I wrench my gaze away. “If I panicked every time someone set their sights on me, I would drown in worry.”
“It’s a good thing you have no heart, then.”
At the frustrated note in her voice, I slide her a subtle glance that starts at her black boots—the same pair she wore to Christ Church—and ends on her freckled face. “At least you agree.”
Instead of cracking a smile, as I expected she might at my sarcasm, she only drops her head back and props her hands on her hips. A sharp inhalation expands her chest and, fuck me, draws my attention down to her breasts. “I’m going to come right out and say it: I need you to care. If you die, then I’m proper screwed.”
The corner of my mouth curls. “Not so altruistic, are you?”
A second passes, and then another, and I’m nearly convinced that her head might explode when she snaps her gaze to meet mine. “Altruistic? I’m trying to help you!”
“You’re trying to help yourself.”
Her lips firm mulishly. “It’s mutually beneficial, all right? Yes, I need to keep this position. I’d be a liar if I claimed otherwise.” A pause fractures her words, and she takes another one of those heavy breaths that tempts me to look down and keep on looking. “But you saved me, Saxon. I don’t . . . I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t found me the other day. If you hadn’t ignored that nonexistent heart of yours and carried me to safety.”
My mouth grows dry at her utter conviction.
Praise unsettles me. When it isn’t offered with some form of quid pro quo attached, then it’s given when praise shouldn’t exist at all. Theft. Murder. Lies. Rarely have I ever done anything worthy of admiration, not after peeling back the layers and revealing my ulterior motives.
And what ulterior motive did you have for saving Isla Quinn?
None.
I hadn’t thought twice. Instinct guided my feet forward. Instinct guided my fingers to her neck, checking—no, praying—that her pulse would still be fluttering beneath my touch. And instinct guided my arms around her body, swiftly picking her up before any more harm could come to her.
I had no motive—nothing but an unexpected, devastating need to see her safe and out of harm’s way.
Softly, I hear my name trip off her tongue, a question hovering within the two syllables.
I swallow, tightly, and twist around to give her my back. “You did try to strangle me,” I mutter, all too aware of the grit in my voice.
Isla laughs. “I said that I was grateful, not that I was a saint.”
Chest tight, I flatten my mouth, killing a smile before it can even breathe itself into existence. “Nor am I—a saint, I mean.” Unable to stop myself, I trace the scarred flesh behind my ear. 502. A reminder of who I am, now, yesterday, and forevermore. “The only outcome of you telling me who wants me dead is more violence.”
“You told me that knowledge is power.”
“I did.”
I hear her footsteps behind me, coming closer, until she’s at my back. Slowly, I slide my eyes shut and simply . . . listen. To her steady breathing, to the wood floor groaning beneath her slight weight, to the movement she makes, as though she’s tempted to lean forward and lay a hand on my spine—but won’t.
“Maybe you’re ready to chance death, Saxon Priest, but everything I’ve done in life has been to run the opposite way of it. I don’t . . . I don’t let people in, not anymore. But you saved me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t do the same for you.”
I spin around, but she doesn’t stumble back. No, not Isla Quinn. She holds her ground, cants her head up so that our gazes clash, and even when I growl, “Don’t,” she doesn’t obey.
“A group of loyalists want you dead. Peter overheard them when he stumbled across one of their meetings on campus.”
“On campus?”
Isla shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “At Queen Mary.”
I lower my chin, getting close to her face. “You’re telling me that a bunch of bloody uni kids want to take me out, and you think I ought to be . . . what, frightened?”
“Yes,” she says simply, like I’m short a marble or two.
“I doubt they’re savvy enough to even know where to find their own balls.”
When I turn away, Isla latches a hand around my bicep and keeps me rooted in place. I could easily throw her off, if I wanted. But I don’t want. Every part of me fixates on her fingers squeezing my arm. When was the last time I allowed a woman to touch me? Really touch me, with her mouth on my flesh and her limbs wrapped around my body?
Never.
My aversion to being touched has been a part of me for as long as my scarred mouth. No kissing. No touching. It’s me who does the fucking, and my interactions with the opposite sex have only ever been about scratching an itch until the next time it rears its ugly head and I do it all over again.
Guy was right about me—I don’t do pets and I don’t do gentle and I don’t do affection.
And yet, my fingers close over Isla’s and instead of tearing them away, as I’ve been known to do before with rare, unwanted advances, I find myself soaking up the once-in-a-lifetime sensation of a woman not shirking away at the very thought of laying a hand on my body.
Fucking hell.
Completely unaware of my internal struggle, Isla argues, “You’re not immortal, Saxon. I don’t care how many times you’ve come out a scuffle alive, you are not immortal.”
The devil controls my tongue when I grunt, “Careful, Miss Quinn, or I may get the impression that you actually care about what happens to me.”
Her blue eyes fly wide. “I-It’s as I said before, I—”
“Yes, I heard. Without me, you’re proper screwed.”
“No, not—I mean, bloody hell, yes, that too,” she stammers awkwardly, fumbling over her words in such a familiar way that I nearly take pity.
Nearly.
“So, you want to save me.” Her hand, still fitted beneath mine, tenses. In fear? Self-preservation? Lust? “What is it that you’d have me do? Drive to Queen Mary and murder every one of those kids? Should I learn where they sleep—slit their throats before they can return the favor?”
Her lips part and snap shut, once, twice. “You’re trying to unsettle me.”
I drag her closer. “I’m discussing my options.”
“No,” she retorts, her voice dipped in an emotion that I can’t decipher, “you’re pulling on the same mask you wore when we met. Cold. Callous. Maybe that act works on your brothers or Jack, but it won’t with me. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.”
“No one said anything about your intelligence,” I edge out, heat flooding my veins. “You don’t know me, Isla. You have no idea what I’ve done—what I’ve chosen to do.”
“The tortured villain spiel would be more compelling if I didn’t already know you’re a killer.”
Jesus. Christ. The fucking mouth on her.
Releasing her hand, I spin on my heel and put some much-needed distance between us before I do what my hard cock is begging for—to shove her on the closest flat surface, even the unforgiving wood floor, and strip her naked. I’d show her how she’s wrong, how coldness is all I’ve ever known. Her pants torn down around her ankles, her hands pinned down by her sides. Each callous thrust inside her heat would prove to be her worst nightmare.