Deadly Oath

17. Kian

17

KIAN

T wo days later, I find myself driving Sabrina to Louisville for a doctor’s appointment.

I said yes, of course, when she asked. I made her wait a few minutes, just to not seem too eager, but it seemed like the kind of opportunity I’d been hoping for to smooth things over. The encounter with the man I’d found sneaking around her house clearly shook her, and I wanted to put it behind us.

I sent the man back to his boss the next day, once he seemed able to walk again. I drove him to the bus line at the edge of town, and told him that I expected that I wouldn’t see him again. If his boss knows what’s good for himself and the men working with him, I won’t see anyone involved with them again.

Sabrina is mine. I’m not going to allow anyone else to touch her on my watch. But it’s clear that my methods have frightened her, and I want a chance to make that right.

Without it, I lose everything. And I’m not willing to let that happen.

She meets me outside, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a loose cream-colored knit sweater that slides off of one shoulder distractingly, making me wonder if she picked it on purpose to torment me for the entire trip. When she comes down the steps, one of them wobbles underneath her foot, and I gesture to it.

“I’ll fix that when we get back,” I tell her offhandedly, happy for another reason to prove to her that I’m just trying to help, and Sabrina flushes as if I’ve brought up some secret inside joke that I’m not aware of.

“Thanks,” she says, getting into the truck. “It almost tripped me the other night, walking outside.”

“Another good reason for you to stay inside at night,” I retort, putting the truck into gear, and Sabrina narrows her eyes.

“Once you fix the step, I won’t have to worry about it, will I?” she retorts, turning away to look out of the window. A smile plays at the corners of my mouth, hearing her bite back like that.

I don’t care about the fact that she sounds irritated with me. The banter just means that our old dynamic is returning, the way things have been since we met, replaced with the coldness that sprang up over my methods of questioning. Now, she seems to have thawed a bit, and whatever reasons there are for that, I’m grateful for them.

I wouldn’t have expected her to be so squeamish about it. Not with what I know about her. But then again, it fits the image I had of her when I first met her. A spoiled, pampered princess, uprooted and put into a hovel. A finely bred creature entirely unprepared for work, or hardship, or to take care of herself.

But since then, I’ve seen glimmers that make me wonder if that characterization of Sabrina was entirely correct. Her determination to root out the source of the sounds that were frightening her. Her continued attempts to make friends in Rivershade. Her willingness to go out and enjoy the local flavor when I took her out on our dates.

And the way she was in bed?—

My jaw tightens, my cock twitching as I try not to linger too long on those thoughts. But they’re hard to banish. The memory of Sabrina on her back, on her knees, arching, moaning, begging—they’ve been with me every day since the moment they happened. She wasn’t a princess in bed. She didn’t behave like a frightened virgin. She was nervous—but she also rose to the occasion, and met my passion with a desire that almost matched how badly I wanted her.

She didn’t want to admit how much she liked my treatment of her, but then again, I’ve known more than a few women who were slow to admit that they liked being treated like a whore in the bedroom.

“What did you do with him?” Sabrina asks finally. “The man you questioned .”

“I sent him back where he came from. Alive,” I add pointedly. “He’ll recover soon enough. And I got what I needed to know.”

“But you’re not going to share it with me.”

“You’re safe, Sabrina,” I tell her firmly. “I’ll make sure of it. I don’t want you to spend all of your time obsessing over this. The man is gone, and I’ll make sure that you’re not bothered again.”

She leans back against the seat of the truck, her lips pursed. I can see her running over something in her head, and she nods finally, letting out a sharp breath.

“I do appreciate you looking out for me,” she says quietly. “I just—I don’t want to be dependent on you. I came here to live my own life. To do things for myself. And you’ve saved me too many times already.”

“Or just the right amount of times,” I counter, giving her a half-grin. Sabrina rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t argue, and I consider that a win.

When we pull up outside of the office building in Louisville, Sabrina grabs her purse. “I’ll go by myself,” she says quickly, before I can offer to come with her. “I’ll text you when I’m done, okay?”

“Sure,” I tell her affably. “Just let me know.”

I hadn’t expected her to want me to tag along, which is for the best, considering the fact that I have an appointment of my own. As soon as I knew Sabrina wanted me to take her to Louisville, I called a contact of mine, arranging to meet up while she was otherwise occupied.

That contact meets me at a small bar in a less savory part of town, one of those dives where, at this hour, there are only two old men hunched over a pint of beer each, muttering into their beers and squinting at the daylight as I open the door to walk in.

