When He's Bad (Walker Security - Adrian's Trilogy 2)

Adrian joins me and helps me to my feet, his hand only momentarily on my waist, steadying me, somehow branding me. He’s been touching me the entire time we’ve been on the run in the woods, but somehow now I’m not immune, not even close. How can I be? He, unlike me I’m sure, looks good with his T-shirt clinging to his muscled chest and his dark hair plastered to his handsome, if not weary, face. Not to mention, the taste of that passionate kiss we’d shared in the woods still lingers on my lips despite the rain trying to wash it away.

“Home sweet home until our rescue squad arrives,” he says, giving me a concerned inspection. “How are you doing in here?”

“Fine,” I say and while I’d like to leave it at that, and forget my panic attack happened, I doubt he can forget, not under these confined circumstances. He needs more from me than one word. I rotate to face him and say, “It’s hard to explain, but the triggers are random, unpredictable, and infrequent. And at present, I think I’m too tired, cold, and numb to feel anything but relief to be anywhere but out there in the rain.”

He’s back to studying me with a far too keen eye, and I can feel the tug of a question he isn’t asking between us. And I know why or I think I do anyway. I believe he’s afraid that if he asks questions that I answer, I’ll then ask him questions, and he’ll feel obligated to answer me.

He doesn’t risk the quid pro quo I wouldn’t demand and actually don’t want to extend myself on this particular topic. Instead, he reaches over and strokes my wet hair from my face, tenderness in his touch that defies a man capable of killing his brother—that is unless he had no choice. I catch his hand, silently letting him know that I still believe in him.

If he really killed his brother, I know in my gut that he had no choice. And he certainly didn’t enjoy it.

He cuts his gaze, his expression hidden from view, but not before I glimpse the shame and regret in his eyes. Not before I see the truth. He killed his brother, I’m certain. At this point, that part isn’t a surprise, but I saw something else in his expression. Something I can’t name. Something even beyond the obvious that he doesn’t want me to know right now or I suspect, ever.Chapter SixPRI

There’s a heavy beat between me and Adrian that he doesn’t allow to last. “Let me get you a towel and some dry clothes,” he says, and then he’s moving away from me, putting what space there is to garner between us.

He crosses the cavern and squats down near a row of boxes sitting against the wall. “For you,” he says, tossing a towel at me, which I catch easily and accept eagerly.

“How do we know Waters’ men can’t find us here?” I say, doing what I can to dry off considering I have water literally dripping from my clothes. “They found the cabin.”

“No one knows about this place but Walker.” He scrubs his hair with a towel. “And I only told them about it yesterday.”

“Deleon found the cabin,” I argue, closing the space he’s put between us and squatting down beside the mattress.

“No one but me knew about this cave until yesterday,” he says, “when I told my Walker team. “

“You said no one knew about the cabin.”

“No one that I thought could, or would, hurt us,” he says. “That was a misstep. I fucked up.”

“How do we know Walker didn’t turn on you?”

“They didn’t.” He digs in a box and sets socks, a T-shirt, and sweats on the mattress, obviously done with the idea of Walker turning on him. “Those are for you,” he says. “I have safety pins for the sweats.” He reaches in another box and sets a small box, that I assume holds the pins, on top of the stack of clothes.

I ignore the clothes, not ready to allow him to change the subject. “Someone told Deleon, Adrian.”

“It wasn’t Walker. You’re shivering. Get out of those wet clothes.”

Somehow, I never thought being ordered out of my wet clothes by this particular man would ever feel cold and commanding, more than hot and commanding, but it does. He’s using it to shut down my questions.

“I better keep on my pants, though, in case we have to leave suddenly. I mean, Savage could be here any minute, right?”

“Don’t count on it,” he says. “The storm and the darkness mean we’re all safer waiting for morning. “

“Can you call him?”

“I dumped my phone at the cabin,” he says. “I can’t risk that somehow being how Deleon found us.”

“I thought your phone was safe?”