Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1)(71)

Earlier he had undone my braids for me and I never thought I had ever experienced anything as sexy as the way his eyes danced when it fell across my shoulders.

“I love you,” I told him, my hand coming to rest on his forearm at my neck.

His face became serious and I searched his eyes, his furrowed brow.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, the hand that had been resting on my hip moved to meet the other side of my neck.

I swallowed, forcing my gaze downward. I’d had no idea how I was going to answer that because it was a forbidden topic, a forbidden thought. I was scared.

“I don’t know what to say,” I told him truthfully.

“Say you’ll stay. Give it all up, Soph. You have nothing really to go back to, you told me so yourself.”

“Excuse me? I have plenty to go back to,” I said, affronted.

“Yes, but none of it means anything.”

He was right, of course, but I didn’t like how he dismissed my old life so readily. Yeah, I was different since Masego but I could still have a righteous future in the States. But can you leave Ian? Really leave him? How about Mandisa?

I shook my head of the thoughts.

“I don’t have a choice,” I told him.

“You do. Choose me, Soph.”

But with Ian comes responsibility. Could I choose a Masego life for myself? For the rest of my life? Could I commit to it?

I hedged. “I’m due back in court at the completion of my sentence, though.”

“Then I’ll come with you and we’ll come back together,” he said, hugging me to his chest tightly. “It would probably be good to have a Masego rep there anyway.”

I pushed at him slightly. “We don’t have to decide now,” I told him.

He widened the distanced I’d created. “Why are you being so difficult about this?”

“I’m not,” I said. “It’s a really heavy decision, Ian. I want to be careful.”

“What’s to decide?” he asked, incensed. “If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t hesitate!”

“Of course you wouldn’t! You already live here!”

His hands fell to his side and my skin felt bereft of his warmth. I missed his touch almost immediately. I just stopped myself from grabbing those hands and placing them back. My chest ached from our fight and I didn’t know how to go forward with him. This was such a huge thing. I just wanted him to understand that it was such a huge decision, I needed time to come to terms with it.

“I see,” he said, dejected.

He stood and made his way to the back of the truck to grab his tools. I stood and hesitated reaching for him like my gut was screaming at me to do. Don’t lose him! it nagged. I followed him to the back to help but he had already gotten what he needed and was making his way back to the fence.

I stood next to him holding up the loose plank and the quiet was a heady thing. It weighed on my shoulders like nothing else before, a million pounds of unrequested pressure. Whenever I’d ever been faced with a difficult decision, I ran. Always. I ran as fast as I could and never looked back, constantly distracting myself from making any kind of decision that would alter my life one way or another.

But Ian didn’t deserve that. He was in love with me and was sad that he might lose me. How could I possibly get mad at that? How could I possibly tell him no? Masego made me happier than I’d ever been. Ian was the love of my life, I was certain, despite my young age. He was it.

“Ian, I-” I’d begun but he stopped me.

“Do you smell that?” he asked, distracted.

“What?” I asked, taking a deep breath.

“Something’s burning,” he said, standing rigidly straight and peering Masego’s direction.

It was too far away to see it and if there was smoke we couldn’t see it in the dark of the night.

“I smell it, too,” I said, worried we might be caught in an approaching grass fire. “What should we do?”

Suddenly, shots rang out from the direction of Masego. I jumped, grasping Ian’s arm. My heart dropped and a lump formed in my throat.

“What was that?” I asked Ian.

“Get in the jeep, Sophie.”

Ian dropped his tools where they lay and hopped in the driver’s seat so quickly I’d barely had time to register his command. I quickly obeyed, goosebumps rising on my skin when five consecutive shots rang out again. An unchecked sob came bursting from my throat.

“No!” I yelled as Ian started the jeep and peeling backwards from the fence. We raced, the lights from the jeep showing a seemingly endless sea of stark grass. The only sounds the blades slapping against the sides and our breaths as we blundered the length of the fence to get to the entrance.

“Please,” I begged out loud, my knuckles white against the dash.

I glanced at Ian and panic was written over every line of his face. My stomach plummeted further at his expression. Six more consecutive shots spilled from Masego and Ian punched the gas further, grabbing me by the arm and wrenching me into his side.

“Hold on,” he said steadily, before charging through the fence to get to Masego faster. When the truck righted, he said, “The guns, Sophie.”

I grabbed his assault rifle hung at the back of our bench seat and rested the butt against the floor near his leg then opened the glove box and removed the handgun. Instinctively, as Ian had taught me, I removed the magazine and checked the bullets before replacing it. I placed the gun in my lap. My hands shook as I wrenched my hair back into a ponytail.