Better When He's Brave (Welcome to the Point #3)(13)

And now he needed me. Which meant he was going to have to look at me, and maybe, just maybe he could see past all the things I had done and all ways that he couldn’t tolerate me. It was wishful thinking on my part, but after being so close to him yesterday in the office, after breathing him in and watching those sky-blue eyes heat up and cool off with everything he was feeling, I couldn’t stop the longing from crawling all over me. It was so heavy and thick it had kept me up all night. How I had convinced myself Conner was an acceptable substitute for the force of nature that was Titus King was beyond me. One man was a legitimate wonder of this world; the other was a cheap plastic trinket that fell apart as soon as you got it home.

So there I was in the dingy bathroom of the horrible motel room looking at myself in a mirror that was so cracked and so foggy with age that I could hardly see my own face, worrying about how I was going to look when Titus showed up at my door any minute. I knew it didn’t matter. He would never see me the same way I saw him even if there was an undeniable pull between the two of us. However, my vanity and my own need to be my best around him still had me fiddling with my hair and trying to fix my face with the meager supplies I had stashed in my purse. When I snatched Conner’s phone I hadn’t really planned too far ahead. All I had on me were the clothes on my back and what was in my purse, which wasn’t much, but it would have to do. I heard the cardboard-thin door rattle as a heavy fist thudded against it, and took a deep breath to steady myself.

I refused to be barefoot on this disgusting flooring, so my slouchy boots made a harsh shuffling sound across the ratty carpet as I made my way to the door. It matched the offbeat stutter of my heart at the thought of being close to Titus again. I peeked out the little hole in the door and pulled back at the ferocity of the scowl that was already on his face. He hadn’t even seen me yet and he already looked like he wanted to strangle someone.

I barely had the chain off the door and cracked open before he was barreling that big body through the space. I wasn’t the only one who looked like they hadn’t changed clothes since our last encounter. He still had on his wrinkled slacks and wilted button-up shirt from the day before and the bags under his eyes made him look far older than his twenty-eight years. He was only a few years older than me, but right now those years looked like decades. He was missing the tie and his dark hair was messy like he had been running his hands through it.

“We found two dead junkies and busted a drug trafficker at this motel not even two weeks ago. This is the best place you could find to hide out?”

As soon as he was in the room I shut the door behind him and fell back against it. He was prowling back and forth in front of me like an angry animal, and all I wanted to do was reach out a hand and try and soothe him. He was coiled so tightly I could see the ropes of tension in all the hard lines of his muscular build and stamped across his face.

I shrugged lightly when that electric-blue gaze finally landed on me. “Conner isn’t stupid. He’s going to be right on my tail, so I couldn’t risk going home. My folks have had a hard enough time with things in the last few years. They don’t need to be in the middle of all this.”

“Isn’t he going to look for you there first?” He moved like he was going to sit on the edge of the bed and then made a face when he caught sight of just how gross the mustard-yellow comforter was upon closer inspection. Instead he crossed his arms over his broad chest and faced off against where I was leaning.

“I don’t think so. We weren’t close after Rissa died. I was suffering so much and I guess I felt like they weren’t suffering enough. I haven’t really spoken to them in years.”

Titus grunted at me and wrinkled his nose as the people in the room next door decided to start a bout of noisy morning sex that shook the entire wall behind the bed.

“You don’t have friends, any other relatives, no one that can give you a place to hide out while we figure out to handle Roark? The state attorney general is going to think you skipped out on WITSEC. You’re going to be a fugitive until we catch him and put this all to rights and until I can hand over the proof that he’s dirty to the right people.”

I let my head fall back until it thunked against the door. “Tell the feds I’ll still testify; I just don’t want to be in protective custody anymore. They did that for Bax and Race. Besides him being dirty, he slept with me and broke protocol. Why do I have to prove I’m on the up-and-up?” I could see the answer in his eyes. They would believe the best of Conner because he had a respectable job even if he had used it to break the law, and I was just some girl that kept making bad choices.

“Bax and Race weren’t involved in a murder-for-hire plot with Novak and his goons.”

I cringed involuntarily. “No, but they were involved in his other criminal enterprises. I’m still going to hold up my end of the deal, I’m just going to do it here.”

“That’s not safe. I saw the texts on his phone. Roark isn’t done with his rampage and he’s unhinged. He furious about something and it’s driving him to do what he’s doing. He wants the Point to fall and he’s going after everyone involved in holding it up after Novak went down. I’m sure he realizes you’re the one that turned him in and took the evidence needed to nail him. Things are going to be really bad for you.”

I laughed drily and lifted an eyebrow at him. I wished I had the nerve to walk up to him and wrap him up in a hug. I think we both really could have used one. “Things are always really bad for me. I had a few minutes of peace when I was pretending to be someone else and her skin never quite fit right. This is what my life looks like, Detective.”