I’d slept in the wingback chair by the window, although barely, and woken way earlier than Zeth due to the piercing shafts of sunlight spearing over the top of the compound wall and directly into the bedroom. Since then I’ve been waiting, stiff and cold, for the dark shape of a man to wake. Dreading it. With his eyes closed and hand softly flexed inwards as he breathes deeply in and then out, he looks so vulnerable and harmless. The lines of him don’t soften in the slightest with his unconsciousness; his muscles are still strongly carved out of his belly and chest, arms and back, but they aren’t primed to damage anyone right now, which makes him seem less dangerous. I’m too scared to wake him. I just sit, waiting, hoping that he wakes up in a better mood than he fell asleep in.
I’m also hoping Lacey is okay. She knew I wasn’t going to take her with me. God knows how, but she didn’t bat an eyelash when I said she was going stay with my folks for the night. Two at the most. The relief on her face had actually been very obvious when I said it wasn’t safe for her to come. She’d only grown concerned when she’d followed me into my parents’ place and seen the religious paraphernalia all over the walls: crucifixes, icons of the Virgin Mary and cherub-faced depictions of Jesus blessing the masses. Her face had grown pale, although she’d swallowed stiffly and sat herself down, folding her hands in her lap and eyeing my father suspiciously. I don’t know what’s happened to make her react that way, but it’s clearly something very bad. I’m hoping she’s not going to be more traumatized when I pick her up than she was when I left her there.
I’m still thinking about this when, at around seven thirty, Zeth sits bolt upright in the bed, gasping. His eyes scan the room, locate me, and the next thing I know I’m being physically lifted and am being thrown onto the bed on the other side of the room. I let out a small yelp as Zeth’s hand sails, clenched into a scuffed-knuckled fist, down toward my face. He manages to catch himself in time, letting out a choked shout.
“Fuck!” he shouts. He lets me go, rolling away from me on the bed. The only thing I can do is place my hands over my frantically beating heart and try and suck some air into my lungs. My whole body starts shaking, jittering uncontrollably where he leaves me curled on the bed. He hurls himself across the other side of the room and presses his back against the wall, momentarily cupping his hands over his face, drawing in long, uneven breaths of his own.
“Fuck,” he says again, almost too quietly for me to hear this time. I sit silently, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Eventually Zeth lowers his hands and fixes a darkly unimpressed stare on me. “You’re the worst thing that could have happened,” he growls at me.
The statement is so ironic that I almost choke. “Says you! Fuck you, Zeth.”
“Yeah, fuck me,” he agrees. He pushes away from the wall and prowls forward, approaching the bed. I kick back against the rumpled covers, trying to keep a safe distance between us. “You have no idea how complicated you’ve made things. Why the fuck did you come here?”
I feel ridiculous and more than a little betrayed by my own body when my eyes start to prick. “I didn’t exactly have much choice. Your friends, Charlie’s men, broke into my place and tried to kidnap your—” I stop myself just in time. Zeth’s reached the bed now, and has climbed up on his hands and knees, inching closer. His brows furrow. “They tried to kidnap Lacey,” I tell him. “And there’s no way I’m leading that kind of craziness to my friends or to my workplace. To a job that means more than anything to me. I’ve jeopardized everything I’ve worked so hard for so I can get the girl you dumped on me out of Seattle and you’re mad at me for it!” A single tear of frustration races down my cheek, dripping onto my bent knee.
Zeth sits back on his heels, still only wearing his boxers, tattoos shifting as his muscles flex seemingly without any conscious effort on his part. He’s built like a statue of a man, not the real thing. Some kind of portrayal of what the masculine physique would look like if it were rendered to perfection. I hate him for looking so good right now when I know I look like shit. And I’m fucking crying. He scrubs his hand across his jaw, scowling. He’d looked so intent on coming for me to do God knows what a second ago but now he seems a little torn.
“Don’t do that,” he tells me in a flat voice.
“Do what? Be mad at you? Of course I’m—”
“Cry,” he interrupts. “Don’t cry. That’s a shitty, underhanded trick.”
“Trick?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe him. I’ve been held up at gunpoint, threatened, driven across three states, shot at and threatened some more, and he thinks I’m crying to make him feel bad. Asshole! I throw myself backward on the bed, pulling a pillow over my face. I scream into it, not even bothering to hold back. Even with the pillow it must sound like I’m being murdered. A large, powerful hand closes around my right ankle and then I’m being dragged through the sheets. The pillow is whipped out of my hands. I pause for a moment, glare at him defiantly, and then carry on screaming. He drops down on top of me, firmly planting a cupped hand over my mouth. He shoves his face into mine, serious and still glaring.