Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Scout stands and moves to me, dragging a blanket off of the bed as he does. Silent but clearly angry he wraps me up like a child and scoops me off the floor into his arms.
I lean my head on his shoulder as he walks into the kitchen, where he deposits me in a chair. After making sure I’m cinched in tight in the blanket he kisses my forehead and steps back.
He’s totally naked now, and seems to be oblivious to the fact that I can see all of him.
“What are you doing?”
“Making you some tea.”
“Tea?” I choke.
“Yeah, you need something warm.”
I blink at his back. His very naked, sculpted back. I fixate on a dark red puckered scar that looks like a stab wound that wraps around his side. To the left are a lot of smaller holes. Shallower, but painful looking.
Further down are his sculpted glutes. Muscular quads, bulky calves, and strong looking feet.
I’m not sure why, or how I’m lost in this observation when I should be freaking out. Maybe I’m in shock.
A lot has happened.
Including a lot of orgasms. Giving up something I didn’t know I could give, and confessing my deepest, scariest secret. It makes sense that I would be in shock.
He places a mug of hot water in front of me and eases a tea bag into it with two of his broad fingers. “Do you want honey?”
Fingers that were in my most delicate places earlier. I’ll never look at his hands the same way.
“Yes, please.”
He returns to the counter and picks up the small glass jar. When he comes back to the table, he takes a seat across from me.
I stare at the teabag in the bottom of my cup. “Who was at the door?” I ask as if we’re just two normal people.
He motions to a basket of food on the table that I hadn’t even noticed. “One of the Russian mercenaries brought a care package of food.”
“Those words do not make any sense.”
He laughs briefly. “I agree.”
We fall silent as I stir honey into the tea, wondering how the hell we got from point A to B to C to D in the last twenty-four hours.
“Look at me, Aria.”
Fighting my nerves, I slowly look up. The first thing I notice are the worry lines around his eyes. He rubs a hand through his dark blond hair and sighs, leaning back into the kitchen chair.
Scout looks like a big, primal animal stretched out before me. The lethal kind who doesn’t belong in a small kitchen like this, or with a woman like me.
He watches me look at him.
When I drop my attention back to the tea, he says, “You know I’m not going to be able to just drop this.”
Making ripples in the water with the string, I keep my face turned down. “I need for you to do exactly that.”
“Not gonna happen.”
More than once I’ve wished to be able to rewind the clock. Now, almost as much as I’d like to go back and change the way I handled things before the attack. But I wouldn’t be here right now if the attack didn’t happen.
I wouldn’t be working for Griff. I wouldn’t be sitting here with Scout. But I definitely do not want him or my brother committing murder. No matter how much I hate the man that hurt me.
My vocal cords string tight when I try to talk. “God, what was I thinking when I told you?”
“You trusted me. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. We both let down our barriers, I’ve never told anyone why I couldn’t have sex with women in a normal way.”
Silence hangs between us.
“Thank you for trusting me with that. But I shouldn’t have said things that would make you want to…”
“Go after the bastard?”
“Yeah, that.”
He reaches across the table and his hand circles my wrist. The heat of his touch scores my cold skin. As he gently rubs a circle with his thumb over my scar, he speaks. “ Never regret being open with me. I know what you gave me.”
I sip the tea, praying for relief from this awful clawing sensation in my throat. But if I’m honest with myself it doesn’t stop there. It spirals out to my arms and twists around the scars on my wrists where I carry the horrible reminders of all the mistakes I made.
“These scars can’t become symbols for more destruction.”
He drops his gaze to the table and a ripple of angry energy pulses off of him. As his jaw flexes, he lifts my mug of tea. As Scout takes a drink, he watches me over the edge.
It feels incredibly intimate. Some kind of statement I can’t explain.
“He needs to be stopped. A man that does that once will do it again.”
I never thought of that.
My stomach dips, my nape tingles. The narrow scar around my wrist throbs beneath his hold. “I’m scared.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“ No, Scout.”
I didn’t mean to tell him about the connection to the feds. Or any other clue that could give away who I’m talking about because I know men like Scout and Griff are deadly. They don’t move around under the same code of ethics and laws as everyone else.
He stands up and walks into the bedroom. When he comes back he’s dressed in his black cargos and the tight-fitting gray T-shirt he had on earlier. He’s putting his pistol into the holster at the small of his back when he takes up a wide legged stance in the kitchen. “Rest. I’m going to make some calls and look over the dive gear. ”
Stiff with fear, I clutch the mug so hard I wonder if it will crack. “Are you making calls about what I told you?”
He doesn’t reply to that question. Instead he says, “I’ll be right outside. You're safe.”
His expression is so hard and so unreadable that it drives the air out of my lungs, leaving me dizzy. “Please don’t involve Griff.”
“Your brother would go to war for you, sweetheart.”
“It’s too much. I can’t take it. I already worry about him constantly. Worrying about my shitty ex doing something to him would be too much. And you…”
He looks at me with such intensity, my world starts to spin.
Brokenly, I say, “Scout, it would crush me if something bad happened to you. Please don’t do that to me.”