Page 28 of Royally Bad

Realization hit me in the stomach. Shoving forward, I climbed onto the back of his motorcycle. “Go, drive! I need to get out of here!”

Kain didn’t ask me to explain. I liked him so much more for that.

He kicked the bike forward, my fingers digging into his perfect stomach. We tore down the street, my head twisting so I could stare through my wind-whipped hair at my apartment.

No one was looking back.

My savior—fuck, he was, wasn’t he?—drove until I gave him a hard tap on the shoulder. We were miles from my house. That, plus the well-lit and busy city streets, made me feel better.

He pulled up beside a convenience store, parking the bike but not shutting it off. “What happened back there? Are you okay?”

“Give me your phone. I need to call the cops.”

“The cops?” His gorgeous face turned ugly. “Sammy, whathappened?”

Throwing my arms up, I became aware of my situation. I was in my pajamas, no phone, no wallet, sitting astride the growling metal bike belonging to an apparently dangerous man.Who was I?This stuff had never happened to me before!

Taking my face, he spoke with a precise calmness that soothed the terror in my heart. “Sammy. Tell me what happened.”

I swallowed loudly. “Someone broke into my house and attacked me.”

Releasing me, he bent over his bike and revved it. “We’re going back there.”

“What? No!” I grabbed at him, shaking his arm. “Kain! The last thing I want is to go back there, it’s dangerous!”

“Not with me it isn’t.”

“I want to call the cops!”

“Someoneattacked you!”Fury unlike anything I’d faced burned in front of me. Kain could be a jerk, but he’d never actually scared me. Sitting inches from him, our legs brushing, I warred between being flattered ... and being afraid.

He must have seen it, because his eyes melted. “Sammy, if someone hurt you, I’d never forgive myself.”

The thudding in my chest became unbearable. “Come on. It’s not like it’s your fault.” His silence stirred the embers of terror that had hardly started to die in my gut. “Kain. Tell me that this had nothing to do with you.”

“I can’t say.” Wincing, he faced away from me. “But just in case, we can’t call the cops. And if you don’t want me to go back there—”

“I don’t.”

“Then we have one other option.” He turned enough for me to see how serious he was. “I need to take you back to my estate. It’s the only place you’ll be safe for sure until we can figure this out.”

“We?I’m not a detective!”

“‘We’ as in my family. If someone went after you because of us, we need to know. Sammy, my family can keep you safer than any cop ever could.” He faced me fully, his leather jacket the only source of any sound. It whispered like a boat on the sea, daring me to break the tranquility ... the confidence ... that emanated from him.

If it had just been some act of dominance, I could have rolled my eyes and told him to take a hike. If he wouldn’t call the police, I’d walk barefoot into the gas station and ask them to do it instead.

But Kain wasn’t acting tough. He didn’t posture. The low boil of his stare was helping me forget that I was sitting, unsheltered, on top of a motorcycle in my pajamas. I’d even stopped shaking with fear over the realization that I’d been attacked just minutes ago.

My home wasn’t safe.

Being with Kain felt like it was.

What other conclusion could I come to than to stay with him?

“All right,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

Kain tilted his head up so imperceptibly higher I would have missed it if I wasn’t already close enough to count his eyelashes. “Thank fucking goodness.”

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