My chest squeezed tight.
Tied in hurt and confusion.
When he started to edge back, I reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. A fool. A fool. But I couldn’t help the way my entire body felt as if it’d come alive.
Sparked into existence after I’d been numbed into nothingness for so long.
“I…don’t understand.”
He wrung himself out of my hold and held his arms up at his sides. “Not much to understand, Kitten. I’m a bad guy and you’re a good girl. You’d do well to keep your space. Simple as that.”
My head shook. “It doesn’t feel so simple to me.”
Grimness lined his lips. “Have a way of turning pretty things ugly.”
Another warning.
Though this one rang with regret.
My attention darted left to right, to the ground, before I forced myself to look back at him. Unsure of his life, but sure it was dirty, unsure why I couldn’t seem to keep myself from delving farther.
Searching for a way inside.
“Does that apply to Gage? Do you think you’re a danger to him? That you could hurt him?”
I didn’t even care that my voice shook when I asked it. My students would always be my first priority. But I knew with Gage, it was more than that. That feeling that had taken me over the first time I’d seen him sitting in his tiny desk in the front row.
In a flash, the wolf struck. Trent pinned me to the wall. My palms flew behind me to keep me steady.
His hands were planted on either side of my head, and the entirety of his being vibrated with brutality.
Caging me in. A vicious, obliterating force.
The words that fell from his mouth were daggers. “Am I a danger to him? Miss Murphy…make no mistake…anyone who even thinks about hurting that child? There isn’t a soul on this Earth who could save them from me. From the pain I would inflict. From the hole where their body would lie. The only danger is to them.”
My throat tightened, and I struggled to swallow around the lump that gathered thick.
My knees knocked with the clear implication.
I knew most parents would easily claim it. Claim they would destroy anyone who hurt their child. It was only normal to want vengeance if they were faced with that horrible circumstance.
With Trent Lawson? It was clear it was no idle threat or exaggeration.
This man had blood on his hands.
I could smell it.
Taste it.
Felt it radiating around him.
An aura of iniquity.
“I pray neither of you are ever put in that position.” I meant it.
Stepping back, he released me, but not from the snare of his spirit. Our gazes were a tangle of questions as those fiery eyes glowed and glinted, calling me deeper.
Deeper and deeper.
“You really should go home.” That time, he was pleading with me.
I swallowed around the emotions locked in my throat and gave him my own truth. “You’re not the only one who has trouble in their life, Mr. Lawson. You’re not the only one who would do whatever it takes to protect their family.”
I had to wonder if we were really any different at all. If we were all only trying to figure out how to give those we loved the hope they deserved.
Harshly, he searched my face, as if he were looking for a lie. “That what this is? You need money…for your family?”
My nod was jerky.
His lips curled in distaste. “You married?”
Grief trembled, that empty space howling its sorrow. Closing it off, I angled my head to the side, my voice soft surrender as I turned his words back on him. “Do I look married to you?”
Only my commitments ran deep. My promises. My love. My soul’s innermost ache.
He wavered in the moment, like he was going to ask me why before he seemed to come to a resolution. He nodded. “Okay, then.”
Forcing a brittle smile, he stepped back.
It was as if he had made the decision to put a wall between us. Neither cold nor hot. Indifferent.
It left me feeling as if I’d just been tossed ashore after being drowned in turbulent, tormented waves.
Floundering and coughing and searching for air.
I stared at him for a beat.
At his beauty.
At his intensity.
At this man who for the first time in years made me want to look closer.
My spirit warned I might not like what was written inside.
It didn’t matter.
That hunger had lit.
A hunger I would never act on. Would never be so reckless. I knew full well my heart would never recover from the kind of breaking this man would bring.
But I guessed…I guessed I relished in the idea—in the feeling—in the simple fact he made me feel alive for the first time in so long.
“Thank you, Mr. Lawson. Truly. I needed this job.”
Peeling myself from the wall, I forced myself to turn and start toward the kitchen.
“Kitten.”
That ridiculous nickname coming from his tongue wrapped me like a sinful caress, and I stopped moving, but didn’t turn around.
“Your probationary period is over. Go change. You’ll start training as a cocktail server tonight.”
At that, I whirled around. “What?”
Trent cocked that arrogant grin. “Everyone starts off washing dishes here. Didn’t you know?”
Then he spun on his heel and disappeared into his office, slamming the door shut behind him.
I just stood there.
Stunned and confused and grateful.
My heart in my throat and my head spinning.
Whiplash.
Six
Trent
Out back, I lit a cigarette and leaned against the grimy building. I inhaled, filling my lungs full, one boot planted to the ground and the other to the wall.
I looked to the blackened sky smattered with stars.
Trying to get my shit together. To figure out just what the hell I thought I was doing. How I was supposed to maneuver this.
Was basically hiding out back of my own bar, for fuck’s sake.
But it was getting harder and harder figuring out how to be in Eden Murphy’s space and act like she hadn’t gotten under my skin. Like I wasn’t constantly watching her. Wanting something I most definitely shouldn’t want.
Last week, back on the first day of school when I’d discovered she was Gage’s teacher, I’d made the firm and fast decision that I had to draw a line. A clear-cut boundary, one in which eradicated that mesmerizing presence from my bar.
Knew it had to be done with the reaction that’d shaken down my insides when I’d pulled into the lot and saw her holding Gage’s hand.
A motherfuckin’ arrow straight to the heart.
Piercing.
From out of nowhere had come this longing that was pure insanity to acknowledge.
Might have known that I could never have it, that I’d ruin it, but I still hadn’t been able to shake the sense that I was looking on something right. Something good. What was missing.
Belief and beauty and hope.
Yup.
Straight fuckin’ stupidity.
That shit wasn’t in the cards for me.
I’d already fucked it all. Had committed too many wrongs. Most importantly, I couldn’t lose sight. Couldn’t jeopardize what I was living for by going after something I couldn’t have.