She’s in my arms before I have time to process the thought, the feeling, the concept, my kids squirming at our sides, poking their heads and hands between us, but they’re not pulling us apart, only merging us more tightly together.
“Goddammit, Tay.” I bury my face in her hair, tug her against me, my dick hard despite my worry, because it can’t be any other way around her. “What the fuck. I thought…”
I can’t even finish the sentence.
I tip her head up and kiss her, not caring anymore what her family thinks of me, the bearded savage who ravaged their daughter. Did they even know before tonight, before now, that we’re more than employer and employee? That I fucked their daughter? That I care for her more than I admit even to myself?
She breaks the kiss, strokes my bristly cheek. “I’m okay,” she says.
The hell she is. “I’ll kill Ross.”
And to hell with John insisting I lie low for a while.
“Shhh.” She laughs quietly. “I said I’m okay. And I don’t think it was him.”
At some point she starts to pull away, but I don’t let her, keeping an arm around her. Can’t bear to part from her again, not after this. She tugs me toward the sofa and we follow, me and the kids. We sit together, side by side, the kids flanking us.
Like a family.
Her mother is frowning at us, and yeah, I bet she had no idea about how things really are between us. Hell, I wasn’t sure until tonight.
I had an inkling, sure. My dreams, my reactions to her, my thoughts around her, they all told me what I now know.
She’s become part of my life, part of my heart. Losing her now would probably kill me. Finish the job.
And I don’t care, or think about turning back.
Too late for that.
“You sure you don’t know who attacked you?” Gigi asks her. “You said his voice was familiar.”
“It was?” I turn to Octavia, who shrugs. “Are you sure?”
“Not really.”
Turns out I walked right into the middle of her recounting of the events. Figures. The moment she called me I dropped everything, took the kids and headed straight here. The attack was twenty minutes ago, tops.
I rub my hand over her shoulder, down her arm, and she leans into me.
Her brother clears his throat, glancing from us to his mother and back. “So… no idea who that was? It wasn’t Ross, you said. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Also, I think Ross is taller.”
“Maybe one of his buddies?” Gigi says.
“Why would one of his buddies do that?” Merc asks, sounding baffled.
“How would I know, dumbass? Maybe he owes Ross a favor? Maybe Ross sent him to drive suspicions away from himself? Tati said she went and confronted him today.”
“You what?” My jaw clenches and my teeth grit with the curses ripping up my throat. “Tay, what did you do?”
She squeezes my hand, reassuring, and I take a breath. Since when do I need her reassurance so much? It curbs my anger, reminds me that I’m angry on her behalf, not at her.
Not at the whole damn world, at everyone and no one. Not anymore.
She’s changing me. Poking at all the claws and fangs. Fearless. Pulling me out of the dark after all this time.
This goddamn girl…