He sat down beside her. “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get cold.”
“Max is keeping me warm, and I’m partied out. I should have paced myself. I didn’t realize the Sinner celebration would go on all night.”
“An ice house for a clubhouse. And justice is always worth celebrating.”
“I thought I was the price for your clubhouse.”
The skin on the back of his neck prickled in warning. “You’re the price for Cole. A life for a life.”
“So you have my life,” she said, her voice deceptively mild. “What are you planning to do with it?” She toyed with a piece of paper in her hand—the paper Bunny had given her. It was everything he could do not to snatch it from her hand.
Jagger’s pulse kicked up a notch. Give him a shoot-out or a fistfight any day, but trying to figure out where she was going with this conversation was like walking through a maze of thorns. She didn’t seem angry or resigned, merely curious.
“Treasure it.” He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. He should tell her now he wasn’t going to do anything except let her go, but selfish bastard that he was, he couldn’t do it. Arianne was no victim. And knowing she would never go down without a fight just made him want her even more.
“Is that your way of being evasive?” She leaned over and ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, then dipped it into his mouth. His cock stiffened and he fisted her hair. Fuck. He wanted her so bad, he didn’t know if he could actually let her go.
“Only when there is a question for which there is no right answer.” He ran his thumb back and forth over her knuckles, his anxiety fading as her warmth seeped into his palm.
“My mother used to do that,” she said. “Usually when we were watching TV or just hanging out and she was thinking about something. I always found it soothing, although I think she did it to soothe herself.”
He drank in the tidbit of information about her life, adding it to the puzzle, wondering if he would ever be able to fill in the rest. He wanted to know everything about her, from the first thing she remembered until the day they met.
“I don’t remember much of my mother.” He squeezed her hand needing her touch as he dredged up long-buried memories. “She walked out on us when I was seven. My father was an army man. Strict. Cold. Disciplined. My mom was the opposite. She was warm and passionate about the arts. She loved to sing and dance. My father cared for her deeply but he never let her see it, and I think one day it became too much. She packed her bag, kissed me on the cheek, and walked away. I never saw or heard from her again.”
Arianne’s faced creased in sympathy. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a mom, but I can’t imagine what you went through when she left you like that.”
He gritted his teeth against the pain of that loss, the bewilderment of a seven-year-old boy who had lost his mother, believing every day she was going to come home, thinking he was to blame and wishing there was something he could do to bring her back.
So goddamn helpless. Never again.
“My dad eased up on me after that.” He let go a ragged breath. “Made an effort to spend time with me because there was no one else. Didn’t keep me from getting into trouble, though. I think he worried for my entire adolescence.”
“Viper didn’t give a damn about us so long as we were available to run his drugs across town or entertain his guests, hack into computer databases and wheedle information out of people who didn’t want to give it up.”
“You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Not if I’m gone.”
Jagger closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against her temple, inhaling the scent of her hair, wildflowers and autumn leaves. He didn’t want to think about her gone. He wanted her to stay. Not by force, but by choice. He wanted her to want him the way he wanted her, with a fierce inexplicable desire that consumed him.
“You aren’t leaving.” He covered her hand with his, crushing the paper into her palm.
“Because you claimed me?”
“Because I want you.”
He could feel her smile, her cheek lifting, brushing against his. “You want me?”
With a light tap, he dislodged Max, then pulled Arianne onto his lap facing him, her knees astride his hips. “You’re all I thought about when I was out riding.”
“Why do you want me?”