Chapter 5

five

. . .

Bishop

T he steady clank of the weights was my only companion as I tried to work through my frustration. It had been three hours since I left River alone to talk to Walker. After the first, I'd decided to come down to the gym and blow off some steam. What was taking them so long? Did she need me? Had he won her over and convinced her to fall back into bed with him?

Stop it, Bishop. You're not doing yourself any favors following that line of thought.

But even though I knew better, I couldn't help myself. Not even twenty-four hours ago, my fingers had been buried inside her slick cunt, her moans against my lips. It made me possessive. Hungry for more. Dammit, I couldn't get hard right now. I was trying to distract myself, not add to my misery.

I counted out the last of my reps before switching arms and starting over. Sweat trickled down my back as I counted each controlled lift. One. Two. Three... and I swore I could smell her perfume in the air.

"She's not yours. Let her be." I spoke the words aloud, hoping I might believe them if I heard them with my own ears. She wasn't mine.

But for a moment last night, she had been. And I wasn't ready to give her up.

We hadn't talked about it being anything more. There hadn't exactly been time, but part of me had hoped we might be on the same page about seeing where things might go. See if she'd let me tie her up and have my way with her. Give her so many orgasms she nearly passed out from the pleasure.

Focus, Bishop.

Not that I was ready for a relationship. Right? Fuck, I didn't even know what I wanted except that I wanted more of her.

Did that make me an asshole? Should I step aside and let her work out her shit with Walker and Cross? That's what a good man would do.

But I wasn't a good man.

Not anymore.

A little gasp from behind me had my muscles clenching, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I hadn't even noticed she was there. It was Volkov all over again. I really was getting sloppy. This woman twisted me up so much I couldn't even do the job I'd spent nearly a decade training for.

Working to keep my cool, I turned my head and found River standing in the open doorway, her eyes heated as she took in my shirtless torso.

"You three one big happy family now?" I asked, hating how jealous I sounded as I set the barbell down.

"Hardly." She didn't flinch. My siren entered the gym and approached me, her gaze not on mine but trained on my back and shoulders.

On instinct, I turned around to face her, trying to hide the overlapping scars I knew she'd seen, their thick and jagged ridges as familiar to me as the freckles on the back of my hand.

"What happened to you, Sterling? Who did that?"

I shrugged. "Lots of people."

"Is that why you don't like to be touched?"

She wasn't pulling her punches today, was she? The last thing I wanted was for her to hear about the months of torture I'd endured behind enemy lines. How close to death I'd been more than once. How I couldn't close my eyes without seeing them looming over me for years after I'd come home. She didn't need to carry that weight.

No one did.

I knew she wanted an answer. Deserved one, even, but she already had it. The truth was in the marks that covered me. My back was the worst of it, by far. But there were burns and other scars across my torso. There was no hiding what had been done to me.

"All at once or over time?" Her question was soft as she reached out like she might touch me. It took everything in me not to shrink away, but she stopped herself, her fingers shaking as she lowered her arm to her side.

"Over time. They waited until I was healed enough not to die of shock or blood loss."

Why was I fucking telling her this? My darkness wasn't her burden to bear.

I don't know what I expected her to say, but her growled, "I hope you killed them. Slowly," was not fucking it. Maybe my siren had a little darkness of her own.

"They're dead and buried."

"Good. There's a special place in hell for people who would do something like that."

"I was wrong about you."

"What?"

"You're not a siren. You're a shark."

She flashed her teeth, then grinned. "Sirens are deadly too, Bishop."

"I told you to call me Sterling."

"You're not inside me. I thought we saved that for those occasions?"

So she wasn't choosing a Cross brother over me. I'd been hopeful when she sidestepped my question, but this flirtatious behavior proved it. Blood rushed to my dick, and I had to shift to make sure she didn't notice the way my mesh shorts tented.

"I like my name on your lips whenever you say it. But I can be inside you again if that's what you need."

My voice had dropped to the husky rasp I'd used last night. The color staining her cheeks told me she recognized it. But it was the way her pupils dilated and her pulse started to throb along the side of her neck that told me she wanted it.

She might legally share their last name, but she was still mine.

The proof was right there in front of me.

I knew if I touched her right now, she'd welcome it. That I could have her on her back screaming my name in seconds. But not before we addressed the elephant in the room.

"What happened with Walker, siren?"

"I'm not going to lie and tell you there's nothing between us."

