40. I Won’t Go

Chapter 40

I Won't Go

HUNTER

M egan has never looked younger than she does right now, sitting before me on the closed toilet seat as I carefully pluck out the tiny shards of the glass stuck in her arms and hands. She's trying to be brave, but every time she flinches, I have the urge to put my fist through something. Lars offered to do it because he had the training, but as gentle as his touch was, I could see the pain in her eyes, so I told him I'd rather handle it.

Her wrists are so delicate as I hold them. It would be so easy to break her in two. For a woman so tiny, she has this fierce spirit inside of her, which is like a flame that refuses to damper even when it's on its last flickering ember.

I expected her to run.

I expected her to scream and escape like any sane person would have done.

But once again, she defied my expectations.

What she did was a dangerous move, but I'm pretty sure it saved both of our lives. However, she shouldn't have put her own life in harm's way. I can't even imagine the hell I would unleash on this city if something more violent had happened to her other than the glass in her hands.

It doesn't take long for my security team to swarm the building, looking for any clues as to who the assassin might be. Christian is on the phone with someone while Vaughn has disappeared. Both have their roles to play in helping me right now.

As do I.

But for now, I'm sitting in the master bath, plucking shards of broken glass from the beautiful, quivering woman before me.

"You need to try to hold steady," I chastise her, the sight of her blood irritating me. I'm typically not that affected by the sight of blood, but hers bothers me far too much.

"I'm in shock!" she snaps back. "And stop yelling at me."

"You're the one who's yelling," I remind her.

I sigh when she gazes back at me with mournful eyes filled with a sense of injustice. Without so much as a warning, I reach out and lift her up by the waist before turning around and carrying her to the guest room. I sit down in the middle of the made bed, settling Megan in between my legs and wrapping myself around her as I proceed with my task.

"There, this is much more comfortable. Now stop shaking."

I can feel her body tense at this closeness, but then she relaxes into me and complains, "It hurts."

"I know." I can't help it when my voice turns a little soft. I hate that she's hurting like this because of me. "Just bear with it for a little longer."

"Do you have any idea why that person was trying to kill you?"

My hand goes still, and I look down at the top of her head. So far, Megan has made it a point not to ask any questions about my business, which I guess is why it's been so easy to incorporate her as a part of my life at the club and home, too. Her easy acceptance of the violence she has faced at the club has been odd for a mild-mannered art student slash bartender, but I hoped, since she tends to look the other way, that she'd continue to.

"So you want to start asking questions now?" I ask her, my voice low, as I carefully pluck out another shard of glass. "I'm sure you have an understanding of the kind of life I lead."

She's silent, and then she burrows deeper into me as if seeking warmth. "A dangerous one, but besides that, I know next to nothing about you. I mean..." She hesitates and then says abruptly, "Never mind."

I let out a small sigh, then respond because I know I should after all that she's been through. I owe her that much. She almost died in this apartment.

"Megan, as long as you keep your head down and pretend to know nothing, you will be fine in my world. The key to survival is silence."

She stiffens. "So a man tries to annihilate you, and you don't want to involve the police?"

"I don't use the police for protection. I pay them to mind their business. This is my mess to clean up."

"Is that why no one's responded to the gunshots?"

"My team made a few calls. The police are aware that we have the situation in hand."

It doesn't escape me how different I am with Megan. I'm telling her things about my business that I've never told a woman before, and it makes me feel uncomfortable, to say the least. I've only known her for a couple of weeks, and she's gone from an intriguing woman in my bar to the object of my desire; and now she's in my apartment, whimpering as I try to patch up the injuries she received because she chose to save me rather than herself.

Ever since the night of the fire, when I stood in front of my blazing house, screaming myself hoarse as I was held back, something within me froze. When I realized that the two people who'd meant the world to me no longer existed, that they had been torn from my side in the most vicious manner possible, my insides turned glacier cold. I vowed to myself that I would never be in that situation again. I would never make myself vulnerable again.

To love.

But as my jaw tightens at the sound of the small woman in my arms, I realize I've left a small crack in my impenetrable shield open. I want to break her, own her, and consume her every thought. I want to possess this woman in a way that frightens even me.

"Fine," she tells me. "If the entire Los Angeles Police Department stays tight-lipped, who am I to ask any questions?"

I hold out her wrist in the light to see if I've missed anything.

"Good, because you know too much already. The less you know, the safer you are from the people who want to hurt me."

"Well, this is a fun conversation," she says under her breath, and despite the grim reality of the situation, the corner of my lip twitches. "If that's the case, shouldn't you just leave me alone?"

"Why are you so desperate to walk away from me?" I demand, knowing full well that she's completely right, no matter how much I hate to hear it. I should leave her alone. The smart thing to do would be to distance myself from her as far as possible. But I don't always make the intelligent choice when it comes to her. "Do you have another lover lined up?"

"What?" Her voice is genuinely surprised, but I ignore it, fury pumping through my blood at the mental image of her with any other man.

"Are you fucking someone else?"

Her eyes widen, but her lips still don't move.

"I will say this once." I lower my head and whisper in her ear for effect. "If you let another man so much as touch you, I'll slice off his hands and gift them to you in a pretty red box. You belong to me, Megan."

"I'm not your property," she hisses, her voice defiant. "I'm going along with whatever this is between us because you're a pushy bastard, but that's pretty much it."

