The club answers in low murmurs. No one argues. No one laughs. No one looks at me properly, which somehow makes it worse. Their refusal to look confirms exactly what he has done. He hasn’t only protected me. He has placed me, publicly and unmistakably, in the same category as everything else he owns.
I pull out of his grip and walk down the hall to the office with my pulse pounding, Saint on my heels.
The anger coming off him follows too, but for once mine is louder. I shove the office door open and turn the second we’re inside, barely waiting for him to close it before the words tear out of me.
“You don’t get to use me like that.”
Saint shuts the door slowly. “Watch your tone.”
“No. You don’t get to drag me in front of everyone and make me part of your punishment because Cade pissed you off. You beat him for touching me, fine. Terrifying, excessive, and apparently very educational for the room. But then you put your hands on me like I was another part of the display.”
His expression hardens. “You nearly disrespected me in front of the whole club.”
I laugh because the alternative is screaming. “I nearly disrespected you? You put your hand on my throat and rubbed me through my pants in front of men who are still deciding whether I’m a spy, a hostage, or your personal entertainment. You don’t get to talk to me about respect after that.”
“What the fuck has gotten into you?”
“What got into me is that for one stupid second I thought I mattered differently here.” The words come out faster now, dragged up from the place they’ve been gathering all week. “I’m not naïve enough to think you’ve grown a heart and fallen in love. I know what this is. I know how you work. But I thought I was worth something more to you than useful. I thought when you looked at me, you saw me.”
Saint steps toward me. “I do see you.”
“No, you saw something of yours getting touched and decided the answer was to show the whole club where I belong.” My throat tightens, but I refuse to stop because he’ll take the roomback the second I let him. “Not beside you. Not even behind you. As your little bitch.”
His jaw flexes.
I point toward the door. “That show out there told every man in that room what I am when your temper gets involved. Cade put hands on my cut. You put hands on my body in front of everyone and called it protection.”
Saint closes the distance, using his size the way he does when he wants the room to shrink around him. “He needed to know.”
“He knew when you broke his face.”
“The club needed to know.”
“They knew when you broke his face.”
His hand comes up, and for one second I think he’ll grab my throat again. Instead, he catches my jaw and kisses me hard enough that pain flashes through my lip where his teeth catch. It’s a brutal kiss, meant to take the argument out of my mouth and turn it into the language he trusts. My body answers before pride can stop it, my hands lifting toward him, and the betrayal makes me angry enough to shove both palms against his chest.
Saint moves back half a step, eyes dark.
I drag in a breath. “Promise me you won’t fucking do that again.”
“I’m not promising shit.”
Something inside me steadies around that answer because at least now I know exactly what he’s willing to give me. “Then you’re about to see just how disrespectful I can be.”
I make it three steps toward the hall before his body presses against my back and the door stops me. He moves so fast I only feel the air change, then he’s there, one hand planted beside my head and the other at my waist, pinning me between wood and heat and the fury I just tried to walk away from. His mouth drops near my ear.
“You don’t fucking walk away from me.”
A moan tears out of me before I can stop it when he grinds his hips into mine
Humiliation follows immediately. My body has the worst timing in the world. Saint goes still behind me, his breath rough against my neck, and I hate that even now, in the middle of this, some part of me wants to soften into him.
I twist around between his body and the door, forcing enough space to look up at him. My eyes burn, and I don’t know when that started. I only know the tears are there now, threatening to make the argument more honest than either of us knows how to survive.
“I need to hear you say it,” I whisper.
His face changes by a fraction. “Say what?”
