He huffed out an incredulous laugh, dark hair flopping to the side as he angled around enough to meet my face. His jaw was set in a hard clash of teeth. “You think I’d take you home to stay by yourself after what just went down tonight? Not gonna happen, Kitten.”
“Trent—”
He cut me off with a harsh shake of his head, and he unwound my hands from his stomach, guiding me off his motorcycle so I was standing. He continued to straddle the metal, though he never let go, the man clutching my hand as if it were a lifeline as he pulled me to stand beside him.
He stared up at me.
Ruthless, savage beauty.
Every inch of him this sinister seduction that I didn’t know how to look away from.
And he was gazing up at me like I was the sun. The breaking day. A light in the darkness.
I shuffled my feet, trying to rearrange the broken bits of my heart. The pieces I’d already given him that he’d crushed a week ago. All while I felt him stealing more.
All of it.
All of me.
Whiplash.
With Trent Lawson, I never knew if I was coming or going. If he was going to push me away or draw me near. If he was going to ravage me or destroy me.
I guessed with the man, it was one and the same.
Dark, desperate eyes sparked beneath the dull light of the garage, a collision of blunted and bright, desperation carved in the sharp angles of his face. He squeezed my hand. Almost too hard. An apology. “No question that was a message for me, Eden.”
I gulped around the thickness in my throat. “Why?”
He scoffed and looked away, giving the words to the lapping night. “A million reasons why. Uncountable enemies. Innumerable wrongs. All of them on me.”
Sorrow had etched itself into his expression when he looked back at me. Deep, bleeding wounds from the depths of his striking, gorgeous face.
And I was struck again with what Jud had said. With his brother’s belief.
“He deserves someone who will see him for who he really is, Eden. Not for what he’s done.”
And I did. I saw him for something so much better. Something so beautiful I was staggered.
I shouldn’t have, but with a trembling hand, I reached out and cupped his cheek. Like I could hold a piece of it when the only thing he wanted to do was shield me. “All of them in your past.”
In a flash, he was on his feet.
Towering.
Obliterating.
“It happened tonight, Eden. Right now. In our city. That doesn’t seem much in the past to me. I fuckin’ won’t…” He choked on the words, as if everything had gone sour, pain leaching into the threat. “I fuckin’ won’t let anyone touch you. Touch Gage. I won’t.”
The rigidness of his jaw promised it wasn’t an idle threat. Just the same way as I’d known it before. This terrifying man with the aura of iniquity. Blood on his hands. A tainted spirit with a beautiful soul.
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“Bullshit,” he spat. His face pinched in sharp rejection while the next word came soft as his hands latched onto my upper arms to draw me close. “Bullshit.”
It was a whisper.
A breath.
I shook, looked away, managed to force out, “I shouldn’t have come here. After last week…” I trailed off, revealing too much.
That it’d hurt. I hadn’t meant for it to. For it to come to that. For him to hold a part of me. That I’d been giving in and letting go.
Welcoming the coming devastation.
He only tightened his hold. “Wouldn’t let you be anywhere else.”
Big hands slid up my arms and over my shoulders.
Riding up until he was holding my face. Until I was trembling and trembling. My heart in his hands. “Don’t know why they delivered that message through you, Eden. Hell, I don’t even know who they are or what they want. But until I do? Won’t let you out of my sight.”
I thought maybe that was more dangerous than anything else.
My throat tremored when I swallowed.
Trent followed the movement. First with his eyes and then with his fingertips.
Tattooed hands gliding down my throat. Fire and flames.
Chills streaked as my head dropped back, and he continued down, his palms spreading over my shoulders and gliding over my arms.
As if the man could hold everything.
Desire flooded through me. Head to toe. Everywhere. Everywhere.
My eyes dropped closed, and I forced out the shaky words. “You know we can’t do this. It’s going to hurt too much when you let me go.”
At least I still knew that much about myself.
Intensity flashed from his body. A shockwave. A serrated inhale through his nose. A growl in his throat.
Then he ripped himself back, dropping his hands like the topple of stones.
My hands moved to take the place of his, rubbing the cold spot on my arms, aching for his warmth and his comfort and knowing asking for it would be all wrong.