Amusement and anger run side by side within me at her response. She pushes all of my buttons, even the good ones.

"If it was just about me being pushy, I think you would have walked away from me a long time ago." My tongue darts out to lick the rim of her ear, and I smile in cold satisfaction when she shivers. "You want me so desperately; I can feel it in the air. I just have to touch you, and your delicious pussy immediately gets wet for me. So, don't act all pious for my benefit when we both know you'd love nothing more than to have your legs in the air while I fuck you raw."

I can see the hard indents of her nipples against the soft material of her pajamas. Just the effect I was hoping for.

"You're an asshole," she finally snarls, her voice slightly weak. "We almost died, and you're still being an asshole."

"And you're in dire need of having this attitude spanked out of you," I growl back, my hands itching to bend her over and whack that plump ass of hers. My dick hardens at the mere thought.

If she wasn't injured and if someone didn't try just to kill us both twenty minutes ago, I'd have her face down and ass up on this bed so damn quick.

Now my dick is hard as a rock, which she can no doubt feel. Her face is twisted in conflict as she tries to climb off of me, but I lock my ankles around her legs and wrap my arm around her waist.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

"How are you going to take the glass out of my arms and want to spank me in the same breath?"

"Sit still, Megan. We're not done," I order firmly, but of course, my authoritative tone just slides over her. She has a deep resistance to it that I find fascinating.

"What's going on?" Christian's surprised voice comes as he enters the room, watching Megan struggle fiercely in my arms. "No means no," he says to me with a smirk on his face.

"I want Lars to fix me," she whines to Christian.

My friend blinks at me, stunned by the scene before him.

"What did you do?" he asks me, laughing.

"Nothing," I say through gritted teeth. "Get out," I tell him. "Megan, I swear, if you don't stop right now, I'll tie you to the headboard."

She's still struggling when Christian tells her, "He will tie you up. He's not kidding."

She finally stills.

Christian just looks entertained. "You picked a real handful, didn't you?"

"The handful can hear you." She rolls her eyes at him. "I'm right here."

He gives her a grin. "Sorry, it's just that I've never really seen anybody resist Hunter's orders to his face and live."

"Lucky me."

I'm about to tell Christian to step outside again when I pull up Megan's right sleeve and see a huge shard stuck in her forearm. It sliced right through the fabric into her skin. She must not have noticed because of all the other cuts on her. How did I miss this one?

"Dammit, you're going to need stitches," I say, studying her wound.

When I meet her gaze, I see the look of stark fear in her eyes, and she shakes her head almost desperately.

"Lars can do it, right?"

"No," I tell her, hating the way the flicker of hope dies from her eyes.

"It's not that bad," she says, studying it. "So I'd like him to try. I'm not going to the hospital."

She tries shoving the long gaping wound in my face as if to prove it to me, but she's shaking all over again. My chest tightens in anger at the sight of the tears welling up in her eyes. This courageous woman has no problem facing death square in the eye, but the thought of going to a hospital terrifies her.

I look toward Christian, but he shakes his head. "We're still looking for a replacement."

Isaiah's death is an inconvenience. Losing a personal physician who didn't ask questions but was a master of his craft was a huge loss to me, and our backup doctor is not going to work long-term. I wouldn't want to pull him in on something like this.

"Megan." I gesture with my head to let Christian know it's okay to leave. When he walks out, I gently turn her around.

"I won't go."

"Listen." I grip her jaw, forcing her to meet my gaze. "I'll be with you the entire time. You'll never be alone. Nobody will touch you without my permission, and if anybody tries, I'll put a bullet between their eyes. You have my word."

She presses her lips together, giving me a tearful look, her voice choking up. "It'll get better by itself. I want to go back to my apartment. Naomi will be worried about me."

She's never this distraught. The last time she got even close to this upset was because of the hospital as well. The cut isn't bleeding that much, and it's begun to clot, but she still needs it looked at if it's going to heal correctly.

"The skin must be stitched, or it won't heal properly." I recognize that force or even strongly worded commands from me won't work here, and I can't bear to push her when she's already so upset. So, I try reasoning. "If Lars could do it, I would call him," I tell her, stroking her face and hair. "But I promise I'll be there. I won't leave you for even a second."

She looks so unbearably young at this moment that for a split second, I question what I'm even doing with her in my bed.

She's too immature for you, idiot.

But once again, I don't listen to that little irritating voice in my head, not when I have this fireball of a woman in my arms. There's a reason why she's so frightened, and I owe it to her to at least try to help her through this. She can't avoid hospitals forever.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she hesitates before slightly nodding her head. "I probably shouldn't, but I do."

She's right about that shit.

I barely trust myself right now.

Her voice is a little hoarse, and I use the pad of my thumb to wipe the tears dangling from her lashes.

"Good answer, but I promise you can trust me now. Whatever it is that has you so terrified of hospitals, it won't touch you. I'll make sure of it. You'll always be safe when you're with me."

"Like I was safe today in your bedroom?"

This woman.

Damn, she pushes all of my buttons.

How could I be so off my game and allow someone to get that close to me? To her? If he had been a half-decent shot, he would have killed either of us, and the mere possibility of Megan no longer being on this earth is fucking unacceptable.

"That shit will never happen again. I promise you that."

Or I'll die trying.