16. Salem

SIXTEEN

SALEM

My throat locked with anticipation as I rested high on my knees.

Held.

Enthralled.

Enraptured.

Caught in a violent storm that had come from out of nowhere. A tsunami that had hit unaware.

Where both of us would drown.

Where I had become a piece of the torment written in the bold strokes of paint that covered every surface of his studio.

A piece of the agony weaved into the canvas.

The thickened air strained in and out of my lungs as I remained as still as I could. A picture for him to see. An element for him to piece together.

To carve and shape and mold me into an abhorrent beauty that matched his walls.

The man stood by the door.

His massive shoulders heaved with each harsh, hot breath that rocked from his wide, wide chest.

A monster.

A wraith.

A tower.

A fortress.

A dark, dark sanctuary where I wanted to disappear.

I was still struck by the images.

By the suggestions that swirled and whispered and screamed from the walls.

As if they were alive and crying out to be heard.

The chaos that littered this bad boy’s mind was written in blacks and whites and reds.

But I’d recognized it before, hadn’t I? Hell, I’d had the intuition that the paintings out in his living room had been more than personal the first night we’d met.

He was an artist, but I hadn’t been quite prepared then for what that really meant.

“You matter, Salem. You matter. Look at you, darlin’.”

There was the charm all mixed up with the disorder that was at the heart of this man.

My chest squeezed and the blood thundered through my veins.

“Beauty. The meaning of it.” The words fell on a harsh exhale from his lips, and the air that was barely skating up my throat died right there when he slowly toed off the dress shoes he wore.

Obsidian eyes flashed like a rush of the darkest night, rough as they devoured me from across the space.

Without looking away, he leaned down and peeled the socks from his feet.

I gulped, then I was nearly passing out when he ticked through the buttons on his shirt and peeled that off, too.

The man was nothing but wide, wide shoulders. Muscle everywhere, bulky on his arms and chest, his abdomen packed, tapering down and narrow at the waist.

Most all of his skin was covered in ink that seemed to scream the same as the walls, though it remained indistinct in the minimal light cast down from the rafters.

But I could make out enough to get the intonation.

The pure intimidation.

Menace and peril and life.

The mountain of a man stood there for a moment, then he took a step forward.

Energy rushed across the floor.

He approached like a phantom. Like a painting that had come to life.

It covered me whole and caressed me in shadows.

I was right. This man was definitely, definitely dangerous.

There was no question about it then.

And still, I remained there, held in his gaze, feeling the safest I’d ever felt.

I thought he was coming for me, only he slipped by on his bare feet.

Desire rippled through on his wake.

God, that was sexy, too.

Jud Lawson was an anomaly.

Conflict and peace.

Harmony and dissention.

A blinding light in the longest night.

Stealer of heart and sanity and good sense.

Because remaining there on the ground like an offering?

Posing for him?

There was no question I’d lost my mind.

His aura rippled through the room as he moved over to the wall that I faced. He pulled an easel closer, and the canvas he set on it looked like it’d been painted over a thousand times. He knelt to open a few jars of paint.

He picked up a brush and studied me.

I trembled beneath his watch.

“Beauty,” he rumbled. “Second I saw you out in the rain. Thought I had to be imagining things. Hallucinating.”

“I was terrified,” I admitted, our voices dancing through the condensed air.

Louder than they should be.

The thrumming of our hearts was palpable.

Frantic beats that echoed against the other.

A smirk ticked at the corner of his sexy mouth, then it slipped when he glanced at me then to the canvas. He began to paint. Quick, sweeping strokes, as if the images fell from him without thought. “I felt your fear, Salem. I felt your desperation. Wonder if I felt it then, that we were bound to be more than strangers. Wonder if I knew you were supposed to be on the back of my bike that night. Wonder if I knew you were going to become something that mattered in my life.”

I struggled to remain still, to swallow, to breathe. But the walls spun and gathered. Jud didn’t move, but it felt as if the walls had enclosed and pushed us closer.

He kept sweeping his brush over the canvas in long, frenzied strokes.

“I’m so tired of being afraid.” The confession slipped free. “I’m so tired of running.”

Those walls shook around me. A warning they might crumble and fall.

I had to remember. Remember to be careful.

Trust no one.

But it was getting harder and harder to do.

Beneath his beard, his jaw clenched. “I want to erase that for you, Salem. Gather up every scar you have and paint it something new.”

