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The blood is spreading quickly. It’s not time for the thousands of pressing questions I have for him. “Your shoulder. Is it hurting?”
“Nah. I’ve had worse. It’s just a scratch.”
“A scratch? That thing was massive yesterday, now you’re bleeding again.”
“Am I?” He glances down at his shirt. “Fuck,” he sighs, “A is going to kill me.”
“A?” That’s a funny name. Girlfriend? Surely not, if he was kissing me. Unless… it was just a mistake, an accidental slip of his lips in his delirious state. He probably doesn’t even remember it. “Who’s A?”
“My sister.”
“Oh, your sister.”
When he says the word sister I feel happier than a woman who just escaped being captured by a psycho ex should.
I really, really shouldn’t care.
If I was thinking with my brains and not my panties, I’d be running for the hills at the first sight of a good-looking man. Instead, I find myself leaning closer, inhaling his masculine scent.
Combat and sweat and something woodsy, reminding me of a tobacco flower soap I recently admired at a gift shop on one of my walkabouts to avoid the apartment and the ticked-off boyfriend inside.
“God, she’s going to be so pissed. She’s never going to go back home now.” He winces as he presses a hand to his wound. “I’m gonna have a twenty-four seven babysitter. The guys are going to have a field day with this one.”
“The guys?”
He’s talking so casually to me, like he’s known me forever. Maybe the pain has him loosened up? “The Brotherhood.”
Brotherhood… He’s a Bachman. Maybe? The most powerful family in the city. Self-made rulers of not only New York, but several large areas of the world.
Things kind of make sense now. The injury in the street, the fact he had a way to find me. The way he was trained to fight, unafraid.
I watch, wide-eyed, as he pulls his shirt up and over the back of his head with his left hand. His right hangs limp at his side. The smooth planes of his tanned chest draw me in. I want to reach out, stroke my fingers over his smooth skin. The red-soaked bandage wins out for my attention. “We’ve got to get that cleaned up.”
He presses the balled-up tee against the wound and tilts his head toward the door. “Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s no telling when that maniac’s coming back.”
“How did you even know I was here?”
“Story for another time.” His eyes hold mine. “You’re coming with me.”
It’s not a request. I debate with myself. Do I go along with this? Let this powerful, intense, dangerous stranger lead me off into the sunset?
Or, do I do the sane thing…
Turn him down, run for the forest, writing off all men…
Forever.
Chapter Nine
Beckett
The moment the blinking red light showed up on the screen I knew she was in trouble. The tracker showed her location at an abandoned warehouse on the edge of a forest.
As I stared at that screen, my heart thrumming in my eardrums, I knew I hadn’t imagined the fear in her eyes, the tremble in her voice, the tension in her body as she took off running that night.
Thank God I always carry a tracker with me. Every Bachman man does. Never know when you’re going to need to track someone down—or, in my case, save a beautiful girl.
Save her back, really. She did save me first.
