Page 118 of Bad Attitude
Twenty-Three
Raven
Declan’s leg buckles and he goes down hard, crying out in pain.
Guilt washes through me, blunting my fury. He took that bulletprotecting me, and I didn’t expect that blow to be as effective as it was.
Declan’s lying on his back in the hallway, gripping his leg with both hands, eyes screwed shut in agony. But I know that won’t last. He’ll be up in a minute, looking for his revenge. Warily, I take a pace back, waiting for his inevitable rage to manifest.
The elevator finally arrives, doors swishing open, and I retreat into it, watching him carefully.
“Raven…” It comes out as a gasp, not in anger, more with urgency. His eyes are tight with pain.
I hit the button for the lobby. He hasn’t tried to move toward me yet, and I’m not sure he’d make it now if he did.
He reaches out a hand toward me. “Wait,please.”
Please?
I just did him a serious injury, and he’sbegging me to stay?
It’s a trap. He wants me close for when he’s recovered.
Fuck that, hard pass.
The doors begin to close, shuddering slowly like this elevator hasn’t been maintained in forever. They gradually block out Declan’s view of me, and their lack of speed is torture.
“Hellcat…” he says, barely a whisper, eyes locked on mine. He calls me thatnow? When I’ve caught him with awomanin his apartment? “…don’t leave. I’m sorry.”
Heshouldbe sorry, but he’s probably just sorry he was caught.
Yet that doesn’t match his tone. It’s full of feeling, but not defensive. It takes me a moment to put a name to it: grief. Like he thinks he’s lost something.
Me.
I slam my hand between the closing doors, and they make a half-assed attempt to gently crush my bones before shuddering open again.
“Who was your friend?” I still don’t forgive him, but I want to know.
“Someone from my past,” he says, pushing himself up awkwardly to sit on the floor, stretching his leg out as he does. “She is not—I repeat,not—anything evencloseto a friend.”
Not intimate, in other words.
Yet he hasn’t said it.
“Hate sex, then?” I ask, my tone cutting, even though I’m not trying to be a bitch; it’s the reassurance I want.
“I swear, we haven’t been intimate.” He gives a short, scoffing laugh. “Wouldn’t be if we were the last two people on the planet.”
So I’ve done it again. First, the woman in Thousand Oaks. Now, whoever the hell this was. Some past acquaintance from an old job, no love lost between them.
I want to ask him about the blond and the child I saw him with. The words are on the tip of my tongue before I remember I can’t, not without him knowing I followed him.
Fuck, I wish I never had.
The elevator doors begin closing again, and rather than hold them open, I walk through. Back into the hallway.
“How’s your leg?”
