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“Fighting for you… but trying to fight fair.”
Butterflies stir up in my belly and my voice is a little breathy when I ask what he means.
Vaughn raises his arms and scrubs his hands through his hair. “I mean, I’ve been going fucking nuts without you. And the idea of another man taking you out, doing the things we haven’t done or worse, the things we have… I could barely handle it. Your brother told me you’d met someone and it might be serious.”
What!? Oh, Greg is a dead man.
Only Vaughn’s not done. “I thought… if I saw you with him… if you looked happy, really happy… I might be able to let you go.”
And with this those few words I forget about Greg and let go of the righteous pissed building inside me… because this is what matters. This minute. This man.
My heart feels too full and my lungs too weak. “Because you wanted me to be happy?”
That steady gray stare doesn’t waver. “More than my next breath.”
I love him.
“And if Ihadn’tlooked happy? What would you have done then?” I ask softly, but the answer is right there in his eyes.
“Then I would have been waiting at your door when he walked you up. I would have told him, sorry, but he was out of luck.” He drags his bottom lip through his teeth, and I squirm a little. “And then I would have had you moaning my name against that door before he got back to his car.”
“You wouldn’t even wait until he was gone?” I whisper.
“Baby, I wouldn’t even wait until we wereinside.” Heat rushes through me, because he’s serious. Sliding his fingers into the hair at the back of my neck, he strokes his thumb over the line of my jaw. “Natalie, if I’d thought that was my chance, I wouldn’t have waited a single second.”
* * *
Vaughn
Baxter givesme a wide berth when I show up to practice. But even fresh off a concussion, I can see he’s bristling, ready for a fight.Fucker.
Lucky for him, I’ve promised my girl I wouldn’t take him apart limb from limb.
There is zero chance he doesn’t know about last night. His wife was in the car watching when Natalie laid that kiss on me. And I’m pretty sure she and her friends were all still gawking when we went into her place together.
Everyone’s getting their equipment on and filing out of the locker room, but Baxter hangs back. Rux cuts a look my way and shakes his head, leaving us alone.
I cross my arms and jut my chin at him. “Something on your mind?”
Like that fucked-up date you sent your sister on last night? Or how you lied about her being in a new relationship?
“I thought you let her go.”
I left her alone for close to two miserable months. And it nearly broke us both. “Yeah? I thought Natalie was seriously stoked about her date—dates?—last night. Looks like we were both wrong.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and then shoot him a hard glare. “You have any idea how shitty you made her feel?”
He rolls his eyes and blows out a pissy breath. “I thought she’d—”
“You thought she’d come after you, which is why you pulled the pussy move and snuck out of Belfast without bothering to make sure she was okay with what you’d done. You didn’t even make sure she got home okay. Small fucking wonder she’s got so many issues about being with a player.”
He coughs, hands coming up beside him. “I was giving her some time to cool off. And those were damn decent guys I picked for her. Short fucking notice too.”
It clicks. This was about him warning me off. He lied to me and then tried to make it the truth.
“You dumb fuck. You know what she saw? More assholes willing to jump through outrageous hoops for you. Not her.You.”
“That’s not how it was. These guys have tickets to anything they want to see. They work in one way or another with players all the time.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same as being a part of your actual life. Being your brother-in-law. Seriously, man. Some dude asks you to play the dating game with his sister… sit there with two other dudes and let her pick… you going to do that?”
