scrape near his collarbone, and a bruise blooming beneath his ribs all because of me.

I smile at the sight of it, then my chest tightens because I’m staring, gawking at the carved planes of his abdomen and all the ink.

As if sensing my inspection, his gaze snaps to mine, catching my eyes all over him.

“I asked a question,” Fionn says to the men, his gaze locked onto mine. “Who the fuck let the dogs out?”

The masked man by the door clears his throat. “We thought she’d escaped. The dogs would turn her back.”

The silence stretches for an uncomfortable few seconds before Fionn looks away from me and steps toward him, his gun tight in his hand.

“Did I give the order?” he asks.

The man tries to recover. “She’s a Tallon.”