His to Protect: A Fireside Novel (12 page)

Give it an hour. Even with the Chicago Cubs playing an away game, there would still be a line of customers wrapped around the corner of the building waiting to eat a Monday-night slice of pie while they watched their beloved Cubs on the big screens scattered throughout the restaurant and cheered them on.

A twinge of jealousy hit me in the chest while I glanced around the packed restaurant. This was what I wanted Fireside Grill to become. A beloved icon in a city with a fanatic customer base in a small area of Detroit where people took pride in their community. I just had to figure out how to bring them in.

I shook off the thought and focused on Trina.

She took another bite of her first slice of deep-dish and closed her eyes.

“So what do you think?”

She groaned, swallowing the large bite. I’d been fighting to keep my dick from going hard the entire meal, yet hadn’t wanted to stop the quiet, pleased sounds she made.

Grinning, she wiped her lips with a napkin. “It’s not too bad.”

I glanced down at our almost fully devoured pie, then back at her.

“You’ve eaten twice as much as I have.”

Her cheeks paled and I pressed my lips together, watching as the fear and embarrassment flooded her features.

I swore. If I ever ran into Kevin Morgenson
III
, I was going to wring his fucking wiry neck.

She opened her mouth and I knew an apology was on the tip of her tongue. I cut her off.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” I said with a quiet voice, biting back my desire to rage like an animal. “I was kidding. Eat however much you freaking want, Trina.”

Her breathing faltered before she took a sip of water. “I know…some things are hard to forget.”

She licked her lips and looked away, ashamed.

I suppressed the growl rising in my throat. “Tell me about Kentucky,” I said instead, changing the subject. Based on the way her shoulders dropped, relaxing, it had the desired effect.

She looked directly into my eyes. Light brown mixed with flecks of a darker color around her irises. I almost forgot to breathe when she tilted her head to the right. So innocent. Pure. Damaged, but fighting. “Like what?”

“Anything you want. Weather, what you did, what you liked.” I gave her time to think and picked up another slice of pie and dove in, chewing while she appeared to run through her memories until she found the best one.

A strange burning sensation lit in my chest.

I didn’t realize that I had needed that. I didn’t realize that the entire time I was with Mara, I didn’t have that…someone who cared enough to take the time to give me the best parts of herself. I saw it in Trina’s eyes as she worked her way through her memories.

When she finally grinned and set down her pizza, that burning in my chest grew deeper, more fierce.

Because I knew I was looking at a woman who would give me her best, every day of her life, as long as I deserved it.

I’d never wanted to fight for anything more.

As she spoke about high school, telling me about being a cheerleader and homecoming queen, shopping trips to the malls with her friends and visits to amusement parks, I soaked up every word, my thoughts never straying. I never lost interest, and hung on every word. While doing so, I picked up little nuances, storing them in my memory bank.

Like the way her grin went a little lopsided when she was truly excited. The way she ran her left index finger against the corner of her lips when she thought. How her hands became more animated—long, thin fingers and small palms waving in the air like twinkling stars—the more into a story she was.

She was uninhibited in her freedom.

She was absolutely stunning.

She was perfection in the most beautiful package. Attraction, beyond just the physical, shouldn’t occur so quickly, yet I couldn’t resist the pull she had on me.

“Let’s go,” I said when we’d finished our pie and she’d just finished a story about fishing in the pond on her grandpa’s farm. The fact that this girl could fish, bait her own hook and everything, made her more attractive. She didn’t mind getting dirty, and I couldn’t help but think of what other ways she wouldn’t mind getting a bit messy. “There’s more of the city I want to show you before we go.”

“Do we have time?” She nervously glanced around for a clock.

“Plenty. Downtown will take us closer to the station anyway.”

With that decided, I paid the bill while she used the restroom, and then we walked the two blocks to the closest train station.

“Kentucky is cleaner,” she mused, looking out the window of the train as we watched the city zip by. “Hotter and more humid, but I miss the fresh, crisp scent in the air. I don’t feel that here.”

