She stiffened. “I’m not afraid.”
Yes, sweetheart, you are. I can see it now.
“Or do you want more from me?” A deliberate question.
“What might that more be?” Alice returned with one brow rising.
“Oh, you know, someone who isn’t afraid of what might happen in the middle of the night. Someone who can keep you safe, even from yourself.”
She swallowed. “A hero. How…cute.”
“Nah, baby. That’s not what you want. You want someone who can handle the dark. Who isn’t going to run if things go to hell. And that would be me. You know it, deep inside. It’s the reason you let me inside.”
“You’re saying the reason I had sex with you is because—”
His rumbling laughter cut her off. “Not meaning that kind of inside, though I enjoy the hell out of sinking deep into you. My new favorite thing in the world, in fact.”
She gripped the edge of the door.
“You let me see you, my Alice.”
Her chin lifted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” He did not take his gaze from her. “You thought I was worth saving, remember?”
Her lashes fluttered. “You’re talking about…what I said at the fountain. Look, I—”
“I happen to think you are, too.”
She turned her head away from him. “Stay in the bed. Go to the couch. Do whatever you want. Doesn’t matter at all to me.”
Yes, he thought it did.
The door shut behind her. Saint turned off the lamp and settled back in the bed. And waited for Alice to come back to him.
Chapter Eleven
“I couldn’t get in the shower.” Alice’s low voice came after she crept out of the bathroom and slipped toward the bed. She didn’t know why she was telling this to Saint. She should just shut her mouth and get into the bed with him.
Shadows and darkness filled the room, but she knew he was there. He hadn’t left to take a spot on the couch.
“I stepped inside,” she continued, “and I turned the water on, and I just kept seeing her.” Tracy. Floating in that chamber. Her hands bound. Her feet bound.
The shower had seemed far too similar to the water torture chamber.
“I didn’t like her. I didn’t like what she’d done to my life,” Alice continued quietly. “But I didn’t want that to happen to her. It wasn’t part of my plan.”
His fingers curled around her wrist. “Get into bed.”
“I took a bath instead of a shower.” But she’d been so tense in that claw-footed tub. “Do you think she was alive when she went into the water? I-I hope she wasn’t. I’ve heard drowning can be a terrible way to die. It’s not fast. You struggle to breathe, to catch a breath, to get out and—”
“Get in bed.” An order. Harder. Rougher.
She let the towel fall—the towel she’d wrapped around her body—and she took a step toward—
He pulled her into the bed. Rolled her. Tucked her against him and tugged the covers up over her. Saint also kept one arm wrapped around her stomach.
“I don’t want to die that way.” Why could she not stop talking? “I don’t want it to be slow and painful.”
“You’re not fucking dying.”
His arm was strong around her. He was warm. She could almost feel safe. Not that safety was something she sought.
It wasn’t.
His dick was heavy and long behind her. It pressed against her, but he wasn’t making any sexual moves toward her. Saint just held her. Kept her tucked against him like she was…something that mattered. She didn’t, of course. His plan had been to take her down. But the way he held her…
“I’m not nice, Alice.”
Quiet. Low.
“I didn’t think you were,” she said. Just as quiet. Just as low.
“I didn’t kill those people back when I was eighteen. I was a suspect because the first victim—a bastard named Ronnie Watts—I had fought with him. Hell, not just fought, I beat the shit out of him.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t try to pull away. She did ask, “Why?”
“Because I had a friend named Bo. Small guy, always getting picked on, but he was fast. The kid could pick a pocket and be two blocks over before anyone knew it. Bo ran with me. I watched out for him. Back then, my life was the streets. Didn’t have much else. My dad was always a piece of shit. In jail. Trouble. My mom…she did the best she could but…she OD’d when I was seventeen.”
“I’m sorry.” Even softer.
“Ronnie was her dealer. I knew it, everyone did. I kept telling him to stay away. To stop giving her the drugs, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t care. Then she died and Bo—Bo took something that belonged to Ronnie. So Ronnie sliced him. Cut him deep and sent Bo to the hospital.”
She was almost afraid to move. Alice didn’t want to do anything to stop Saint from talking.
“Bo was part of my crew. Ronnie had taken my mother from me. He wasn’t going to take anything—anyone—else. So I hunted him. I confronted him. And when he came swinging at me with his knife, I fought him. I kept fighting him until he wasn’t moving, and three guys had to drag me off him.” Calm words. Vicious violence.
Her heart raced, but her words were just as calm as his had been as she noted, “He was still alive.”
“Yeah, he was. Beaten to hell and back, but alive. Then. Two days later, Ronnie was found with a knife shoved in his throat.”
Again, she didn’t flinch. But he couldn’t see her face, so she let her eyes squeeze shut.
“He was the first. Others followed. People who I’d fought with. Some that I barely even spoke to on the streets. Didn’t matter, though. Because the cops knew I’d had trouble with Ronnie, so they were quick to point the blame at me. When I realized I was being suspected of multiple murders—a dumbass kid who already had a rap sheet—I knew I would have to prove my own innocence.” His hold remained steady on her. “I also knew I had to run because I didn’t want to get locked away.”
“You ran, and your brother Memphis chased you.” A part of the story she already knew.
“Memphis doesn’t chase. He hunts. He hunted me. At the time, I think he believed I was just like our piece-of-shit dad. Memphis and I are half-brothers. Don’t think he even knew who I was, not until he started the hunt. He was good, still is good. The best when it comes to hunting.”
“Even better than you?” A careful question.
“You don’t want Memphis to come for you. If he does, you might as well be locked up already.”
She opened her eyes. Stared straight ahead. “He locked you up.”
“I kept telling him I was innocent. I knew things looked bad, but I hadn’t done it. Seemed like no one believed me, though, especially not Memphis. The day he turned me in, he just looked at me. Stared hard then walked away.”
Bastard. She didn’t exactly like Memphis.
“When you’re young and you’re the new one in jail, you have to fight hard. I tried telling the cops and guards I was innocent and—”