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“Actually, not exactly,” Porter replied.
Dmitri and Aidan stopped doing up their vests and looked at Porter in surprise. Dmitri finally asked, “What’s the problem, then?”
If only Kenzie was being her classic bratty self, then everything would be fine. But she was being the exact opposite. It was fucking with his head. Porter hadn’t expected to get so wrapped up in her, yet he’d also never seen that beautiful side of her. The side he felt compelled to protect. “I’m pretty sure she’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Sawyer asked, stepping in next to Aidan. “Emotional?”
Porter hesitated, considered, and then shrugged. “I’m certain there is some of that, but this is something else. I think she might be in some type of danger.”
“I can’t imagine a bookstore owner being in danger,” Kyler said, siding up to Sawyer, holding his paintball gun in his hand. “Why do think that?”
Porter did up the other strap of his vest. “I went to her book shop yesterday and found her completely scared shitless.”
Surprise lighted Aidan’s eyes. “A scared Kenzie certainly doesn’t sound like her.” He cocked his head, curiosity drifting across his features. “I wonder if that’s why Kenzie has asked to stay at our place tonight.”
“She has?” Porter asked, alarmed.
Aidan gave a quick nod. “Cora texted me a couple minutes ago to say that she wanted to warn me that it was very likely a drunk Kenzie was coming home with her tonight.”
Concern rushed through Porter’s mind, but what he noticed most was the hot jealousy that Kenzie hadn’t wanted to stay with him, which was ridiculous thinking, he knew that. It also confirmed to him that something was terribly wrong with her. The only reason she wouldn’t stay at her house was if she’d been threatened there. “I’ll keep an eye on it,” he said to the group. “If anything develops, I’ll let you know.”
“Please do,” Kyler replied, resting the barrel of the gun on the ground. “Those girls are ours to protect, aren’t they?”
“Nah,” Porter said, without really thinking about it. “That girl is mine to protect.”
Stunned faces met his, and Porter realized in that split second what he’d said. Kyler finally laughed. “Buddy, you sound like a man who’s falling hard.” At Porter’s silence, Kyler’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “That was a joke.”
Porter knew an attachment was forming with Kenzie. But dammit all to hell, he didn’t want the Kenzie who didn’t come to him when she had a problem or if she was afraid to be in her house. He wanted her to trust him, to depend on him, and, more important, he wanted her to see how much she deserved that.
This façade of hers was beginning to irritate him.
The men around him continued to stare blankly at Porter, so he shrugged. “There’s something there, I won’t deny that. Whether it be just a closer friendship or something more, only time will tell.”
Dmitri grinned from ear to ear, giving Porter a slap on the back. “Well, that was certainly unexpected, but I’m glad. Kenzie’s been alone for too long.”
Good point, Porter thought, and he wondered why that was. Kenzie was beautiful, smart, strong, vivacious, and practically perfect in his eyes when she let her walls down. He couldn’t figure out why no one else had seen all that in her. “I…” He hesitated, not wanting to share too much, but trusting these men also.
Being with Kenzie started out as a way for him to get his Club Sin Master status; now it had become so much more. His Dom liked how she melted in his touch, how she reacted differently to him than she did anyone else. It made him curious about her, about what could develop between them if he broke down the barriers she kept up. “I like the woman that she shows only me, not the bratty one she shows everyone else.”
Aidan smiled, shouldering Porter. “She’ll keep you on your toes, that’s for sure.”
“Or just drive me to drink,” Porter mused.
Laughter filled the a
ir, and was soon replaced by silence. Only the wind brushing over Porter and stirring up the desert floor into mini-tornadoes held his focus. Porter wondered what all the men around him thought, as they regarded him, a little dumbfounded, as if they couldn’t understand what he, as a Dom, would enjoy about Kenzie. But he rather enjoyed that none of them saw Kenzie like he did.
It made it all a little more special.
Sawyer finally cut through the silence, and as he placed his mask on his head, he said, “Let us know if you need our help for anything that comes up.”
“Of course,” Porter replied, grabbing his mask off the dirt by his feet and shaking it off.
“Is she not talking to you about what’s going on?” Dmitri asked.
“She seems incapable of sharing anything,” Porter said, now reaching for his gun resting on a sandbag. “Has she always been that way?”
Dmitri nodded, finishing doing up his vest. “Ever since I’ve known her, which has been quite a few years now. I tried a long time ago to get a bit more insight into her, but you can’t look into a woman who doesn’t want you to. And she never did.”
