Rogue held up his hands. “Stand down. I’m not going to hurt him.”
“What are you—”
“I hope you’re not going to hurt him either,” Rogue said, a glint in his eye.
I growled and moved toward my brother. “Don’t push me.”
Rogue stood his ground. “TJ isn’t at the house.”
“What? Do we know where he is?”
Rogue shook his head.
“Fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair. So much for getting what I wanted. Like usual, I had to put others first, but this time, that meant Jacob wasn’t getting what he wanted either. I was used to pushing aside my own needs, but now I was disappointing him too. I didn’t have a choice, though. “Gather everyone at the house. We’ll be there in a second.”
Rogue nodded and closed the door behind him as he left.
“You’re going looking for him?” Jacob asked.
“Yes, and if he’s alive, I might kill him myself.”
Jacob’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t—”
“No. I agreed to protect him, but he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about that.” I wanted to tell Jacob we’d pick back up where we left off, but the words wouldn’t come. I hurried him to the house, and as soon as we entered, he scurried upstairs.
“You sure as hell better deal with that later,” Rogue said from behind me. I hadn’t even realized he’d followed me. That’s how fucked up I was over Jacob.
I rounded on him, but Rhys grabbed my arm. “You’re going to get it from both of us if you don’t.”
“What the hell?”
“You’ve got to stop jerking him around.”
“I’m not—”
“Yeah, you are. You might be saying no, but everything you do, the way you look at him, the way you talk to him, the way you want to protect him, says yes.”
“I want to protect everyone here.”
“Not like that.”
13
GRANT
We found TJ searching the area where they’d picked up the dead man. He was searching for clues on his own because he thought we weren’t thorough enough.
“Get back to the fucking house. Now,” I ordered. “You’re lucky I didn’t find your body out here.”
“I can take care of myself. I already told my father that.”
His scowl was scary as fuck, but I wasn’t going to back down. He might be big, and he might be damn good at what he did, but I was confident I could take him. “Take it up with your father then. I’m being paid to protect you, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
I really hoped he wouldn’t keep pushing back. I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to find Jacob, curl up around him, and feel his warmth. All right, so I also wanted to fuck the hell out of him. He wasn’t the only one who’d been going around desperate to get off for the last few days. But I truly wanted comfort as well as a long, hot ride.
“If you’re supposed to be protecting me, then you’d better up your surveillance. No one even noticed I’d walked away.”
He was right, and I hated that. I blew out a breath, trying to relieve some of the tension I was holding. “If you had any sense, you wouldn’t want to walk away. You’d recognize that—”