The warning of a coming earthquake.
Of devastation.
Destruction.
I leaned down and slipped my arms around her back and under her knees.
Salem yelped.
A shout from her soul.
Mine clutched.
I gathered her closer. “I have you, Salem. I have you, baby.”
A sob wrenched from her throat, and she buried her face in my neck, into my beard, against my chest, like she could hide away in the safety of my arms.
“I have you.”
And I didn’t want to let her go.
TWENTY-ONE
SALEM
I have you. I have you. I have you.
Jud’s promise rained over me as he curled his arms tighter, and he carried me through the swarm of people that undulated around us.
The band continued to play from the stage where half the crowd still seethed below it. Jud stormed right through, carving a path and dipping us into a narrow, dusky hall.
In an instant, it was only the two of us.
His heavy boots thudded on the floor as he peered down at me with that unrelenting obsidian gaze.
A gaze that speared me to the core.
Tears streamed and my shoulders hiccupped with the sobs that wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t seem to halt the terror that wracked through my body. The panic that had hit me when a stranger had come at us from out of nowhere.
Jud dipped down and pressed the gentlest kiss to my right eye, then the other. “I have you,” he rumbled.
My chest squeezed.
Ruined.
I had to close my eyes against the force of it.
His care.
This giant of a man who’d come completely unhinged. Fury and darkness and brutality.
Because of me.
Because of me.
He didn’t stop until he was pushing out the massive metal door at the end of the hall. In an instant, the cool air of the summer night surrounded us. The heavens were spun in stars, while fat clouds laden with moisture gathered at the base of the moon.
Jud edged down three steps that dropped us into the employee lot where Eden had parked earlier, and his boots crunched on the loose pavement as he carried me to his bike that was parked in a row of five other motorcycles.
Tumult echoed from within, rippled through the walls and rumbled the ground.
It stirred the dense air into chaos.
I struggled to breathe.
“I have you. What do you need?” he asked, his voice close to cracking.
“Take me away from here.” It was the only thing I could manage, but Jud understood.
I wasn’t exactly dressed for a motorcycle ride, but right then, it didn’t matter. Nothing did except for escaping.
Running.
The way I always did.
Only this time, I wanted to run with him.
For once, I didn’t want to stand on my own.
Didn’t want to fight this fight that only cost my daughter and me more and more.
One that forever cast us into loneliness.
Jud swung his leg over his bike, and he slipped me around to the back in one smooth movement.
We never lost contact.
As if he knew it was exactly what I needed.
That for once, I needed someone to hold me.
Someone to support me through the fear.
Through the panic.
Through the dread that promised one day, one day, Carlo would find us.
Jud pressed the button that started his bike, and the loud engine growled to life. Power vibrated through the metal, or maybe it was just the power of the man that vibrated through me.
Tremors rushed over my skin and seeped into my bloodstream.
He curled my arms tighter around his waist. “I have you.”
My legs were cinched up close to his hips, my chest smashed to his back. Our hearts raced at warp speed.
In sync.
Out of order.
In a perfect, chaotic rhythm.
Anarchy.
This man who had crossed into vengeance for me.
The slit of my dress rode up as I hugged him, and I trembled and shook and clung to him with all my might. A big palm spread out over my bare thigh. “Hold onto me, Salem, and don’t fuckin’ let go.”
Frantically, I nodded against his back, understanding the command for what it was. And I wanted to. For once in my life, I wanted to rely on someone else.
Not to be afraid.
To trust.
But trust was such a precious, precarious thing.
His bike faced out, and he kicked the stand and slowly eased through the lot. He took to the street that ran the front of the club, his movements fluid and confident, as if the man and the bike were one, this massive, fierce, grumbling force that blazed through the night.
I didn’t care where he was taking me, just as long as it was away from there.
He made a few turns then he slowed and eased his bike onto the path hidden under the cover of trees just on the outside of town.
My heart sped faster when I realized where we were going.
The bike bounced down the familiar bumpy trail, and I squeezed him tighter as he guided his motorcycle out into the meadow where he’d taken me before. When I’d seen a part of Jud that I didn’t want to see.
But tonight, I wanted him to show me everything.
How could I even allow myself to think it? Consider it? But I couldn’t seem to keep from slipping into him.
Coming to a stop, Jud stretched out his boots to keep us upright.
Remnants of the panic sent me scrambling off the back and stumbling into the meadow. My heels sank into the soft earth as I took two steps back like I could protect myself from the direction I could feel myself tumbling.
He killed the engine.
In an instant, silence whispered and swam.
The beauty shouted back.
The branches of the high, towering trees swished with the short gusts of wind that blustered through while the babble of the creek murmured its peace.
Wildflowers had sprung up through the soft bed of grasses, the purples and pinks subdued in the murky rays of moonlight that glowed through the clouds that built.
A low roll of thunder quavered in the distance, and the coolness of the approaching storm raced across my heated flesh.
“I’m sorry.” The apology fumbled out. The truth that no matter how far I tried to stay away from him, I still dragged him into my disaster.
Into my mess.
Guilt and grief clutched.
Was I putting him in danger?
Overcome, I blinked into the forest.
He rumbled a disbelieving sound. “What the hell are you apologizing for?”
My tongue darted out to wet my dried lips. “I warned you my life has been a mess for a long time. I think tonight is proof that I’m barely holding it together. I should go. Pack my things and leave before something happens that I can’t take back.”
Jud swung off his bike and rose to his full, towering height.
“No.” It was the grumble of a command.
Dull moonlight fell over him, casting his stunning face in shadows. In hard, devastating lines that whispered of goodness.
Of darkness.
Of horror and light.
He took one step in my direction.
The ground shook beneath my feet.
“No,” he said again.
“Jud, I have no idea what I’m doing here. My life—”
“You’re worried about your life, Salem? About what you’re bringing to the table?” He lifted his arms out to his sides. “Did you see me tonight? That’s just a glimpse at who I really am. Told you, I’ve done horrible, horrible things, and I have no fuckin’ clue how to contain it when I’m with you. I want to break every rule I’ve ever made for myself for you.”