Page 22 of Nitro
Torin didn’t smile, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
Jax didn’t waste time. He lifted the tablet in his hand, tapped the screen, and turned it so I could see the footage he was playing. Grainy but clear enough—the angle from a security camera above the bay. The image showed me picking up the note, and there was no missing my reaction to it.
There was no point denying what had happened. Not with both of them staring at me.
“You wanna tell me why Jax had to come to me with this instead of hearing it from you?” Torin growled. Fury burned hot in his dark eyes, his shoulders tense like he was one breath away from violence.
I swallowed hard, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the crumpled scrap. My hand shook as I smoothed it once and held it out.
Torin snatched the note from me. His eyes dropped, scanned the words, and then—like I’d feared—his entire body went rigid.
As he handed the slip of paper to Jax, heat radiated off him, the kind that promised destruction.
“I’ll look into it,” Jax promised before striding away, leaving me to face Torin’s anger by myself.
“You think I can protect you if you keep shit like this from me?” His voice was low but lethal.
My spine stiffened. “I don’t need protecting.”
He scoffed and stepped into my space, towering over me until my back brushed the edge of the workbench. His fury crashed over me like a storm.
“Too damn bad,” he growled. “You gave yourself to me. I was clear what that meant.”
My heart hammered, defiance flaring even as my body leaned into his shadow. “I don’t belong to you.”
His stare seared into me, molten and unflinching. “The hell you don’t. And don’t pretend you fought it when I told you that you were mine now. Nobody touches you. Nobody threatens you. Not while I’m breathing.”
His words were reckless and terrifying, but protective all the same. My hands shook from the dizzying realization that Torin meant what he said. All of it. He’d burn this place down around us before he let anyone lay a finger on me.
And part of me melted at that awareness.
No one had ever claimed me like this. Not my dad. Not even my brother, before things went to hell between us.
No man had ever looked at me like I was worth protecting with everything he had. Only Torin.
It was…everything.
I’d sworn I didn’t need a man to fight my battles, but Torin wasn’t giving me a choice. The scariest part was that I was no longer sure I wanted one.
10
NITRO
Iopened my eyes and blinked, trying to clear away the sleep. One corner of my mouth kicked up when I spotted the trail of clothes we’d shed in a rush, messy sheets tangled around us, and memories of the night before flooded my brain. The B&B’s A/C groaned like it hated its job, stirring air that still smelled like salt and the faint citrus of Jana’s shampoo that clung to my skin from where she’d slept pressed into my chest.
She was awake already. Lying on her side, she had her head propped on one hand and green eyes fixed on me like she was waiting for me to wake. The expression on her face wasn’t soft, though. It wasn’t the blissed-out haze I’d put her in the night before, or the defiance she wore like armor most days. This one had a pinch at the corners, the kind of look people get when they were trying to decide whether it was safer to run or confess.
Guilt.
I caught it instantly—etched in the downturn of her mouth, the way her fingers twitched at the hem of the sheet she clutched to her chest. My gut tightened. But since the two days Kane had given me were up, I hoped she was about to finally open up to me.
I rolled toward her, forearm under my head, and my voice rough with sleep. “Spit it out, firecracker. Whatever’s chewing your insides, give it to me straight.”
She looked at the thin sheet fisted in her hand like it might offer backup. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Then she swallowed, freckles darker against the flush on her cheeks, and finally whispered, “You won’t understand.”
“Try me,” I cut in, eyes narrowing.
She took a steadying breath and let it all go.
