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“Bingo. I knew you weren’t as stupid as you seemed.”
She rolls her eyes, but she stays close to me. I have to admit, I don’t mind the warmth of her body next to mine.
Maybe Akim is right. It’s been too long since I’ve fucked. That’s all this is. Pheromones. Chemicals. The animal part of my brain going haywire.
We turn out of the alley onto the sidewalk. Piper squeezes my forearm once more, then lets go at last. I swear she whimpers almost imperceptibly as she does. Like she’s losing something in the process.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
“For having you arrested?”
“No,” she huffs. “For…for coming to get me. You don’t deserve a thank you since you’re the one who put me in there. But you also could have left me a lot longer. I don’t know if I would have… Well, I’m glad you came when you did. So, yeah. Thanks.”
I don’t respond. Mostly because I didn’t go and release Piper for her own sake; I did it for mine.
And that’s a thousand times worse.
The thought of her in there with Rooney, with the rest of those corrupt fucks in blue, with any of the slimy bastards they have cuffed up today… I didn’t like that shit at all.
Akim would say it’s because I want to fuck her hard in the yard or some other Seussian bullshit. But it’s more than that. The desire I feel to protect her runs deeper than that.
Maybe it does all go back to Emily.
All I know is, nothing is going to happen to Piper Quinn while she’s under my care.
After that, though, she’s on her own.
“Wait.” Her hand finds my arm again and she jerks me to a stop. I’m surprised at how willingly I let her do it. “How did you get here? What did you drive?Didyou drive?”
“I didn’t walk forty miles in two hours, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Her chest rises and falls as her breathing picks up. “Timofey, I can’t.”
“A second ago, you were ready to erect a statue to me for getting you out of there. Now, you want to stay?”
Her eyes narrow, but her frowny mask does nothing to hide her obvious panic. “I don’t want to stay, but I can’t get in your car. I-I’m claustrophobic.”
“What?”
“Claustrophobic,” she spits, saying the word like it’s shameful. “I don’t like being in small spaces.”
“I know what claustrophobic means.”
“Okay, good. So you know that being handcuffed, shoved into the back of a police cruiser with a partition, and then chucked into a jail cell was the trigger of all triggers for me.” She licks her lips and looks up at me under long lashes. “I’m barely standing upright here. I’m exhausted and on edge. I can’t get back in a car. I just can’t. I won’t. I—”
“Don’t have to,” I finish for her.
She blinks. “Huh?”
“It would be pretty hard for you to get in my car since I don’t have one.”
“But you said—”
I point at the machine in front of us and watch as Piper’s expression shifts from confusion to elation.
“Of course you ride a motorcycle.” She laughs to herself, part maniacal, part scoffing, mostly relieved. “All the bad boys do.”
“You wound me, Ms. Quinn. I’m no cliché.”
