It was the only thing I could do—flee.
Frantically, my attention darted for an escape route, only to scream when a hand landed on my shoulder.
I whirled around in shock, in fear, in a tiny bit of that fight, ready to battle through to the end.
“Salem.”
That rumbly voice broke into the frenzied paranoia.
“Salem, look at me, darlin’。 It’s just me.”
I gasped and blinked and tried to reorient myself.
I realized I was pressed against a row of black file cabinets that ran the left wall behind the counter. There was a small wall that jutted out to keep them hidden from the lobby.
It left me out of view of anyone who would walk through the doors.
But Jud saw me.
Watched me carefully.
That obsidian gaze fired and flared and rushed over me in his own bid of panic.
“Not gonna hurt you, darlin’。” Those big, big hands were held out in front of him in a calming fashion, and I squeezed my eyes closed and attempted to swallow over the jagged rock that had lodged itself in my throat.
My lungs panged and my heart hammered and God…this was so embarrassing.
“Are you okay?”
My nod was tight.
“What’s going on? What freaked you out?”
My head shook and my body shivered. “Nothing.”
“Not nothing if it’s got you spun up like this.” The words cracked like venom.
Manic laughter tumbled from my tongue, and I waved a crazed hand toward the window, unable to stop the flow of words.
“I just…there’s a car out there sitting on the street, and I swore I saw the same one sitting across the street in our neighborhood this morning. It’s probably nothing.”
What was I doing? Giving this to him?
But a spec of that trust was there, offered into the air. Into his hands. Into his big, beating heart that battered at his chest.
His attention darted to the windows. I saw the moment he saw it, too. The way every bulky muscle in his body flexed in a bid of aggression.
“It’s nothing,” I reiterated, mostly trying to calm myself down.
Only Jud didn’t seem to think it was nothing because he grunted, “Wait right there.”
Then he turned on his heavy motorcycle boots, his giant body hulking around the counter and across the lobby, the man casting me a harsh glance as he slipped out the door.
He didn’t slow.
He strode like menace across the lot.
I watched in abject horror and awe as he slipped his hand around to his backside and under his shirt and pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans.
His muscles vibrated with hostility.
With violence.
I’d known there was something about the man that whispered of his darkness.
Of danger.
Of bloodshed and barbarity.
But I’d never been so sure of it until then.
He was about three-quarters of the way across the lot when the black car suddenly peeled out, flying from its perch with a squeal of tires and a billow of dust.
Running from the monster set on savagery that clumped that way.
I saw it there, when he turned around.
The expression on his face.
A gnarl of wickedness.
A disorder of malice.
My stomach twisted.
My pulse flew.
I could feel the tumult blister through the air when he looked back at the spot where the car had disappeared. When it seemed clear, he reluctantly turned, stuffed his gun back into his waistband, and marched back across the lot.
My heart thundered, a careening stampede.
It hammered harder and harder with each step that he took.
Tremors rocked the ground.
Shockwaves of animosity and duty.
I didn’t know how to stand.
Didn’t know how to do anything when he tossed the door open and strode through, rays of bright sunlight streaking over him as he entered, lighting him up like some kind of unrighteous god.
Intensity cracked.
Snapped in the room.
An imposing force.
The man a wicked, wicked savior.
I was back to pressing myself against the cool metal of the file cabinet, unable to breathe, unable to process the thousand thoughts that spiraled through my mind.
I never should have come.
I never should have thought I could stay.
I never should have allowed myself to start to feel safe.
And most of all, I never, ever should have started to think of this place as home.
Jud edged forward, the colossal, beast of a man coming closer and closer.
Black hair and black beard and black eyes that I could have sworn fired red.
My chest squeezed tighter with each step.
My pulse thudded like a snare with each powerful stride that he took.
Though those steps were slowed.
Cautioned.
I fought for ground. To remain unaffected.
Not to whimper when the forbidding man suddenly towered over me with those eyes pinning me to the spot.
“They’re gone.” The words scraped like barbs from his tongue. His anger barely contained. “Probably a drug deal or some shit. Not exactly the best side of town over here.”
I gulped around the rock that pressed like razors to my throat. Warily, I tried to gather the fear and the panic, to be reasonable and not jump to the first horrible conclusion, the way I always did.
It was hard not to do that when I’d spent years running. When every sound and whisper and intonation had made me terrified someone was coming for us.
The worst part was knowing it wasn’t illogical. I had the holes carved out inside me to prove it.
The truth that I would be a fool to take the chance.
On a jittery nod, I faked a smile. “Probably.”
Jud’s brow pinched, and those eyes raced over my face like they could see through to the very depths of who I was.
To every secret.
To every fear.
He leaned closer, and his warm breath whispered across my skin. “But that’s not what you were thinkin’， was it, darlin’？”
This.
This was why I’d been diverting. Why I’d been trying to distract and pretend and ignore that I’d revealed a piece of myself I shouldn’t have at the beginning of the week.
“Who are you running from?” I could have sworn his words were underlined with murder.
My head shook, and my eyes found the intensity in his. “Please, don’t ask that of me.”
I didn’t know him.
Couldn’t trust him.
Fury flashed through his features.
He took my hands and threaded our fingers together.
Vibrations zapped through the connection.
Palpable and real.
His growl was menace. “Want to destroy whoever hurt you. Just need a name.”
A gasp ripped up my throat when he suddenly lifted my arms above my head and pinned them against the cabinet.
“Just a name.” It sounded of sex and coercion.
My eyes squeezed closed. “I can’t.”
His big hands slipped down my quivering limbs, as if he were gathering up every ounce of terror that I possessed. Taking it into his hold. Caressing away the panic.
“I have you, Salem.” He grumbled it, and those eyes never left mine as he ran his hands all the way back up my arms to my hands and then down again.
Though that time, he didn’t stop.
He ran them over my shoulders and down to my sides.
My lungs squeezed tight, and our hearts raged in the bare space that separated us.
Need spiked in the dense air.