Page 50 of Irrevocably

“Good.” Slowly, I get to my feet. “I believed you when you said you wouldn’t.”

“Did you?” His gaze is level as I approach. “That was stupid of you.”

I stop in front of him, looking up at his face. “If it was stupid, then why bother telling me you wouldn’t?”

A muscle flicks in his jaw. He doesn’t like being questioned, does he? Well, that’s too bad, because I am made of questions.

I fold my arms and start with the most minor one. “I guess you don’t live here, do you?”

“No. Like I said, it’s a safe house.”

“Safe from what?”

“Everyone.”

“Your one-word answers are beginning to wear a little thin.”

“Then stop asking questions.” His features are hard, his blue eyes glittering. There’s no give in him. He’s like granite, unmoving and cold.

I shouldn’t be curious about him, I really shouldn’t, but now I want to know what happened to make him like he is. What kind of life does he live that killing means nothing to him? He’s not cold, either, not all the way through, because if he was, he wouldn’t have looked at me with hunger in his eyes. He wouldn’t have made me promise not to cut myself. He wouldn’t have told me to come to him instead.

He wouldn’t have told me that I was his.

I let out a breath then, not knowing what else to do as the moment lengthens between us. I frown at the cut on his eyebrow. “That needs cleaning,” I say.

“Later.” He digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone, glancing down at the screen. And I don’t know why I do it, but I reach out, put my finger underneath his chin and lift his gaze to mine.

“No,” I say gently. “Now.”

Something shifts in his eyes, something I don’t recognise. “You worried about me, Tinkerbell?”

“Does anyone worry about you, Lucien Frost?”

His gaze flickers again and I sense a subtle tension winding through him. But he doesn’t pull away. He lets me keep my finger right where it is, under his chin. “Do I look like the kind of guy anyone would worry about?” he says.

“Only if they came across you in a dark alley one night.” His skin is warm beneath my fingertip, and I remember the feel of it from the night we slept together. The sculptural ridges of his muscles beneath all that ink and the heat of his body. “You need to stop answering questions with more questions.”

His attention falls to my mouth then back up again. “And you need to stop telling me what to do.”

But there’s no force in the words, and the glitter in his eyes tells me that my presence is having the same effect on him as his is on me.

“Let me clean up that cut, first”—I drop my finger and reach for his hand instead—“then you can tell me why we’re here.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

LUCIEN

Her fingers are warm as they lace through mine, and she turns as if she has no doubt in the world that I’m going to follow her, and for some reason I do.

I don’t even feel the cut where the Hound’s fist caught me. He was still unconscious when I dragged him out of the car but started to come to as I took him over to one of the sheds, the one with a padlock on the door. He struggled as I got the door open and caught me a glancing blow on my eye socket, but I hit him again, then kept hitting him until he stayed down, before stuffing him into the shed. He’ll be out cold for another hour or two, with any luck.

He’ll be a problem later, but right now my biggest problem is the woman currently leading me out of the living room and into the dim hallway in search of a bathroom.

I have no idea why I put her in the car. I have no idea why I told her she was mine. It would be helpful to believe it was panic on my part, after her friend decided I was an issue and I decided not to kill him. But I never panic.

No, it was because after he kissed her, I couldn’t let her go.

This house is one Lazarus bought at the same time as the other property in Blackwater. It’s here for us to use if we get any heat, except the kind of heat I’m getting is probably not the kind Lazarus was envisaging.