I nodded, letting her know that it was okay, that I wasn't upset by her honesty, even if it felt a bit like she'd sucker punched me.

Her eyes darted around the gym before returning to my steady gaze. "He knows about you too. It's all so complicated, Sterling. I don't know which way is up."

"What about Cross?"

Her eyes hardened. "It's nothing."

"The hallway didn't look like nothing. The way he watches you doesn't look like nothing, either. And now it turns out you two are married. That's something."

An annoyed huff left her lips as she crossed her arms over her chest and backed away from me. "I'll be divorced before I can get used to signing my new name. He doesn't matter."

There was no mistaking her determination, but I'd been paying attention to her. Studying her tells. Memorizing every little detail. She was lying. I just wasn't sure if it was to herself or to protect me. Had she really convinced herself Cross didn't have her as tangled up as she did him?

Whatever the reason, I didn't think she'd appreciate me calling her out on it. But that wasn't the only thought crowding my mind. I always did my best thinking while working out, and I'd come to realize in the last couple hours that being Cross's wife might offer her more protection than she knew. If I'd learned anything during my time watching Cross, it was that he protected what was his.

I'd seen how Volkov looked at her last night. I knew he was making a play, and it was clear she was part of it. A messy divorce would put her out in the open, vulnerable—easy prey for a man like that.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you don't believe me."

"Oh, I believe you want a divorce. I'm just not sure it's the best idea."

"What?" Her shock couldn't have been any greater. "How the hell can you say that? Maybe if you knew what he did to me, you'd see how fucking ridiculous that is."

I was about to explain my thought process when my attention snagged on something she'd said. "What the fuck did he do to you? Did he hurt you?"

"If breaking my eighteen-year-old heart counts, yes. I thought I was in love with him ten years ago. I thought, stupidly, he was my white knight and the two of us would have a fairytale life together. Instead he took my virginity, then threw me away with nothing more than a note. I left for Alaska the next day."

Motherfucking playboy. No wonder she hated him so much. But the words she'd said echoed in my mind as well. She'd thought she was in love. You didn't just get over something like that.

"You can't get a divorce."

Her mouth fell open, a little noise of surprise escaping. "I can't?"

"No. Not yet."

Her eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling me?"

A whole fucking lot, siren.

"Do you trust me?"

"I thought I did, but I'm questioning myself right now."

I blew out a breath. That was fair. I needed to give her something.

"That man we ran into last night."

"What about him?"

"He's a bad guy."

"Who the fuck among us . . ."

I snickered, because she had a point. She was surrounded by gunslingers and mobsters, and from the sound of it, had been raised by a motorcycle club. The girl had seen some shit.

"No. I mean bad , siren. The worst. And he's set his sights on you."

"What?" She laughed. "I don't even know the guy. He saw me for like ten seconds."

I shook my head. "That's all it takes."

I should fucking know.

"So what does being married have to do with him?"

"If you're happy with Cross, not able to be swayed, he can't touch you without starting a war."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, eyeing me warily. My secret was out now, one of them, anyway, and she knew that meant I had access to all kinds of classified information. And she was smart enough to put together that I wasn't here working for Cross for the fun of it. She must have figured out Cross was under investigation; she just didn't know why. But I guessed she was starting to put the pieces together.

"Stay married to Cross—for now."

"Do you know what you're asking me?"

"I'm asking you to stay alive."

Her expression softened. "How long?"

"As long as it takes. Cross can protect you better than you can protect yourself."

She let out a humorless laugh. "We'll kill each other."

"You loved him once. You can tolerate him for a while." Unable to resist, I pinched her chin between my fingers and thumb, tipping her face up so she knew I was serious. "I won't let him hurt you, siren. You aren't alone."

"Promise?"

I closed the distance between us and feathered a kiss over her lips. "With my life. I won't let anything happen to you, I swear it."

"Why are you helping me? Does this have anything to do with what happened to my parents?"

That was a simple question with a complicated answer.

"I'd have helped you with that regardless. It's sort of my job to help people."

"So if not because of them or out of some sense of duty, then why?"

"Because you made me care, and I haven't cared about anything in a long fucking time."

Rising onto her toes, she presented her lips to me, waiting for me to make the move and kiss her. Even now, she respected my boundaries.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

My gaze was locked on her full lips. I couldn't deny her, not now, not ever. I brushed my mouth across hers and gave her one more soft kiss before whispering, "A long. Fucking. Time."