Protector's Claim

by Airicka Phoenix

  I cast my reflection another glance, sharing with it our combined resignation.

  I would tell him.

  I would explain why he needed to stay away.

  Then I would crawl into bed and cry for the part of me I was about to let die.

  He was dressed casual, black trousers and a soft, dark gray sweater beneath his coat. His hair wasn’t perfectly tamed as I was used to, but comfortably swept back from his cleanly shaven face.

  Marcella would have been horrified.

  Cordelia would have been appalled.

  I loved it.

  God, he was perfect.

  “I seem to be overdressed.”

  I followed his lingering, trailing gaze along the length of my towel wrapped body, and winced.

  “You didn’t give me a time.” I stepped back, allowing him to cross the threshold into my apartment. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be arriving.”

  His aura filled the space first, drumming and pulsating with an aggressive tempo of power and raw masculine heat. It roared as it claimed my tiny world with his presence.

  “Please.” I motioned him to the sitting area. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  “You should keep it on,” he called just as I reached the opening leading into the corridor. He waited until I’d glanced back before grinning. “You can convince me to do just about anything dressed like that.”

  I wanted to laugh, and almost did.

  “Anything?”

  His eyes darkened to hot embers in a pit. “More if you take it off.”

  Amusement fled with the violent wrench of my senses, the brutal pang in my clit, the vicious crack of my heart. With only a few murmured words, he had dulled all my necessary rationality and replaced them with all the things I knew I couldn’t walk away from.

  I wanted him.

  I had never denied that to myself.

  I longed for him.

  Ached for him.

  I loved him like I had never loved anyone in my life.

  I had been in love with him for seven years and no one had ever replaced that part of me he held.

  I would have given anything to have him.

  “You’re marrying my sister.”

  The words abandoned me, slipping into the world uncharted and unsupervised. They dropped into the room thick with the tension he’d created and hung suspended between us.

  “Am I?”

  I paused at the question, not understanding it.

  “It’s been ... Walter and David have been talking about it for years.”

  “I’m not Walter, or David,” he reminded me quietly.

  “But you have to,” I blurted. “Everyone is expecting it. Cordelia is—”

  “Going to have to get over it,” he cut me off. “This isn’t the middle ages. No one is telling me who I should marry, except me, and I’ve already decided.”

  There was a hum between my ears, a rush of ocean that kept swallowing my reasoning. Every crash slammed into my back, propelling me a little deeper into his madness.

  “Decided what?”

  I couldn’t be certain I actually voiced the question, or if it was nothing more than a numb movement of my lips.

  “Who I want to be with.”

  He never actually said a name, but I knew, and I had never hurt so much in my life. The confession twined itself around my torso with barbed tips. It squeezed until the world was a botchy ink spill of bleeding colors.

  “Please don’t say that.”

  A tear slipped.

  It left a trail down my cheek to stop at my jaw.

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  But he had. His implication alone was the rope around my neck.

  “But would it be so wrong if I did?” he pressed on.

  I needed to sit.

  The room had begun to spin.

  “You have to marry her,” I rasped, staggering to the sofa and sinking into it. “You have to.”

  “Why?”

  Because they’ll kill me if you don’t.

  Because David will carry out his promise and ruin me.

  Because Cordelia will do to me what she’d done to my tires.

  Because I have a plan to escape and I’ve done things to ensure it happens that you would find revolting.

  I closed my eyes and hung my head.

  He wouldn’t understand.

  He didn’t understand.

  He thought I was being difficult and I had no way to explain.

  “Is it because of my age?”

  Lost in my own turmoil, I stilled at his soft question. My chin lifted and I squinted at his beautiful profile in the shadows of my dingy apartment. His thousand dollar coat seemed so out of place in a room where all the contents combine didn’t add up to that much.

  He didn’t belong in my world, and not because of his age. That wasn’t even a factor.

  But it was an scapegoat.

  “Yes.” I nearly choked on the serrated lie. “You’re better suited for Cordelia.”

  Each vile word dripped from my lips tasting like poison. The acidic tang burned my tongue. I wanted to retch.

  “I see.”

  No! I wanted to scream. You don’t see. You don’t see anything! You don’t understand.

  But I sat mute and numb as David took yet another thing from me, one more strip of my soul. Only it felt bigger than a strip. It came away in a sheet, a tattered, bloody chunk where my heart had been. The excruciating agony carved into my chest with the ferocity that made me grasp and double over.

  “I won’t bother you then.”

  He set something on the shelf. I didn’t need to look to know it was my card. The snap of plastic made me flinch.

  “Take care, Gabby.”

  I didn’t move as he turned to leave.

  I ignored the clear picture playing on my head of me running after him and throwing my arms around his neck, and begging him not to leave me.

  You’re all I have. The only person who has ever cared about me. The only person who has ever acknowledged my existence. I’m nothing if you leave. I’ll be a ghost.

  But all of that remained in my head, a collection of new regrets to file away later.

