Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“This isn’t over,” Steve says as he goes through the door, then they’re gone.
Brandon, sensibly, avoids my eyes as he collapses in a crying heap by the wall, but all my focus is on Keryn.
“Pack a bag. You’re coming with me,” I tell her.
Six
Keryn
“I didn’t know…” I start as he drives, and he glances my way, smoothing out the frown on his forehead as his eyes meet mine.
He reaches over and puts a hand reassuringly on my leg. “I know you didn’t.”
Max gave Cyn money for a hotel and told her not to go back to the building. He didn’t even look at Brandon as we walked out. I get the feeling if he had, he might have done something he didn’t want to do. Or maybe he did want to. I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t understand.
I know I should be afraid right now. I saw what Max did. One of them was a cop, and he was bleeding pretty badly. Max says he’ll be fine, but still. It should be terrifying to be sitting in a car with someone who can do that. I had no idea he even knew what to do. How is a teacher even capable of something like that?
But I’m not frightened. Not at all. If anything, I feel completely safe with him, like nothing can get past him to hurt me.
And those men were going to hurt us. One of us, all of us, I have no idea, but they weren’t there just to look mean. He saved us all, even Brandon.
“How did you know how to do that?”
He sighs, removing his hand from my leg and taking a right turn. “I wasn’t always a teacher. Coming out of high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted from life. I knew a lot about computers and I had a lot of aggression. School was hard for me, my family didn’t have much money and that made me a target. I learned to fight back and I learned to not take any shit. Unfortunately, that can make it difficult to fit in, and can make you a target for being led down some dark paths. I needed direction and I needed…” He smiles, and that smile could light up a room. But it’s bitter as well as sweet. There’s sadness in his eyes at the memory. “I needed discipline, baby. I thought the marine corps would give me that.”
“You joined the marines?”
“For a while, yeah. I did. Then special forces after that.”
“And did it help?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I just wasn’t ready right then. But I was good at close combat and hacking enemy systems. I’m sorry. I can’t…” He sighs. “Can’t talk about that part of my life, Keryn. Sorry.”
“The things you did were classified?”
“Yeah, that. But also a lot of them I’m not proud of. It’s not a part of my life I’d want to revisit. Trust me, I wouldn’t inflict that on you.”
I shiver a little, and see his face twist with concern. Without looking, he reaches into the back of the SUV, and the next thing I know he’s wrapping a blanket around me.
“Thanks.”
“You might be in shock. Perhaps we should take you to the hospital…”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. With you, I mean.”
He chews on his bottom lip for a moment, studying me between glancing at the road, then nods. For the rest of the drive, I just watch his hands on the steering wheel, tracing the pattern of the tattoos visible when the cuff of his dress shirt rides up. The scar on his neck that I noticed in the lecture hall the first time I saw him seems to have a new history now. I wonder if he got it on one of those missions he can’t talk about, or whether it happened before, or after. When we reach his house, the gate automatically opens and he drives right in, and a few minutes later he’s insisting on carrying me inside.
I don’t put up much of a fight because, well, it’s kind of nice to be treated like royalty for once in my life.
“So now what?” I ask as the lights go on in the lobby. My arms are wrapped around his neck, and I won’t pretend I haven’t noticed the way his hand feels, wrapped in my legs and dangerously close to my ass.
“Now I put you to bed, and in the morning we discuss living arrangements.”
I frown. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I thought…” My heart is pounding. Am I really going to be that version of me? The one that knows what she wants and knows how to get it? Apparently I am… “I thought you might want a reward. You know, for being my knight in shining armor and all…”