Page 12 of Battle Scars

After my dad dropped the whole your-life-is-possibly-in-danger bomb on me yesterday, I was a little stressed out. When Gabe declared he was the boss and did it with his sex-on-a-stick body really freaking close to mine, I was unhappy…and turned on. My panties were wet, and it wasn’t due to sweat in my FR suit. I knew immediately that this would not do.

But when he informed me that we’re now domestic life partners, I lost my shit.

“Excuse me?” I shout when he tries to nudge me over to the passenger side of my car. No one drives my baby, my Hellcat, but me. Out of the two of us, I’m the professional driver and no man is going to mansplain away my job to me.

I already have one man who seems to think he’s got a right to what’s mine by blood and by sweat equity.

“I drive,” Gabe says by way of explanation. “Always.”

Of course he does.

“I’m a professional driver.”

“I don’t care,” he grumbles. “I drive.”

Okay. So no mansplaining. He’s not going to give me anything.

“No,” I blurt. I know I sound like an idiot, but after having Gabe stare at me all day while I worked with Rowan and Erin, I’m not exactly capable of clear thought and speech.

“Manny, drive the Tahoe to her place,” he commands as he tosses the keys to the second in command. “Eli will pick you up in the other SUV.”

“But I’m just going home,” I reply, crossing my fingers over my chest before holding them up in front of me like I’m about to recite the girl scout pledge. “Straight home. Scout’s honor.”

“Were you ever a Girl Scout?” he asks with a stern look.

“No, but that’s not the point,” I shrug my shoulders.

“Adrienne,” he prompts after a moment.

“Yes?”

“Get your ass in the car.” And he says it in such a way that my body responds before my brain does. Like I’m meant to get in the car just because he says so. I’ve never done what I was told—as a rule.

“Okay.”

This is confusing.

I sit my ass in the passenger seat of my car, and Gabe drives me home. Why? I have no idea.

There’s just something about the low timbre of his voice when he told me to get in the car. I was helpless to stop it. I just… submitted.

That’s not like me at all.

I think about it through the entire ride home, hoping against hope that it was a fluke, a one-time thing, but I have my doubts.

I think about it as a trail of security bad asses follow behind us so they can carpool. I had no idea my entire world was about to flip on its head.

“Code,” he barks when he pulles up to my gate.

I sit in stunned silence.

Like a cartoon character once again, I slow-blink, totally unsure of what he’s asking me when I’m usually anything but unsure. “What?”

“The code.” He stares at me like I’m the idiot here.

Maybe I am, because I’m not sure what he’s asking for. My bank code? The nuclear codes the president carries? What code, man?

“For the gate.”