Defiance (The Protectors #9)(7)

But as soon as I grabbed Nathan by the arm again, he jerked away from me.

And immediately stumbled.

I managed to catch him around the waist before he fell, and I really did not like the feeling of awareness that went through me at the sensation of his body pressed up against mine. I quickly reached out with my foot to grab the leg of one of the kitchen chairs and jerked it over. Nathan wasn’t much shorter than me and I figured when he was at his normal weight, he’d give me a run for my money in the overall size department. The fact that he’d managed to survive the brief, albeit intense, attack from his assailant was proof that he had some decent muscle built up, along with the instincts to fight back against someone with better training than him.

“Sit,” I murmured as he continued to resist me.

“We have to call the police,” he said, even as he sat down and put his uninjured hand up against his head.

“So you know who attacked you?” I asked as I went around to the kitchen and snagged a clean-looking hand towel that was draped over the oven door handle.

“No,” Nathan murmured as he lowered his arm so it was resting against his leg. The move allowed him to keep holding his head without having to keep his arm in the air. It was testament to how quickly he was crashing after the adrenaline rush.

I tore a wide strip off the hand towel and knelt down in front of him. He winced as I wrapped the strip around his hand and used enough force to stop the bleeding. The wounds on his palm and possibly the ones on some of his fingers would need stitches, but I didn’t have time to deal with it now. “Hold pressure on that,” I said as I motioned to the binding. I climbed to my feet and went to the window. The frame was still intact, so I pulled the large retractable blind down in the hopes passersby wouldn’t notice the window was actually missing. Although both the assailant and I had used suppressors on our weapons, the sound of shattering glass would have been hard to miss. I could only hope like hell this was one of those neighborhoods where everyone assumed someone else was calling for help.

“Then you have an idea of who attacked you?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

Nathan, predictably, remained mute.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” I bit out as I stood before him. I expected him to look up at me, but when he didn’t, I bent down so I could look him in the eye. Because I was giving him one shot at this. Dom or no Dom, I couldn’t help someone who was too stupid to help himself.

“You call the cops and the first thing they’ll do is start digging into every aspect of your life. And considering who you are, I don’t think you want that. Because you know what happens the second even one cop talks to a reporter to confirm Nathan Wilder was attacked in his own home by a gun-wielding fanatic.”

Nathan’s eyes lifted enough so he could look me in the eye, but he still didn’t say anything.

“You really think when the press gets wind of that story, they’re going to have any interest in your political views? You think voters will?”

Nathan finally reacted by looking away. There was a slight hardening of his jaw. God, he was so fucking predictable. Threaten his life and he wanted to argue, threaten his career and he couldn’t shut up fast enough.

“So what, I’m just supposed to go with you?” he finally asked. “I don’t fucking know you, man.”

“You don’t need to know me,” I ground out, hating that my irritation was starting to get the better of me. “All you need to know is that you stay here, you die. You come with me, you might have a chance. That’s assuming I don’t shoot your ass myself for being such a pain in mine.”

Before Nathan could respond, there was a knock at the front door.

“Fuck,” I muttered, because I knew exactly who it was. “One of your worried neighbors coming to check on you, no doubt,” I groused as I left the kitchen and went to the front door to confirm my suspicions. There was a small window next to the door and I could see a man through it, dressed in pajamas, a red bathrobe, and slip-on shoes. Nathan appeared beside me.

“Your choice,” I said. “You’ve got two minutes to either get rid of him or tell him to call the cops. I’m going to go check the rest of the house.”

I pulled my gun from my waistband and began sweeping the rest of the house. Not for the assailant, but for clues. But having seen the guy’s moves and the hardware he’d been carrying, I doubted he’d been careless enough to leave anything behind that would offer up any clue to his identity.

Nathan’s house wasn’t big, so it didn’t take me long to check it out. I heard his muffled voice as he spoke to his neighbor, but had no clue what he was saying. I almost wanted him to choose the cops because then I’d be rid of him.

I tried to reassure myself it was because I hated politicians and everything they stood for, but the sensation of Nathan’s body pressed up against mine for those brief seconds as he’d stumbled was peppering my mind. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised that I was attracted to him, since he was a good-looking guy; it was that the physical stirring I was feeling was driving my thinking.

That just wasn’t acceptable.

People who made decisions based on emotion or lust didn’t survive long in my business. And I hadn’t come this far, put down so many men and even a few women who’d come after me, just to give it all up because I’d liked the way a guy had felt in my arms.