“Some of the scars cannot be healed, Jud.”

It was an admission from my soul. Where the sorrow railed and reigned.

He blinked, caught in his own storm. “And I want to hold that, too. Don’t deserve it, but I want it.”

“How do you not deserve it?”

And I guessed that’s why I’d followed him here after I’d been so angry with him. So disappointed. The truth I’d seen in the well of his eyes—it was grief that had sent him running.

A hard scoff climbed his thick throat. Disgust rolled out with the sound. “Don’t you see it yet?”

“I see a man who’s in pain and doesn’t let anyone around him know.”

“Only you.”

“Me.” I couldn’t tell if I was claiming it or if it was a question.

Desire lapped.

I could taste it.

Sweet in the air.

I inhaled it into my lungs, felt it rush my veins and fill my belly.

From where I was perched on my knees, my hips involuntarily bucked, begging for him.

I shouldn’t.

But there was a brand-new need burning inside me.

It was only going to hurt.

But my hand was pressing lower on my abdomen, thoughts hitting me so fast, the memory of that kiss, those hands, how good it would feel to just give in.

A growl reverberated the air.

Those black eyes flashed.

Pitch.

Darkened with lust.

His tongue swept across his lips.

“Salem.” It was a warning.

“You asked me when I felt the most beautiful. You wanted me to show you how I feel when you look at me. This, Jud. I feel this. I feel desired. I feel wanted. I feel real .”

No longer mist.

My trembling fingertips barely slipped under the band of my underwear, and the plea rasped from my mouth. “I want you to want me. The way I want you.”

There I went, begging for the pain.

But I couldn’t stop.

Not when he was watching me that way.

“Enchantress. What do you think you’re doin’ to me?”

A soft sound of rebuttal stole from between my lips. “It’s me who’s intoxicated, Jud. Me who doesn’t know what hit her.”

The brush slipped from his fingers and clinked against the floor.

Slowly, Jud edged my direction.

A dark tower.

A ferocious warrior.

A wicked savior.

I wanted him to be.

To stand for me.

For us.

But I could never ask that of him.

He came forward on those bare feet until he was reaching out and tipping my chin up with the crook of his index finger. “Darlin’, I’m no good. Don’t you see?”

Shadows played over his hard, rugged face.

“I do see, Jud. I see a man who is kind and good and gentle and fierce. I see a man who’s haunted. Haunted like me.”

The pad of his thumb traced my lips.

My stomach tightened and my hips bucked again.

He was close enough that I could make out some of the shapes on his torso. They were so much like the images painted on the walls.

Demons and angels. War and life. Grief and destruction. Toiling seas and crumbling mountains.

But there were four bold letters stamped on his left side that I had the urge to touch.

GRIM.

My spirit trembled, as wildly as my fingers when I gave in and reached out to trace the word.

The proclamation.

I closed my eyes as if I were reading it in Braille, and the man shook beneath my touch.

Shame lanced through his being.

“Who I really am, Salem.”

My brow pinched. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve done horrible things.”

Everything shivered.

My heart and my soul and the night.

This was bad. It was clear in the confession of his eyes that it was bad.

The ghosts in his eyes weren’t just pretend.

Though, like a fool, I pressed, lifted my gaze to his hard, harsh beauty. “But it’s in the past?”

Because I couldn’t believe this man was cruel. That he was vile and depraved. Capable of inflicting pain.

“Just because it’s in the past doesn’t mean it’s not who I am. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t live on inside me.”

Jud still held me by the chin, and I took that hand in both of mine and pressed his massive palm to my cheek. Felt the comfort that radiated from his warm skin. The tenderness. The kindness. The care he’d shown. “You’re a good man, Jud.”

A grunt scraped up his throat, and he slowly climbed down onto his knees in front of me, still towering there as he slipped his hand to the side of my neck where my pulse raged and down over the thunder of my heart.

His palm was splayed wide as he moved farther down to run over my breasts.

A needy gasp raked up my throat.

“Nah, darlin’. I’m not. Because if I was, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

His mouth followed the path.

My chin.

My neck.

The sensitive skin between my breasts.

Shivers raced, and I all out shook.

He inhaled as he went, but it was me who was inundated with his aura.

It filled my lungs.

Filled my veins.

Citrus and cinnamon and spice.

I got drugged on that late fall night.

He kept angling down until he was kissing over my stomach, and my chest was heaving as my fingers tangled in the long pieces of his hair.

