“Well, if you do, hold him for me. I’m going to beat the ever-loving shit out of the dead prick.”
I swerved my gaze from the direction of one brother’s voice toward the other’s, seeing neither of them through all the trees. When I returned my attention to the Parker boy frozen in front of me, his face had drained of color only to fill with fear and guilt.
I gasped, suddenly understanding. “What did you do?” I hissed, realizing he was the very dead prick my brothers were pursuing.
Shaking his head, he lifted his index finger and pressed it against his mouth, begging me to keep silent.
Like hell.
He was a Parker. The enemy. Not to mention he’d just tackled me to the ground and maimed me. I sucked in a lungful to scream for Max, but the Parker boy leapt at me and slapped his hand over my mouth.
“No,” he whispered harshly. “Please.”
I shrieked into his fingers and tried to pull away, but he lassoed my waist with his arm and banded me against him.
I bit his hand, stomped on his foot and thrashed my head until my goose egg gave a violent pulse of pain and made me dizzy enough to gray my vision. Worried I was going to faint, I sank my teeth harder into the meat of his palm with renewed purpose.
“Mother of God,” he gasped but held on to me even tighter. “Fuck. That hurts.”
The salty tang of his flesh filled my mouth, startling me with how boy he tasted; it made me let up on my teeth hold, but I kept struggling in every other capacity.
“Stop. Please stop,” he said in my ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. I mean, any more than I already accidentally have. I just don’t want them to kill me. Please don’t help them kill me.”
Stopping would mean surrender, and I could never surrender to a Parker. They’d accused a member of my family of the most degrading crime. He was the enemy, and no Bainbridge surrendered to the enemy.
I tried to scream again, so he swung me around, pinning me to a tree. The impact left my brain rattled. I let out a squeak of protest, and he must’ve known he’d expended too much force because he immediately let up half of his energy.
“Shit, sorry,” he rasped into my ear as he used every inch of himself to hold me securely to the tree.
Tears stung my eyes, and the fight left me as pain clouded my senses.
“Hey, you still awake?” The Parker boy jostled me, nudging his shoulder into mine when I went slack. “Oh, fuck. I didn’t kill you, did I?” His concern sounded strange since he’d been the one to shove me into the tree in the first place.
I bucked against him once and almost freed myself, but that was all I could accomplish before the fight seeped from me again.
He huffed out his surprise and tightened his grip. “Yeah, she’s definitely alive.” His breath fanned my ear and the side of my cheek, stirring something hot and moist in the base of my stomach.
Maybe the knock to my head had muddled my senses, or maybe it was something else, but the boiling tingle in my abdomen began to swirl out and into my veins until every inch of my skin felt prickly. It made me think about how close he held me, how good he smelled, how warm he felt. I wanted to burrow into his heat and let it soothe away every aching tingle inside me.
My resistance slipped.
“I would never hurt you on purpose.” The words sounded sweet and genuine. They made me catch my breath with shock as I felt...I don’t know, flattered maybe, by his sincerity.
Then his boy fingers gently stroked the scrape on my elbow as if trying to caress the wound better. Again, things deep inside me clenched with a sensation that had my skin buzzing with full-body awareness.
“You know that, right? You’re safe here.” His hushed voice coaxed more from me than he probably intended. “Just...please stay still with me for a couple minutes longer, until they’re gone, okay? Then, maybe give me a head start before you scream as loud as you want.”