10. Charleigh

TEN

CHARLEIGH

What was he doing? What was he doing?

A sliver of fear rattled my nerves and his energy lashed, the clash of the two whipping the room into disorder.

Surprise and apprehension had me shifting the rest of the way around, defenses skyrocketing while the intrigue I couldn't shake flared. My breaths came short as I watched him cross the small breakroom, though he did it slowly, a panther that stalked its prey.

With each step he took, I pressed myself deeper against the lockers, the metal cold against my back.

Hitched there and unable to move.

He stepped up close to me.

Too close.

Close enough that I inhaled his volatility. The taste of violence and destruction on my tongue, though there was something about it that was dangerously sweet.

I wasn't sure how one man could appear so terrifyingly beautiful. Face hewn in sharp angles, lips pink and plush.

I didn't want to be afraid, but I couldn't stop the flutter of unease at his proximity, old wounds urging me to shrink inside myself. But maybe I was more alarmed that the urge to sink into the heat he emitted was more prominent than any fear.

I'd thought of his parting words too many times over the last ten days.

"Think you should go before I ask you to spend the night with me."

There'd been one flash of a moment when I'd thought I might have said yes.

His eyes darted all over my face, like he was cataloging each line and dent and scar.

Searching.

Reaching into me as if he were seeking direct access to my thoughts.

My pulse ran wild, and I panted out a shocked exhalation when he reached out and took my left hand.

A firestorm burned through me at the contact.

"What are you doing?" I choked, the words barely a wisp.

His mouth twisted in a smirk that fluttered like warmth through my belly.

"Taking a look at this tat, like I said I was going to do." He said it simply. Like it was normal for him to have a stranger pressed up against a locker. And maybe it was for him, but I was so out of sorts, set so off kilter, I could barely stand.

He lifted my arm above my head, and he rested it on the cool metal of the locker. I could feel the material of the sleeve of my shirt skim my flesh as it slid down, exposing what had been written there.

River hesitated for a moment, attention flitting between my face and the tattoo.

"Fuckin' perfect," he rumbled.

I nearly crumbled when his palm slipped up my arm and he gently ran the pad of his thumb over the words, so light I wasn't sure if he was even touching me, though it felt like he might be marking me all over again.

A shiver rocked me, head to toe, and I knew that he felt it with the deep grunt that rolled in his thick, thick throat.

A throat that was written in his own words .

No mercy.

And I knew that I was right—this guy was undefinably dangerous. To my boundaries. To my sanity. Maybe to my actual safety.

I wasn't sure.

But still, I remained, willingly trapped.

A fool who was hinged on what he might do next.

He dipped in closer, so close that I panicked for a second that his mouth was going to press against mine, that he was going to kiss me, though he angled his head to the side and muttered, "Why's it I fuckin' love that I marked you?"

He kept brushing his thumb over the words, his eyes flicking between mine and the design.

"I'm sure you love making your mark on plenty of women." I didn't know where the rebuttal even came from.

Amused disbelief filled his grunt. "Always proud of my work, but this one hit different. Why's that?"

He was looking at me like I might be the one to possess the answer.

"I can assure you, there is nothing special about me." It was a defense. A wall. The need for him to look away because I wasn't sure I could stand beneath his attention.

He was the last kind of man I should want, not that I could ever trust anyone to hold me.

Touch me.

Wasn't sure I could ever expose myself that way.

But still, my stomach was in knots, a throb deep inside that I'd never experienced before.

His tongue stroked across his bottom lip, his gaze roiling with a dark understanding that made me want to both run and drop to my knees.

"Think you're wrong about that, gorgeous. Haven't been able to get you off my mind since the second you walked through my door. No forgetting you. Wreckin' my mind the way you did."

I inhaled a shattered breath. I should shut him down. Push him off. Tell him he was being wildly inappropriate .

But a fire roared.

One he'd lit.

Somehow, his voice lowered further. "Can't stop thinkin' about what would've happened had I actually asked you to stay. What it would have been like if you'd let me take you right on my chair. Wondering how good you'd taste. How good you'd feel."

A hurricane of need whipped through my body. Something brand new and terrifying.

My tongue darted out to wet my suddenly dry lips, and my voice had gone haggard. "That wouldn't have happened. I don't sleep with strangers."

He didn't need to know everyone was a stranger.

His touch danced over the ink on my arm again, though this time he'd shifted his hand to play all of his fingertips over it as if it were written in Braille. Flames lapped at the contact point.

He inhaled deeply like he was drugging himself on my scent. "Smart girl. Not the kind of guy a girl like you should go mixin' with."

He shifted from my arm and dragged his thumb down the side of my face when he said it.

A jagged rasp climbed my throat.

"You ready, Daddy-O? I'm all done!" The tinkling voice that suddenly filled the room froze us both solid, and it took a second before River was able to tear his attention from me to look over his shoulder.

Shaking, I looked that way, too, toward the adorable little boy who was doing jumping jacks in the doorway, thankfully oblivious to what his father was implying.

My heart squeezed painfully as I looked at his precious cherub face.

"Yup. Definitely ready, buddy."

River peeled himself back, slowly as he took a step away. My body bowed forward from the loss of support.

He suddenly shoved his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, and my eyes widened when he pulled out a wad of cash.

I was pretty sure it was the money I'd left on the counter at his shop .

Something wry played in the shadows of his turbid gaze as he reached out and tucked it into the left breast pocket of my scrubs.

He patted the spot, nearly sending me into cardiac arrest.

"There. Now we're even."

Then he turned on his heel and strode across the room, taking the little boy's hand in his.

"Bye, Miss Charleigh, see you next time I take a tumble!" Nolan called over his shoulder as River led him out.

The man never looked back as he went.