“Yes, I remember,” I shout, but it comes out funny. What’s wrong with my throat?
She keeps going. “I’ll be more confident in asking for what I need now.”
“It’s not going to be…” I stop myself before I can say the rest. It’s not going to be like this with anyone else. Saying that out loud makes me a bastard. I’m not offering her a relationship. How dare I ruin her optimism when it comes to having one with somebody else? How dare I want to track down everyone who might hold her hand in the future and lock them in the lion cage at the zoo? And watch them be devoured while they scream for help?
I don’t have that right.
I have no rights to her.
Feeling utterly numb, I watch her sail past me.
“Excuse me,” she murmurs. “I need to find Jude.”
Chapter 17
Taylor
* * *
One foot in front of the other. Down the stairs.
I can do this. I can have a fling and not get emotionally involved.
Yes I can.
I’m not going to acknowledge the pressure building behind my eyes or wrestling outward from my ribcage. It’s ridiculous. I went into that bathroom with realistic expectations, didn’t I? Myles was very clear that he didn’t want serious. The very idea of a private school teacher from Connecticut dating a bounty hunter is totally absurd. I told myself when we got the lust out of our systems, I could walk away with some perspective on my sexual preferences. And whoa. I got a lot more perspective than I bargained for. A lot.
Comparing what I just did with Myles to the awkward, no-frills sex in my past, I have to laugh. I laugh right there on the staircase leading down into the living area. Did I have a feeling sex with Myles would blow my other experiences out of the water? Yes. Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate this absolute conviction that I’ll never in a thousand years be able to replicate what it felt like to be with the bounty hunter. Never.
There is nothing I can do about the situation, though. He’s going to solve the case and go back to his job. I’m going to return to Connecticut. Just like he said. So I need to be a big girl about this. No strings. That was the expectation and nothing has changed. I have no reason to expect anything more from Myles and I won’t. We slept together. People sleep together all the time. I’m not going to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Even if he is definitely a mountain.
A big, powerful force of nature.
I almost trip on the bottom step and there’s a hissed breath behind me.
Myles is following me down the stairs, his T-shirt slung over one brawny shoulder. Of course he’s trailing after me. He has to leave through the front door, doesn’t he? I give him a polite smile over my shoulder, but he only frowns back. “Taylor—”
The front door of the house opens and Jude walks in. Takes off his sunglasses and tosses them onto the entry table. When he sees me he stops dead in his tracks.
With a sigh, Myles skirts past me, finally pulling on his shirt. “I need to make a phone call,” he mutters, a deep crease between his eyebrows as he looks down at me. “About what you found in the property records.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I’ll be right outside.”
“Okay.”
He very obviously wants to shake me and I have no clue what I’ve done wrong. With a sharp curse, he starts toward the front door. Jude steps into his path, however, putting a hand on Myles’s chest to keep him from going any further. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why my sister has a bandage on her head.”
In the midst of my jumbled thoughts over Myles, I failed to see how this scene might look from Jude’s perspective. I’m coming down the stairs with Myles stomping after me, his surly nature on full display. There is a bandage on my head and I probably look like I’ve just crawled on hands and knees through a monsoon. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my brother—or anyone—go white as a sheet, but I have to clear up whatever he’s thinking right away.
“Jude—”
“If you hit my sister,” he says to Myles. “I will murder you.”
Oh dear. I jog forward to get between them. “No. Jude, he didn’t—”
“I didn’t hit Taylor.” Myles holds up his palms and looks Jude in the eye. Totally calm. Not downplaying my brother’s concern or getting defensive like I’m scared he will. “I would never hit Taylor. You’re a good brother for making sure.”
Jude exhales quickly, his chest dropping a few inches. It’s like he’s coming out of a trance. But Myles waits and his words are acknowledged with a nod before he drops his hands. “What happened?” Jude asks, coming closer and examining the bandage.