Chapter 15-Micah #2
It's the most honest thing I've said to another human being in years.
“And tonight...”
Fuck.
My grip on her hips tightens almost imperceptibly.
“When I saw that man put his hands on you…”
I squeeze my eyes shut for the briefest second.
The image flashes through my head all over again.
His filthy hands.
His tongue on her face.
The terror in her eyes.
Something dark shifts inside me.
“I've never been so angry in my life.”
When I look at her again, there's no hiding anything anymore.
“Why did you protect me?” she asks softly. “Because I'm your friend?”
“No.”
The answer comes without hesitation.
“I wasn't protecting a friend.”
I swallow hard.
“I was protecting the woman I haven't been able to stop thinking about.”
“Micah...”
She says my name like it's something sacred.
Like a prayer whispered in church.
Her hands flatten against my chest.
I suck in a slow breath.
God.
She smells sweet.
Tempting.
Delicious.
She's standing there, wearing my shirt, touching me like she wants to be here, and I'm hanging on by a thread.
“I don't know what happens after tonight,” I confess. “I don't know if you'll decide this is all too much. And I don't know if you want me the way I want you.”
“I want you,” she answers immediately.
No hesitation.
No uncertainty.
Just...
Truth.
My pulse pounds.
Every muscle in my body locks.
Christ.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
I wet my lips.
There's one more thing.
The biggest thing.
The one that could send her running out the front door.
“Sloane...”
She waits.
Patient.
Trusting.
“I need you to know something.”
“What is it?”
I lower my forehead until it's almost touching hers.
“I've lied to you.”
Her brows knit together.
My stomach drops.
“Not like that. I didn't lie about who I am.”
She stays quiet.
“I lied by omission.”
I take a slow breath.
“See, I've been watching over you.”
Confusion flickers across her face.
“What do you mean?”
“I own a cybersecurity company. That's my real business outside the ranch.”
She blinks.
“I design surveillance systems. Digital security. Threat analysis. I wrote all the software myself.”
I force myself to keep looking at her.
Don't look away.
She deserves better than that.
“When I started worrying about you...” My voice roughens. “I installed cameras around the outside of The Watering Hole.”
Her eyes widen.
“I have a live feed connected to my security system.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Brutal.
“You watch me?”
“I check on you.”
The words taste like confession.
“How often?”
“Every day.”
I shake my head before she can speak.
“Look, I know how it sounds.”
Hell.
I know exactly how it sounds.
“It sounds obsessive.”
“It sounds like stalking, Micah.”
“It probably does.”
The admission burns coming out.
“But I need you to hear the rest.”
She doesn't interrupt.
“I never put cameras anywhere you’d be compromised. Never inside your apartment. Never in a bathroom or anywhere private.”
“So where are they?”
“The parking lot. The bar entrances. The alley. The places where somebody could hurt you.”
I let out a slow breath.
“I told myself it was because your brother worried me.”
“Patrick?”
“Yeah. But that's not the whole truth.”
“What’s the whole truth?”
She tilts her head back, her eyes huge, like saucers.
“The truth is...”
I laugh once.
Bitterly.
“I couldn't sleep wondering if you'd make it home. I couldn't stop thinking about you closing that place by yourself every night.”
“Really?”
“I just kept imagining what would happen if someone was following you. If someone was waiting. So I did the one thing I knew how to do. I watched.”
“You watched?”
I nod.
“I made sure you got home. I made sure nobody was bothering you. I just wanted to be sure you were safe.”
My voice cracks on the last word.
Barely.
“Micah, that’s,” she whispers, and her gaze flicks down.
I don’t like that.
I want her eyes on me. But I’m not so big an asshole that I don’t know I just dropped a bomb on her.
She needs a second to catch up, and I can give her that.
“This is a lot, Micah,” she finally says.
“It is. But I did it because you matter to me, Sloane.”
I meet her eyes.
“You matter. So damn much.”
I wait.
For the slap.
The anger.
The fear.
The look that says you're just as crazy as the men who came into my bar.
Instead, she surprises me.
She actually laughs.
Softly.
Not because it's funny.
Because she's overwhelmed.
She reaches up and cups my cheek.
“You know something?”
She shakes her head.
“If anybody else told me they'd been watching me through security cameras, I'd probably call the police.”
A corner of my mouth twitches despite myself.
“But you?”
She smiles.
“You saved my life tonight. You stopped those men from hurting me. You brought me here, carried me into your beautiful house just because I fell asleep. And I can’t believe you're standing here, looking terrified that I'm going to hate you.”
She strokes her thumb across my cheek.
“Do you hate me? Are you mad or scared of me?” I ask because I need to know.
“No, I’m not scared of you. Or angry. I probably should be,” she muses, but still shakes her head. “How can I be angry at someone who's spent all this time making sure I was safe?”
My breath catches.
“You're not?”
“No.”
She smiles wider.
“I think...”
She laughs again, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I think I'm just in awe.”
“Awe?”
She nods.
“Yeah, because I’ve been crushing on you since the second I saw you come into my bar. And now you got me thinking that maybe you feel this too?”
I’ve been crushing on you.
Those words hit me harder than any punch I've ever taken.
But her lips are still moving, so I focus on what she’s saying.
“I thought maybe I imagined it. I thought maybe I was the only one lying awake thinking about that kiss. I thought maybe I was the crazy one.”
I wrap my hands a little more securely around her hips.
“No, Princess.”
My voice comes out low.
Certain.
“You're not the only one who feels it. Not even close.”