Page 52 of Alaric

“Yeah,” she admitted. “It didn’t occur to me until I put some space between me and the whole thing that I could have bought a burner. Or gone to the police station. I just… came here.”

I knew I shouldn’t have, but I liked that.

That her instinct was to come to me. Even before the cops. That she trusted me more. Or, at least, wanted me more. Not, I figured, for safety. Because she didn’t know yet that I could provide that to her better than the cops could. But just because she wanted to be with me.

I liked that a fuckuva lot more than I could have realized until that moment.

“I’m glad you came here,” I told her. “At least I know you’re safe here.”

“Do you really think they might have been there for me? The longer I’ve been away from there, the less convinced I am that their appearance had anything to do with me.”

“I can’t give you a concrete answer on that,” I told her, shrugging apologetically. “What I can do, though, is go check things out over there,” I told her. “If you want.”

“Alone?” she asked, sounding choked up.

“Trust me, baby, I know how to handle myself.”

“But there are three of them.”

“I can handle myself against three of them,” I confirmed.

I mean, there were three of these fucks, close to their target, and he was still alive?

Yeah, I trusted my gun skills more than theirs, that was for sure.

“But…”

“I will be careful,” I told her. “I’ll just take a look around, see if they’re still there, if they ripped the police tape, that kinda thing.”

“I could com—“

“I’d rather you stay here where I know you’re safe,” I cut her off.

“I know it’s a lot to—“

“It’s really not,” I said, shaking my head at her. “If you want, I can grab your phone for you too. Know I feel weird as fuck when I don’t have mine.”

“Actually, yeah, that would be great,” she said, finding her keys, and holding them out toward me.

Could I have taken them from her without brushing my fingers over her skin? Sure, I could. Did I, though? No fucking way. I didn’t want to miss the way her shy gaze skittered away, how she looked just the slightest bit flushed.

It was cute as fuck.

I wasn’t going to feel bad about wanting to see how she reacted to me.

“Do you need anything else?” I asked, pocketing her keys.

“No, I think the phone is good enough. Just so we can get home later,” she said, and I wasn’t making up the tension in her voice when she said that.

Home, right now, didn’t feel safe to her.

And while I wanted to just go ahead and tell her that she could run away from that, that she could just stay with me, I knew she wasn’t going to do that.

Not unless she had a really good reason, anyway. She was too used to all of her creature comforts.

“Alright. I will go check this out real quick, grab your phone, then get back here. Feel free to look around. There’s not much to eat, but we can order when I get back,” I said, leaving the option open for her to hang a while.

Maybe all night.