Her hand was on my thigh, my palm pressing against the back of her hand, and while she spoke, I trailed a fingertip across her hand, tracing her handprint. She shivered from the slight touch.

“What else do you miss?”

“Nothing.” She turned to me and flashed me one of her lopsided smiles. And those damn eyes, so full of vitality despite what she’d gone through. “Absolutely nothing.”

The wind in Chicago was brutal. Between my hair whipping across my cheeks and the throng of people on the platform when we stepped off the train, I was unsure of my footing, and felt jostled by the hectic pace of a city that felt much too large, much too active.

A firm hand cupped my elbow, and I flinched for just a brief moment before I realized it was only Declan, guiding me closer to him.

“Thank you,” I said and leaned toward his large frame for support. I wasn’t typically a claustrophobic type of person, but in the last few years, for good reason, unexpected touches from random strangers made me uncomfortable.

“Stay close,” he said.

His eyes focused straight ahead as he hustled us closer to the stairs, weaving us in and out of the other travelers with practiced precision. From what I knew, Declan had always lived in Detroit, only leaving for a few years to play football at Central University, where he met Tyson and Aidan. He seemed so comfortable in Chicago, knew so many specific places to go, that I couldn’t help but wonder how often he’d been here.

He was certainly not an occasional visitor.

I opened my mouth to ask him as we began heading down the stairway, when I felt a sharp jab in the side of my stomach. I jumped from the sudden contact and the sting of pain. I lurched forward, wrapping my arm around my waist and pulling my arm out of Declan’s grasp.

The quick movement made me lose by balance and the toe of my shoe caught on a bump on the metal stairs. Before I knew what was happening, I fell forward and reached out to brace myself against the stranger in front of me, when someone else bumped into my side and I tripped again.

A piercing ache slashed through my ankle as it twisted in the space between the stairs, and right before I face-planted on the metal railway, strong hands wrapped around my waist.

“Shit!” Declan cursed as he began lifting me back to my feet.

“Ouch.” I cringed as my foot twisted again and slid out of the gap.

Curling my hands around the metal railing, I pulled myself upright. Declan’s hands on my waist created a cascade of warmth that tumbled through my body, everywhere, except for where there was a fiery pain, beginning in my ankle and traveling up to my knee. “It hurts really bad.”

Tears welled in my eyes from the harsh pain, and I squeezed my eyes closed.

I had learned not to cry. It didn’t help anything.

“Are you okay?” Declan asked.

I hissed a breath between my teeth and pressed my lips together. Around us, people continued their journey to wherever they were going, not bothering to give either of us a second look. Declan was jostled from the back and the side as he stood in a way that protected me from the crowd.

I overheard a few murmurs of displeasure tossed in Declan’s direction for blocking the already narrow staircase. With the way he was looking at me, deep, dark eyes narrowed with concern, I doubted he heard them.

“What hurts?” he asked and his eyes roamed over my body. That look soaked into my pores like the richest lotion, soothing and softening me.

It shouldn’t be right, how good he made me feel. Yet there was no escaping it, either. Every look, every brush of his fingers against mine, every touch of his skin on mine created a craving inside me, made me want more.

“My ankle,” I said, shaking my head and trying to focus. I set the toes of my injured foot on the stair to apply pressure, but it made me yelp in pain.

“We need to get you looked at.”

He glanced down at my foot and quickly back up when I snapped, “No. No doctors. No hospitals. There’ll be records.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, and ran a hand from his forehead to the back of his neck, squeezing. I watched as muscles bunched at the sides of his throat before he ran his tongue along the front of his teeth.

“Not a problem. I’ve got an idea. It’ll just mean we miss the train to Milwaukee.”

Before I could argue that it wasn’t a good idea, that I’d be fine—I could just ice it on the train—he pushed people out of his way and scooped me into his arms. One of his hands went under my knees, the other behind my back.

“I look ridiculous,” I said, not surprised at all that he carried me with ease. He was well over six feet tall, and even with my smaller frame in his arms, his muscles showed barely any strain from the effort. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

I knew what a severe injury felt like. I’d had enough of them.

“You’re not,” he insisted as I cringed when I was jostled in his arms. “But you will be.”

