He took another rigid step back. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm. Where you can sleep knowing not a soul is gonna get to you. I’ll keep you safe, Eden. Promise you that.”
I should tell him no. Call my daddy and ask him to come pick me up. Even though he would be worried, it’d be a lot safer than this.
For my heart.
But no.
I gulped down the doubt and gave Trent an erratic nod. “Okay.”
Tattooed fingers wound with mine. Looser than they had been before, as if he were trying to keep himself restrained.
“Come on.”
I warred, glued to the spot.
He angled in close. “Don’t make me toss that pretty ass over my shoulder.” It was a snarl. The unmitigated truth that he’d meant what he’d said.
He was going to keep me safe. Whatever it took.
Warily, I followed, shuffling along behind him as he punched a button and the garage door closed. He pushed open the interior door and led me into his and Gage’s home.
Why it felt surreal, I didn’t know.
As if I were stepping into something private.
Something sacred.
My eyes were wide as I took in everything. Desperate to know a little more of this man. As if maybe looking at his possessions would give me a clue.
We’d stepped into a great room of sorts, a living area with a modern kitchen to the back. Everything was clean and contemporary, decorated bland, though there were a few toys strewn about.
It was so different than what I’d pictured.
I thought maybe the man was trying to blend into the gray walls. Fade away and become a backdrop.
Impossible.
“This way,” he grumbled, slowly pulling me toward an arch in the wall that led into the formal living area. He moved directly for the staircase. I followed him, continually dropping my gaze each time he glanced at me from over his shoulder. Each time he stole my breath. Each time his big boots shook my simple, easy world.
Our hearts were a thunder in the quiet, sleeping space.
Drum, drum, drumming against the walls.
Shadows that crawled.
Intensity that whispered.
A building storm in the night.
I doubted either of us knew how we were going to make it through this.
Because I could feel every inch of Trent bound in tension. In want and restraint.
We hit the deserted landing. To the right was a long hallway with a bunch of doors. To the left were double doors that clearly led to the master bedroom.
“Where’s Gage?” I whispered.
Trent turned around.
A demon in the night.
Beautifully terrifying. All hard, savage lines.
“At my younger brother, Logan’s. He sleeps there when I’m at the club. He’ll bring him home early in the morning.”
I could barely nod. Could barely think.
Could only feel.
Trent walked backward, tugging me along toward the double doors. He angled around enough to open the right side, dipping through the doorway as if it were a passageway into another world.
I wondered if it were.
Because everything shivered and shook.
Different than last week.
As if we’d bridged a new beginning.
Or maybe we’d just been tossed into Hell. Like he’d warned. And I had no capacity to put on the brakes. No idea how to turn around and make a run for it like I clearly should be doing rather than following him into his bedroom.
His bedroom that was shrouded in shadowed silhouettes.
As if those ghosts crawled his walls and forever haunted his dreams.
This room was more like him.
On the far side of the room, the giant bed was made in a plush black comforter. The fabric headboard was tall and took up almost the entire wall, black and studded. Large pieces of art were hung along the wall closest to me, authentic paintings done on twelve-foot canvases that captured the man as if the artist had a tap into his brain.
Like it gave me one, too.
Each were a depiction of those ghosts that screamed and howled. Demons that climbed from Hell and roved a forsaken Earth. But there was also eternity. Beauty written in the starry skies.
Each piece was poignant and unforgettable. Breathtaking and hair-raising.
Or maybe it was the hand gliding up my forearm that lifted the chills, returning my attention to the man who towered in his room.
A dark refuge on a shore of treacherous waters.
Or maybe…maybe it was all a trap. The daunting phantom waiting to pull me under.
“I should get cleaned up,” I forced out through my thickened throat. The air was so dense and deep I swore I could see the words float on it.
Trent stepped back. “Bathroom’s this way.”
He gestured to the door at the far left side of the room, between the foot of the bed and the wall of images. He led me that way, stopping at the door and leaning in to flick on the light. He shifted to the side to let me in ahead of him.
I blinked against the stark intrusiveness of the blinding rays, hugging my arms over my chest like it would protect me from whatever this power was.