But the way he held me tight made me doubt what I’d heard. I was so relieved to see him that my cheek fell against his chest and my eyes closed.
“Hang on, Piper. Don’t pass out on me,” he said, low, into my ear then he shifted my weight so he held me even closer against him.
“I thought I told you to stay away frommyTarget,” Dex growled in menacing tones. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Charming?”
“I’m doing what you haven’t and taking my reward.”
Dex stepped closer to the killer and I stiffened. He was supposed to be stepping away…
“I’ll domyjob onmyown time. If you don’t like it, then you take that up with me or G.R.”
His words made ice form in my belly, but then he was stepping away, heading toward the door of the diner and out into the cold.
Dex didn’t say anything as he walked to his car, parked halfway on the sidewalk, and leaned down to open the passenger-side door. He sat me onto the warm leather and shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over my body, tucking it around me. Tears sprang to my eyes for so many reasons I couldn’t even name them all, and I turned my face away from him.
The car door shut softly behind me and then he was climbing into the driver’s seat, revving the engine and aiming all the heating vents at me as he pulled away from the curb.
I didn’t bother to turn away from him again. I was too stiff and sore and I wanted to watch his expressions when I asked him the question I had to ask.
I opened my lips, but my voice came out as a strained whisper. He glanced at me sharply and reached out to pull the coat closer around me.
“Don’t talk. You might make it worse. I’m taking you to the clinic.”
When he pulled his hand back, it stopped and hovered beside my face. I watched his jaw clench as I felt his fingers brush over my cheek and stroke downward. My eyes closed at the contact. So rarely did he touch me like this.
God help me, I craved it.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I managed to rasp once he pulled his hand away.
The silence in the car was so absolute I was beginning to think he hadn’t heard, but then he glanced at me. His eyes were all the answer I needed.
He was.
I lost it. I freaking lost it right there.
I jerked my body up, throwing aside his coat, pushing it away from me. I didn’t want the comfort of it. How could someone comfort me one moment, then kill me the next?
I would rather just have what happened in the diner. At least that was clearer. This was just… This was… It was messed up.
“What are you, an assassin?”
“Calm down, Piper. You’re going to hurt your throat,” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone.
I laughed. It hurt. “What do you care?”
I shoved at his shoulder and the car jerked, but he quickly righted it. He didn’t respond. He just drove, staring out the window with his jaw set.
“So if all you wanted was to kill me, why not just do it? Why bother getting to know me? Why bother with all of… of…this?” I motioned between us and he glanced at me and lifted a brow.
Something inside of me shriveled with that kind of mocking look.
It saidThis?You’re a silly girl with a silly one-sided crush. If you thought there was something between us then it was all in your head.
I wanted to die right then. I felt like such a fool.
I slapped him across his face, wiping that smug look right off it.
“Piper…” he growled, down shifting the car.