  I died inside with the click of the door shutting softly behind him. I sat in my shrouded apartment, my skin soft and freshly bathed, my hair a damp knot dripping down my back. I listened to the hum of the refrigerator and the splintering crackle of my heart breaking into a million pieces.

  I was really and truly alone.

  Chapter Eight — Kieran

  I was the bigger man, I told myself as I stalked the dark and confined corridor of Gabby’s apartment. I knew when to gracefully accept a loss. I knew when to walk away with my head high and my strides confident. I knew when it was time to let go. But I didn’t. I’d never been any good at losing. I sure as fuck wasn’t ready to lose her. But how did I fight against something I had no control over? How did I fight time? It was impossible and yet it was the thing keeping her from me.

  My age.

  It was laughable.

  I never dreamed I’d feel so old at thirty-five. Everyone kept telling me I was at the peak of my life, that I had the whole world in the palm of my hands at such a young age.

  Not young enough, it seemed.

  I’d always known I had to be careful with her, she’d always seemed so fragile, but I hadn’t fallen for her until she’d already been nineteen, legal. That hadn’t even been an issue.

  For me, at least.

  But maybe thirteen years was too large a gap.

  I didn’t know.

  What I did know was that I’d never felt so inadequate.

  My phone chimed the moment I threw myself behind the wheel of my car. The device was yanked free of my coat pocket and nearly silenced when I saw her name brightly lit across my screen.

  Gabby: “Meet me. Please. Right now.”

  Every muscle in my body stiffened as the implication of her request lit my fucking nerves on fire.

/>   She was texting him.

  She was asking for him.

  How fucked up was that?

  What would she do if I told her that her precious Cain was fucking thirty-five?

  What would she say then? Would she turn him away?

  Would she still let him into her fucking bed, between her fucking legs?

  Gabby: “Please, Cain. I really need you.”

  I wanted to hurl the fucking thing against a wall.

  I wanted to shatter it into a million fucking pieces to match the pulverized state of my fucking heart.

  I wanted to write her back that I wasn’t fucking interested.

  That she was too young for me.

  I wanted to hurt her.

  I wanted...

  Me: “Where?”

  I hit send and waited, my heart snapping in my chest, my lungs screaming. I was so livid I was shaking.

  She answered too quickly, as if she’d already written the location for him without him asking.

  It was her apartment.

  The place I only just left.

  The place she was in at that very moment in only a towel.

  I’d never wanted to commit murder so badly in my life. Fucking crazy because the person I wanted to kill, wanted to break my first into their face until there was nothing left ... was me.

  My alter ego.

  A man who didn’t even fucking exist.

  But she wanted him over me.

  She asked for him over me.

  Fuck me!

  The horn shrieked across the silent parking lot beneath the violent attack of my fist. The cushioned leather did nothing to soften the serrated edges of my blood boiling rage.

  Nothing would.

  The woman I loved wanted another man.

  A man I made up.

  What the fuck was I supposed to do about that?

  I went to her, was what I did.

  I waited twenty minutes to calm the beast in my head before crossing back the way I’d come to her front door. I had to buzz this time. I didn’t have a junkie staggering out to let me in.

  Her soft voice filled the night.

  “Hello?”

  I started to reach for my phone, for the app to disguise my voice, but fuck it. This was why I was going, to show her who I ... who Cain was. She needed to know because I couldn’t have her texting him every time she wanted to fuck. I’d lose my fucking mind.

  “It’s me.”

  There was a sliver of pause where I wondered if she recognized my voice, if she was putting it together like she nearly had back at the school.

  The locks disengaged. The door buzzed, alerting me to the admittance.

  I walked back into the heavy stench of sweat, sex, and drugs. It was always a drastic change when coming in from the crisp, clean air. The force was tangible, like walking through heat.

  But I made it to her door.

  I knocked.

  There was a moment of silence then her voice, muffled by the wood was telling me it was open.

  I let myself in.

  My anger dissipated the instant I passed over the threshold. It evaporated into resignation and self loathing. I was half tempted to turn back, to leave.

  “Cain?”

  I followed her soft voice into the living room.

  She sat exactly where I’d left her on the sofa. Only her towel had been replaced by a baggy shirt and flannel bottoms. Both looked worn and comfy. A navy scarf served as a blindfold over her eyes.

  “Cain?” she whispered again.

  Her clothes rustled as she rose and turned in my direction.

  One tiny hand lifted, slim fingers reaching through the expanse of space to me.

  I caught it.

  Fuck if I knew why.

  Maybe because the sight of it suspended in the chasm between us reminded me of an injured little bird. I couldn’t ignore it.

  “I’m sorry.” Her fingers coiled around mine, small and desperate. They were so cold. “I know you’re probably hoping for a different outcome than this one, but I ... I may have pushed away the only person who has ever been kind to me and I don’t want to be alone right now.”

  What was I supposed to say to that?

  What was I supposed to do?

  There were no protocols for comforting the woman who stomped on your heart.

  But I couldn’t not do something.

  I couldn’t walk away when she stood before me looking like a small, scared child.

