Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(87)
Callie’s eyebrows shot up. At least it was a pleasant surprise.
“Just minimizing risk,” he grumbled, the low pitch suggesting it was no big deal. A soft pink color tinged his skin, slinking up from the collar of his jacket. By the time it had reached his cheekbones in a full blush, her abdomen had unclenched and her breathing returned to normal again. Leave it to Derek to distract her from her fears with his own discomfort.
How did one thank the person who’d protected them to such ridiculous extremes? You didn’t see loyalty and care like that outside of blood relations, and yet he’d done it for her. Despite the drugging incident she wasn’t sure she’d ever live down, he’d come through for her. He was still at her side. She wasn’t his family, and she wasn’t deluded enough to think it was all because of her badass bedroom skills. Nobody was a good enough lay to warrant committing multiple felonies and earning the ire of a mafia boss. And yet. How had she earned such devotion? Tonight she’d risked the life she’d carefully crafted to help her big brother. It’s not like she was unfamiliar with behaving idiotically for the sake of others. Only family, though. Was this what happened when you let people in? No, she’d tried that at the hospital. They’d wanted her to disavow her brother. Derek guarded her.
This time it was she who reached for him. His thigh muscles twitched when her palm rested atop his jeans, as though jumping to greet her like a Labrador left at home all day. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“A little to the left would be a really nice thank you.”
—— CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ——
Outside of Callie’s apartment building, Derek parked her car in the closest space. If they’d been on his motorcycle, she would have had the extra time it took to remove all her gear to figure out what to say next. Instead he cut the engine and that 4 a.m. silence crept in, the kind only ghosts and the highly inebriated could withstand.
He walked to her apartment with her. He stayed three steps behind her, quiet steps that squashed her nerves like spiders on a sill.
He edged inside behind her, and locked the door. The silence followed them both, filling her one-bedroom.
“How did you get to the substation?” she blurted out, realizing that the chrome and black of his bike had been missing from the parking lot.
“Rode it to get you.” He punctuated the phrase with a thanks-for-reminding-me grunt.
“You left the bike back there?” She couldn’t bring herself to say either police or station. She hovered near the kitchen counter.
Derek didn’t move toward the couch. He remained rooted to the threadbare carpeting at the center of her living room, a living totem of muscle and fury. “Few blocks away at a friend’s place. Ran the rest.”
She didn’t conceal her wince. He had done all that for her? While recovering from being stabbed?
After she’d tried to knock him out with narcotics, too. Fuck her. “I’m not worth this trouble,” she said with a sigh of accepted rejection.
He rounded toward her. A big man giving her the side eye was not something Callie ever wanted to see again. “You don’t get to do that.”
Her lower back bumped against the counter’s edge. “What?” she asked, even though she knew.
“You betrayed my trust. You tried to drug me. You do not then get to make this about you.” With each sentence he took a step closer to her.
“I’m so—”
He towered over her, anger cutting grooves between his eyebrows. The powerful breath behind his words grazed her cheeks when he cut her off. “I want to be pissed at you, and your ‘I’m sorrys’ and your habit of throwing yourself headlong into danger because you think letting someone help you means ruining them. It doesn’t do a damn thing for me.”
Wisps of leather and soap made Callie’s chest burn. The scent of him triggered a cascade of comfort, desire, and guilt. Her eyes welled with tears, but to let them fall would only be putting her emotions first. “I get—”
He cut her off again, hands slamming against the countertop at either side of her hips. “No, you don’t get it. I get you, though. That’s the problem. I haven’t lied to you, Callie. I can handle a fucked-up family. Trust me. I can deal with guilt and secrets. What I can’t deal with is you making my goddamn decisions for me.”
Even caged between him and the counter, her flight response refused to rear. She was a hypocrite, and he deserved more. “You’re right.”
He sucked in a deep breath. His flushed cheeks puffed as though he prepared to rail at her again. Instead he let the air rush out. “I’m what?”
Her weak smile didn’t solve anything. “You’re right. One of the few things I have going for me is that I make my own decisions. It’s part of what’s made dealing with Ford and the Charmer so hard. I can’t do the one thing that’s always ever comforted me: I can’t control my life. I can’t say no to them. Choices are made without me and I’m forced to just deal. And I went and did the thing I hate so much … I did it to you.”
The deep creases in his forehead smoothed, but he didn’t back away. “You did.”
“I know you don’t want my apologies, but fuck, Derek, I owe you more than a sorry.” She pressed her fingers against her lips, because no words were going to fix this.