Dare to Stay

by Jen McLaughlin

  But that was because it was Molly.

  The door opened, and I tore the page out of the book and shoved it behind the pillow, in the crack between the cushion and the couch. Then I slammed the book shut. It was only five, too early for Molly to be back home. Standing, I slowly pulled out my Glock 22. “Molly?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” she called out, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. “Stay in there! Don’t come out.”

  I took a step toward the kitchen, tucking my gun away. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She popped her head around the corner, a big grin on her face. “I just have to get everything set up. Happy birthday!”

  Her cheeks were flushed, and she was so damn happy and alive it almost hurt to look at her, because I was a dead man walking. Her excitement over my birthday baffled me. My phone had been silent all day, since the only person who’d ever wished me a happy birthday had been Lucas, and he was gone. But she acted like it was this huge thing to be celebrated. As if it should be a big thing. It wasn’t. Even when Lucas had been around, we didn’t really celebrate. Didn’t do presents. We just cracked a few beers, got wasted, and went home with random chicks.

  That’s what birthdays were.

  “Molly—”

  “I know.” She put on a stern face that I could only assume was supposed to be me, and lowered her voice. “‘Nothing too big. It’s just another day.’”

  I shook my head, but a smile crept out at her adorable representation of me. “That was, quite possibly, the worst imitation I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re right. Let me try again.” She cleared her throat and tapped her chest. “‘Princess. Nothing too serious. It’s just another fucking day.’”

  I laughed. And I laughed hard.

  Hell, I laughed like I’d never laughed before.

  Not because her reenactment of my strict reminder was good—it wasn’t—but because it was the first time I’d ever heard her curse, and it sounded pretty damn funny coming from those sweet lips of hers.

  I bent over, gripping my stomach, because I laughed so hard it hurt.

  The whole time, she stared at me like she couldn’t stop—and that freaked me out enough to finally make me stop. I straightened, the last of my amusement dying in my chest. I glanced down, sure something was wrong, because she was acting so damn serious and I was dying with laughter. “What?” I pressed a hand to my stomach and glanced down my whole body. It all seemed fine. No open fly. No missing buttons. No torn stitches or bleeding. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She gripped the molding of the doorway, her knuckles white. “It’s just that when you laugh, I can’t look away. It’s beautiful.” She pressed her lips together and flushed even pinker. “You’re beautiful.”

  That definitely killed any remaining laughter, because if there was one thing that I wasn’t? Yeah. It was fucking beautiful. “The hell I am,” I growled.

  “But you are. You’re not beautiful in a Disney princess kind of way, or even the traditional sense of the word. There’s a raw beauty to you that’s dangerous, hard, and real . . . but it’s there nonetheless. Nothing, and no one, will ever convince me otherwise, so don’t waste your breath. Save it for blowing out the candles . . . all twenty-nine of them.”

  I frowned at her, because for the first time in my life, someone had struck me speechless. There was so much I wanted to say to her. Like how she was dead wrong, and I was an ugly man with an ugly soul. Not physically—I scored enough women with my face and body to not feign modesty—but in every other way that counted.

  I was a killer. A criminal. A thief. I pushed guns for a living.

  That wasn’t beautiful. It was ugly as hell.

  “That’s what I thought.” She lifted her chin, showing that stubbornness that I’d fought so hard to capture in her drawing. It made me want to rip the picture into shreds, because I hadn’t done her justice. Then again, I never could. She was too breathtaking to be accurately duplicated with mere charcoal and paper. “Now stay here. I have stuff to set up before you’re allowed in the kitchen or dining room.”

  Nodding, I still didn’t speak.

  I should tell her how, right before she found me in that alley, I tried to kill my best friend in some stupid attempt to show Pops I was stronger than him—that I could be a killer, and even more ruthless than him. But then I’d realized what I’d had with Lucas had been real, and he’d really loved me, and all that had changed.

  I’d changed.

  After spending weeks plotting the best and most painful way to do it—using my intimate knowledge of his strengths and weaknesses against him, because that’s who I was—I’d used Heidi against him to get what I wanted. Even though I’d known what I was doing was wrong, and I’d wanted to take it back, I’d kept pushing through. I’d finished what I started, even though I hadn’t wanted to, because it was too late to go back.

  That was ugly. But instead, I let her call me beautiful.

  And that was ugly as hell, too.

  After tonight, I was getting the hell out of her life. She deserved all the best things in life. Flowers. Kittens. Drawings. Tables that didn’t wobble. And a real fucking prince.

  Not me. Never me.

  I liked her thinking of me in a softer light than the cold, hard reality of who I really was.

  And it only proved just how ugly I was.

  “Okay, you can come out now,” she called, her voice a bit softer than earlier. The thing about her was that no matter how angry I made her, she always got over it quickly. It was one of her weaknesses. “I’m ready.”

  Taking a deep breath, I walked into the room, Buttons trailing behind me like usual, prepared to do my best to show her just how unbeautiful I was—but she ruined it. Because there was wine on the table, my favorite meal was waiting, she was wearing a ridiculous pointed paper hat paired with a huge smile, and she’d gotten me a present.