The man I’m supposed to meet is at a back table, a glass of water in front of him, a ball cap pulled down over his brow. I slide in opposite him, and he tilts his head up just a little.

“Brady.” He trips a little over the last name, and I don’t blame him.

“Connell.” I lean my elbows on the table, keeping my voice low. “Do you have what I asked for?”

He eyes me from underneath the brim of the cap. “I do. Bit of a strange request, but I’ve got them.” He reaches into the pocket of his jacket, slipping out a folded envelope, and sliding it to the middle of the table. His hand remains on it until I take out a similar envelope, this one filled with cash, and slide it next to the one his hand rests on. He takes the cash as I take the envelope he was holding, and I open it the slightest bit, peering inside.

The pills I asked for are there. I nod, slipping it into the inner pocket of my own leather jacket.

“I’m not going to ask what you need those for,” Connell says dryly. “None of my business, honestly. Is there anything else you need from me?”

I shake my head. “I appreciate you coming through so quickly.”

“Anything for an old friend.” Connell grins, the smile not quite meeting his eyes, and I’m well aware why. Connell and I go way back—he’s part of the reason I was able to secure the sheriff position in Rivershade—but men like us can never quite consider each other friends in the purest sense. There’s always the possibility of betrayal, the weight of too many secrets, the knowledge that we’re both in a world that encourages us to look out for ourselves.

Connell knows what I could do to him, too, if he ever rolled over on me. So I don’t worry about that. But that knowledge, in and of itself, makes true friendship between us impossible.

“Thanks again,” I tell him, getting up smoothly. Connell doesn’t move from the booth, and I can feel his eyes on me as I go. I get back to my truck to wait until Sabrina texts me that she’ll be ready to go shortly.

I’m waiting outside of the building when she comes out. I get out and open the door for her, and she gives me a quick, almost grateful smile as she climbs in. It startles me, and I feel momentarily thrown off as I go around to hop back into the driver’s seat.

“I need to pick up a prescription,” she says, glancing over at me. “It’ll take about an hour before it’s filled.”

“Let’s get lunch then,” I suggest. “I know a few good places. There’s a nice Mexican restaurant nearby, or a sushi place?—”

“Sushi,” Sabrina says immediately. “It feels like it’s been ages since I had that.”

“Sushi it is, then,” I tell her with a smile, putting the directions in. I’m glad she needed to wait in town for another hour. A bit more time with her away from home and the reminders of what’s been happening there is exactly what I need to get things back on track with her.

The sushi place that I take her to is small, a relaxing little restaurant with a trickling indoor fountain and soothing music, along with low tables and the scent of eucalyptus filling the air. Sabrina asks for water and a miso soup when the waitress comes by our table, looking back at me as I order the same.

“Is this another date?” she asks, a hint of teasing in her voice, and I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Do you want it to be?” It’s a loaded question, one that is about more than just this date, and I think she knows it. That chilliness that sprang up between us during the visit to the jail is still lingering, and I want to know if she wants to keep moving forward.

Sabrina bites her lip. “I think so,” she says softly. “I—I talked to Marie. This is all new to me. You freaked me out a little with how you handled things. With that man.”

“More than a little, I think.” I take a sip of my water. “You were pretty pissed at me.”

Sabrina swallows hard, nodding. “I just—I didn’t think you had it in you. To do that to someone. And I didn’t know how to feel about it, knowing that you did.”

“You’d be surprised at a lot of things about me,” I remark, setting the glass back down. “But there’s only one way to find them out.”

“I know.” Sabrina worries at the paper covering her chopsticks, tearing it to shreds, and then breaking the chopsticks apart. “I keep saying I want to take this slow. But I guess I don’t really know what that means, relative to anything else. I’ve never dated before. I’ve never done anything like this before. And we keep blowing past every line that I try to say that I want to approach slowly. So I guess—” She looks down at the menu in front of her, chewing on her lip. “Let’s just take it at whatever pace feels right.”

Her expression is as vulnerable as what she’s saying, and it tugs at something unexpectedly in my chest. Sabrina isn’t the person I thought she would be. I see that more and more with every moment I spend with her—that though she may have grown up privileged, she isn’t the spoiled brat I expected. But in the end, that doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t change anything.

