Chapter 12
Dixie
Tyler arrived with rain dripping from him and my two bags under his coat. I squealed in happiness and danced to take one.
On the warm wood floor, I pulled out my hairdryer. Lingerie.
He’d done it. He’d done exactly what I’d asked him to.
Emotion bubbled in my chest, and I jumped up to hug him, sliding my arms around his back, his soaked shirt under my cheek.
He felt so good. So well-made and strong. Everything I needed my kidnapper not to be terrible at.
“Thank you.”
Other than bringing his head down next to mine, he didn’t touch me, only breathed deeply. “Worth it.”
I wanted to ask how much trouble it had been, but I was too eager to get pieces of myself back. The identity I’d lost altogether. Pulling away, I carried my bag to the bedroom, Tyler bringing the second.
“There’s space in my wardrobe, and I’ll clear a couple of drawers.”
He made short work of consolidating his stacks, and I smiled at the amount of crew clothing.
“You own more black t-shirts than any human should.”
“Uniform. I’d get fined for variety.”
I emptied the bags onto the bed, checking I had all I’d expected with more squeaks of joy at my cutest hoodie, a cropped top I adored, a rhinestone clutch I’d inexplicably taken with me because I couldn’t give it up.
It was so neatly packed, which could only have been Lovelyn’s work. My mother would never.
I nearly cried over my makeup kit.
With a shuddering breath, I patted it and started the task of hanging up sparkly dresses. Making little clothing piles in the drawers.
Getting this emotional over possessions definitely put me on the train to crazy town, but it was more than that. Elements of myself I was gaining back after feeling so at sea.
“I’ll start on dinner.” Tyler disappeared.
A band tightened around my chest, but I let him go.
In the bathroom, I showered and washed my hair, dying with happiness at massaging in my richly scented, expensive shampoo and conditioner. I shaved my whole body, moisturised every inch, weepy again at feeling smooth.
Then I got busy with blow-drying and used my wand to add long, loose curls. Almost as if I was readying for the stage. When it came to my makeup, though, I downplayed it. It didn’t need to be over the top or attention-grabbing. I had all the attention I could ever want waiting outside the door.
A black Bardot dress, cut a little slutty, heels, a spritz of perfume, and I stared in the mirror. It was me. The version of myself that could take on the world.
It wasn’t the mirror’s reaction I wanted.
In the kitchen, under bright lights, Tyler glanced up from the counter. He stopped moving, a bowl clattering down from his hand.
All my stress and pain and happiness converged in a rush that turned into words. Questions I could no longer avoid.
“Why me? Why steal me? Why did you do it?”
He gripped the counter, his gaze travelling up to my eyes.
I hated what I saw in his. Self-loathing. Agony. I didn’t want him to hurt.
He masked it. Turned and put the food he’d been preparing into the fridge. Then he prowled over to me. I should’ve backed away but I held my ground until he was inches away.
He’d changed out of his wet things and into black jeans and a skeleton crew t-shirt. We matched, in the way only a showgirl and a gangster could.
He was so close, all I had to do was lean in and I’d be on him. In heels, I was that much nearer to his mouth.
“You’re not hungry?” he said low.
“Not yet. If you are, talk faster.”
Tyler caught my hand in his much bigger one. My shock of attraction soared at that touch of skin, and I let him lead me to the window seat. Not the comfy sofa or the padded stools in the kitchen. The broad wooden plank that framed the picture window looking out onto the storm.
Giving up that lovely contact, he took one side and I perched on the other, leaving my heels on the floor to curl my legs under myself.
I sensed his coiling energy. It hadn’t budged since he’d got home.
“I took ye because I had no choice.”
I stayed silent. He had to find his way into this. I only needed to understand it. For my sake, not his.
Tyler ran his thumbnail over the opposing one. A nervous tell I’d never seen him do before.
“Occasionally, I get overcome with the need to take action. By which I mean I lose control. In the field, this manifests as dead traffickers.”
I’d heard rumours. Dancers spilling the tea at how surprised others were at competent, controlled Tyler flipping out and going on a killing spree. A blood frenzy. Not that the traffickers would have lived for long. But the stories were he regretted the loss of being able to ask questions.
I kept my gaze steady on him.
“I don’t do it because I enjoy it. At least not only that. It happens because once, I didn’t move fast enough.”
