Page 71 of Tyler's Rule
“Neither. Your confidence in who ye are.”
That wasn’t me putting on an act for pay. He liked a real part of me. I rolled my hands, shaking with nerves at where I was taking this. “More.”
“I’d see ye managing the women or problem-solving. Making things work right for the club and your co-workers. I admired that.”
“Was I naked when doing these things?”
His smile broadened. He tried to suppress it, but it won out. Damn, that was beautiful.
“Sometimes. But I never hung around the brothel. I did see ye strip once.” He shook his head like the memory was too hot to handle. “Never let myself again.”
I touched my hand to my chest, over my fast-beating heart. “Why?”
“Far too dangerous. Plus I hadn’t got your consent.”
I goggled at him. “If I was stripping, a whole room of guys would’ve been watching.”
“Customers at your job. I wasn’t one.”
Which made it wrong for him. Consent was important to Tyler. Slowly, I was understanding the man. “Does it bother you that I sold sex for a living?”
“No. Other than wanting to murder any man who has ever touched ye. But that’s true of anyone even looking at ye wrong now.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “Do ye care about any of my previous partners?”
Devil-eyed jealousy rose in a hot wave. “One hundred percent. Do I know any of them?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?” I crossed the room to the window. Tapped my foot while glaring out at the city.
“I haven’t slept with anyone here. Never wanted to.”
“Still gonna need names, big man.”
He only laughed, and I twisted back to witness the delight in his eyes.
“Don’t tease me. I don’t think I can handle it.”
He heaved an amused sigh. “Does it help to know that applies to Deadwater as a whole? In fact, I can’t even tell ye the last time I had sex.”
A hundred questions formed in my mind. I picked the loudest. “Were you married? Or widowed?”
“Neither.”
“Anything long-distance? Any long-term hookups who still think you’re theirs?”
Tyler braced his forearms on his knees and watched me. “No. Let’s just say I steered clear of relationships.”
“Oh no. We’re not ‘just saying’ anything. We are deep diving into that.”
“There’s nothing to say. I didn’t want to cause harm so I never tried.”
I prowled the room, continuing my task of figuring him out. The contradiction that came with the man who committed to no one but then went rogue and captured me. “Tell me again why you took me from that beach.”
Tyler went quiet. His gaze never left me. “Because I had no other choice.”
A shiver zinged down my spine. “Just because you wanted me?”
“More than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.”
