Page 96 of Talk to Me
“I eat when I am hungry,” I pointed out. “No one has to tempt me with food or honey.”
“Really?” She shook her head, then drained the water.
“Sugar Bear, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re the only one we have to coax. You don’t see me waving cheese and crackers at Remington or Locke.”
She chuckled, then rubbed her face again. Now that she wasn’t leaning fully against the counter, she swayed.
“You’re tired.”
“We’re all tired,” she countered. “I need to work.”
“It’ll be there,” I reminded her. We’d all been keeping our distance. The trauma signs were there. I’d seen them enough in the field. I’d kept a running catalog of every reaction. Every time the shadows slid through her eyes, or she jerked in surprise from contact—every single time, it just made me want to inflict that much more damage.
But right now, what she needed was someone to take care of her and not back away from it or her.
“C’mon,” I told her. “You’re exhausted and you hurt. Now that you’ve eaten, you can take your meds and get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” she argued. “I have work to do and—” She tried to push away from the counter like she would head back to her desk, and pain tightened her whole expression.
“Sorry, Sugar Bear.” I told her as I intercepted and scooped her up. “That’s enough. You’ve overdone it and you need to rest. You healing is nonnegotiable. If that means I take more than the power supply, I’ll do it.”
She glared at me as I headed for her room. “McQuade…”
“Yes, Sugar Bear?” I grinned at her as her eyes narrowed. Riling her up was fun, it flushed her cheeks with a little color and gave her that snappy little tone she used to spank me with on the phone.
I liked it.
“You can’t keep picking me up and just ordering me around,” she argued as I shouldered open her door then nudged it closed with my foot.
“Okay,” I said as I met the blazing anger in her eyes. “Stop me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You just said I can’t do this anymore.” I was still cradling her. “If I can’t, then stop me.”
She eyed me for the longest time while wearing the fiercest frown. “I can’t kick your ass.”
“Accepted.”
“I could get Remy or Locke to do it.”
I grinned. “They could try, Sugar Bear. But Locke’s not a fighter. Not really. Remington? He would only do it if he didn’t see the value in my interruptions.”
Her groan shouldn’t have been a reward yet it was. “You do not fight fair.”
“There is no such thing as a fair fight. There’s the fight you win and the fight you lose. Right now, this is a fight you will lose. Not because I’m bigger or stronger, but because you are a lot smarter than you are stubborn. You could stop me with three words.” I raised my eyebrows. “You know it. I know it. So, if you want me to stop—what do you say?”
“Stop it, McQuade.”
The fact she didn’t even pretend like she didn’t know what the words were satisfied something deeply primitive inside of me. The lizard brain that understood the needs for fight and survive and for protect and defend.
With care, I put her on her feet and only kept one hand on her hip lightly to steady her when she swayed. “Three words, Sugar Bear. In truth, you only ever have to use one. I will listen. If you say it to anyone else while I’m there, trust me, I will make sure they listen too.”
Pushing her wasn’t a kind thing to do, but not pushing her seemed almost less kind. Because it meant letting her hurt herself.
When she tilted her head back, baring her throat, the restlessness in me settled. It wasn’t a true surrender in the way of such things, but she was relinquishing this particular battle.
“I hate being weak,” she muttered. “I hate being a victim.”