Fear For Me: A Novel of the Bayou Butcher(88)

The elevator doors slid open.

He took her hand. The doors to Matt and Jim’s rooms were shut. He brushed past them and headed to his room. In less than a minute, he’d opened the safe in his closet and pulled out the backup weapon. He checked it, loaded it, and made sure that it would blow a hole in anyone dumb enough to go at Lauren.

He turned back to her.

Her head was tilted down, her blonde hair shielding her face. She looked so damn small and breakable.

The fire could have taken her from me.

No. He never would have left her alone in the fire. He couldn’t leave her.

When he’d walked away before, he’d left part of himself in Baton Rouge. The obsession hadn’t ended. It had just grown deeper, wilder.

Because it wasn’t just an obsession?

He glanced down at the gun. What the hell was he doing? Planning on dragging her out to confront a killer with him? She’d been through enough. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans. “I’ll take you to the station.” She was the DA. She got her justice in a courtroom. Not in some gator-infested swamp.

At his words, Lauren’s head whipped up and her eyes locked on him. In her bright, blue stare, he didn’t see anything fragile. He saw fury. Determination. Strength.

Lauren stalked toward him closing the distance between them. “You honestly think I’ll sit back and let you go out there, after all he’s done?”

“It’s not your job to hunt—”

She shook her head and held out her hand. “Give me the damn gun.”

“Lauren…”

“My life. My sister’s life. You think I’m going to sit on the sidelines now?” Her laugh was bitter, piercing. “Hell, how do you even know that isn’t exactly what he wants? To separate us? To divide and conquer. Divide and kill? He couldn’t take us out when we were together at my house, so what if the plan now is to go at us separately?”

I want him to come at me. I just don’t want him going after you.

“Where you go, I go.” Her voice was flat, but her eyes gleamed with a combination of strength and fury that was truly the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. She was so beautiful he hurt. “I’m not backing away. I’m not running away. I am going to finish this. I owe it to Jenny to finish this.”

Lauren looked down at the gun in her hands.

He had to ask, “Could you shoot to kill if it comes to that?”

Her head tilted back so she could meet his eyes. “He stabbed my sister seventeen times.” There was no mask on her now. Raw emotion shone on her face. “Yes, I could do it. I could do it in an instant.”

Lauren was talking about revenge. He knew she deserved the justice she’d wanted for so long.

Taking a life wasn’t easy. What would killing do to her?

His fingers closed around hers. Around the weapon he’d given to her. “I will kill him for you.” A promise. He wasn’t talking about bringing the guy in. Wasn’t talking about forcing Lauren to go through a long trial and, then, Christ forbid, another situation like Walker’s.

Her lips parted in surprise. “You’re the good guy, Anthony. You catch the criminals.”

Not kill them.

But for her…to keep her safe…

He took the gun from her. Put it on the bed. Backed her up against the nearest wall and caged her with his body. He wanted her to see him exactly as he was. Far from good. Far from perfect. With a darkness inside that would always burn.

“I would do any f*cking thing if it meant you were safe.” His hands flattened on either side of her head. “Don’t you know that?”

Her eyes widened.

“You matter.” He growled out the words. “You’re the thing in this world, the only f*cking thing, I can’t live without. I know, I tried living without you for years, and I was so damn miserable. A hole was in my chest, and every day, I was just going through the motions. Hoping no one saw just how lost I was.”

Because when he’d left her, that was exactly what he’d been…lost.

“I went through my days, and my nights…at night, I dreamed of you. Fantasized about you. Wanted you in my bed and in my arms so f*cking badly.”

His mouth took hers. He couldn’t hold back. She was there, and he needed her more than breath. The kiss was frantic and hard with the desperation that drove him. Her lips parted beneath his. His tongue thrust into her mouth.

Lauren tasted of hope, of every dream he’d ever had.

No one would take those dreams away. No one would take her away.

Her breasts pressed to his chest. He could feel the tight nipples, and he wanted them in his mouth. Wanted her naked. Wanted his cock driving into her so deeply she didn’t know what it was to be apart from him. He wanted to give her pleasure, so much pleasure that it washed away her pain.

He wanted to give her everything.

And he would.

Using all of his control, he pulled his mouth from hers. “I love you.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have snarled the words. He could have tried romance and class, dining and—

Screw that. They were surrounded by death, and he wanted her to know just how he felt.

Only now she was staring at him in shock, her mouth swollen from his kiss, her cheeks flushed, and her brilliant eyes glittering.

“I always thought love made you a better person,” he whispered to her. “That it made you good. That it was gentle and kind.” Wasn’t that what all the books said? All the sappy movies?