“You should really tell me to stop this, darlin’, because I’m about to taste this sweet pussy, and I’m afraid once I do, I’m not ever gonna want to stop.”

Lust burned.

Flames licked across my flesh.

I should be afraid of the fire, but my fingers only fisted tighter.

“A friend wouldn’t make me wait.” The words raked from my mouth on a frantic tease, a bid and a plea.

Because, oh god, I wanted this man’s mouth on me.

He rumbled a laugh.

It vibrated me all the way through.

Tingles scattered.

Jud edged back and met my eye, his massive hands holding me around the waist. “You wanna come, baby?”

My nod was rabid.

“Did you touch yourself that night? When I was texting you?”

My tongue stroked my dried lips. “Yes.”

“This is what I was imagining, darlin’. Feasting on you. Were you thinking the same?”

“Yes.”

From where he knelt, he picked me up like I didn’t weigh anything and resituated me so that I was sitting.

Surprise jutted from my lungs, and my hands shot behind me to keep me upright.

My knees parted, my core drenched.

Jud ran two fingers over my underwear. “So wet.”

There it was.

The whirlwind.

The push and the pull.

This deep, intense, terrifying man up against the sexy cockiness this boy wore like a brand.

“I need this, Jud.”

I didn’t think I’d ever needed anything the way I needed this right then.

He hooked his fingers in my underwear and slowly dragged them down my legs.

A hiss left his mouth.

“Black-fuckin’-magic.”

His big hands gripped me by the outside of the thighs, eyes devouring before he tugged me closer and dove right in.

His tongue parted me.

Licking and sucking and eating me up the way he’d kissed me this week.

It wasn’t even in the realm of soft or sweet.

It was an annihilation.

Complete obliteration.

His tongue whipped me into a frenzy.

My hips bucked and my fingers yanked. “Jud. Yes. God. I need you.”

“You have me, darlin’. Know what you need.” The words vibrated. Shivers raced. He lifted my ass from the floor, and he shifted course and kissed down the backs of my thighs, over my bottom, and licked into my cleft.

A moan ripped from my mouth. “Jud.” He chuckled a low sound, and I wiggled in his massive hold. “Please.”

The air shifted when those eyes met mine, the intensity something bigger than I could fathom. “Told you, I have you, Salem. I have you.”

Then he was slowly setting my bottom back on the floor, and he reached up and pressed two big fingers into my mouth.

I sucked and moaned around them.

“Good girl.”

I all out shook when he pulled them away, the man never looking away as he pushed them deep into my center.

A gasp wheezed out.

His fingers were almost more than I could take. There was no question then—this man was going to ruin me. Still, I begged, “Please.”

He started to drive them, fucking them in and out. He dipped down and sucked my clit, pulled it between his teeth, but he was lapping and stroking and swirling his tongue.

It took all of a minute, and I split.

Broke apart in his beautiful, menacing hands.

That energy raced, rushed my flesh in a landslide of bliss.

A flashfire.

Combustion.

A charge that shot me to an unknown place. Where I couldn’t see. Where I couldn’t think. Where it was only me and this contradiction of a man.

A man I wanted, yet some piece of me warned I should fear.

But I didn’t.

I succumbed. I gave. I let pleasure win out.

He led me through, his fingers slowing as the orgasm rippled and shivered and gusted through my body.

Wave after wave.

Rapture.

Revelry.

I was sure I’d never felt so good as right then.

He nuzzled his nose into my belly as I slowly came down.

But neither of us touched the ground.

We hovered there, our gazes tangled before Jud curled his hand around the back of my neck and jerked me to the demand of his kiss.

His tongue power.

His mouth truth.

He kissed me until lightheadedness swept over me again.

Until I couldn’t breathe, and my fingers were in his hair, his beard, burrowing into his shoulders and raking down his thick, muscled back.

Our chests were mashed together as our teeth and spirits clanged.

Desperate for this connection.

The energy whipped.

A tornado that swept up everything in its path.

My nails scraped down his chest.

Lower.

Desperate.

More.

His muscles flexed and bowed. “Careful, darlin’.”

“I’m pretty sure I left careful with my car the night I climbed onto the back of your bike.”

A wicked chuckle rumbled deep in his throat. I lapped it, like my tongue could gather the taste of it. I kissed down his pecs and his abdomen as I struggled with his belt.

Jud grunted, and those big hands found the sides of my face. “Salem.”

