Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“The hell were you thinking?” Ian demanded, refocusing my attention on him and off my phone as he wrenched me around to face him.

I couldn’t speak; I hurt for him too much. Instead I walked backward a few feet and then turned fast, needing to put distance between us and the others, knowing he’d follow without me having to tell him.

“Where the hell are you going?”

Seeing what I was looking for, I slipped behind what looked like a family crypt. Ian was seconds behind me, shoving me back against the marble, pinning me there.

“And why in the world would you go after Odell?” he yelled.

The look on my face must have answered his question, which was good since I still couldn’t speak around the enormous, jagged lump in my throat.

He sucked in a breath and I saw his face register what I now knew. “Fuck,” he groaned, shaking his head, angry and hurt at the same time. “I didn’t want—goddamnit.”

I concentrated on keeping my voice level. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“No,” he murmured, hands fisted on the lapels of my overcoat.

“Why?”

“You don’t—I don’t—” He stopped, inhaled sharply, looked at my chin a second, and then lifted his gaze and locked it with mine. “I can’t ever have you thinking I’m weak.”

It took a second for his words to register because they were so alien. “What?” That made zero sense. “You’re the strongest person I know!” I shouted. How could he think something so ridiculous at all, let alone think it about me? “Jesus, Ian, don’t you know me at all?” I gasped and I could hear my heart breaking in my words.

“Yes, I know you!”

“Then what the hell?”

He let go of me but didn’t move. “Yeah, but already you’re thinking I did something wrong and—”

“Who am I to criticize you for who you slept with before we got together?”

“I wasn’t a good guy.”

“I was a slut, and you’ve never once been judgmental about that.”

“I hate it,” he confessed. “And when we run into guys you’ve been with… I don’t like it.”

“But you don’t think bad of me.”

“No.”

“So how could I do that to you?”

He nodded.

“You’re a very good man, Ian Doyle.”

I watched the emotions chase across his features: fear, relief, anger, hurt, happiness, all of them tightening his jaw, creasing his brows, and making him swallow hard and breathe deeply through his nose.

“This isn’t just about you and a married woman.”

“No,” he agreed, moving away from me, pacing, stopping a few feet away.

“Contrary to popular belief, I am not a mind reader.”

He scoffed. “Please, no one ever accused you of being a—”

“Ian!” I barked.

“Fine! I don’t want you to feel sorry for me about what happened in the desert!”

“I can’t help that.”

“But if you think I’m weak or—”

“We covered that already,” I said, closing the distance between us, moving into his space, taking hold of his elbow so he couldn’t move away and bringing us flush together so we were breathing the same air. “I know you’re strong.”

He closed his eyes.

“Just tell me.”

He made a noise, not quite a cough, but enough. “There’s this way you look at me, and it’s only for me and I can’t—if you stopped feeling that way and then looked at me different because of it”—his voice cracked—“I couldn’t… I’m afraid you’re gonna stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Loving me.”

Ah.

The truth. Finally. It was always good when it came out.

“Yeah, no,” I said, sighing and smiling, rubbing my clean-shaven cheek over his stubbly one, the sound as well as the sensation sexy and soothing. “Never happen.”

He trembled against me.

“We fight, we make up, but I know you’re never gonna say when. You’re never gonna say stop and go away. We both say shit like it could, but it can’t.”

“No, it really can’t,” he assented, wrapping his arms around my neck and hugging me tight. “I was afraid it would change things if you knew.”

“It doesn’t,” I vowed. “But I need to hear it all.”

He let me go slowly, and when there was space between us, I saw a glint in the depths of his eyes, the blue at the center of the flame. “It could never make you less, idiot. How could you even think that?”

“I think stupid shit sometimes.”

“Yes.”

“They left me, and I didn’t want you to know ’cause I thought you’d care about the why.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.”

“And we really should stop that.” I sighed, so tired, zapped of my strength because it took so much just to get Ian to hear me sometimes. It was worth it, always, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard.

“Stop what?” he asked, trace of alarm in his tone.

“Stop saying that either one of us could go. It’s like when people bring up divorce all the time when they’re married. One of those times it’ll stick.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean, it’s stupid, right? I can’t imagine me without you.”