“Your bodyguard. Kieran.”
My breath catches. “Did you find out something?”
“He’s alive. Spent a while in ICU, but he’ll make it.”
Pressing a hand over my pounding heart, I exhale a shaky breath. “Thank god.”
“The other one. The blond.”
The tone of his voice makes me nervous. “Spider? Is he okay?”
He nods, then says thoughtfully, “I have to give it to your Irishmen, they’re a persistent bunch. Dumb, but persistent.”
“What do you mean?”
He turns his head and gazes down at me with dark, emotionless eyes. “Spider’s in Moscow. He came to search for you.”
That leaves me breathless. With shock, but also with fear, because I know what Mal will do next.
And it isn’t bring Spider a welcome basket.
Panicking, I turn to him and grab his arm. “Please don’t—”
“Save your breath,” he interrupts. “I won’t kill him.”
I collapse against the porch railing, closing my eyes and inhaling a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“You seem particularly fond of that one.”
His tone is even, but there’s an undercurrent there. An edge. When I look at him, he’s gazing at me with half-lidded eyes.
It’s a smoldering look. An intense one.
And obviously possessive.
My mouth goes dry. I moisten my lips before I speak. “I am. He’s my friend.”
“Friend.”
He draws the word out, repeating it like it tastes bad in his mouth.
“Yes. A friend. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.”
His jaw tightens. He stares down his nose at me, all swaggering machismo and snorting bull. “I don’t have friends.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, you stubborn ass.”
“Name one.”
“Me.”
He looks at me like I’m certifiably insane and should be locked away forever for the safety of humanity.
I sigh heavily. “Oh, shut up. I know it doesn’t make any sense. It’s still true.”
His hands clench. A vein stands out in the side of his neck. He steps closer to me, eyes blazing.
Before he can shout insults into my face, I say loudly, “I don’t care if you don’t like it.”
“I kidnapped you!”
“You saved me from dying of a gunshot wound.”
“A shot that was meant for me!”
“Yes, and since then, you’ve been pampering me and worrying yourself sick over my every little cough and sparing people you’d normally kill because I asked you to. Unless that thing about Spider was a lie, but I don’t think it was, because I know you don’t like to disappoint me.”
When he does his growling-bristling-macho-man routine, I wave my hand at him dismissively. I’m not done talking.
“Also, you’ve kept your hands to yourself and your dick in your pants, though we both know you don’t want to, and there’s not a thing I could do to make you stop if you decided to have your way with me.”
Through gritted teeth, the cords in his neck standing out, he says incredulously, “Have my way with you?”
“You know what I mean. The point I’m making is that people who aren’t family and aren’t sleeping together but who look out for each other and take care of each other and make sacrifices for each other they wouldn’t normally make are called friends. Deal with it.”
He glares at me. Judging by the way his eyes bulge, his head will explode any second.
Instead, he stalks off the porch and into the trees.
I don’t see him again until the next morning.
30
Mal
I never would have taken her if I’d known she’d be this much trouble.
She’s upended everything. My entire life has been turned upside down by a tiny demon waif with a mouth as big as her balls.
She isn’t afraid of me.
She thinks I’m her friend.
She thanks me for everything, when she should be screaming at me in rage or terror.
I don’t understand any of it.
I stare down at her sleeping form. She’s curled up in bed on her side with her hands folded under her cheek, looking deceptively angelic.
I know that’s a ruse. That sweet, innocent exterior hides a 600-pound gorilla with an iron will.
With the exception of my snub nose Beretta, I’ve never known anything so small that was also so fierce.
I walk silently out of the bedroom and close the door, resisting the urge to leave a note for her telling her when I’ll be back.