“Let me touch you.” It wheezed from my frantic lips, lips that kissed lower as I finally got the buckle free and jerked at the button and zipper.

My hands slipped to his cut waist, and that need was spiraling through me like compulsion.

Necessity.

“I see it, too, Jud, when I look at you. Beauty. The definition of it.” At his flesh, I rumbled the same confession he’d given me as I frantically pushed at his pants. “It hurts to look at you, I want you so bad.”

He pushed up high on his knees. “Fuck, darlin’, what are you trying to do to me?”

“A little of what you’ve been doing to me.”

I finally got his pants down his massive thighs and shoved his underwear down, too, and…whoa…

A shudder ripped through my being.

Jud chuckled again, and he reached out and traced his thumb over my bottom lip since my mouth was hanging open. “You see what you do to me now, Salem? You think it’s you who’s been lying in want? Been dyin’ to get lost in you.”

The man was giant. Thick and long and fat. Hot and hard and dripping at the tip.

He also wasn’t shy. “Let’s see what that hot little mouth can do, yeah?”

A fever ignited in my core, and every part of me clenched in want. A moan got free as I braced my hands on his hips and stretched my mouth around him.

I took in as much as I could as I moved to grip him at the base.

Jud bucked deeper. “Yes, darlin’. Just like that.”

I sucked him. Licked him.

He tightened both hands in my hair, and the man began to guide me in a hard, desperate rhythm.

He arched and groaned.

That feeling was in the air.

Shimmering.

Stirring.

“Salem.”

A rush of energy captured me, and I relaxed my mouth, let him take me as he wanted me.

His hips jutted, then he was roaring a deep, guttural, “Fuck.”

Both hands held me by the sides of the head as he pulsed at the back of my throat. I swallowed around him as he jerked with the waves of pleasure.

He clutched me tightly when he came. “Salem…gorgeous…darlin’.”

I could tell when he was coming down, the way the words went from grunts to these sweet little mumblings that fell from his mouth.

I slowly edged back, releasing him from my mouth just as he was brushing his fingertips over mine.

A rough jolt of laughter left him, those dark eyes dancing in the night. “Well, then, darlin’.”

That gaze turned adoring.

It panged somewhere in my reckless heart.

I knew better than falling for this man, but I was afraid Mimi might be right—we didn’t always get to decide when it was time. Which was why I was a fool for even allowing myself to be in this position.

Where I felt the world falling away and the steady beat of this man taking its place.

Jud tugged up his pants, though he didn’t take the time to button and zip them before he slipped his arm around my waist and gently laid us on the floor. He was on his back, and he pulled me on top of him, brought us chest to chest.

“Sorry about those knees.” He grinned up at me when he said it, brushing back the hair that fell around my face.

The playful, teasing boy was back in full force.

It pulled a grin from me. “They’re going to be scraped up for sure. It seems you need to get carpet in this place.”

I let my fingertips glide over the images on his chest.

“Does that guarantee me a repeat performance?” Mischief wound in the words.

I smacked him on the shoulder, though I laughed, fighting the smile as I peered into the depths of his eyes.

“It just might,” I admitted.

Every hard edge of him softened, and his gaze sifted over my face, like he was searching for any reservations or regrets. “Didn’t bring you back here for that.”

“Isn’t this the way you treat all your friends?” I tried for a tease, but the question thickened with emotion.

He kept brushing back my hair from my face as I gazed down at him.

The man this stunning creature that I wanted to know.

“Is that what we are, darlin’, friends? And here I thought you were going to stab me if I touched you.”

“I think I would have stabbed you if you didn’t.”

“And I think I would’ve died if I had to keep tiptoeing around you the way we’ve been doing the last few days. Hated it. The distance.”

“I hated it, too.”

The truth was, I’d gotten used to his friendship , or whatever other lie we wanted to label it.

The muscles in his body flexed. Torment rose to the surface.

“I fucked it up, Salem. Know it. I just…your daughter…”

That grief strobed like a beacon of devastation in the dark chasm of his eyes.

My heart skipped with the secrets I kept locked tight, panged against the ones I knew Jud was hiding, too.

Still, like a fool, I whispered, “What? What is it? You can tell me anything.”

Ominous laughter floated from his mouth, and his head shook against the hard floor where he lay. “No, see, that’s the problem, Salem. I opened up once and confessed who I was. It didn’t turn out so great.”

I swore the tattoo imprinted on his side burned against my chest.

