“Tell Joey I’ll be back down to speak with him in a few minutes.”
“Are you a cop or something?” Amelia asked.
“Or something,” Hayes deadpanned, pulling me away from him and steering me to the back door.
Five minutes later, I was curled up on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen while Hayes made a call.
“Hey. Yeah, I need you here,” he said, pacing back and forth in front of the window.
Slowly, I turned my head, my eyes dropping to the pistol at his back, poking out of the waistband of his jeans.
“No, Gordon was here yesterday. He wanted to speak with Margo’s boss.” Hayes paused. “Yes, attempted contact.” Another pause and he looked at me, eyes glimmering with fury. “We need a second restraining order in the works. Get Humbly on it.”
I returned to staring at the blank TV screen, my hands picking at the edge of my blueberry blanket, a Christmas gift from Cardinal. She had a strawberry one at her place and Sarah had a raspberry one. Tears stung my eyes, and I dipped my chin, hiding from the world. The first tear fell from my cheek, landing on the willow tree tattoo on my forearm. Then another and another. The dam had been broken, the levees destroyed.
“Grayson is on his way,” Superman announced.
“I can’t believe I reacted that way,” I murmured, my tears shining on my inked skin.
He moved then, my floorboards creaking underneath his powerful weight, each step deliberate. “In what way?”
“The second it clicked in my head that it was Gordon…I don’t know…my body just panicked. I’ve never felt that way, that weak before. I could stand up to my brother. When my father was alive and I got sick of taking his hands, I started fighting back. I was sixteen when I hit him with a cast iron skillet.”
His legs appeared in my line of vision then. Suddenly, his arms were underneath me and I was in the air. I gasped, wrapping my arms around his neck. “What the hell are you doing?”
He scanned my face, my tear tracks. There was no doubt my makeup was shot to hell. “Taking a seat,” he whispered. He did just that—with me in his lap. Silently, his hands were on me, shifting me just the way he needed, my legs curled on either side of his, my core against his crotch, breasts against his chest. He reached over the side table, nabbed a tissue, and began wiping my face. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed about the way you reacted,” he began softly, his eyes on my skin. “You’re a fighter, Margo. You’re strong in the face of a storm, but it’s okay to admit that some storms are just too big. Some storms leave scars that take years, even decades, to heal. There’s no shame in being afraid of something, someone who hurt you.”
“Storms?” I parroted.
His eyes flicked up to mine. “I grew up in Tornado Alley. Storms can leave scars, baby, even the ones we can’t see.”
“I hate the way he makes me feel,” I admitted.
His hand dropped to my neck, his finger tracing a wing of my butterfly. “When did you get this?” he whispered, eyes on it.
“After I escaped him. I needed something to remind me how far I’d come, that I’d made it out of the cocoon he put me in.”
“I might kill him,” he muttered more so to himself than to me.
“Hayes—”
“If I do that, will you still call me Superman?”
My mouth snapped close, goose bumps spreading across my arms as his eyes lifted to meet mine. I was on fire then, surrounded by his heat. Not a captive, but a welcome guest. When I didn’t answer, he inhaled deeply through his nose before letting it out slowly, leaning back into cushions. A muscle jumped in his cheek, his hands moving to rest on my hips, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “If I take a life for you, will you look at me differently?” he asked, his fingers pressing into my hips.
“You would do that?” I rasped.
A small smile flashed on his face then, giving me a mere glimpse of his perfect white teeth before he turned to look at the window. “I’m afraid there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, Temper.”
I shifted in his lap, clearing my throat. “I think those questions were unfair of you to ask.”
“Probably so,” he agreed, looking back at me. “Nevertheless, I don’t mind begging for those answers.”
“And if I don’t give you the answers you want?” I challenged him, my voice uneven.
“Then I’ll have to live with it just like everything else.”
What? What the hell does that mean?