Defiance (The Protectors #9)(9)

“I need my phone,” Nathan said.

“You need it more than you need to breathe?” I asked impatiently. “Because it’s traceable.” I reached for it to take it away from him, but he stepped back. I got into his space and ripped the phone from his hand. “Is your career really more important than your life?” I ground out. “Because it sure as shit isn’t more important than mine.” I dropped the phone to the floor and made a move to crush it under my heel, but Nathan suddenly lunged forward.

“Don’t!” he yelled. My instincts took over and I grabbed him by the arms and swept his legs from underneath him, taking us both to the floor. He let out a whoosh of air as my body crashed down on his. Too late, I remembered the way he’d been holding his side after the earlier attack.

But I didn’t apologize.

“You lay your hands on me one more time-”

“My brother’s messages!” Nathan shouted, his voice thick with emotion.

“What?” I asked, startled.

Nathan drew in several breaths. “I want the phone because it has my brother’s voicemail messages on it,” he whispered. His whiskey-colored eyes met mine. “Please,” he murmured.

I suddenly became very aware of his hard body sprawled beneath mine. During the scuffle, one of my legs had gotten wedged between his, putting our cocks precariously close to one another. I had his hands pinned to the floor and I could feel his body trembling beneath mine.

I knew it was likely just the lingering shock, but I couldn’t deny what having him completely at my mercy was doing to me. Especially since he wasn’t fighting me. I hadn’t given much thought to whether or not Nathan was gay like his brother, but I sure as shit was thinking about it now.

“Please,” Nathan repeated, and a perverse part of me wondered what he was actually asking me for. I knew I needed to get off him, but I found myself reluctant to move. Nathan’s fingers flexed, drawing my gaze to them. It would be so easy to move my hands up to link my fingers with his. I shifted slightly to take the pressure off the knee that I had wedged between his legs, but the move caused my dick to brush his. I jerked my eyes to Nathan’s when I heard him let out the tiniest of whimpers.

“Let me up,” he suddenly said, and then he was pushing at me. I could have easily kept him there on the floor like that and taken what I wanted…a taste of him. But I shifted off him instead and then snatched his phone off the floor. Nathan struggled to his feet, but didn’t try to grab the phone again.

My brain told my fingers to drop the damn thing so I could crush it, because anything less wasn’t safe. But my body disobeyed the order and instead, I turned the phone off and handed it to Nathan. “Leave it off.”

I turned to head towards the hallway leading to the front door, but stopped when Nathan said, “Wait.”

I forced myself to turn around. “What?”

“I don’t even know your name.”

There were a million things I could have said to him, none of which included actually giving him my name. Just like with the phone, it wasn’t safe for him to know who I was.

“Vincent,” I said.

“Vincent,” Nathan murmured, more to himself than anything else. “Thank you, Vincent.”

I didn’t want his thanks. I didn’t want anything from him except to eliminate the threat against him and then get the hell away from him.

“Let’s go,” was all I said, though, and then I turned away, not really caring if he followed.





Chapter 3





Nathan





I could feel blood trickling down my wrist, despite the pressure I continued to put on my hand. Strangely, though, there was no pain. The interior of the car was too dark to see how badly my hand was bleeding again, but I wasn’t about to ask Vincent to turn the lights on. Truth was, I didn’t want to know.

Then this could all be some fucked-up nightmare that I would wake up from any second now.

Wake the fuck up, Nathan!

We’d walked out my front door thirty minutes earlier and I hadn’t thought to ask where Vincent was taking me. I hadn’t really cared, either.

Probably due to the shock of it all.

“Keep pressure on it,” I heard Vincent say, and I glanced over at him to see that he wasn’t even looking at me. How the hell did he know about my hand?

It was a stupid question, considering all the questions I should have been asking him.

Who the hell are you?

What were you doing at my house?

Why the fuck didn’t I just call the cops?

I knew the answer to that last one. Vincent had hit the nail on the proverbial head when he’d mentioned the cops leaking their report about the attack to the press. It was a risk I just couldn’t take.

Even if it meant I was destined to spend more time with the man next to me than I would have liked.

And not just because he intimidated the hell out of me.

No, I had much bigger problems than that.

Like how it had felt to have his weight pressing down on my body, pushing me against the cold, hard granite tiles of my kitchen floor. Or the way his calloused fingers had dug into my skin as he’d held my hands down. Or that gravelly voice that had washed over me as he’d warned me not to touch him for the second time in nearly as many minutes.