“Charlotte—”
“Do you know why Molly moved out after she qualified and got a full-time job at the library?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Not because she wanted to, but because we both knew I was becoming too dependent on her presence.” It had gotten to the point where she couldn’t relax until Molly was in the house. “The first night I spent on my own after she moved out was terrifying… and liberating.”
Jaw set, Gabriel said, “I don’t want to take that away from you, but we have to be smart about this—you need to take measures to protect yourself until we’re certain this bastard is no longer a threat. The best protection you can have is to move in with me.”
25
SHALLOW GRAVES & PSYCHOPATHS & A PISSED-OFF T-REX
CHARLOTTE ALMOST DROPPED HER near-empty takeout cup. “What?”
“I live in a secure building. The apartment’s big enough that you won’t have to see me if you don’t want to.”
As if that was the problem. “You’re not listening to me.” Her fingers clenched on the takeout cup, the ensuing dent broadcast by a crackle of sound. “I can’t go backward. I reclaimed my life after Richard. I didn’t give up the town house I loved—I’m not going to do that now, either.”
She battled the emotions that tried to rise up, overwhelm her. “Do you know how hard it was? At first, I couldn’t even walk into the kitchen because all I’d see was him at the stove, at the table. Molly and I found the money to replace the table, the bed, the sofa, the carpet, anything else he might’ve touched, and my bedroom cupboard doesn’t have any doors, but I stayed. I made it my home again.”
Gabriel released a harsh breath. “I hope he does turn up. I’d enjoy the chance to—”
“No, don’t become him. Don’t.” Voice trembling from the force of her emotions, she put her hand on his forearm, squeezed the taut muscle. “I couldn’t bear it if protecting me forced you to become like him.”
“Jesus, Charlotte, it wouldn’t be like that.” He shoved his other hand through his hair. “I protect what’s mine. Always have, always will.”
The words rocked her, cut through the frustration to touch something newer, far more vulnerable. Sucking in a draft of the salt-laced air, she shook her head. “I know you, Gabriel. You’re so angry, have been since I told you.”
His muscles grew even more tense under her touch. “Of course I’m angry. He hurt you.”
“But if you dwell on it,” she whispered and laid her heart on the line, “the rage will swallow you up, and then he’ll have taken you from me too.”
He didn’t say anything for several minutes, his jaw working and his eyes on the water that had turned choppy with the rising wind. “For you,” he said at last, “I’ll try not to focus on the bastard.” He put one arm around her shoulders to draw her in against him, making sure not to hold too tight. “But Charlotte, I’m not a good guy when the people who matter to me are threatened. If he comes near you, all bets are off. I will crush him and bury his fucking body where no one will ever find him.”
Charlotte shuddered, realizing she’d need to watch him. Because Gabriel was intensely protective, intensely determined. He was also ruthless and very, very smart. She had to make sure he didn’t concentrate those instincts on eliminating Richard for good in a preemptive strike, but on her.
“If you won’t move in with me,” he said while she was still working through her thoughts, “I’ll move in with you. Or I’ll hire security for you. Whatever you want. But you have to let me protect you.”
Charlotte’s eyes were on the water, but her attention was firmly on the man who held her, his rage a heartbeat away from exploding and his voice raw. He’d just given her a roadmap of how she could get him to focus on her, keeping him from falling into an abyss of hate and retribution.
Petting his chest with one hand, his body heat searing through the fine cotton of his shirt, she said, “I need a few minutes, okay?”
When he didn’t move, she touched her fingers to his jaw. “Gabriel.”
Steely eyes locked with her own. “Fifteen minutes. Then I’m coming to find you.” His hand lifted as if he would shove it into her hair, haul her in for a kiss, but he curled it into a fist before dropping it to his side. “Fifteen minutes. Not a second longer.”
Heart heavy at the sign he was leashing his nature for her, she watched him walk away. Gabriel was a physical man; had she not been so screwed up, she knew full well they’d be in bed right now. She’d have eased his rage with her body, and he’d have focused all his primal instincts on her pleasure.
But she was screwed up. And fuck it, she’d had enough. She wanted him to be able to go caveman on her if he needed it, wanted to be able to haul him to bed herself if he was being stubborn and uncommunicative, as with those phone calls. Her instincts told her that getting physical with Gabriel would fundamentally alter things between them in a good way. The man was heavily tactile, would speak with his body if she let him.
Turning back to the water only when he was no longer in sight, a knot of angry frustration in her gut, she took out her phone and called Molly. “Hey,” she said when her best friend answered sounding a little flustered. “Was Fox doing naughty things to you?”
A guilty laugh. “Maybe, but he has to go meet Noah now anyway, so I’m shoving him out th—”