His hands burned my skin, his fingertips pressing against my lower back where my shirt had ridden up. Yet I didn’t enjoy it. The pain was increasing, throbbing from my toes up to my knee.

“We’ll get a cab and get to a hotel. I’ve got a friend we can call.” He set me down and pulled me to his side, keeping one arm fully wrapped around my back to support me. With his other hand, he gestured in the air for a cab.

“You have a friend in Chicago?”

“Yup.” He nodded as a cab pulled over. He reached for the rear door and helped me in, as I hopped on one foot, looking ridiculous. Once we were seated, he explained. “David. He was one of my roommates all through Central. He’s just finishing up his residency at Chicago General.”

“Wow,” I murmured, cringing from the pain. It explained how he was so familiar with Chicago. He must have visited David often, based on how well he knew the city.

I listened halfheartedly as Declan rattled off the name of a hotel, a Radisson down on Michigan Avenue, and then he sat back and reached for my hand, giving it a squeeze to get my attention. “You doing okay?”

My mind swirled for a moment. The pain burned, but it was the mention of a hotel room that made my head spin.

“We’re supposed to go to Milwaukee tonight,” I reminded him.

“We’ll go to tomorrow, Trina.”

“But the car…”

“Will still be at the dealership in the morning.” He reached out with his hand and brushed strands of my hair behind my ear. I expected him to let go, but then his thumb grazed the side of my neck and stroked my collarbone.

The grazing touch sent a cascade of emotions through me, along with creating a gentle throbbing between my thighs.

As if he understood what he was doing to me, his lips tilted into a grin and his eyes went to my lips. “We’ll get you checked out tonight if David can get away from the hospital for an hour or so.” His brows knit with concern. “He works all the time, basically. I didn’t think of that.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, reaching up to his hand, still brushing along my skin at the top of my shoulders. His touch was distracting. “It’s not a big deal.”

“We’ll still have David come look at you.”

Decision made, without any input from me. I fought not to scowl. I wasn’t pleased that he wasn’t taking me seriously, that I was being dismissed, but then his hand squeezed mine and he leaned forward, brushing his lips over my cheek. “I’m just trying to take care of you. I don’t like the idea of seeing you hurt, and I don’t want to take off, in case it’s something major. For my peace of mind, let’s wait until David can look at it. We can spend the night here, take the train early tomorrow morning, and we’re still home tomorrow night, just on a later ferry.”

Something knit itself back together inside my chest while I stared into his large, dark orbs.

It felt as if he were healing me, from the inside out. I knew not all men were like Kevin.

Not all men beat their wives for the smallest infraction. I also knew some were worse than Kevin. He preferred to use his hands. I knew some men did more damage to women than Kevin ever did to me.

What I had never realized until this moment was, regardless of how intimidating Declan sometimes seemed, with his muscles and his size and his obvious physical strength, underneath all that was a good man. A man who was better and kinder than anything I had ever imagined.

He wanted to look after me.

I decided to let him.

I exhaled, letting the stress from the last several minutes out into the air, and my shoulders relaxed, along with the tension in my jaw. “Okay. Like I said, I trust you. Your friend can check me out.”

He scowled. “He can check out your ankle…not check you out.”

I rolled my eyes playfully. “You know what I meant.”

“Yup.” Declan nodded and then grinned. “I meant what I said, too.”

I laughed and looked out the window, watching as we flew through the streets of downtown Chicago. Passing between the tallest buildings I’d ever seen in my life, it felt like we were traveling through a tunnel. As we neared Lake Shore Drive, traffic almost came to a standstill. While other drivers honked their horns and shouted obscenities, I watched the waves of Lake Michigan lap against the shoreline.

My thoughts drifted like the waves, pushing and pulling in conflict with one another.

Because while Declan seemed bossy and gruff, sometimes harsh and demanding, he was the most protective person I’d ever met.

No one, not a single person, ever cared enough to have me seen and looked over when I’d been hurt.

This was a simple accident, one he could have easily pushed me past in order to keep us on our original schedule. Yet he dropped everything in order to ensure that I was okay.