Damn. At whatever memories played out in his mind, Tyler looked broken. My pulse picked up. I needed to know.
“Family?”
His eyes met mine. He nodded once.
“How many?”
“All of them.”
I spoke in a rush. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen. Old enough to think I could’ve done something about it.”
That, I couldn’t accept. “What were you up against?”
“Four men. My father had stiffed a gangster named Johnston over a deal. He owed a debt of barely a few hundred pounds. They demanded payment so came to where we lived in Glasgow. My father carried a knife.” He took a deep breath, gaze roving to the pitch-black night as if he could see the scene playing out.
“I was across the road at a friend’s place.
I saw them at the door of our flat and rolled my fucking eyes at what he’d brought down on us. ”
He breathed through his nose.
My toes curled against the wood.
“I’d hoped they’d lay into him and teach him a lesson, because it was far from the first time.
Instead, one grabbed my nine-year-old sister.
My mother struck out at him. Johnston pulled a gun and executed them all.
Three gunshots and my family was dead, downed to the concrete walkway.
The men ran. It all took maybe forty seconds.
Long enough for me to have got there. Maybe directed their fire onto me. Yet I hadn’t moved.”
Oh God.
I’d known this was going to be bad. I could feel it in the gravity between us. I saw it in his actions towards me.
“I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.”
He couldn’t have prevented it. He didn’t need me to tell him that.
“What happened to you? After, I mean.”
He flinched, a tiny movement, but I didn’t miss it. “An uncle took me in. Jonas. Worse than my dad in many ways but alive, at least.”
“Then you became a vigilante.” Using up his pain on taking down bad guys. “Until you came for me.”
The distance left Tyler’s eyes, and his heavy gaze came back to me.
“Ye were none of my business. But you’d already been attacked once and had long taken over my thoughts.
This beautiful woman whose smile made my whole night better.
Every evening, I checked ye were staying in the warehouse and not going home.
Then ye left, in danger again with the murders starting, and I snapped. ”
I’d seen him so many times on the corridor of the cam girls’ floor. “That wasn’t a momentary loss of control. It lasted until you found me. You cared about me already?”
“Bye, don’t die.”
Those were the words I’d said to him earlier. Also in the past. “That meant something to you.”
The corner of his mouth curved in a rueful smile. “Pathetic, no? I’d try to bump into ye before missions in the hope of hearing that, then I’d hold those words in my mind. A hope to cling to. A reason to come back.”
My heart swelled with a rush of something dangerous. The problem was, I’d meant it the way he’d taken it. I’d wanted that little connection. A promise between us.
I still did.
Being on the run had done so much harm. I’d pulled so far back into myself that I didn’t know left from right.
Here, with him, I felt the difference. I had everything I wanted.
Conditions I’d set. Truths I’d demanded.
Whatever darkness there was in him, it faced outwards.
Not at me. Understanding it made it not safe but…
predictable, and that knowledge wrapped around me as a blanket.
Tyler took in a deep breath and climbed to his feet, blinking back the raw emotion of his story.
“What I’ve described is messed up, I know that.
If I’d been in control, I could’ve left ye to Lovelyn and Kane, but they were so loud.
They could’ve led a killer straight to ye.
It was a risk I wasn’t prepared to take.
” He tightened his jaw. “There’s no justification.
If ye want to leave, I’ll unlock everything and take ye anywhere ye say. If you’d prefer me gone, I go.”
“And if I want neither of those things?”
“Then I’ve fucked ye up.”
“Are you mad about it?”
Slowly, he shook his head.
I got the deepest, cheapest thrill.
“If ye stay, we plan together.”
I put out a hand so he could help me up. His fingers held mine. A pulse-skipping moment of physical intimacy to map onto the emotional one.
“Then we’d better get on with dinner.”
Side by side, we cooked a meal, working in quiet with some new understanding between us. When we were done, the food eaten, the dishes cleaned, I bumped him with my hip.
“If I’d said yes to leaving tonight, you wouldn’t have let me go, would you?”
Not after stalking me, catching me, and keeping me so sweetly.
Tyler’s smile was instant. Predatorial. He wasn’t pretending to be a monster. He was warning me.
“No, doll. I wouldn’t.”
God help me, I smiled. Not because I liked the answer. Because I believed it.