Page 54 of Steal My Breath Away

“My bad.” The visitor held up his hands, reverting back to his softer “dad” persona. “I must have got the wrong date, and I thought since I was here, I’d check the place out.”

“You knew he wasn’t around.” Ace’s voice dripped menace. “You knew the staff weren’t in yet and no one would be here.”

The dude shook his head. “It was an honest mistake.”

After a brief conversation, the campus police let the man leave without even looking at his identification. Chad headed for the studio to fill the last five minutes of dead air before his show, leaving me alone with Ace.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he shouted, backing me up against the wall. “Why didn’t you stay behind me? He saw you. That could have gone so wrong.”

“I needed to know what was going on. I wanted to see if he was the guy who grabbed me and if he had a gun.” My voice shook from the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. “I didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of me. I’ve lost too many people, Ace. I couldn’t lose you, too.”

“I’m here because of you.” His hands clenched by his sides. “Getting hurt to keep you safe is part of the fucking job. You were right in his line of sight. If he’d had any kind of weapon—”

“But he didn’t.”

“You still don’t trust me.” A statement. Not a question.

I took a deep breath and tried to slow my pounding heart. Were we still talking about what had just happened, or were we talking about what was going on between us?

“Maybe he really was here for an interview and got the wrong date,” I suggested, dissembling my true feelings. “It didn’t make sense that someone would come here and try to kill me. I’m an easier target outside.”

Wrong thing to say.

Ace planted his forearm on the wall above my head and his face turned two shades of purple. “You are not a target anywhere because Iwill notlet anyone hurt you.”

In all the years I’d known Ace, I’d never seen even the barest hint of anger. Even when he’d rescued me from difficult or dangerous situations, I’d never seen him lose his cool.

“Ace…” I put my hand on his chest, eliciting a low warning grumble. I thought to soothe him. Instead, he pushed my hand away.

“We’re going home. You almost died today.”

Overbearing. Bossy. Intransigent. Paranoid. “I did not almost die, and I’m not going home, because I need to go to work,” I said, sliding out from under his arm. “I have to pay my rent, and I can’tjust miss my shift without giving my boss notice because then Skye would be on her—”

“Rule one.” He cut me off as he followed me down the hallway. “I say we go home.”

Something snapped inside me. It wasn’t just about the stranger in the station. It was about Paige making me second-guess my relationship with Ace. It was about the way he’d taken away my agency and thrown me over his shoulder. It was about all the times that Matt and Ace had swooped in on my life, ostensibly to protect me instead of letting me make my own decisions, my own mistakes. I had wanted those experiences. I wanted the thrill of holding a boy’s hand. I wanted my first kiss. I wanted to get down and dirty with one of the “bad boys” at school. I wanted to get drunk and throw up in the bushes or be so hungover that I couldn’t go to school.

I wasn’t oblivious to the danger that had brought Ace back into my life. I needed protection, but I didn’t need overprotection. I respected his experience, but I needed respect in return. I also needed Ace to realize that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and getting involved with him when he’d been hired to protect me had complicated the situation. I wasn’t just his job, and I wasn’t a damsel in distress. I was a woman trying to live my life, make my own choices, and learn from them. But now, every time Ace overreacted or tried to shield me from the smallest threat, it felt like I was losing a part of myself. And in that moment, I realized I was suffocating under the weight of his protection, and what I really wanted was to breathe on my own.

“I’m going to work,” I said firmly. “You can come and keep an eye out for strangers, or you can call Maverick to take over, because I’m not changing my mind.”

“He could still be out there.” Ace stood in front of the doorway, blocking my exit.

“Then make sure he isn’t. That’s supposed to be your job. I think you’re being overly cautious because it’s me, and given ourhistory, we shouldn’t have gone as far as we did. How many of your clients have you thrown over your shoulder and tried to hide in a closet? I’m guessing none. I don’t run away from my problems. Not like…” I caught myself before I said something I’d regret, but it was too late. From the look on Ace’s face, I’d already said too much, and part of me wished I could take everything back.

“You’re right; you don’t run away from your problems,” he said, his voice tight. “Instead, you pretend they don’t exist, which is what you’re doing now. You put the blinders on and lock everything up inside you, just like Stefan said.”

I felt his words like a physical blow. It was one thing to talk through our issues; another entirely to bring my music into the mix. “Get out of my way.”

Ace didn’t get out of my way. Instead, he opened the door and led the way up the stairs to the student center. I waited patiently for him to make sure the coast was clear before we left the basement stairs. For the first time since he’d started coming to the station with me, he didn’t put his hand on my back to guide me through the crowds, and although I would have pushed his hand away, I still felt the absence of his touch like an ache in my chest.

Ace maintained a discreet distance behind me as we walked toward the library. First Paige, then him. I felt like my world was spinning out of control. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t see Ben until I’d run right into him—not an easy thing to do with a baller who was six foot seven.

“Ooof.” I wheezed out a breath when I recognized him. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“No worries. I was hoping to catch you before you started your shift.”

Ben had been coming by the coffee shop a few times a week, and I’d been expecting him to eventually gather up the courage to do more than ask me about the weather and comment about how busy it was while he waited for his matcha green tea latte.

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