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“He did. I’m not slipping.”
Deck chuckled. Fuck, it was years since I heard him chuckle. Such a rarity, I’d always been the one laughing and grinning. Maybe why we got along so well, we balanced each other out.
We had. Not any more.
“I’m not giving up on you, Connor,” Deck said.
Deck’s men returned home, whether they were dead or alive, they got back to their families and he wasn’t giving up until that happened. And since I wasn’t leaving Alina, I had to change what I was doing.
We stood in silence for a good two minutes before I said, “I see shit. PTSD. Or maybe the after effects of the drug. I don’t know.”
“Good possibility,” Deck said. “That drug had some potent shit in it and it could be damaging and you don’t even know it. You have to see a doctor.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “Fuck that. Do you know what they’ll do to me? The second I lose it talking about the shit I went through, they’ll pump me full of drugs and lock me up. I can’t survive that. I won’t. My mind can’t take that shit. I was locked up for seven years. Seven, Deck. It will kill the last thread of sanity I have left.”
Deck was silent. “Okay. We get blood taken. We start there. Nothing else.”
“I’m not going to a hospital.”
Deck said, “We have a doctor on company payroll.”
“Unyielding Riot,” I said, shaking my head. “Who the hell picked that name?”
Deck snorted. “So, you’ll have blood work done?”
I ran my hand through my hair nodding. “I can’t lose her. And I can’t keep hurting her either. So, yeah.” I moved away and opened the screen door and looked over at him still standing at the railing. “What you did was a dick move and if you pull that fucked-up shit again and scare my girl, it won’t just be a bruised jaw.”
“Understood.”
“I’m staying here and Gate leaves. Only way it’s going to be.”
Deck stiffened. “How do I know you won’t fuck off with her the second we leave.”
I shrugged. “You don’t. But Alina already told me she won’t leave, otherwise we’d have been on my bike long before we had this conversation.”
“If there is another situation like the kitchen shit, we’re renegotiating the terms.”
I didn’t say anything and moved back inside the house to find Alina.
She was in the backyard with the guys sitting in the cabana. I stopped halfway there and swallowed the urge to drag her away from them.
I pursed my lips together. Shit, if I was going to do this, this overprotectiveness had to cool down. I didn’t know how to do that yet, but the first step was not pulling out my gun, which I’d stupidly left at the hotel, or throw punches.
“Babe,” I said and she looked up. Her eyes traveled the length of me, no doubt checking for injuries then her shoulders sagged and she smiled. She slipped from the cabana and walked toward me.
All the emotions that had been pulsing through me over the last ten minutes faded and it was like a warm wash of heated calm.
I slipped my hand beneath her hair, settled it on the back of her neck and tugged her into me. Her palms landed on my chest and she looked up at me with a hesitant smile. She didn’t have to say anything. I knew why she was hesitant.
“I’ll try to get un-lost.” Her smile broadened and if I could breathe in a smile that was what I was doing because it filled me up with its lightness. “But, baby, I don’t know if I can. And you have to swear to me you’ll try, too. It kills me that you gave up photography.” She opened her mouth to protest but I quickly cut her off. “We find our way back together, Alina.”
“Okay,” she whispered and reached up and cupped my cheek repeating, “Okay.”
I tilted my head and kissed her, soft, gentle, brief like a snapshot. I peered over at the cabana and Tyler and Vic watched. I nodded once and they returned the gesture. Slipping my hand into Alina’s, we went inside.Question 11: Favorite flavor of ice cream?CONNOR LED ME through the house, up the stairs and into the bedroom. With the heel of his boot, he shut the door then he walked me over to the oversized lounge chair and sat. He pulled me into his lap, and I curled into him.
“My head is pounding, shutterbug. I need a minute.” He locked his arms around me, and to anyone looking in on us, they’d see lovers embracing, but there was so much tension in him. The crease between his brows accentuated as he rested his head on the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
“Okay, ” I whispered, resting my cheek on his chest, hearing his heart thump erratically. He needed the silence. Usually he went in the shower or left on his bike, but instead, he held me in his arms. This was him fighting against what he was used to doing. He was trusting himself not to hurt me.
