Page 67 of Pretty Threats

“Hmm.”

“You’re not comfortable with the idea?”

“I don’t give a fuck about the Lambda Deltas.” My thumb strokes her jaw. “But I need to be sure playing games in there won’t interfere with my main objective.”

“Your main objective?”

I rap my knuckles on the backdoor’s glass. “Keeping you out of trouble. Lately, you’re going places that aren’t safe for you.”

“I am? Oh, right. Your house.” She nods. “Having to choose between me and your work puts you in a difficult position.”

“The choice isn’t difficult. It’s that certain rescues would be tough to pull off. Killing one person to protect you is easy. Killing a lot of dangerous men who know I’m coming? That’s hard. So far, I haven’t come up with a strategy that would make it anything but a suicide mission.”

She stares up at me. “You’ve thought about that?”

“Of course.” Our gazes lock. “Any threat to you becomes a target. You know that.”

“Even last week when I wasn’t in your life? You would’ve sided with me instead of your friends and bosses? Because when we were chained, I asked if you would’ve taken me from the house while they slept if you could’ve. You said no.”

I exhale a small derisive laugh. “Yeah, because I’m not gonna run like a fucking rabbit. I don’t scurry away and hide. Fuck that. Kill me where I fucking stand or die trying. Those are the only options I’ll allow.”

“You wouldn’t run even to protect me?”

“No. I’d die to protect you, though. And with my last breath, I’d tell them to bury us in the same grave.”

“God,” she whispers. “That’s disturbing.”

“Is it?” I shrug. “Us together forever works for me.”

27

RAINE

Only Killian could make death sound romantic. I don’t know how much the champagne buzz is adding to my current mood, but his admission about giving me that expensive snow globe even while we were in a relationship-ending fight has me rethinking everything.

Yes, the Homecoming night violence was horrible and traumatic, but was it unforgivable? If I have the power to keep it from ever happening again—because some part of him obviously cares about my happiness—then, maybe it can be a lesson learned for both of us. I won’t do things to trigger his jealousy, and he won’t go on a rampage that could drive me away.

As he taps the glass again, this time louder, I hook my arm around his and interlace our fingers. He glances down at my face.

My brows rise at his bemused expression. “Are you okay with me holding your hand in public?”

“Is that a serious question?” He sounds genuinely perplexed right now.

My soft laughter fills the night. “In high school, you seemed to want to keep up appearances of being a lone wolf.”

His brows crowd each other as his grip on my hand tightens. “That’s what you thought?”

After a sharp nod, I cock my head, waiting for him to say more.

“St. Seb’s had a lot of strict rules, and they considered you my little sister. I didn’t want to get kicked out and end up at a different school. So, in the halls and cafeteria, I had to keep things low. Know what I thought about all the time? Picking the chapel door’s lock, so I could fuck you on the altar. That was the one place I might have been able to keep on-campus sex with you a secret.”

My jaw drops. In zero to sixty, his mind goes from sweetly holding hands to sex in a sacred space. Guys’ brains really are different. Never in a million years would I have daydreamed about having sex in the St. Seb’s chapel.

The door opens slowly and Leighton and Alicia, Killian’s two biggest naysayers, are in the kitchen. Perversely, I wonder what they would say if I told them what he’d just said. And then that I’m unexpectedly intrigued by his inappropriate fantasy sexcapades.

“You’re here?” Alicia asks me with mock surprise. “I thought you didn’t do this kind of thing?”

Leighton gives her a hostile look. “Go downstairs.”

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