Chapter Four #2
Instead, I sit on the edge of her bed. Because she told me to. Because her voice stopped shaking when she had a job to do. Because I am a weak bastard when it comes to this woman, and I’m only starting to understand how dangerous that is.
Harper disappears into the bathroom and returns with a first aid kit. It’s neat, organized, and better stocked than some clinics. She stands between my knees before she seems to realize where she put herself.
Her body goes still and so does mine.
The room changes. Not safe, not calm... Charged.
She’s close enough that I can see the pulse beating in her throat. Close enough that if I lifted one hand, I could touch her hip. Her waist. The soft skin on the inside of her wrist.
I keep my hands open on my thighs, and Harper notices. Her breath catches.
Then she scowls like I did it to annoy her. “Hand,” she orders, and I give it to her.
Her fingers are cool against my skin. Steady now. Professional. She turns my hand palm down, inspecting the torn knuckles, the split skin, the bruising already blooming dark.
“This is from him?” She sounds incredulous.
“Some.”
“Some?”
“I hit a brick wall.” Why do I feel embarrassed admitting that to her?
Her eyes lift, but I say nothing. She stares at me for one beat. Two. Then shakes her head. “Of course.”
Alcohol hits the wounds, but I don’t react. She does. Her brows draw tight like my pain offends her, and that bothers me more than the burn.
“Do you feel that?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“You just don’t care?”
“I care.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I watch her clean blood out of the cuts. Her hands are small compared to mine. Not delicate. Competent. Capable. She has hands that pull people back from the brink of death. Mine put them there.
The difference should keep my head clear, but it doesn’t.
“Why did you call?” I ask.
Her fingers pause. “I told you why.”
“No. You could have called Milo. The police. Dispatch. Anyone.”
She tapes gauze across my knuckles with more force than necessary. “You were close.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“I knew.” My chest tightens.
Her eyes stay on my hand. “I don’t know how. I just knew.”
The confession is quiet, unwilling. She finishes the bandage and lets go too fast.
“There,” she says. “Try not to punch any more architecture tonight.”
“No promises.”
She steps back, but there isn’t much room. Her calves hit the edge of her dresser. She’s trapped only because she moved there herself, but my body reacts anyway. I stand, and she tilts her head back to keep eye contact.
We’re too close now, and her room is too small. The earlier fear still breathing between us, changing shape into something more dangerous.
“You should pack a bag,” I say.
Her gaze drops to my mouth. Just once. “I should do a lot of things,” she says.
Her voice is softer now. Not afraid. Not exactly. I know fear. I’ve smelled it on men before they beg. This isn’t that. This is want trying to claw its way to the top of the emotional pile.
“Harper.” My voice is hoarse
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like a warning.”
“It is.”
Her lips part and my restraint frays. I have taken hits. Bullets. Knives. Orders I hated. Silence when I wanted to roar. I have stood in rooms with men begging and felt nothing. Standing in Harper Quinn’s bedroom with her staring at my mouth feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
She lifts her hand, stops, her fingers hover inches from my chest.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asks.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
Her palm lands against my ribs. Light. Testing. I go still so fast that the whole world seems to freeze around that single point of contact. She feels it. The way my body locks, the way I let her touch and don’t reach back.
Her eyes darken. “Steel,” she whispers.
I should step away. I should do anything but what I do. I lower my head, not enough to kiss her, just enough to make the question clear.
She could move. She could tell me no. She could push me back, and I would go.
Instead, her fingers curl in my shirt, and I kiss her.
It’s not gentle. But I make it careful. I keep my hands to myself even though every instinct in me wants to fist them in her hair and take the sound she makes straight from her mouth.
She tastes like fear, mint, and anger. She kisses like she fights. Sharp. Full force. No surrender. A low sound breaks out of me before I can stop it, and Harper’s grip tightens before she shoves me back.
I move instantly. Her chest rises and falls too fast. Her mouth is wet. Her eyes are furious.
“And kissing you was stupid.”
“Yes.”
Her glare could cut glass. “You’re supposed to disagree.”
“I won’t lie to you.”
She laughs, breathless and angry and shaken. “God, you are impossible.”
“Yes.”
“And terrifying.”
“Yes.”
“And I still need you to leave the room while I pack.”
That surprises me. Not the demand. The surrender.
“You’re coming?”
“I’m relocating temporarily because my bedroom window has become a community entrance.”
My mouth almost moves again.
She points at me. “Don’t smile. I’ll retract my sensible decision out of spite.”
I turn toward the door. “Five minutes.”
“Ten.”
“Seven.”
“Eight and you stop bargaining like a caveman.”
“Eight,” I agree.
I step into the hallway and close the bedroom door behind me. Then I stand there, breathing through the memory of the kiss. Through the taste of her. Through the knowledge that she called, and I came, and now there’s no clean way out of this.
My phone buzzes, a call from Savage.
“Is she alive?” he asks when I answer.
“Yes.”
“What was the threat?”
“A Broken Vulture hang-around. Sent by Reaper. He left breathing.”
A pause. “You’re sure?”
“He was carrying a message.”
Savage exhales slowly. “And Harper?”
I look at her closed bedroom door. Behind it, drawers open and close. Fabric rustles. A woman packing up her life because mine spilled into it.
“She’s coming to the clubhouse.”
“Willingly?” He sounds surprised.
I think of her mouth under mine. Her hand on my ribs. Her glare sharp enough to keep me honest. “For now,” I say.
Savage understands the difference. “Bring her in. And Steel?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep your head.”
I stare down at my bandaged hand. At the blood still under my nails. At the bedroom door between me and the woman who saves lives while I decide who stops breathing.
“It may be too late,” I say, and hang up.