Page 83 of Hurry Up And Wait
“And that’s really enough?” I snapped. “I don’t want another phone call telling me you’ve been shot or blown up again. I don’t think I could take it.”
“That’s not going to happen. Why can’t you just trust me? IKE was perfectly fine?—”
“What?” I said, my voice low and deadly. Rage simmered under my skin as she mentioned his name. I told the guys he had nothing to do with any of this, and here she was, using IKE as her defense.
“He trusted me enough to bring me home,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“IKE doesn’t give two shits about you,” I snapped. “He was doing a job. Do you really think he cares if you get hurt again or not?”
“No, and maybe that’s why he’s able to see reason,” she argued.
“Oh, so now I’m imagining the danger? I’m making it all up in my head that there’s a credible threat out there?”
“No, but you’re exaggerating what could happen. Everything is in place. Everyone is on alert about my situation. I’m not some damsel in distress who needs her boyfriend to guard her twenty-four, seven.”
I stopped for a minute, replaying her words in my head. “I’m your boyfriend?”
She paled, stepping away from me. “That’s not—I was just using it as an example,” she stumbled over her words. “You’re making me all flustered and?—”
I stalked around the bed and pulled her into my arms. “You’re damn right I’m your boyfriend.” I slammed my lips to hers and heldher tight, making sure she understood exactly what this was. “When I say you need protection, I fucking mean it. Just let me put someone on you.”
“I…I can’t do that,” she said breathlessly. “And kissing me won’t distract me from what you’re trying to do.”
I really fucking hoped it would. “Are you really going to make me go back out on a job and worry about you the whole fucking time?”
“Like I worry about you?” she countered. “I know what you do for work. You could be hurt at any time.”
“That’s not likely to happen.”
She stepped back, shaking her head. “And it’s not likely that I would be blown up again.” She cocked her head at me questioningly. “Why is it okay for you to decide what you can handle, but not me?”
“Because I know better,” I practically shouted. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know when something is too dangerous. This is what I do for a living, and I won’t back down because IKE told you it was fine for you to go home.”
She scoffed, shaking her head at me. “Is that what this is really about? IKE?”
My whole body stiffened at the question. I had hoped IKE didn’t really have any kind of hold over her, but she seemed more than happy to take IKE’s word over mine. I had known her when we were little. I’d held her in my arms and only cared about keeping her safe. Yet, she was listening to a man who didn’t care one way or another if she was alive at the end of the day.
“What is IKE to you?” I asked warily.
“He’s…a man who took care of me while you were away.”
“While I was away. So, this is because I wasn’t there for you.”
“No, that’s not?—”
“I would have been here if I could have.”
“I know that,” she snapped.
“Then why are you throwing it in my face?”
“I’m not!” she shouted, shoving me back a step. “I was stating the truth. You weren’t here. He was, so he watched me. There’s nothing more to the story than that.”
But there was. I knew it. “Did he touch you?”
She hesitated for just a second. “No.”
That fucker put his hands on her. I didn’t know the circumstances or why she felt she had to lie to me, but there was one reason that was perfectly obvious, and that was that she liked it.