Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(49)

“Don’t say you won’t. Please. He wins again if you treat me like a delicate flower. And you’ll make me feel like I can’t tell you what I remember. You have to be you with me. That’s what I respond to. That’s what feels right. I mean, assuming you want—”

“I do. Very much, Ella. I think you know that, and I won’t coddle you, but you have to promise me you’ll tell me if I hit a trigger.”

“I did tonight. I will. I promise. Kayden, when he tied me up, he said it was punishment for not listening to him, but also said that he is very powerful and that his enemies would kill me because I was his. He sounds like Niccolo, doesn’t he?”

“There are many men who have money and power. Just know this. Whoever he is, he’s not ever going to touch you again. You have my word.”

For just a moment I’m back in that alleyway, and he’s leaning over me, the only good thing in the midst of the pain, with his spicy raw scent and those blue eyes. Don’t leave me, I’d whispered.

“I remember you that night in the alleyway,” I whisper.

“What about that night?”

“I begged you not to leave me. You promised you wouldn’t.”

“Yes. You did, and I did.” He brushes hair from my eyes, the touch tender. “And won’t. We’ll figure this all out together.”

“I may never get to be Ella again.”

“You are Ella.”

“Ella lived in San Francisco, and I fear I will never fully remember her unless I return. But more so, I fear returning and putting others, like my friend Sara, in danger.”

“If we need to go back for answers, we can do it without anyone knowing you’re there.”

“We?”

“I told you. We’ll figure this out together.”

You are not alone, he’d said, and I think . . . I think he’s been alone a long time and I want to know why. “Where were you from before you moved here?”

“Houston.”

“Do you remember it?”

“I remember it. I’ve been back. But mostly I remember my father. He is Houston to me.”

“Your dad was a Hunter, you said?”

“Yes. That’s how I started.” He gives a sad laugh. “And a regular cowboy. Boots. Jeans and pickup trucks. I still listen to country music.”

“What country music?”

“Jason Aldean. Luke Bryan. Keith Urban.”

“Those people are fairly new on the scene. Well, not Keith Urban, but Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan.”

“You know your country music.”

My brow furrows. “I guess I do. Hmmm.” An image of my father working on a pickup truck, with music playing in the background, comes to me. “My father liked it, I think.” I shake off the thought that for some illogical reason makes me uncomfortable. It’s just music. I happily, eagerly refocus on Kayden. “We were talking about you. You’re more biker than cowboy.”

“Biker.” His lips quirk sexily at the corners. “A few motorcycles does not make me a ‘biker.’ ”

“Okay, maybe that was the wrong choice of words. Rebel is more like it. Or wild card. Very dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Is that what you still think of me?”

“Your own words.”

“Yes,” he agrees, his voice tight. “My own words.”

I wait for him to explain. He doesn’t, but nor do I sense the wall between us as I have in the past, so I cautiously push for more. “And your mother. What did she do?”

“Music teacher.”

“Music teacher?” I whisper, a shadow of a memory stirring in my mind.

“Memory?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You don’t sound certain.”

“I get feelings sometimes but I don’t know what they mean.” I refocus on him. “I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to ask the next question.”

“You want to know about my sister?”

“Yes.”

“She was eight. We’d had a fight right before they were murdered.”

“All siblings fight, and you were kids.”

“But most of them don’t have to remember that as the last moment the other was alive.” He shuts his eyes a moment, the lines of his face harder now, tighter, and when he looks at me again, he’s done talking. “Let’s go to sleep.”

“Did I upset you?”

“No.”

No means yes. I feel it. “I’m sorry.”

He rolls me to my back, leaning over me. “You’re the one who’s dangerous. You make me—”

A loud buzzing sounds from the corner of the room and Kayden stiffens, cursing under his breath and throwing off the blanket. He is off the bed and pulling on his jeans by the time I sit up, clutching the blanket to me and noting the sound seems to be confined to a corner of the room. “What is that?”

He shoves his legs in his pants. “Security system. Someone breached the castle perimeter.”

I glance at the clock, realizing it’s three a.m., and I’m suddenly afraid that I’ve brought trouble to Kayden’s doorstep. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am dangerous.