  A wrapped present.

  With a fucking ribbon on it.

  No one ever got me gifts, let alone went to the trouble of making them look pretty. For Christmas, Pops told me when I was five that Santa wasn’t real, and bad boys didn’t get gifts. I obviously never fell into the “good boys” category, so the tree never had a gift under it for me. And birthdays were just another day. There was no cake, or gifts, or singing.

  And we sure as hell didn’t wear hats.

  I’d told Luc I hated gifts and didn’t want any, and he believed me. We fell into a pattern of celebrating without presents, and that was just fine by me.

  Molly blew on some weird contraption that shot out straight and was blue. My jaw dropped, and I frowned down at it. “What the fuck is that?”

  She laughed and took it out of her mouth. “It’s a party horn. Surely you’ve seen them before?”

  I blinked at her, not answering.

  I felt like I’d stepped into some sort of alternate dimension. One where people smiled and had fun and were happy. And it was all too clear I didn’t belong there.

  Her smile wobbled a little bit. “Oh. Okay. Guess not. Well, happy birthday!”

  I swallowed and tried to force a smile for her, but this show of excitement only served to remind me just how different we were. She was sunshine and blue skies, and I was tornadoes and hurricanes. The two just didn’t mix. “Thank you.”

  She fidgeted with the party horn. “You’ve seriously never used one of these?”

  “No.” I eyed it, ignoring Buttons as he purred and sat on my foot. “Never.”

  She held it out. “Want to?”

  “Hell no.” I rubbed my head and added, “Thanks, though.”

  Her smile wobbled more, and she lowered her hand, her fingers tightening on the party favor. “No problem.”

  Seeing the light fade from her eyes did things to me. Things she had no right doing. Without reall
y intending to, I snatched the toy out of her hand, stuck it in my mouth, and blew. Buttons hissed and took off for the “cat room,” as Molly dubbed it. He had his litter box, food, toys, a bed, and water in it. The fucking cat had a bigger room than I did back home. The party horn shot out, and I had no idea what the point of it was . . .

  But she smiled again.

  And then I knew.

  “See? It’s not so bad!”

  It was stupid—but if it made her smile, I would do it. I set it down, studying the pointy paper cone on her head. “And . . . the hat?”

  “Don’t tell me you never used those.”

  I shrugged. I wouldn’t complain about the hand I’d been given—it wouldn’t change anything—but I might as well be honest with her. It was my last night here, after all. The least I could do, after she went through so much trouble for me, which I still couldn’t wrap my brain around—was make it a good one. “Never.”

  She pressed her lips together, and something crossed her expression. Not pity—thank God, or I would have had to do something that would ruin my streak of good behavior—but sadness. For some reason, it made me want to pull her into my arms to hug it all away. As if I had that power at all. I didn’t fix things, or make them better.

  Instead, I killed them.

  “What childhood did you have?” she asked, her voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear her. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe she was speaking to herself.

  I had no clue.

  But I answered with an honesty that had no place coming out of my lips. “The kind that didn’t have birthday parties, or cake, or even laughter. And it was as far off from your life as you could possibly get.” I shrugged. “But that’s okay. Not all of us get that life, right? We can’t all be princes or princesses. Some of us are just alive, making it by, day by day, every day.”

  The way she watched me, like I was this broken creature she wanted to patch back together, punched me in the chest like a bullet. “Chris. I—”

  “Don’t. It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s just a stupid hat.”

  She swallowed, tears filling her eyes, but she shook it off. “Okay. Let’s get this on you.”

  Crossing the room, she lifted her arms, holding a hat with an elastic band. It said Birthday Boy and was in the shape of a crown. A crown I had no right or desire to wear. But she wanted me to, so I lowered my head to make it easier for her. “Go for it, Princess. Crown me as your prince.”

  She shot me a quick glance, still looking seconds from bursting into full-on waterworks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry earlier.”

  “You didn’t. It’s fine.”

  “I know. It’s just—” Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. “Crap. I’m sorry. Ignore me.”

  Once she settled the hat into place, I shifted on my feet, uncomfortable with this show of emotion. In my world, you didn’t cry. If you did, you got a worse beating than you would have gotten in the first place for showing softness. So seeing such a blatant display of affection was, quite honestly, alarming and foreign.

  And when I locked gazes with her, what I saw there—raw, open, painfully honest feelings that had no place being directed toward me—should have had me stepping away.

  Instead, I did the unthinkable.

  I pulled her into my arms and hugged her.

  My arms hovered awkwardly. I didn’t really hug women. I either walked right on by them or fucked them—but I didn’t hug them. And no one hugged me. So at first, I didn’t know where to place my arms around her. I settled them around her waist and hauled her closer, like I was going to kiss her, only instead of lowering my mouth to hers, I rested my cheek against the top of her head.

  And it felt . . . good.

  Right, even.

  She wrapped her arms around me, too, pulling me even closer, and rested her face right over my heart, which sped up. Breathing in her soft, floral scent, I turned my face toward her hair to get closer. “Shh. It’s okay.”

