With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

Her gaze turned pleading and that really pissed him off because she didn’t ever ask for anything. And she damn sure didn’t beg and everything about her expression, her eyes, was begging and he was so goddamn furious he wanted to put his fist through a wall.

“Wade, please,” she said, her tone turning urgent. Desperation fired in her eyes. And panic. He could literally see the wheels turning in her mind as she scrambled to figure her way out of the situation.

Four times. Four times now she’d used his name and he liked it a hell of a lot but not under the circumstances she’d used it. He wanted her to call him Wade because they were on more intimate terms, not because she was desperate, scared and falling apart. Let her try to figure a way out of him inserting himself into her situation. She was stubborn but he was more so. She could rack her brains all she wanted.

Too bad. He could still be gentle. A gentle asshole and get to the bottom of this mess. She could hate him all she wanted just as long as she was alive to do it.

“You have no idea what you’re getting into,” she said in a terrified voice that only served to add fuel to an already raging inferno within him. “He’ll kill you, Wade. You should have never come here! If you had just stayed in Houston, he would never have known you had any association with me. I can’t let any more people die because of me. I can’t.”

Her despair gutted him and he had to steady himself, be the jerk and run over her when she was at rock bottom when all he really wanted was just to hold her and comfort her. Treat her with the delicate touch she deserved, a touch he craved to render. But not at the expense of her life and no fucking way would she sacrifice herself for him. Did she honest to God think for one fucking minute that he’d hide behind her and let her take the fall for him? She didn’t know him very well if that was the case, but he was going to remedy that in short order.

He clenched his teeth and lowered her feet to the ground beside the vehicle he’d parked in the back so she wouldn’t see it right away. Without saying a word, he shackled one of her wrists with a firm grip while he opened the passenger door with his other hand.

When she began to struggle, he hauled her up against his tall frame, his arms a steel band around her slim waist.

“Don’t fight me, Eliza,” he said tersely. “You won’t win, and I’m not backing down. Someone has to protect you because you sure as hell aren’t. And if you think I’m going to allow you to be a sacrificial lamb led meekly to slaughter in order to protect everyone else, get over it quick because it ain’t going to happen. Now, what is going to happen, is that I’m taking you some place safe and you’re going to eat and then you and I are going to have a long talk after which you’re going to get some fucking sleep. I’ll sedate your ass if I have to, so don’t push me because I’m hanging on to my temper by a very thin thread.”

She opened her mouth and he promptly clamped his hand over it and proceeded to shove her into the vehicle. Using his arm across her body to hold her in place, he reached with his other hand into the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened in dismay.

“Surely you didn’t think I was bluffing, Eliza. Come on. You should know me better than that. When have I ever made hollow threats?”

He secured one cuff to her left wrist and then attached it to the center console. Then he withdrew, leaving her looking shell-shocked and so damn defeated that it took everything he had not to lose his shit right then and there. He stalked around to the driver’s side sucking in deep breaths, trying to pull himself together as he slid into the driver’s seat.

He wasted no time putting as much distance between the place she’d been staying and where he was taking her. To his surprise, she said nothing. She was completely still, her gaze rigidly fixed forward, her jaw clenched tight.

A sigh of relief nearly escaped him. At least she was no longer crying. He could deal with surly, pissed off Eliza. He had no idea what to do with fragile as an eggshell Eliza. A tearful, vulnerable, scared out of her mind Eliza. He was furious, not at her, or at least mostly not at her, but with what or who had put such fear in her eyes, who had broken one of the strongest women he’d ever known.

Taking advantage of her momentary silence, and to try to calm his murderous thoughts, he picked up his cell and punched the contact already brought up and waiting.

“This is Sterling,” he bit out. “We’re coming in hot and I have no fucking idea what we’re dealing with yet, so make damn sure the safe house is secure and I want extra security on around-the-clock surveillance. No one and I mean no one gets within a mile without us knowing, and any threat is to be dealt with immediately.”

“You got it,” Derek said shortly and then the line went dead.

Wade’s men, like himself, were short on words and big on results.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her staring at him, a mixture of bewilderment and a complete what-the-fuck look on her face. He nearly smiled. That had gotten her attention.

“Who the hell are you?” Eliza whispered.

“The man who’s going to keep your ass alive and make damn sure no one so much as touches a hair on your head. Except me.”

She yanked her cuffed wrist angrily, her cheeks puffing outward as she blew out her rage. Good. He needed her pissed off. Alive. Fighting. Anything but the defeated, resigned to her fate woman who’d fallen apart on him.

Then she banged the back of her head against the headrest and closed her eyes, letting out another long sigh.

“God, why do you even care?” she hissed. “Why are you here? You’ve made it very clear that I rate lower than scum in your estimation, so why the sudden concern?”

“It’s a habit I seem to have gotten into,” he said mildly. “Saving your ass. At the rate you’re going, it’s going to be a full-time job.”

She whipped her head around and glared at him. “Get it through your head, Sterling. I am none of your business. What I do or don’t do isn’t any of your business. You have no right to hold me against my will.”

He shrugged. So it was back to Sterling. Good, in the manner that for the moment she’d regained the fire he was so well acquainted with. Bad, because he liked the sound of his first name on her lips. He liked it a lot. He’d like it even better when they were in bed and he was deep inside her.