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"Well, we have every selection to mankind," she told me, leading me inside, telling me about all the flavors of syrup we had, the different creamers.
I was only half paying attention as my mind reeled with so many thoughts I felt queasy.
As I drank coffee that I stopped gagging over after my second cup and tried to focus on patient issues, my thoughts raced back and forth, but always seemed to land back not on A—where my mind needed to be—but on Niro.
His lips.
Hands.
Voice.
The intensity in his eyes.
The resigned disappointment as he turned to leave.
I know. I know.
But what did he know?
What did he think I was going to say?
Hell, I didn't even know what I was going to say, but it wasn't something to be disappointed about in any way.
Was he replaying my words from in his bathroom after he took a machete to my confidence? Hadn't he been able to see under the hurt to the lie nestled there?
Maybe time had thrown off his ability to read me as well as he once had. Maybe I had gotten better at lying.
Either way, I wanted to reach out; I wanted to tell him I lied, that I was even lying to myself because I was terrified of my feelings for him.
But as I carried my weary bones out of work and into the relative privacy of my car, that was when the thoughts of A came back.
A watching me.
A knowing how important Niro was to me.
A using that against me at any point.
There was a sharp stabbing sensation in my chest at the idea, but I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to pretend like nothing had happened, that nothing had changed, that whatever he thought he "knew" was right. Even if what he knew was as far from the truth as possible. Even if not telling him that felt like a betrayal. To him, to me, to everything we had ever meant to each other, to what we could have meant to each other in the future.
Only, now, we couldn't.
I couldn't risk it.
I couldn't put him in danger like that.
I had to push him away.
I had to keep him away.
No matter how much it hurt.
And judging by the way my heart felt like little shards scattered across my chest as I climbed into bed with Nugget later, it was going to hurt a lot.
Chapter Thirteen
Niro
"The fuck is the matter with you?" Fallon snapped, making me almost fall on my ass from my crouched position which was making my back scream, still not fully back at one-hundred percent after the fight, then all the manual labor I'd done to distract myself from thoughts of Andi.
"What? I'm rotating my tires," I said, waving at my bike.
"You rotated them last week. And everyone else's while you were at it."
"Just looking for something to do," I told him, letting him assume I meant since the gym and fighting was now off-limits.
Anything, fucking anything other than the truth.
That I was barely able to think of anything but the sounds Andi made when my thumb worked her clit, how tight her walls felt around my fingers, how right it sounded when she cried out my name when she came.
Fuck.
Just letting the memory flash across my mind for a second was like a kick to the balls.
Then, of course, there was the look on her face after she came, after she'd realized what had just happened. And with whom.
Panic.
Maybe even a hint of fear.
Fucking fear.
Because I'd put my hands on her.
Christ.
It was a memory that chased away all the lingering traces of desire when I woke up from dreams about her with a raging hard-on and very little hope for release.
Panic and fear on the face of someone I had always vowed to protect from everything, to keep safe, to allow her to continue her light, easy existence in peace.
I'd put that look there.
And it was proving hard to live with that fact when I didn't have something to pound my fists into about it.
I knew the president was working with Ross Ward to mend fences, but I wasn't naive enough to think I would be able to fight again there, get my frustration out in that way again.
"We have a drop coming up," Fallon said, shrugging. "I was planning on sending Finn to toughen his ass up a little bit, but I can send you in his place. Get out of here. Clear your head a little."
"I would..."
"Fallon," Brooks called from the gates, making us both turn to find a bike rolling up the street.
Just one, but we were on edge lately.
Fallon and I both reached for guns even as we made our way toward Brooks, waiting for it to rumble closer than part, the engine cutting.
"We've been fucking over this," Fallon started when the rider climbed off, reaching up to pull the helmet off her head, shaking out her long blonde hair. "You're not welcome here, Danny."
