She blinked her blue eyes at me. “Like what?”
“Like I’m your hero or something.” I tugged on my hair and glanced away. “It’s not like I saved you out of the goodness of my heart. I don’t have one anymore. I’m not that guy. I’m the type of guy that attacks people in alleys—not the other way around.”
She shook her head, those blue eyes never leaving me. “Your halo may be tarnished, yet you still saved me. That means more than if you were the hero type.”
Again, something twisted in my chest. She was trying to turn me into a pansy, and I wasn’t going to let her. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Sit down.” She gestured to the couch impatiently. “I need to clean that wound.”
Without arguing, I sat down. She sat on the table in front of me, situating her legs on either side of mine. It took a hell of a lot of control not to grip her thighs and spread them even wider for me. “You’re mine now.”
She pulled out the pad soaked in rubbing alcohol, ripping the packet open. “Excuse me?”
“What I mean to say is that since I claimed you as mine, you have to pretend to be with me. Bitter Hill is gonna check into my claim, guaranteed.” I closed my eyes, letting her fuss over me. It burned like a bitch, but I didn’t make a peep. I didn’t need her to take care of me, but I had a feeling she needed to take care of me. To calm her nerves. So I let her. “You need to be mine now.”
“So romantic,” she muttered under her breath.
“I’m not asking you to actually hook up with me,” I said, my voice hard. “I’m not a relationship type of guy. I don’t do love, or the whole boyfriend shit.”
She laughed. “Yeah. I kinda got that impression already.”
“I like variety in my life,” I said, opening my eyes. She watched me with a softness I hadn’t managed to chase away yet. But eventually I would. I always did, in the end. “You’re doing it again.”
She threw her hands up. “You can’t tell me how I’m allowed to look at you, for the love of God.”
“Actually, I—”
“I’m not one of your crew who you can just boss around, Lucky.” She pulled out the Neosporin, squirted it on her finger, and rubbed it into the gash on my head. I barely kept from wincing. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?” I muttered.
“Having everyone in Steel Row terrified of you and the Sons?”
I could give her a cocky answer. Say it was the way the whole world should be. But I didn’t want to give her the generic answer I gave everyone else. “It’s the way my life’s been since I was fourteen. It’s all I’ve known since, and all I’ll ever know.”
Without welcome, the bag I’d packed came to mind. It reminded me I didn’t have to stay. But the thing was—now I did. I’d gone down there and claimed her as mine. She needed my protection, or they’d rip her to shreds.
I couldn’t run now.
“But you don’t like it?” she asked, pulling out a Band-Aid now.
I wasn’t answering that question. We weren’t schoolgirls bonding over a makeover, for fuck’s sake. Why did she give a damn if I was happy or not? How was I supposed to even know what that felt like? “I don’t need a Band-Aid. What am I, six?”
“It’ll get infected.”
“I’ll be fine.” I stood and walked over to the window, minus the Band-Aid. Movement in the alley behind her bar caught my eye. “Cleanup is here.”
She came up beside me, her breaths becoming shallow when she saw the men below. “What will they do with the . . .?”
“Corpses,” I offered, mildly amused at her discomfort with the idea of them being dead. To me, it was just another day on the job. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
She rubbed her forehead, not looking away. “They’re really dead.”
“Yeah. They’re really dead.” I stiffened beside her. Something rolled off her, and for the first time after a fight I’d won . . . I almost felt ashamed. When I killed, it was usually for the job. Not for a fucking girl. What the hell had I been thinking? “Do you think I could have made them a cup of tea and asked them to kindly please stop hurting you?”
She wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Exactly.”
They went to the back door of the bar and tried the door. She tensed. “What are they doing?”
“They’re looking for you. Looking for a plot hole in our story.”
She rubbed the goose bumps off her arms. “And if they find one?”
“Then you won’t be safe.” I tipped her chin up, forcing her to face me. Her skin was soft. So soft it felt almost wrong to touch it with my rough hands. As if I dirtied her by doing so. “You have to stay with me. We have to make it look real.”
She tapped her foot, looking anywhere but at me. I knew why. We were close, I was touching her, and I’d bet my last dying breath that she felt the same electricity I did. That same undeniable urge to get closer. Much fucking closer.
“Do you have a spare bedroom?” she asked.
“No.” I tipped my head to the left. “I’ll sleep on the couch; you can have my bed.”