  I didn’t know why I said that, but she seemed to like it.

  “I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “I don’t normally cry. I just . . .”

  “I do.” I kissed the top of her head. “I cry all the damn time. You should see me. I’m like a blubbering baby on crack.”

  She choked on a laugh and gripped the back of my shirt with her fists. Her nails dug into my skin a little bit, but it felt good. And it made me think of something that was a hell of a lot more intimate than hugging. Although, in a way, hugging was actually more intimate. I’d fucked lots of women. But comforting them?

  Yeah, she was the only one.

  “Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”

  I blinked. “What? Why?”

  “Well, you’re hardly the crying type.” She pulled back a little bit and studied me. I had the urge to push her head back down to my chest, not only because it felt good, but because having her this close to me, watching me, made me uneasy that she might see something I didn’t want her to see. “I bet you’ve never cried a day in your life.”

  “You’d win.” Legend was, even when I was a baby, Pops had taught me that crying was bad, and I’d been the quietest little guy this side of Steel Row. “My secret is out. I’m a cold, heartless man who doesn’t know what emotion is.”

  She laughed.

  Funny, she actually thought that was a joke.

  When I didn’t join in, she stopped and nibbled on her lower lip. “You have emotions.”

  “Not really.” I gripped her waist. “I only experience three emotions on any given day: anger, hatred, and lust.”

  “That’s not it,” she argued, her pulse racing at the last one I added in.

  “Yeah.” I spread my hand across her lower back, right above her ass. She sucked in a breath and placed her hands on my chest, not pushing me away, but not pulling me closer, either. “That’s it.”

  She licked her lips and swayed closer, her attention locked on my mouth. “Oh yeah? Funny, because I have yet to see you display any lust . . . and you’ve been here for almost a week.”

  Actually, it had been five days—but who was counting?

  “Oh, Molly.” I moved closer, letting her feel just how wrong she was. It worked. Her mouth formed a perfect little O. “How adorably naïve you are . . .”

  Her hands flattened on my pecs, the bottoms of her palms brushing against my nipple rings. I clenched my teeth at the shot of pleasure that sent through me, right down to my already painfully hard cock. She had no idea what she was messing with.

  Had no idea what I was capable of.

  And I wasn’t about to show her.

  Some of my knee-jerk reaction to having her in my arms, her innocently touching my nipple rings, showed. Something lit her eyes—something seductive and dangerous—and she slid her hands lower, her fingers tracing the cold, hard hoops.

  I bit back a groan, but damned if I didn’t press closer to her. Her soft touch was torturous and heavenly, all in one. Mostly because I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone or anything, and I couldn’t have her. It would be so easy to take what she offered. I was good at it. I loved fucking, and fucking loved me.

  If she were any other woman, she’d be flat on her back, moaning my name as I made her come within a minute of touching her. Of claiming her as mine . . .

  Temporarily.

  I was good at that, too.

  But this was Molly, and she deserved better than that. Better than me, and we both knew it. So she needed to stop looking at me as if she would die if I didn’t kiss her. Because I wasn’t going to, no matter how damn badly I wanted to.

  “Chris . . .” She rose on her tiptoes and did it again. Traced my nipples. I gritted my teeth, fighting against every asshole bone in my body that demanded I take her. “Prove it.”

  I held on to her hips, seconds from pushing her away . . . or d
oing the unthinkable and pulling her closer. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure which at this point. “Prove what?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A man dressed in black crept closer, crouched over, and the front door stood open, even though it had been locked earlier.

  Someone was in the house.

  It took me a second—I’d been too lost in her to be fully alert, which was why I never should have touched her in the first place—but I saw him lift a hand, and then I saw the AR-15 pointed at us.

  At my Molly.

  Before she could so much as blink, I knocked her to the floor and slid my gun out of my pocket as we went down. She hit the floor hard, since I couldn’t cushion her, and I hit even harder, barely managing to avoid landing on her. As she skittered across the wood floor, I pulled the trigger in two rapid fires, which hit true in a tight grouping on the other man’s chest.

  The man barging into Molly’s home hit the floor, gurgling on his last breath, blood spraying out of him like a busted fountain, and dropped his weapon. It slid toward Molly, who stared at it—and the dead body—with an open mouth. To her credit, she hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t even made so much as a peep.

  She’d just stared.

  I army-crawled across the floor, snatched up the AR-15 in case I ran out of ammo on my Glock with a silencer on it, and rolled to my feet in one fluid motion. The quick movement jerked on my still-healing shoulder, but I didn’t have time for that shit.

  Because where there was one murdering asshat . . . there was another.

  And I had to be prepared.

  “Run. Go hide behind the couch in the living room until I tell you to come out!”

  She struggled to her feet, gained solid footing, and did as she was told without asking questions. I watched her go, gun raised to protect her back. Once she was safely tucked away where I’d ordered her to go, I settled myself behind a wall where I could keep an eye on both the front door and the garage door, blinking rapidly, automatic weapon pointed and primed—and ready to kill some assholes.