Forsaken (The Protectors 4)

Fuck, the guy was gorgeous.

Instead of watching TV like I planned, I went to the wall of windows and took in the sight before me. Mav’s room was high enough that he had a view of the city and the mountains beyond the water. While I’d spent most of my younger years in Seattle along with my mother and older sister, it wasn’t this Seattle that I’d grown up in. As an illegal immigrant, my mother hadn’t had access to good paying jobs or an education, so most of the places we’d lived had been in run down neighborhoods that were far from the tourist filled city. But as hard as my mother had worked to give my sister Elena and me everything we’d needed, she’d never failed to make us a family first. There’d never been any doubt in her mind that Elena and I would have everything she hadn’t had herself…a stable home environment, college, careers. And we’d been on track until the day INS had shown up at our door and taken her away. One minute we’d been eating dinner, the next our mother was gone and my eighteen-year-old sister had been left to find a way to care for both of us. And then Elena was gone too…

“Hey, you okay?”

I turned to see Mav watching me from the doorway to his bedroom. He was wearing a pair of jeans, black boots and a black T-shirt. His damp hair hung just past his shoulders, the ends curling into loose ringlets that should have looked strange on a man but, in fact, looked sexy as hell.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding rough. I pushed the thoughts of my mother and sister away. “I was just thinking about what to make for dinner.”

I had no doubt Mav could tell I was lying, but fortunately he didn’t call me on it.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked as I began walking towards the door.

“In a second,” Mav said. “I want to talk to you about something first.”

“Okay,” I said, my body going on alert at the reserved tone in his voice.

Mav ran his fingers through his hair and lowered his eyes for a moment as if struggling to find the right words to say. When he finally lifted them, I felt my heart clench because I suspected he was finally going to ask me about what had happened in the garage.

So I was completely unprepared when he said, “Eli, the man who assaulted you…was it Dominic Barretti?”

Chapter Five

Mav

“What?” Eli asked, his voice barely a squeak. I felt my stomach drop out as I realized I was right because there was no other explanation for the pain that filled his eyes.

“Eli, it’s okay,” I said quietly as I began moving towards him. “I can protect you from him.”

“Oh my God,” Eli gasped and then he shook his head violently. “No,” he whispered. “No!” he said more aggressively and then he was coming at me. Tears flooded his eyes as he shoved my chest hard with both his hands. “You have no right!” he screamed and I had to grab his wrists to keep him from lashing out at me again.

“Eli-”

“Dom saved my life, you asshole! He’d never hurt me in a million years! Don’t you ever fucking say that about him again, do you hear me?”

Eli’s rage was completely unexpected and I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.

“He fucking saved my life!” Eli shouted again and I had to shake him hard to get his attention.

“I hear you, Eli!” I said sharply. “I hear you,” I said again when he finally stopped struggling in my grasp. “I’m sorry. I got it wrong.”

Eli was breathing hard, but he settled down. I had yet to release him and he wasn’t trying to escape me. Just like in the gym, this sight of another side of Eli was messing with my head and I was drawing him forward before I could even consider what I was doing. I released his wrists and slid my hands up his arms until they were resting on his neck. But instead of removing his hands from my chest, Eli opened his fists so that his hands were pressed flat against me. I wanted a taste of him more than I wanted my next breath, but Eli carefully tugged free of my hold before I could act on my need.

“How did you know about Dom?” he asked as he took several steps back, the anger in his voice fading and quickly turning to suspicion. “Did you Google me or something?”

I could have lied and told him yes, but knowing what I now knew about him, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“I started with the internet,” I began. I sat down in the plush living room chair in the hopes Eli would follow suit and sit on the couch that was directly behind him.