Page 19

The garage was cool and smelled like rubber and oil. A few overhead lights lit work benches and security lights gave the space a soft, dim light so at odds with the actual place.

I stood next to Dane’s bike, arms wrapped around myself, waiting for whatever lecture or warning I was about to get for wandering around places I shouldn’t be or for not being in my apartment or whatever.

He finally turned toward me, resting his hands on the workbench behind him, shoulders braced. “You want to yell at me?” he said. The question had no heat, but the irony was a live wire in the room.

I blinked. “What?”

“You’ve been wound up since the minute I got back. So do it. Scream if you want. We’re far enough away, no one will hear you.”

I stared at him. “I -- No, I -- Why would I yell at you?”

A strange smile broke across his mouth. He looked more amused than annoyed or angry, which wasn’t something I expected from Dane. “Because you look like you’re about to climb the fucking walls, Brielle. Just get it over with.”

The second he gave me permission, it was like he’d flipped some kind of switch inside me. The anger and fear and longing and loss I’d subconsciously suppressed tried to leak out of me. “I just --” My voice came out gruff, so I tried again. “Why would you go out riding when you know we have someone looking for one or both of us? Why would you make yourself a target like that? Mr. Perry told us specifically not to leave the compound!”

He shrugged. “I can handle myself.”

It felt like his whole nonchalant attitude made it worse, like he dismissed my worry or, worse, that he didn’t care if I worried. The anger flared up, white-hot and sharp, and then I opened my mouth before I could filter myself. “Of course you can,” I muttered. “Because you’re fucking Superman.”

“You said it. I didn’t, sweetheart.” The smirk on his face made me want to scratch his eyeballs out and burst into tears all at the same time. Which was probably what set me off.

I lunged at Dane, shoving him with all my might. I’d have had about as much luck with a brick wall. “You could have been killed! Asshole!”

He grinned. The son of a bitch actually grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

How long had it been since I pushed back against anyone? I’d conditioned myself to hunker down and take whatever got dished out to me. Until this man kissed me. When he had, something changed inside me fundamentally toward him. “Maybe you don’t give a shit about yourself, Dane, but I do. I give a shit. That’s why I did all of this. It’s not about me, it’s --”

“Say it,” he said, so quietly it didn’t sound like the command it actually was.

I couldn’t breathe for a second. “I can’t --” The anger hitched, turned, and came out as something else. “I can’t watch you get killed, Dane. I did more than enough for you to hate me, but the fact is you’ve haunted me all this time. I only wanted to give you the means to fight back and maybe get some closure if you needed or wanted it. I can see now, all I did was open old wounds and drag you back into the past when you’d moved forward with your life.”

He took a step toward me, and then another, until I was against the wall with nowhere else to go. “You care about me?” he said, slow and careful, like he was weighing each syllable.

“I don’t know,” I said, but it was a lie, and we both knew it.

He moved into my personal space, leaning in to brace his arms on either side of my head against the wall. “You want to keep me here, Brielle? With you?”

“I want you to do what Ethan said. We’re supposed to stay here.” I felt tears overflowing and running down my cheeks but I refused to acknowledge them. “I want…” I trailed off, unsure what came next.

He leaned in close. “Come on. Tell me.”

I could smell the sweat on his skin, the clean leather, the hint of gasoline. It made my head swim. “I want you…” I said, stopping to swallow. “I want… I want you to be safe. To not have this threat over you. All because of me!”

He was right there, crowding me against the wall, his arms caging me in. Jesus. He was so big and imposing, but there was something in his eyes that held me still when I knew I needed to fight him for my space. He leaned in and just hovered there, his mouth a breath from mine. I wanted to bite him, punch him, fuck him, and fall to my knees and beg his for his forgiveness and his dominance all at the same time. Never had anything flooded my senses like this man did right now.

“This isn’t on you,” he said, voice low and rough. “The only thing you did wrong was try to handle it yourself.” I sucked in a breath to say something, but Dane pressed a finger to my lips. “No more guilt for you. Me? Yeah. I was guilty as shit. Just not of what I got convicted of. But what I’ve been asking myself during my ride was, if I’d known what was going to happen, would I have bugged out? I wasn’t being honest with you or myself with what I said before. I didn’t want to admit it. I’d have still gone along, if for no other reason than to collect my share of the take.”

I hated crying in front of people, but I felt tears trying to escape. I wiped my face with the heel of my hand. I was pissed off and humiliated and, underneath all that, so Goddamned scared for him. I’m not even sure I realized exactly how worried I was, but when he’d said he’d been followed by that same car from that first day, I wanted to throw up.

“You’re not a bad person, Dane. You might not be innocent, but you have your code and you follow it. I can see that every day, every hour I’m here.”

“Why did you kiss me, Brielle?”

“I wish I knew.”

He chuckled softly. “Caught me off guard too. But one thing I thought when I took off out of here was how much I don’t regret kissing you.” A whimper escaped me and I felt two tears overflow and spill down my cheeks. “Now. Do you regret kissing me?”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.” God, could I sound more pitiful?