  She pulled in a breath that wobbled with tears. Her chin lowered to her chest, but not before I saw the tremor or the faint patches of darkness littering the skin. Their existence pulled me closer a step, had my head tilting to get a better view of the bruises.

  Had they been there that morning? I had a vague recollection of thinking I saw something when I had her in my arms by the bulletin boards, but it hadn’t been clear.

  How long had she had them for? More importantly, which bastard was I going to have to kill, because someone would pay for putting their hands on her?

  “You can leave if you want,” she was saying when I forced myself to focus again. “It’s not fair what I’m asking. This isn’t your problem, and you’ve already done so much for me.”

  I quietly squeezed her fingers once, just to let her know I was there and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  She sighed a little, the sound distinctly relieved. “I promise to make it up to you. I just really need someone to hold me for a little bit.”

  Cruel.

  That was the thought that passed through my head as I studied the delicate lines of her face. What made the whole matter even worse was the fact that she didn’t know she was killing me. It was a sick sort of cosmic joke that I’d brought on myself that night I didn’t remove the blindfold like I should have.

  Hell, I never should have fallen for her.

  I never should have allowed myself anywhere near her.

  That was all on me.

  Yet my feet had grown roots into her carpet, keeping me restrained to her torment like an idiot moth to an open flame. Her presence was burning my soul and still I stayed. That made me a unique kind of stupid.

  “Cain?”

  I traced the delicate line of her jaw with the pad of my thumb, wishing I could wipe the marks away as easily. I followed the bend to the point of her chin and was rewarded by the turn of her face into my palm.

  Christ.

  “Will you stay?”

  For the rest of my life if you’d let me, I wanted to tell her, but I was once again forced into the bleak corners of her fantasy. I’d become her mystery lover, the faceless stranger that she preferred over a real man. And I allowed it. I let her to play the strings, making me dance to her desires while all I wanted to do was tear off that fucking bit of fabric, pull her into my arms and demand she see me.

  Me.

  Not the thing she was turning me into.

  I hated us both in that moment.

  Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from reaching into my pocket and drawing out my phone. The text to speech app was activated and I put in my first set of words.

  “I’ll stay.”

  A smile twisted almost half-heartedly over her face.

  “You think I’m a mess.”

  I typed in a single word, “Yes.”

  Her chin lowered. I caught it before it could get too close to her chest.

  I held it while punching keys with my other hand.

  “We’re both messes.”

  She made a sound between a sniffle and a chuckle. “Did you tell the man you love you couldn’t be with him, too?”

  Her words snapped at my fingers like the angry tongues on a roaring inferno. I snatched my hands away from her as if she’d burst into flames. My phone dropped from my grasp and struck the carpet between us with a muffled thud.

  I stared at her, a sandstorm of emotions blasting me with a whirlwind of heat. It thundered between my ears, a noise so deafening I couldn’t hear myself think.

&nb
sp; “No!” Her hands reached for me. “Please, I didn’t ... it’s complicated. Please don’t—”

  I hated those fucking words.

  I hated hearing them coming from her lips, and always in that broken little whisper as if whatever I was doing was killing her.

  I caught her face in both palms, silencing her, silencing the din in my skull. Her soft lips parted, but nothing came out, nothing could with the thumb pad I pressed against them.

  I was so done playing this game, this stupid, fucking game.

  I was done.

  No more silence.

  No more fucking blindfolds.

  I was claiming her.

  Claiming what belonged to me.

  “No!” she gasped when my thumbs hooked into the scarf. Her stiff fingers closed over my hands, struggling to pit her strength against mine. “No, no, please, please! I’m not ready.”

  I didn’t care!

  I didn’t fucking give a shit if she was ready or not.

  I refused to be the other man, the one she called when she should have called me.

  The one she thought she needed when in reality, she needed me.

  That was going to end.

  It was going to end now.

  “Please.”

  My resolve wavered under the whimpered plea.

  My momentary surge of madness dulled with the hard flex of her throat muscles working to swallow down her panic.

  Fuck!

  How did she not see how ridiculous this was? I could be anybody. I could be a burglar. I could be a rapist. I could fucking hurt the shit out of her and she’d let me into her home, and literally turned a blind eye. What the hell was she thinking?

  But like the true masochist that I was turning out to be, I relented. I dropped my hands and balled them at my sides to keep from just snatching the fucking thing off her face anyway. My limbs trembled with the effort it was costing me to maintain that restraint.

  She touched me.

  Her slim fingers lifted and brushed over my chest. They moved lightly upward, following the vertical stitching on my sweater to my collarbone. Her knuckles nudged my chin, which must have been her destination, because she cupped my cheeks. Her thumbs glided over my lips.

  “Can we just forget everything and pretend we’re back in that room at the auction house? Can you do that? Can you just ... hold me?”

  Every bone in my body wanted to shake her until sense returned, but the moment I touched her, the moment my fingers curled into her arms, they inexplicably turned gentle. The heat of my frustrations receded to curl up in a hot ball in my chest and I was left with only one option — I pulled her to me and kissed her.