We eat our sushi while chatting about nothing of any real consequence, Sabrina asking me for advice on how to safely use the trails behind her house to run, and me asking her if there’s anything else in her house that she’s noticed that needs fixing. “Your landlord isn’t going to send anyone out to do it,” I warn her. “So you might as well tell me. I’ve heard plenty about the man that that house is rented from—he won’t spend a penny to fix it up if he doesn’t have to.”

Something crosses Sabrina’s face, a fleeting expression that I think I can make sense of, though I keep my thoughts about it to myself. She nods, looking at me narrowly across the table, a bit of that old suspicion on her face again.

“Why would you do that?” she asks quietly. “I’m not going to fuck you in exchange for you doing nice things for me. If we do—that—again, it’s because I want you as much as you seem to want me. So why go to all of this extra trouble? I don’t think you want anything serious with me. ”

She says it flatly, as if she doesn’t care, but I catch the tiny quiver in her voice. She might want to believe that it doesn’t matter to her whether or not this thing between us becomes anything, but it does. I can see that it does, deep down.

A smile spreads across my lips, and I lean forward, careless of anyone else in the room who might be watching as I reach across the table and press my thumb against her lower lip. It’s slightly damp from her last sip of water, cool beneath the pad of my thumb, and she shivers at my touch. “Princess,” I tell her quietly, “you have no idea what I want.”

Irritation and desire both mingle in her eyes. “You’re not going to tell me, either, are you?” she asks, her tone slightly annoyed, but there’s a playfulness in it, too.

I smirk at her. “Not yet.”

Sabrina lets out a sigh as she eats her last bite of sushi, setting her chopsticks down. “We should go pick up my prescription,” she says, leaning back, and I can tell that she’s finished with the conversation for now. Which is a relief, because I don’t particularly want her to keep digging further.

I have secrets, too. And I’m not ready to reveal them to her yet.

Sabrina is mostly silent on the drive home. “Thanks for the ride,” she says as she gets out of the truck, as if she thinks that I’m just going to drop her off and leave her here. Instead, I kill the engine and get out, chuckling as she looks at me with one eyebrow raised.

“I told you I was going to fix your front step, princess,” I tell her, enjoying the look of surprise on her face when I say it. “You really didn’t think I was going to do it, did you?”

Sabrina frowns. “I was waiting to see.”

“Well, now you do.” I go around to get a toolbox out of the back, enjoying the surprise on her face at that. “I’ll handle this. Feel free to go take a nap, or a bath, or whatever you’d like. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

Sabrina looks uncertain, but she nods. “Alright,” she says finally, giving me one more long look before she heads inside .

It doesn’t take me long to fix the step. When I’m done, I go inside to find Sabrina on the couch, reading a book with a blanket tucked over her legs. I pause there for a moment before she sees me, surprised at how relaxed and domestic she looks, curled up like a cat on the sofa. She seems to be settling into her surroundings, and it surprises me that she’s managed it at all. This little house, in this town, is a million miles removed from where she belongs.

Sabrina looks up after a moment, a small smile on her lips as she sits up. “Is it fixed?” she asks, and I nod.

“You can go check if you want. But there’s no chance of you tripping on it now.”

She pushes a piece of hair back from her face, looking slightly uncertain. “Do you—want to stay for dinner?”

“Are you cooking? Because I didn’t have plans to die in a house fire today.”

Sabrina’s eyes instantly narrow. “No, I thought we’d order pizza,” she says coolly. “But if you’d rather go eat dinner alone, that’s fine too.”

I chuckle at that, coming to sit down next to her. “Put your hackles down, princess,” I murmur, leaning in to run my fingers along her hair. I wait to see if she’s going to push me away, if she’s still too angry with me to want me. But I feel her shiver as my fingers brush her cheek, and I know that nothing has really changed between us.

An answering desire ripples through me, and I think Sabrina can feel it, from the way she looks up at me with those wide blue eyes. I can see the uncertainty there, but I can see the need, too. One night wasn’t enough for her.

It certainly wasn’t enough for me, either.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I tell her, getting up. “Order that pizza, hm?”

She nods, picking up her phone. “Any opinions?”

I shake my head. “Get whatever you want.”

Leaving her there, I head down the hall to her bathroom. As I close the door behind me, I see the bag from her pharmacy visit earlier, and next to it on the counter, a packet of what are very obviously birth control pills.

I pick them up, a smirk playing on my lips as I examine the pack. I had a feeling I knew what she was up to today.

And now I know exactly what I’m going to do with her.