Gasping, Laila clung, wrapping her arms and legs around him to ensure she didn’t fall. Being so close to her made him instantly hard. No surprise there…
Trees climbed the front porch, made his way inside, and set her on her feet. By the ambient security lights he’d installed last night to serve as nightlights for her, he watched anger and mutiny cross her beautiful face.
God, she had the power to steal his breath. He shouldn’t be shocked since she’d already stolen his heart. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t touched her in what felt like forever. He hated the fact that, right now, she was hating him. Everything was a fucked-up tangle, but no one would risk her, even Laila. He intended to make damn sure of that.
“I needed those.” She stomped her bare foot.
“Not if you were going to walk your pretty ass into danger.”
Laila fumed—and tried to stifle it. She’d probably figured out that battling head on with him wasn’t the way to get what she wanted. But she was clever. And she was desperate to save her family. She wouldn’t give up.
Neither would he.
He took her by the arm, hauled her to the kitchen table, thrust her into the first chair, then wrapped his meaty hands around her shoulders. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
“I understand your English. I simply have my own thoughts, and I disagree with you.”
“I’m aware of that. I’m just making it incredibly clear that, whatever ridiculous scheme my bosses have cooked up, you’re not getting involved. You’re under my protection. As long as either faction of the cartel warring for control is after you, it’s my responsibility to keep you alive. Since you don’t seem to grasp that concept, we’re going to make some changes around here until you do.”
Without waiting for a response, he began patting her down. It was fucking hard not to notice her soft, lush breasts when he had to cup them. Impossible not to remember having them in his mouth or feeling them against his chest when he’d gripped her hips while riding her hard and fast. But now wasn’t the time for this trip down memory lane—or his erection. He needed to find her phone.
Laila pushed at his hands and turned her body away protectively, but he finally felt his way from her chest to her ass and pulled the phone from her back pocket.
He saw three messages from her sister, which was no surprise. And one from Hunter Edgington—twenty minutes ago.
That motherfucking bastard.
“What were you planning exactly?”
Stubbornly, she pressed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest in a way that made her tits look even more luscious, and jerked her stare out the window.
Damn it. How the fuck could he get her to talk? Turning her ass red and stripping the starch from her attitude sounded great. But he’d never tested her trust that way, and they were both too angry for a consensual spanking now, even if she needed it. Hell, did she even trust him to protect her anymore?
Undeterred by her silence, Trees waved her phone in front of her face until it unlocked, then he started prowling through the device.
“No!” She lunged out of her chair and reached for it.
Trees merely held it at eye level, kind of amused as he watched her jump for it. There were occasional benefits to being freakishly tall.
He found the message string he’d been looking for, scanned and scrolled, reading as he went—and lost his fucking temper. “You were running to the edge of my property to meet up with Hunter tonight? Where the fuck was he taking you?”
With a frustrated huff, she plopped in her seat again. Because she realized the jig was up? “It is none of your concern.”
The hell it wasn’t.
With a snarl, he flipped on the overhead light and headed to the coffeepot. If he was going to interrogate her, he needed some damn caffeine. Days and days—most without a full night’s sleep—were catching up to him.
The instant he turned his back, she shoved out of her chair, legs scraping across the tile, and sprinted for the door. She’d barely reached it and pulled it open when he caught her around the waist again, lifted her, kicked the door shut, then carried her back to the kitchen. He pulled out the cuffs.
Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
He ignored her, managing to slap one cuff around her wrist before she started fighting like a hellcat. But she was too late. He’d already looped the chain around the rungs of the chair and grabbed her free hand.
“You cannot do this.”
He clicked the second cuff into place. “I just did. Now we’re going to talk. Want a blanket?”
He hoped like fuck she said yes because he was getting a full frontal of her under the kitchen lights, and it was impossible to miss her thick, beaded nipples.
Fuck, her body was his weakness.
“What will I owe you for it?”
This again? “Nothing. You’re only borrowing it, not taking it.”
She hesitated. “Fine. Then yes. Please.”
He nodded as he grabbed a quilt from the corner of his bed. When he draped it over her, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
Then Trees turned the nearest chair backward and straddled it, resting his arms over the top. “Let’s start over. Tell me why—exactly—you were meeting Edgington tonight. Have they figured out where Geraldo Montilla is holed up? Or contacted the person who sent the colonel the ransom note to set up this supposed hostage swap?”
Laila proved once again she was as strong-willed as she was beautiful when she looked away and refused to answer. He took her chin in his grip and forced her to look at him. As always, her soft hazel eyes undid him—not to mention that pouty, fuck-me mouth he remembered kissing feverishly in the dark.
“Or are they past that? Do they have a plan? A date? A location?”
Predictably, since he’d told all of his bosses to fuck off nearly forty-eight hours ago, they hadn’t looped him in on their strategies to rescue Kimber from Geraldo Montilla—using Laila as bait.
Her white teeth bit into that pillowy lower lip, and Trees stifled a groan. She had no idea what she was doing to him, and he couldn’t let on. She knew how to use his desire against him. He couldn’t let it happen again.
Since she still stubbornly refused to say a word, he’d have to puzzle the answer out himself.
Laila glared at him and yanked her chin from his grasp. “Do not touch me.”
He backed away. “Then answer me.”
“I am going. And you cannot stop me.”
That’s what she thought. “I’m not going to let you put yourself in needless danger, Laila.”
“But my sister and my nephew—”
“There’s another way to neutralize this threat, and we’ll find it.”
She shook her head. “Geraldo is a dangerous man. He will keep coming. He will never stop until they kill her and take her son. He and all his men are animals. They will never give up.”
“Then neither will I. I can be an animal, too. And I’ll prove it.”
That clearly worried her. “What will you do?”
“Tell me what’s going on first. Have they come up with a plan?”
Laila pressed her lips together, saying nothing for a long moment. But she was thinking, so Trees let her. “I do not know.”