Grim.

I swallowed back the disquiet, and I fell into the potency of those eyes. Into the gulf of darkness that waited below the surface.

“My wife?—”

I didn’t mean for the gasp to get free, but it did, a shock in the air.

Jud’s mouth trembled and he curled his arm tighter around my back.

“I tried to be a better man, Salem. I fucking tried to leave the life I was raised in behind.”

Dread pounded through my blood.

His.

Mine.

A thunder that roared between us.

He looked up at me, no teasing left in the tone of his voice. “Our father was the president of a violent MC. I was raised in the life, Salem. He taught us to raid. To destroy. To kill.”

His teeth ground with the last.

Shame sparked across his flesh.

The air locked in my throat.

Fear and hurt and the rush of his pain.

It was like I could physically feel the ooze of the blood that stained his hands where they burned into my lower back.

I should get up and go.

Run.

Hide.

Pack our things and never look back.

This was the last place I should be. Wrapped up in him.

But I was already there.

Sinking into his being.

The man quicksand.

His tongue stroked over his lips before he continued, “We left that life behind when Gage was born. Got free because there was no chance Trent would raise him that way. We all wanted a second chance. To be something better. To offer something good instead of all the bad.”

His voice drifted with regret, then those eyes were pinning me through as he threaded the fingers of his right hand into my hair. “Met this girl…”

His mouth tipped down at the side. I wanted to bury myself in his body. Hold his pain.

“Loved the fuck outta her.” A rough chuckle came out with the admission. Shards of gutted sorrow.

“Jud…”

He shook his head to cut me off, and he moved to gather up my hand. He pressed my knuckles to his lips before he took a deep breath and forced out the admission. “Promised myself that I would never go back, Salem. That I was going to live clean. Be right.”

Everything quivered around him.

Torment radiating from his body.

The laughter that rolled was spite.

“Got sucked into some old shit, Salem. An old debt the owner had come to collect. My brother Logan…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I had to do it. I had to protect him.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch as the agony pinched every line on his face into horror. “But it was fucked, Salem. They asked me to do something I couldn’t. I tried to fix it. Take it back. I tried to stop it, but it was too fuckin’ late. I didn’t mean…”

He choked on that.

Questions whirled through my mind.

My heart wouldn’t let me push him. The only thing I could do was listen. Hold whatever he was willing to give and pray it didn’t destroy me in the end.

He swallowed hard, then forced out, “I confessed it, Salem. I came home and confessed it because I couldn’t stand keeping secrets from her. Couldn’t take any more lies between us. Couldn’t sleep next to her while being riddled with that kind of guilt. But she saw who I really was, Salem. She saw the monster and she packed her things.”

Sympathy crushed my heart. Because I remembered—remembered the words he’d whispered to Eden.

Thank you for seeing him for who he is and not what he’s done.

Grief swam in my spirit.

His wife hadn’t seen that in him. And God, I could feel myself slipping into places I couldn’t go.

Jud’s hand curled over mine, and he ran his palm up and down the back of my hand, as if the motion offered comfort.

Respite.

Reprieve.

I wanted to be that for him.

Then he clamped it down tight as if I could keep him from floating away while the brittle words crumbled from his mouth. “She took our one-year-old daughter with her, Salem. She took her, and I never saw her again.”

Air streaked into my lungs.

Hot and thin.

Agony crushed down. A pain I knew all too well. I fought it. Refused it. The rush of tears that wanted to flee. But this wasn’t about me.

I hugged him tighter like I could be his rock when I’d never been so certain I could be a stumbling stone.

“That’s why I freaked out when I saw Juni. It just…hurt so fuckin’ much. Here was this little girl who’s so close to the same age as my daughter. My daughter who I don’t know. All I know is she’s got black hair and the cutest damned laugh, and she left a crater in me so deep and wide that it can’t ever be filled. I shouldn’t even have you here, Salem. Not for a fuckin’ minute should I get the grace of touching you. But I need you to understand why . It isn’t you or your kid. It’s me. It’s always me.”

“I’m so sorry, Jud.”

He kind of shrugged, attempted a smile that didn’t land. “And I’m just the fool who keeps trying to be better. Doing what’s right. Hoping one day…”

He trailed off at the very second we both realized what he was getting ready to say.

He was waiting for them to come back.

Who said anything about love?

Rejection burned a hole through the middle of me.

God, I was such a fool. So reckless.

