Defiance (The Protectors 9)

“What do you want, Vincent?” I finally asked when he remained silent. “This morning you seemed eager to finish this thing – I’m assuming because you wanted to get me out of your life sooner rather than later. But now that I’m giving you a surefire way to do that, you won’t take me up on it.”

“It’s what I don’t want that’s the issue, Nathan,” he said without turning around.

“Okay, what don’t you want?” I asked.

“For you to get too comfortable. For you to start thinking there’s something here…between us.”

His words stung, even though I’d suspected as much. But even though I’d wanted to force him to talk to me, now I just wanted him to shut the hell up. I felt weak and foolish for thinking there might even be a chance he was feeling a fraction of what I was feeling.

“I get it,” I mumbled as the alcohol in my belly began to sour. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have pushed this on you. I’ll go pack. If you’ll lend me a car, I can drive myself to the nearest police station, or you can drop me off there yourself. I’ll report the attack…”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. I hurried to my room and searched out my bag. I wanted to laugh at the fact that I still hadn’t managed to do laundry, so I had nothing clean to change into. But I supposed it didn’t matter if I showed up at the police station in sweats and a T-shirt. My political career likely wouldn’t survive any of this anyway, so potentially having a picture snapped by reporters in the casual attire seemed pretty irrelevant at this point. As soon as the story got out that I’d been attacked in my own home, my opponents would make sure the public was wondering what skeletons in my closet had triggered the incident. The good news was that if I dropped out of the race now, my party could still nominate someone to put on the ballot in my place. It wasn’t ideal, but they’d still have a chance of running a successful campaign against the Republican candidate.

I waited for the disappointment to hit me as I considered what giving up my career in politics would mean, but surprisingly, all I felt was a lingering curiosity about the whole thing. Like what my life would have been like as a U.S. Senator. But along with that feeling came an odd and completely unexpected sense of freedom.

I didn’t even know how to process that.

Before I could give it much thought, I sensed a presence and turned to see Vincent standing in my doorway, his hard eyes on the bag I had in my hand.

“I’m almost ready,” I said as I wondered if I’d been dallying too long. The man hadn’t actually barked out a time limit like he usually did, but the hard set of his jaw was telling me he was pissed just the same.

I turned to head towards the bathroom to grab my toiletries, but just as quickly I was spun back around as Vincent wrapped his hand around my elbow.

“Vincent-”

“Shut up,” he snapped, and then he took the bag from my hand and flung it to the floor. Then his fingers curled around my hand and he led me from the room. I held my tongue as I realized our destination.

His room.

I hated the shimmer of hope that went through me at the prospect of getting to be with him one last time. It was pathetic that I would take even the crumbs he threw my way, but I wasn’t going to try to deny it. Or pretend I was somehow strong enough to say no. Or that I had enough pride left.

Because I didn’t.

I expected him to lead me to the bed, but he surprised me when he shoved me up against the wall next to the door and pinned my arms next to my head. The move hadn’t actually hurt me, but it had caught me off guard.

“Vincent, what-”

“If this thing is going to work, Nathan, you need to stop assuming things and actually stop running long enough to give me time to think…and speak.”

I wanted to laugh at that, because the man had never had an issue with telling me what he thought before.

“You had plenty to say downstairs,” I reminded him.

He eyed me for a moment, and then he released me and dragged me over to the bed. I was on my back beneath his heavy body in one swift move. He ground his very hard cock against mine and I cursed the fabric that was separating us.

“Maybe now you’ll shut the fuck up and listen,” he groused. His lips fell to mine, but he didn’t actually kiss me. “This is the only place you said you’d take orders from me, right, Nate?” he drawled.