“Why didn’t you tell me that?” She faced me again, her cheeks flushed and her whole body held taut. “Why didn’t you just open up and treat me like a partner instead of forbidding me to go like I was a child?”
“Because I didn’t want you getting hurt, damn it. I didn’t want you showing up and drawing attention to yourself.” I looked her up and down, curling my upper lip. “But you did it anyway. You interfered and killed us both.”
“You’re forgetting one small detail,” she snapped.
I raised a brow. I knew she hated it when I did that. “Oh? And what would that be, darlin’?”
“You didn’t save me because you cared about me, or because you loved me.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, doing my best to act as if I wasn’t seething inside. “And?”
“And . . .” She walked right up to me and tipped her head back, staring up at me without a sign of any emotion whatsoever. “Since there’s no love lost between us, if they take me . . . who cares? I can’t be used against you if you don’t come after me.”
“So, after already going to the trouble of rescuing your ass, I’m just supposed to . . . what?” I smirked. “Write you off as a loss? Not give a shit if you’re gone and he has you? Pretend I don’t know how Bitter Hill treats women, what they could be doing to you? I should just not give a damn? Is that what you’re saying?”
She pressed her lips together, not backing down. Usually her tenaciousness made me want her even more, but not this time. This time was different. “I think it’s up to you how you feel. Not him. And not me. If you don’t care, you don’t care.”
“Is that what you think of me?” I asked quietly, my chest tightening with each word. This was the closest I’d ever come to admitting I had feelings for her, and it scared the shit out of me. “Do you honestly think I would—could—abandon you if you were in trouble?”
She stared at me, not speaking. I stared right the fuck back at her, letting her see me. Really see me. It was about damn time, too. Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”
“You’re my weakness,” I said, dragging my hands down my face. “And now he knows it. He fucking knows it, Heidi. You handed yourself over to him on a silver platter. And me, too.”
She backed up, shaking her head. “No. I’m not . . . you don’t . . .”
“Yes.” I locked eyes with her, my chest rising and falling faster than it did after I ran five miles. My heart beat a rapid staccato in my head, drowning out the voices telling me to shut the hell up before I said something I’d regret. “I do.”
She covered her mouth. “Lucas . . .”
I stepped closer to her. “Run.”
“Run with me.” She took a shaky breath. “If you run with me . . . I’ll go.”
Another step. “No.”
“Then no.”
I grabbed her by the waist and hauled her against me. “Damn you, Heidi. Damn you.”
And then I kissed her.
CHAPTER 26
HEIDI
Lucas spent all this time warning me off, like I couldn’t see what kind of man he was. All the examples of his “selfishness” were bullshit. He joined the gang to provide a better life for his family. He let Scotty jump in because he thought it would keep his little brother safe. He didn’t cut a deal and took the jail time because his loyalty was bone-deep. And now he was hinting that he felt something for me . . . something real . . .
But I didn’t believe him.
He was only saying these things—feeling these things—because he’d saved me. And now, as a result, he wanted to keep me alive. He was invested in my survival. That was all. My foolish heart might have wanted to attach a deeper meaning to his actions, to believe him when he looked at me as if I mattered, but I knew better. He didn’t love me. Or want to spend the rest of his life with me.
He’d just done the right thing because despite everything, he was a good man.
Just because he kissed me like he couldn’t live without me didn’t mean he actually couldn’t. Just because I wanted more, against all reason and logic, didn’t mean he did. He spun me so my back pressed against the wall, and growled deep in his throat. His hands roamed all over my body, touching everywhere. Leaving trails of fire in their wake. His tongue danced with mine, and I lost myself in him. As usual.
But in the back of my mind, even as he made me cry out in pleasure, was the pain that, this thing we had going between us? Yeah, it was dead.
It had been since the moment I’d called him Lucky in my bar.
Tears stung the backs of my lids. After what I’d seen at that party, there was no doubt in my mind that this whole Mexican standoff he and his brother had been stuck in was about to end. And it would end in a haze of bullets and blood. Maybe our blood. I could only hope it ended with Lucas still standing, because if it didn’t . . .