“The alley,” he grits out, eyes narrowed as he stares up at me, then breaks free of my hold and fists his hands in the front of my shirt. “Thewatch. All of itwasa fucking bribe because you wanted me to work for you.”
“What? No, it wasn’t—” He yanks me down right before his damn hard head connects with the bridge of my nose.Fortunately, notquitehard enough to break it, but I do see stars before they’re extinguished by Aiden putting me on my back again. Fuck, he really is big…
No, not the time.
“Wasn’t like that,” I manage to get out, scrambling for purchase beneath him. “That’s not what I wanted.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asks, his thighs on either side of my legs now in much the same position I’d just had over him, although he’s now using his grip on my shirt to pull me up so that I’m inches from that perfect face of his. From those dark brown eyes and that strong jaw and that full mouth that is questioning, “Then whatdidyou want?”
“You,” I admit, figuring I have nothing to lose at this point. “I only wanted you.”
His brow furrows, confusion clear on his face, but at least he temporarily stops trying to finish the job Maddock started. “Why me?”
“Because…” I try to catch my breath, holding onto his forearms as he continues to hold me up. “Because I knew who you were the moment I saw you.”
His expression tenses, his eyes going even darker than they were before. “I don’t do that anymore. I’m not a—”
“A gunslinger, I know,” I finish for him as I lightly pat his arm, a gesture that’s meant to be comforting, although the way his jaw clenches tells me that maybe it’s not. “I know you aren’t. That’s not… I don’t need you to be that. Not for me.”
His eyes are still wary, but he releases me, dropping me against the ground before he lets out a deep breath, rolls himself off me, and flops down beside me. “What is it you want, Cypress?” he asks after both of us have had a chance to recover. “Spell it out, because I’m not looking for another damn employer right now.”
“Why?” I ask, staring up at the lightening sky. “Trouble with references?”
It almost sounds like he laughs, and I do consider it progress even if he follows it up with a “Fuck you.”
“I don’t want to be your boss,” I tell him, trying to think of how to put it in words that he will not only understand but believe—until I get a chance to tell him the words I really want to later. “At least, not all the time.”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see him roll his, but since he stays where he is, I continue, “I’m not trying to offer you a position. I’m trying to offer you a partnership.”
“A partnership?” he asks. “In what?”
In everything, I think.In sickness and in health. In this life. In the next.
“In…in wherever the road leads us,” I say instead. “Fifty-fifty split.”
“For which I would be doing what, exactly?”
I honestly don’t care, I want to say. I’d offer the same if all he was going to do was sit there and continue to look devastating. Chest and shoulders heaving. Disheveled waves on display again since he’d lost his hat in the tussle. Eyes wild…Focus.
“For which…” I begin to reply, trying to come up with something that is not a lie but is also a truth he will believe. “You could keep things from going…sideways.”
He’s quiet, and since I can tell it’s because he’s thinking, I try to be patient again. I really, really do, even though my pulse is skipping more now than it had been when he’d pinned me.
“It’s not my first time,” I say not a minute later, unsure if that will tempt him more or less. “Having things go sideways.”
“You don’t say,” he replies dryly. “I find that so hard to believe.”
“Thought you might.”
He lets out a long deep breath. “You actually want to do what Maddock accused us of? You want to run scams and have me help you get away with it?”
“Oh.” I risk a smile even though it smarts my split lip. Pretty sure my nose is bleeding, too. “I want far more than that.”
“Fuck’s sake, you really are a fucking demon,” he mutters, rolling his eyes again and sitting up so that he can rest an elbow on his knee as he stares out in front of us. I attempt to do the same until doing so results in a resurgence of pain in both my battered head and my bruised abdomen. Something he also appears to notice, likely because of my grunt of pain right before I give up.
He shakes his head, but reaches over to grab my hand to help me until I’m sitting up next to him. Off in the distance in the valley, I can make out the horses, who finally found some common ground by both deciding that the water and grass were much more enticing than watching Aiden and me have a spat.
“Sorry about your ribs,” he says after a while longer has passed. “And about your jaw. And your nose.”