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“I’m taking you home. I can get a cab from there,” he said. His tone brooked no argument. And, honestly, I felt so crummy that I didn’t have it in me to argue over what was clearly a nice gesture.
So I gave him my address.
And I let him drive me to my apartment.
Sometime on the drive, though, the exhaustion from the excitement, from the pain, and from the longest day of my life must have gotten to me and made me pass out.
Because the next time I woke up, I was safely nestled in Bael’s arms once again, my face pressed to his overly warm skin, as he carried me into my apartment.
I tried really hard not to think that it was like one of the scenes from the spicy books I liked to read sometimes.
Clearly, I failed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bael
I didn’t know what the fuck was going on with me.
I… cared.
I never cared about much of anything, save for my job. And I damn sure never gave a single fuck about humans as a whole, let alone individuals.
But there was no denying that the way my chest felt tight when she’d been whimpering and cuddling close to me was something akin to affection and concern.
I hadn’t anticipated how small and light she would feel in my arms. Sure, I had a general understanding about how frail the human species was. They dropped dead of common illnesses and small accidents all the time.
But never having been close to one, let alone held one in my arms, I couldn’t have known just how fragile they were.
I also couldn’t have anticipated the strange surge of protectiveness that grew inside of me.
Not even after having felt the bone-rattling rage back on the street as I yanked that motherfucker off of Charlotte and started to strangle the life out of him.
That rage I’d been able to excuse. It was familiar to me. Innate, even. It was in my nature to punish the wicked.
But it was far from rage inside of me as I carried her to the hospital, held her as she waited to be seen, then wore the floors down as I paced when she seemed to be back there longer than was normal.
It was something warm, yes, but not the burning sensation of anger. It was softer around the edges. It seemed to warm me up from the inside out, making me the most comfortable I had been since I’d been pulled out of Hell.
Most confusing of all, it wasn’t even close to the kind of heat that made me want to bury my cock inside her.
It was something different entirely.
Which was exactly why what I needed to do was toss her onto her bed, leave her with her keys, and get the fuck out of there.
Because whatever the sensation was, it couldn’t be good. Not when I felt it toward a human.
I needed to get away from her, then distance myself from her during our research sessions. If I pushed harder, we could be done in one or two more meetings, and I could haul my ass back to the house where I would never feel those confusing as fuck feelings ever again.
That wasn’t what I did, though.
No. I carried her through her apartment to the only door in the hall aside from the bathroom, taking her over to her bed, removing her shoes as she rested on my lap, then slipping her under the covers.
After that, I went back into the main space of her home, trying to tell myself to leave as my nosy ass snooped around her place.
It seemed to scream her name.
From the dozen or so mismatched coffee cups scattered on most of the flat surfaces to the bookcases lining the room as wellas the stacks of other books on the couch, the end tables, even on top of the toaster in the kitchen.
