Page 96 of Dash

Fuck. I brush my fingers over her cheek. I like when she gives me those pieces of her that she seems to hide from everyone else.

“You’re mine too.”

When the lift doors open, I hold my hand out to her. I keep her close, just in case someone managed to get past the security in the building, but the corridors are empty.

She whistles under her breath as she takes in the thick carpeted floors and wood panels that look like something out of a designer’s magazine.

I open the front door to my place, stepping aside to let her in. She moves slowly through my space—our space, if I have my way.

I can picture her fairy lights hanging over my bed, her throw cushions on my couch, her toiletries in my shower.

I watch as she walks over to the window that spans the living room and peers out over the city. Birmingham stretches beneath us, a mass of lights and concrete.

I give her a moment to breathe before I wrap my arms around her stomach, my chin on the top of her head.

“Are you sure you’re okay with all this?” she asks. I kiss her neck, dragging a breathy moan out of her. “Because this is your last chance to walk away, Dash. I’m not letting you go after this.”

“I don’t want to walk away. I want to be a father to the baby we made, Dayna.”

She tilts her head to give me the long line of her neck. “We have to talk about something though.” She turns, pulling my mouth away from her skin. “Someone tried to kill us.”

I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t wanna scare her. “They tried to kill me, Dayna, not you.”

The look on her face is why I didn’t want her to be involved in this. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” I hate admitting that. I feel fucking useless. “But my club brothers, they’re looking into it. We’ll figure it out. Until then, I want you here. I need to know you’re safe.”

“And what about you? How do I know you’re safe?” Worry ripples across her face. “They shot at you in the middle of the day. They didn’t care who saw.”

“I don’t want you to worry about this.”

She stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Right. I’ll just forget about the insane gunmen who tried to shoot you in the middle of the street like we were in a fucking movie.” She recoils. “This wasn’t the first time they’ve tried, was it? When you got that head injury… that was them too, right?”

I reach for her, but she steps back. “Dayna, it’s handled.”

“What part of this is handled? The part where you nearly died?”

This time, when I swallow her space, I don’t let her move away. My hands on her seem to ground the swirling panic in her eyes. “It’s handled,” I repeat. “The only thing you need to worry about is taking care of yourself and our baby.”

“If something happens to you?—”

“It won’t.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“I can.” And I mean every word when I say this. “I didn’t have anything to fight for before. Now, I do. There is nothing that is going to stop me from coming home to this every fucking night, do you hear me? Nothing. Now, do you want food, a shower, to sleep?”

She stares at me like she wants to throttle me, but eventually, her shoulders slump, the fight leaving her eyes. “All of the above. I’ll have to stop by my place tomorrow to get my uniform.”

“What uniform?”

She freezes. “Uh… for work.”

“You wear office shit for work.”

“I do. Hey, do you have any chocolate? I could really murder something sweet.”

She’s doing that thing where she avoids answering something she doesn’t want to by flipping into another topic. “So, why do you need to pick up your uniform?”

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