The concern in her gaze touched his heart, but he didn’t want concern right now.
He wantedheat.
Her fingers remained threaded through his hair, and the weight of her palm on his nape seemed to drag his head lower, lower, lower. Her soft chin trembled, and her lips parted, and shit, he wanted to taste that mouth and discover if it was exactly as tart-sweet as she was.
But—fucking hell. Hecouldn’t.
As far as he could tell, she tolerated him with grudging fondness. He certainly hadn’t noticed any signs of attraction. Even if he had, he was her job, and he wasn’t fuckingharassingher at work.
Reluctantly, he shifted away from her. Her hand fell from his nape, and he bit back a needy sound in favor of his usual nonsense. “Now that I’ve bared my very soul to you, Sister Clegg, stop trying to distract me from the matter at hand.”
He shook a chiding finger at her, but she didn’t take the bait. Instead, her gaze was still warm and tender on him, and he allowed that look to soak into his heart like rain on parched, cracked earth.
Then he made his position clear. “If you don’t want me to defend you because it embarrasses you or makes you uncomfortable, then okay. I won’t like it—I’ll fuckinghateit—but I’ll accept your decision and try my best to do what you’re asking. But if you don’t want me to defend you because you don’t think you’re worth the risk to my career, then that’s a different matter entirely, and no. I refuse to abide by your wishes.”
Fretfully, she rubbed at her temples, but he didn’t let her off the hook.
“So what is it, Wren?” With his forefinger, he tipped up her chin until she met his eyes again. “Do I follow your advice or my own instincts?”
Her face puckered in thought, and it was fuckingadorable,and he hoped like hell she gave him the answer he wanted. Because a woman who’d spent her life serving and protecting others at the cost of her own safety and emotional well-being deserved a champion.
A better one than him, obviously. But he was what she had right now, poor woman, and he wanted her to accept his entirely inadequate fealty.
He wanted her to accepthim.
After a long, fraught minute, she exhaled slowly.
“Your instincts,” she said. “God help us both.”
16
POOR MARCUS. WHEN HE CLIMBED INTO LAUREN’S HYBRIDthat Friday morning, he had no idea what awaited him. But she did, and she didn’t envy the man.
On their way to Marcus’s house, Alex had shared his plan with her. “I can’t fucking take any more anguished puppy-dog eyes, Wren. And since he wants us to room together at the hotel during Con of the Gates, I’m giving him the Full Alexander Woodroe Treatment.”
She made her voice as arid as humanly possible. “I hesitate to ask.”
But he knew by now that she’d be curious, no matter how much she might deny it. So instead of badgering her, he merely turned up the Tom Petty song piping through her speakers and shouted along to “You Wreck Me” until she gave in.
She stabbed at the volume controls. “Fine. You’ve defeated me with your atonal wailing. Tell me what the Full Alexander Woodroe Treatment is.”
As obnoxious in victory as always, he pumped both fists in the air—accidentally hitting her roof, to her poorly hidden amusement—before explaining.
“Through my sparkling wit and cunning repartee, I intend to capture his attention and keep it from straying to his lovelorn state.” He’d rubbed his hands together, satisfaction with his plan radiating from every perfect pore on his stupidly handsome face. “Essentially, I won’t give him the time or mental space to be a wretched, blubbering heap of a human being.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought him unsympathetic to Marcus, who’d sunk into abject misery after breaking up with his girlfriend. But she’d witnessed Alex rushing to his friend’s side at the slightest hint of trouble, and noted how he checked on Marcus’s mental state with nigh-alarming frequency via texts and FaceTime calls.
So yes, he was sympathetic. This was his way of helping, but doing so in the most annoying manner possible, because Alex was … Alex.
Thus far, he’d followed through on his plan, and it was a novelty not to have his barrage of words entirely directed at her, for once. Certainly, Lauren got her share along the way—as they drove to pick up Marcus at his home, and as the three of them headed to the airport, flew to San Francisco, and rode to the convention hotel—but Marcus received the bulk of the verbiage.
“—really pleased with the reception of my most recent fic,” Alex told his friend as they neared the hotel. “The one I wrote with Cupid as an actor, starring in a popular television show. You beta-read it for me a few weeks ago. Remember?”
Oh, crap. He shouldnotbe talking about this within earshot of a stranger.
From the front passenger seat, Lauren twisted around to tell him so, but Marcus was already on it.
“Alex—” Frantically, he jabbed a finger in the direction of the driver who’d picked them up at the airport. “Of course I remember, but you shouldn’t—”
