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“Now.”
I didn’t attempt to argue further and didn’t have much of an option. Ezra took hold of my wrist and pulled me out of the courtyard to his motorcycle.
* * *
Ezra didn’t say more than two words to me until we were checked into the hotel and setting our overnight bags on the crisp white sheets.
“What did he say to you?” His voice still carried a harsh worry that felt foreign to the charismatic man who’d seemed fearless.
“Why?” I sprawled out on the bed and flung my arms over my head. “What could that stranger have said to me in the brief moment you left me outside that’s made you so curious?”
For a moment, I had mistaken his interest for jealousy. He had, after all, bashed in a man’s skull at The Deacon for looking up my dress.
But now, the more his mood shifted, the less I understood his intentions.
He refused to meet my eyes. “You don’t understand how intrusive strangers can be for someone like me.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me to come with you. You didn’t want to be seen with someone normal.”
I knew that wasn’t the truth, but he would either lie to agree or he would come out with what was really eating at him.
The edge of the bed sank under the weight of his knee, and he pulled his body over me until his lips grazed mine.
“I’m not playing games with you,” he said in a heated warning. My breath hung on his every word. “If I tell you something is important, you have to trust that it is and listen.”
Not an explanation or what I needed to hear to want to end this argument.
If I had to drag the truth about this trip and his odd behavior out of him kicking and screaming, I was ready to do so.
I pushed up on his shoulder, and he rolled onto his side to allow me to get to my feet. I rounded on him.
“I’m not some roadie slut who is going to go along with everything you say without thinking for themselves.” The venom in my voice was heavy on my tongue. “You’re acting weird. Scared. What are we doing here, Ezra? Why are you so freaked out over some random creep in a churchyard?”
I spread my arms wide for dramatics. The heat of the argument had started to rise in my chest and was spurred on by the vacant look on his face. We’d spent most of our time together naked and testing our physical limits. But for the first time, I was showing him that I had real fight in me—apart from the sassy mouth he loved to fuck.
“Tell me what’s going on. The truth,” I demanded, my arms crossed and hip cocked.
He sat up and braced his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. For a moment, I saw a crack in his exterior, but then the bare skin between the inked flesh of his neck and shoulders turned red.
Anger.
He was furious.
“I owe one of my brothers a favor and had to visit an old friend to fulfill that obligation. You didn’t have to be here. In fact, I insisted that you stay at the apartment and wait for me to come back, but you wanted to come with me, like a clingyroadie slutyou turn your nose up at. If either of us should be explaining ourselves, it’s you. Why are you so secretive? What don’t you want me to know?”
He’d lost it.
Wherever this paranoia came from, it was centered around the church and the mysterious favor he owed his brother.
I couldn’t stop the tears from forming in my eyes. I always cried when I was angry, and it was my most annoying fault. It made whoever my opponent was think I was weak or about to fold.
Unfortunately for Ezra, I was not so easily beaten.
The harsh lines of his rage softened a little, and he held out a hand to comfort me. His fingers brushed my skin, but I whipped around to face the door.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, annoyance budding in my tone. “I wanted to come, but I would have stayed if I knew you were going to turn into this lunatic.”
“You don’t understand. You couldn’t.” He sounded tired or indifferent, and the latter sent ice into my belly.
