Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

Trent grunted, angling back just a fraction so I could meet the brutal expression on his face. “Look married to you?”

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. Was I supposed to answer that?

He shook his head a little. “Only commitment I’ve got is to that kid. To this club. To my brothers. Ends there.”

Right.

Okay.

It was another warning.

It also felt a whole lot like a rejection.

I blinked, trying to process what I was feeling.

This tingling in my belly. This fullness in my chest.

Was that what this was? Did I…want him? Did I want him to touch me? Want to touch him? For the sake of what? Dipping my fingers into forbidden waters? To experience something unlike I’d ever experienced before?

To sate the feeling that suddenly washed through me?

Something that was hot and sticky and twisted my stomach into a thousand knots. A feeling I hadn’t felt in so long.

A flash of guilt clutched me. Admitting it to myself felt wrong, but if I were being honest, it was something I’d never experienced before. Never before had I felt something as powerful, as inescapable, as this.

I gasped a little under the pressure of it. With the shivers that raced down my spine and spread down to throb between my thighs as he edged an inch closer.

Nothing but man towering over me.

Trent chuckled. Dark and deep. As if he’d witnessed every thought that had played out in my mind.

He reached out and stroked the pad of his thumb down the length of my cheek. “Ah, playing with fire again.”

My jaw dropped open at his touch, and he went to brushing that thumb across my bottom lip.

Fire.

Flames.

“So fuckin’ sweet,” he whispered. Those ashen eyes sparked, black flames that searched me in the night. We got held there. Just…staring at each other.

Want.

Need.

Fear.

I saw it in the fraction of a second, gone when he ripped himself away and every line of his gorgeous face went rigid. Pure, unrelenting steel. “You should get to work.”

Cold ice slicked down my spine, and my knees nearly buckled with the sudden change in his demeanor.

My chest squeezed tight.

Tied in hurt and confusion.

When he started to edge back, I reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. A fool. A fool. But I couldn’t help the way my entire body felt as if it’d come alive.

Sparked into existence after I’d been numbed into nothingness for so long.

“I…don’t understand.”

He wrung himself out of my hold and held his arms up at his sides. “Not much to understand, Kitten. I’m a bad guy and you’re a good girl. You’d do well to keep your space. Simple as that.”

My head shook. “It doesn’t feel so simple to me.”

Grimness lined his lips. “Have a way of turning pretty things ugly.”

Another warning.

Though this one rang with regret.

My attention darted left to right, to the ground, before I forced myself to look back at him. Unsure of his life, but sure it was dirty, unsure why I couldn’t seem to keep myself from delving farther.

Searching for a way inside.

“Does that apply to Gage? Do you think you’re a danger to him? That you could hurt him?”

I didn’t even care that my voice shook when I asked it. My students would always be my first priority. But I knew with Gage, it was more than that. That feeling that had taken me over the first time I’d seen him sitting in his tiny desk in the front row.

In a flash, the wolf struck. Trent pinned me to the wall. My palms flew behind me to keep me steady.

His hands were planted on either side of my head, and the entirety of his being vibrated with brutality.

Caging me in. A vicious, obliterating force.

The words that fell from his mouth were daggers. “Am I a danger to him? Miss Murphy…make no mistake…anyone who even thinks about hurting that child? There isn’t a soul on this Earth who could save them from me. From the pain I would inflict. From the hole where their body would lie. The only danger is to them.”

My throat tightened, and I struggled to swallow around the lump that gathered thick.

My knees knocked with the clear implication.

I knew most parents would easily claim it. Claim they would destroy anyone who hurt their child. It was only normal to want vengeance if they were faced with that horrible circumstance.

With Trent Lawson? It was clear it was no idle threat or exaggeration.

This man had blood on his hands.

I could smell it.

Taste it.

Felt it radiating around him.

An aura of iniquity.

“I pray neither of you are ever put in that position.” I meant it.

Stepping back, he released me, but not from the snare of his spirit. Our gazes were a tangle of questions as those fiery eyes glowed and glinted, calling me deeper.

Deeper and deeper.

“You really should go home.” That time, he was pleading with me.