Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(31)

And she isn’t mine, I tell myself. Developing an attraction for someone you’ve just rescued is very bad business practice.

“Ryder?” She’s impatient. Like maybe she’d said my name a couple times and I’d been zoned out.

“Yeah?”

“Come on, we have a long way to go, and I haven’t had a conversation in days. Where did you come from, then?”

Friendly, light conversation is good. “All over the place.” I think of my parents and then Chief and Betty. “I’ve lived in almost every state, at one time or another.”

“Was it difficult, not being settled or having roots?”

“Who says I wasn’t settled? I had roots,” I answer more defensively than I mean to. “Deep ones.”

She goes quiet again.

Fuck me. Had. That one little word that, even after all these years, still comes out with an extra dose of bitterness.

“Did you serve in the Navy?” She’s looking at the Navy trident I have inked on my lower right rib.

I can’t do this with her. This isn’t light conversation. She’s hitting on intimate subjects.

She waits for an answer.

I flick on the radio. “Do you have a preference?”

It happens to be tuned to a pop station. “Cecilia and the Satellite” just started.

“WAIT!” She throws up her hand. “I love this song.”

Farrington closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in. “I thought I’d never hear it again, you know? Music.” As the song plays, a smile lights her face.

From this angle—with the wind blowing through her long brown hair, leaving a scented trail of berries and pomegranates in the car, the fitted Longhorns t-shirt . . .

Don’t look at the f*cking t-shirt! She had to go braless, and the view is—literally—achingly perfect.

. . . shorts and flip flops—she resembles a regular girl; carefree, talkative, her fear of Miguel and his men left back in Port Arthur.

That is dangerous for her on so many levels—it made her an unaware target for Miguel’s men—and maybe worse, she no longer comes across as an in-peril witness to me but as a healthy, vibrant university student for the mutually pleasurable taking.

And it would be pleasurable on so many levels.

“I couldn’t believe, every day that went by, that they hadn’t killed me.”

And that snaps me back to the f*cked up reality that she’s just been rescued, I’m going to drop her with feds and I’m never going to see her again.

I focus on the hum of the tires as they speed over the blacktop, but the thought of never seeing her again doesn’t settle well. And I wish it was as easy a solution as having what I’m sure would be one hell of a phenomenal f*ck to get her out of my system before walking away—though that thought does conjure up some very pleasant images. No, it’s admittedly becoming more than that. Farrington, with her pointed questions and this open look on her face, like she really wants to know my pain—is that something she learned in psych school?—has somehow managed to get into my head, and is working her way beneath more than just my skin.

I almost can’t deny her. I get the urge to open up and tell her what I was going to hide—what I’ve been keeping in the dark for all these years. I could do it, right? Just answer her f*cked up intimate questions as if we were a man and a woman on a serious date, or as if we were two regular people on a road trip. Like it didn’t affect me.

How long has it been since I talked about it? My parents, Chief and Betty? My ridiculously f*cked up life and, maybe more importantly, my non-death.

Why does her presence—which has only been amicable for the last few hours—cause so many bipolar, whiplashing inconsistencies in my own thoughts?

Christ! She keeps singing that goddamn song, and she really is quite terrible. Every other note is off-key and I come to the conclusion she’s probably tone deaf.

But she’s so f*cking adorable.

And alive.

Her entire presence radiates with a shining, vibrant life-force. I find myself craving her resilience, her passion, her joy.

There is something about her that makes me want to allow myself to be sucked deep into her soul and stay awhile.

I can’t help but take my eyes off the road to lay them on her.

Something happens in that moment, like the flip of a switch. I don’t know what it means, except that all I want in the world right now is to keep her safe, return her home to her mom and sister ASAP, and murder Eduardo Miguel before he can cause her any more harm.





We’re less than forty miles out of Shreveport, when an unmarked comes up on my ass.

“Farrington, I need you to get down on the floor of the vehicle.”

She unlatches her seatbelt and slides down. “What is it?”

“Trouble.” Two other vehicles slip in behind and in front of us. Blue and red lights turn on and wash through the vehicle and over the surrounding buildings. We’re in a downtown community—restaurants, people walking to work, cars everywhere.

We’re surrounded and being herded by local law enforcement. Which is exactly what I didn’t want to have happen.

I keep my speed, and it’s not long before I spot the barricade in the center of the road.

“Ryder?”

“We’re getting pulled over by what looks like police.”