But that’s the way he made me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

I eased off him, no chance of hiding the way I shook.

I turned my face away as I reached for where my underwear and skirt were pooled on the floor, held back the hysterical laughter that wanted to burst from my throat.

The incredulous disbelief that was fully directed at myself.

Because how could I blame him for that?

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

And still, this stupid want burned. My body alive and my heart invested.

I slipped my clothes on while I felt Jud climb to stand behind me.

His presence powerful.

His pants rustled as he resituated them on his hips and zipped them up. Warily, I peeked at him.

He was standing facing away, and I clipped off a gasp when I saw the expanse of his back for the first time.

It was covered in tattoos, as well, though beneath the designs the skin was gnarled and puckered and pink.

As if the man had been burned alive.

A strangled cry clawed up my throat, and I pushed my hand to my mouth to try to cover it.

Jud stiffened when he heard it. When he realized where I was staring.

Trembling like I’d been zapped by a live current, I pushed to standing. My footsteps were unsure, faint as I slipped that way. With a jittering hand, I reached out and traced the marred flesh.

Jud shivered beneath it.

“You deserve someone to see you for who you are and not what you’ve done.” I whispered the truth of what he’d spoken earlier tonight.

God, I wanted it for him.

I cared.

And maybe that made me the biggest fool of all.

When he looked back at me, I saw the sadness that held his expression. “Tried so hard to be worthy of that.”

Jud shifted around, edged in closer. “Thing is, if you saw the ugly parts, you’d go running, too.”

He caressed my cheek. “Maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Problem is how fuckin’ bad I want to keep you.”

All of it felt like a warning.

An omen.

A prophecy.

Then he cracked a grin like he hadn’t cut himself wide open. “Come on, let’s get that sweet ass home. Told you I’d give you a ride. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t come through?”

Right.

Friend.

I kept my focus on my feet as I moved for my shoes while Jud snagged his shirt from the floor and redressed, not sure I could handle anything more.

Worried this gravity would finally consume me.

I needed space, and so did he.

It’d become strikingly clear neither of us were in the position for this .

So, we ignored the connection that groaned. Pretended like what we’d shared hadn’t meant much to either of us.

We were nothing but feigned, forged smiles as we moved back through his loft and eased downstairs. But rather than him leading me to his bike where he parked it in his personal bay across the shop, he led me to the pickup parked beside it. He clicked the locks, and we climbed in as the garage door lifted behind us.

The silence between us shouted as loud as the engine.

Jud drove me home.

That energy snapped and boomed and screamed in the cab.

A crackle that called from the depths that we both fought to ignore.

It was near painful by the time he pulled up in front of my house and came to a stop at the curb. He hopped out, ran around the front, and opened the door. He hit me with another one of those deadly grins as I climbed out.

Aloof and carefree.

But I saw the pain written underneath.

I started to walk, only I brushed my hand over his, and I shifted my attention to his rugged, unforgettable face. My voice was haggard as I took a stupid, reckless chance. “Maybe you just need the right person who can see through it.”

His expression dimmed and shifted, the smile beneath his beard sad. “Ah, darlin’, I’m afraid a love like that might hurt too damned bad.”

Warily, I nodded, and I stumbled up the walkway. At the doorway, I paused and looked back at him. He’d shut the passenger door and had leaned against the metal, his hands back in those pockets and a foot kicked over his ankle.

“Friends?” he asked.

“If that’s the only way you’ll have me.” With a soft smile on my face, I tossed back what he’d given me.

Jud chuckled. “Ah, Sweet Enchantress, there is somethin’ about you.”

A tender smile tweaked at my mouth, and my chest pulsed full, and I had no idea where I stood. How far I would fly or where I would land. If I’d run or if I’d stay, but I knew, without question, I would never regret experiencing tonight with this man.

I gave him a tiny wave before I eased my key into the lock, and I slipped inside.

I jumped when I noticed a dark figure hovering by the kitchen archway, then I heaved out the shock on a long breath when I realized it was Darius. “Shit. You scared me.”

Disgust twisted his face. “Told you to stay away from him.”

My entire being trembled. “You don’t get to tell me that.”

Rage vibrated to his bones. He inclined his head as he approached. “When I’m doing this for you? Trying to protect you? Trying to give you and your daughter a chance at a normal life?”

My heart beat hard, a thunder in my chest, and Darius came even closer, grating the words two inches from my face. “Then yes, Salem, I do.”