Ruthless Salvation

29

It took three tries before the latch gave.

“You know he tried to drug you, right?”

“Yeah, I gathered. But his plan didn’t work. I don’t know…”

“You’re too sweet for your own damn good,” Torin muttered under his breath.

“Don’t I know it,” I clipped back more to myself than him.

After slipping on one arm of my jacket, I had to spin in a circle to find the other.

Where the heck did it go?

with me like Tom chasing Jerry round in circles. My laughter intensified.

“That was what I was afraid of.” Torin’s hands pinned me in place; his rough voice like velvet dragged slow across my skin.

I stopped breathing and peered up at him. “Say it again.”

“What?”

“Anything,” I breathed.

“Jesus fuck.” It was even more guttural than before.

My eyelids drifted shut as I absorbed the euphoria that washed over me.

“We’ve gotta get you home and quick.” He ushered me toward the front entrance of the building. “Think you can walk? There’s no way I’m putting you on my bike like this.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m real good.” Torin grunted.

He guided me on the short walk to my place, and I made it to within twenty feet of my building before my legs quit working. Silly knees went all wobbly like wet noodles.

I clung to Torin’s arm the best I could, but it was no use. My brain couldn’t convince my body to cooperate. Then I was flying in the air the same way I had as a little girl on our swing set in the backyard.

“Whee!” My head tipped back with the motion, then righted itself, my blurry gaze attempting to focus on the most breathtaking blue eyes I’d ever seen. A rich aqua that somehow shone at night just as brilliantly as during the day. Like a Twilight vampire. And he was strong enough, too. Oh, wow. Maybe he was a vampire. Except that scar on his eyebrow wouldn’t be possible. I loved that scar. It made him look rugged. Just the right balance of pretty and masculine.

Torin huffed. It sounded kind of like a laugh. What was funny? I didn’t say anything. Or did I?

I closed my eyes to try to think, but instead, it just made time skip.

One blink, we were at my front door.

Two blinks, and I was cuddling beneath the covers in my bed. There were no more blinks after that.

WAKING up with a headache was the worst. It took the phrase “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” to another level. When your head hurt, it felt like losing the race before it even began.

I groaned as I recalled how I’d been drugged by a slimy jerk who I actually had the nerve to feel sorry for. Now that my skull was trying to crack open like an Easter egg, I wasn’t so forgiving.

“You’ll probably want to drink as much water as possible today.”

My eyes shot open at Torin’s voice in my bedroom, the midday sun shooting tiny lasers into my retinas. “You’re here.”

“I am. I didn’t want to leave you alone after being drugged.” His voice sounded like it had been roasted over hot coals, making me wonder if he’d slept at all. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Yeah, mostly.” I paused, reconsidering. “Up until we got to my building. That’s all pretty fuzzy.” I sat upright to see Tor where he sat in the loveseat that made up the entirety of my living room furniture. He looked like hell, though I suspected I looked worse.

I did my best to smooth back my hair as Blue Bell curled up in my lap.

“You have a cat.” He didn’t sound amused.

I bit back a smile. “I do. His name is Blue Bell.”

Torin’s eyes surveyed my ceiling briefly before circling around to where tufts of white hair covered his charcoal shirt. He swiped halfheartedly at the fur before giving up.

“Thank you … for helping me.”

My brain could hardly process how I felt—the man who’d been stalking me had saved me from being assaulted. I couldn’t account for what had happened after I’d gotten home, but for some inexplicable reason, I wasn’t worried. It was utter madness, but I felt safe with Torin here. I’d wanted to trust him from the beginning. I had trusted him, in a way. But my instincts hadn’t served me well in the past.

Anyone with half a brain would be scared of a man who did the things Torin did. He was dangerous, no question about it. But was he dangerous toward me?

God, I hoped not.

My enigmatic boss slowly unfolded from the loveseat and stretched tall before helping himself to the fridge. He poured two glasses of filtered water, bringing one to me and downing the other in a single go.

“Painkillers?” he asked.

“Medicine cabinet.” I motioned toward the bathroom.

He brought me two pills and waited until I’d downed them. “I’ve taken you off the schedule until Friday so you have plenty of time to recover.

Now that I know you’re okay, I’ll let you get some rest.”

“Tor?”

He paused, looking back.

“How did you know?”

Twin pools of earnest aqua stared at me. “I was watching.” Watching me.

“You came from upstairs,” I noted.

“Saw him do it on the security cameras.”

He was watching the security cameras. Watching me. How often did he watch me like that? Should I have been upset? Maybe. But what mattered was how I actually felt, not how I should have felt. Maybe I was crazy, but all I could summon was intense relief. Somebody was looking out for me. I was safe. Wasn’t that what counted?

I gnawed on my bottom lip before dipping my chin in a nod. “I’ll stay at Moxy, so long as I feel safe.”

Torin’s chest expanded with a deep breath, then exhaled what looked like years’ worth of tension. “Text me if you need anything.”

I watched him slip out the door and wondered how someone who seemed to verge on uncivilized half the time could also be so dang sweet. The question was complicated on a good day but damn near impossible to think about with a hangover.

I took one more long drink of water and nestled back under the covers, not waking again until after dark.