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The snap pulled his attention back up to me, and for once, my annoyance didn’t tighten his jaw. As dark eyes looked out to me, I caught sight of the last thing I wanted to see. I saw a glimpse of the boy who had protected me all those years ago.
“I didn’t interfere with your life, Birdie.” His attention lowered back to my side. “If the other night didn’t happen, you would have never known anything was wrong.”
“I’m not an idiot,” I hissed. “You knew you were—” When his muscles betrayed him, when he applied too much pressure while applying a fresh bandage, I nearly choked. “The roses at work, Michael? And the plumber you sent to my mother’s house? Or last week when I—”
“You hate roses.”
Michael didn’t put it together until my entire body froze. I didn’t place my finger on the sickness until it threatened to overthrow everything in my world. Our eyes locked, and finally, my skin paled. The flowers, those awful gestures, had started a year ago— first left on my doorstep and then delivered to my office. Notes left without a name, packages sent without a return label. The entire experience left me embarrassed, but as our eyes locked, there was a subtle truth in his hardened gaze.
If Michael had been behind it, he would have sent the right flowers.
So who the hell had been following me?
The stranger in the woods.
A weight collapsed my chest and spots coloured my vision. I tried to push myself off the counter with shaking hands, but Michael’s fingers in my waist kept me planted in place. Then, all that was left was the desperate attempt to suck back a breath. I couldn’t help the way my thighs tightened around him, the way my forehead rested on his shoulder as I leaned forward.
“Breathe.”
If it wasn’t Michael, who was it?
If it wasn’t Michael, how long had someone else been following me?
How stupid did I have to be to not notice?
“I can’t.”
“Settle down.” When another strangled cry left my lips, when my eyes started to water, Michael shifted into something else entirely. Strong hands pushed me upright, and his thumb and forefinger held my chin firmly in place. Just inches from my face, Michael’s calm expression demanded my obedience. “Settle down.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing.” The question brought a twitch to his muscles, and Michael’s gaze fell to my quivering lips. “You’ve attracted psychos all your life. That’s nothing new.”
“This isn’t—” It took two attempts to break out of his grip, but the fight brought a new wave of breath. Or maybe that was just the sensation of his hands on my thighs. “If some creep was following me, I should have known.”
“Obviously your sense of danger is a little misplaced.” His thumb rubbed a gentle circle against my thigh, and if I had been willing to believe it, I might have noticed the slightest hint of the boy I used to know. “You chased after me for months, didn’t you?”
I wouldn’t look at him, but I couldn’t pull away. I wanted to spit out that it was different, thatthiswas different. All I could really focus on was the feeling of the waves crashing over my head. The truth was, I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to see it. It was easier for me to believe that Michael had wanted to reach out to me, was still in love with me, than it was to admit that I had attracted a vampire. It was easier to think of Michael’s violence than it was the love of a stranger.
Even if I wasn’t ready to admit it.
My eyes wouldn’t look up to him until his thumbs dug protectively into my thighs, until his seriousness locked my gaze. “I’m handling this.” His eyes would drift to my lips for only a moment before flickering back up. “I’ve always handled this, haven’t I?”
Flashes of Josh filled my head, memories of that awful night. Then came the memories of the nights he’d walked me to the bus, the nights he’d driven me home when he didn’t think it was safe, the men who stopped bothering me the moment I mentioned something to the tattooed boy.
Another squeeze demanded my answer, but I couldn’t choke out the words he needed. Instead, it was a gentle nod of my head that seemed to calm him.
Yes. You’ve always handled this.
“Birdie, if you want this to be over, you have to let me do this. You need to trust me.” When he paused, our eyes locked again. “I need to knoweverythingabout that night. If I let you go again and something happened to you—”
I thought I’d curse that guilt for the rest of my life— the one that came as the words caught in his throat. This thing in front of me was the thing I should be scared of. Michael wasn’t a protector; he was a parasite. He nearly killed Josh, had spent six years watching me, had been unable to keep his promise to give me space. But as I looked at him now, as I watched him break in front of me, I didn’t see the monster that had leaked into my veins. All I saw now was the boy I met all those years ago.
“I don’t really remember.”
“Anything, Birdie.Anydetail that can tell me where to look.”
The truth was, I couldn’t be sure what the hell I remembered from that night, wasn’t sure what was just a twisted fantasy. “I thought something was in the road.”
