Devil's Bargain

“I look forward to it,” he says. “It’s long overdue, isn’t it?”

“Long.”

Declan turns to me. “Goodnight, Melissa.” He walks to the door, opens it, but stops as if he’s forgotten something. He turns back, meets Hawk’s gaze with a wicked grin. “Why don’t you tell her our sordid history, brother? She should know well the man whose bedding her, don’t you think?”

With that, he’s gone, and Hawk stands there for a moment watching the place where he’d stood. His hands are fisted at his sides but on his face and in his eyes, so many emotions war.

“What’s he talking about?” I ask.

Hawk turns to me. “Don’t get cozy with my brother, Melissa.”

He hasn’t shaved since the other night and the scruff that’s usually there is thicker, making him look more rugged, older. A little scarier. His clothes too, the mess, it’s not him. He’s always impeccable. Everything about him is.

“What did he mean with that, Hawk?”

He pauses a moment before answering. “Declan’s just being a dick.”

“Where have you been?” I ask.

He looks me over and I see how his forehead is creased. He walks me backward until the counter is at my lower back and leans over me.

“Never talk about me with him again. Never. Understand?”

“That’s not…I didn’t—”

He straightens, eyes intense on me. “He heard me coming.”

“He seems nice, Hawk.”

“He set you up, Melissa. He knew I’d hear what you’d say.”

I realize he’s right. Declan had recognized the sound I hadn’t. But I can’t believe he’d set me up, the way Hawk is implying it.

“That’s what he does. He fucks with people. It’s a game to him. And I don’t want you talking to him. Am I understood?”

“It was nothing—”

“Nothing is nothing. Not with Declan. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Stay away from my brother. It’s the last time I’ll say it.” His accent comes and goes, and it catches me off guard.

“Where were you?”

He brings the bottle to his mouth, drinks. I wonder how much he’s already drunk. If the bottle was full when he started.

I try to take it from him, but he doesn’t let me. Instead, he grips my arm to hold me away and purposefully takes another swig.

“Did you miss me?” he asks.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you being like this?”

He releases me, steps away, turning his back to me. He drinks again, goes to the window. I watch his face in the reflection.

“The cemetery’s about a mile up the road.”

“Cemetery? You went to the cemetery in the middle of the night?”

“I wanted to see my father’s grave.”

“I would have gone with you tomorrow. In the morning.” I go to him, touch his shoulder. “You’re soaked, Hawk. Covered in mud. Did you walk there?”

“They didn’t even wait to bury him. They couldn’t even give me that.”

When he won’t turn to me, I slip between him and the counter. I touch his face, push the wet hair back.

He looks down at me and what I see is sadness. An immense well of it.

This is a different man than the one I know. The one I met only a few nights ago.

Has it only been a few nights?

With everything that’s happened, it feels like a lifetime.

“Go up to bed, Melissa. I need to be alone.”

“I’ve slept all afternoon. I can stay.”

He studies me, scans the room, the walls, the ceiling. “I didn’t think it’d be like this. All the memories.” He drinks again.

“Hey, I’m here,” I say.

“Don’t be so kind to me, sweetheart. I don’t deserve it.”

“I see you, you know? I see what you try to hide.”

He takes long swallows from the bottle, gulps of the stuff, before setting it down. He’s so close, pressing me between the counter and him with his arms on either side of me. With one hand, he touches my hair gently.

He hasn’t slept, I know that. Hasn’t changed clothes since yesterday. I wonder if he’s even eaten.

And all I can do is stand here and watch him.

“What do you see then?” he asks and the way he asks it, it remind me how gentle he can be. How opposite the gruff exterior.

“A good man.”

He snorts.

“No, I mean it.”

He touches my cheek, brushes hair back behind my ear.

“You’re so pretty, Melissa.”

“You’re so drunk, Hawk.”

He ignores what I say, touches his thumb to my lower lip. “And you’re the one who’s good. You deserve better than what you’ve gotten.”

His words startle me. Confuse me. Take me momentarily out of this reality and into my past.

I should ask him what he means, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to spoil this.

“I’m not a good man, sweetheart,” he continues. “Don’t make that mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake.”

I don’t think the shadows under his eyes are from fatigue or too much drink even if he hasn’t slept since we left Vegas. I think it’s from the intense sadness I feel coming off him.