“Thank you, Declan,” I whispered, pulling my eyes off the dark, black waves and bright, white caps. “No one’s ever done this for me before.”

His lips curled almost into a sneer and his nostrils flared. “It’s such a shame,” he muttered, and glanced out the window behind me.

“What is?”

“That you met Kevin and I met Mara before we met each other.”

He glanced down at our hands still entwined on the seat between us, and with his free hand, he skimmed his thumb over the veins on the back of my hand.

“How much less injured and screwed up would we both be,” he said, speaking more to himself than me, “if we didn’t have that past clinging to us?”

I was at a lost for words as he continued tracing the back of my hand, tracing the light freckles on my skin as if they were a connect-the-dots diagram in a coloring book.

I watched him for several minutes, saying nothing. Even if he expected an answer, I didn’t have one.

All I knew was that if I had met him before I ever met Kevin, I wouldn’t now feel so broken, so scared all the time.

I had a feeling that if Declan had walked into my life five years ago, I would have clung to him as if my life depended on it, knowing that I had just found the best man in the entire world.

I hobbled into the room, my shoulder tucked in under Declan’s. With one arm wrapped around my waist, he helped hold me up and keep pressure off my injured ankle. He held our small overnight bag in his other hand like he’d done all afternoon.

For a normal man, I imagined this would be awkward, if it were even possible.

For Declan, it seemed like nothing.

That was my last clear thought before I took in the room he had checked us into.

My eyes settled quickly on the bed against the far wall.

The one bed.

A large bed, roomy enough that we could share it without brushing up against each other while we slept.

Yet I knew, as a familiar warmth tingled in the best of places, that was the last thing I wanted—injured or not. I tensed against him at the thought.

His arm still around me, Declan moved us farther into the room. I heard the thud of the bag hitting the carpet and then the loud click of the door closing behind us.

“They only had a king bed available,” Declan said, his tone apologetic.

By the way his eyes roamed over my face, taking in my appearance, he’d misread my thoughts entirely.

Or he’d read them correctly and he was letting me down in a polite way.

Which would be just like the gentleman he’d shown himself to be.

With that sobering thought, I stepped away from him and made the short walk to the bathroom. “Excuse me for a moment.”

I flinched from the pain in my ankle, but hid it as I took several small steps, then stopped when Declan called my name.

Turning to look at him over my shoulder, I watched his eyes flicker from mine to the bed and back again. I caught the slight tightening of his jaw, and then he raised his phone. “I’m going to call David.”

I tilted my chin down and closed the bathroom door behind me as I heard Declan’s deep voice rumble, “Hey, dickhead. How’s it going?”

I laughed softly, and did what needed to be done in the bathroom.

While I was there, I made another decision that was probably idiotic. Using the complimentary mouthwash, I rinsed out my mouth, freshening my breath. I also fluffed my hair, even though with the day we’d had and the wine we’d drunk it still looked disheveled, and not messy in a looking-forward-to-what’s-to-come sort of way.

I was pinching my cheeks, bringing life back into them, when a knock on the door made me jump.

“Just a second!” I shouted, and gave myself one last look in the mirror. I looked like I’d spent the day in the car, stressed about selling that same car, eaten good food, ridden a train, and then almost fallen down a flight of stairs.

Essentially, I looked exhausted and worn-out.

Not bed-worthy in the least. Especially to a man like Declan, whose entire body silently screamed passion and control.

To make matters worse, the realization that we were not here on some sensual couple’s getaway slammed into my gut, knocking the breath from me as another knock vibrated against the door.

“Trina?”

“Coming!” I choked out, and then moved as quickly as I could to open the door. “Did you talk to your friend?”

“I did.” He nodded and flipped his phone in his hand. “He’s working a few more hours. Said if you can hang in there a little bit longer, he’ll stop by on his break.”

“I can. That’s fine, thank you.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, and this time, he lifted his hand and pushed some of my freshly fluffed hair behind my ear.

I leaned into his gentle touch. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Of course,” he muttered, even as one side of his lips kicked up before he dropped his hand and took a step back.