Sinful Protector

by Mia Ford

  Does that mean that everything will go back to normal when Jesse is dealt with?

  “I don’t know,” Ethan says with a shrug when I voice this question. “That’s something the two of you need to figure out on your own, I guess. Besides, when will Jesse be ‘dealt with’? Even if you scare him off, there’s no guarantee that he won’t come back in the future. Are you going to tie yourself to Allison forever?”

  My heart thumps at the question. Ethan glances at my face and then does a double take, his eyes widening.

  “Shit,” he murmurs.

  “Daddy!” Lily shouts gleefully. “You’re grounded!”

  Ethan blinks and flushes, laughing. “Whoops, so I am. How long am I grounded for, princess?”

  Lily considers this. “For twenty-four hours.”

  “Does that mean Uncle Kyle has to go?” Ethan asks.

  “No way!” Lily says, horrified at the thought. “He’s playing with me, not you!”

  I chuckle and pick up a red block.

  “Yeah, Ethan,” I say. “I’m here for Lily, not you.”

  Ethan laughs. “I see how it is. Then, I guess you don’t need my help with the tower anymore.”

  “Uh…” Lily looks caught. “No, you can help. We need someone to do all the grunt work.”

  I snort.

  “You watch too much tv,” Ethan says, rolling his eyes. “Do you want something to eat?”

  “Cookies!” Lily says, lighting up. “I’ll get them!”

  She jumps to her feet and dashes away. I glance at Ethan. Why did he look so shocked and why did he swear when he got a look at me?

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Ethan’s lips twitch.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “Just…” Suddenly, he laughs. “You know what, you can figure it out, don’t worry.”

  I frown at him, irritated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ethan says, grinning at me. “It’s nothing to worry about. You go and protect Allison, alright? And maybe you should try and talk to her again when she’s calmed down. It doesn’t hurt to try, right?”

  I look at him suspiciously. Wasn’t he just saying that he thought my relationship with Allison was a little weird? Now, suddenly, he’s all gung-ho about it? It’s strange.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I demand in a low voice, not wanting Lily, who is rummaging in the kitchen, to hear me.

  Ethan grins. His face is alight with mirth, and I can’t figure out what he finds so funny all of a sudden. He puts a green block on the tower, which wobbles precariously but manages to stay upright.

  “I have cookies!” Lily suddenly announces, returning with a packet of cookies. “Do you want one, Uncle Kyle?”

  “Sure,” I sigh.

  I decide to ignore Ethan. I don’t know why he’s suddenly changed his tune but, if he’s not going to tell me, then I’m not going to care. I take a chocolate chip cookie and bite into it, ignoring my friend with a scowl.

  “Don’t be like that,” Ethan says with a wink. “As I said, you have nothing to worry about. Just try your best, okay?”

  “At what?” I ask grumpily, but he just laughs again in answer.

  I roll my eyes. Ethan is weird, but he’s not wrong, either. Despite anything else, I am going to try my best to protect Allison. No matter what happens, even if she ends up calling the police on me, I won’t let Jesse get to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Allison

  It’s almost hilarious how Kyle thinks he managed to stay hidden when he snuck back to the apartment last night. I heard his bike coming long before he got to the street, and then he parked himself in an alley across the road, where I can see him directly. It was harder to see him when it got dark…until he pulled out his phone and started reading something on it, washing him and the entire alley in a dim glow.

  Kyle will never make a good spy, it seems.

  I was half-tempted, when I heard him returning, to follow up on my threat to call the police on him. But I didn’t, knowing that I was just being petty. By that point, a lot of my anger had faded, and I started to feel bad for not listening to him. Jacqui had gotten into my head.

  I’m still not ready to talk to him, but I’m content to think things through and then try. The fact that he returned hopefully means that he’s willing to try for an actual conversation, too.

  I almost went to talk to him before he left that morning. But I stopped myself at the last minute, and then he headed off to work, leaving me to get ready for class.

  “So, he came back last night, and you pretended you didn’t see him?” Jacqui asks when I tell her about Kyle’s return.

  I shrug. “Yeah.”

  Jacqui rolls her eyes. “You idiot.”

  I glare at her. “Hey! Why are you even on Kyle’s side, anyway? Shouldn’t you be supporting me in this?”

  “I would if you weren’t being a fool,” Jacqui says simply. She gives me a hard stare. “Look… I saw the way he looked at you on Friday. He looked at you like you hung the goddamned moon, Allison. Fucking Jesse never looked at you like that, you know? But Kyle, he looks at you like you’re something precious, something he wants to keep safe.”

  “I don’t need his protection,” I snap, instantly irate.

  “I didn’t say you did,” Jacqui says, shaking her head. “But he still wants to protect you, no matter what. You told him you would phone the police if he returned, and he still came back. Doesn’t it say something to you that he would risk that just to watch your apartment all night? Damn, how many sleepless nights has he already had because he’s keeping watch over you?”

  I grimace. “I think he’s been dozing in the alley.”

  “So, he’s been choosing to catch a few winks of sleep in an uncomfortable alley over his own bed,” Jacqui says, deadpan. “What does that say to you?”

  “That’s he’s an idiot,” I mutter. I sigh when Jacqui rolls her eyes at me. “Alright, alright, I get it. I just can’t…” I look at her, grimacing. “Do you really think they’ll murder Jesse?”

  Jacqui sighs. “Tell me, Allison. You’re so hung up on this, even though you must know, logically, that they would never do it. So why do you believe so easily that Kyle would orchestrate Jesse’s murder? Is it because you’re frightened you don’t know him? Or is it because he’s in a motorcycle club?”

  “I’m not discriminating against him because he’s in a club!” I say, horrified at the thought.

  “Yeah?” Jacqui challenges. “What if I say to you, right now, that I want to send some of my friends to find Jesse, and that I don’t care what they do to him? I could do it, too, and you know how rough some of my friends are.”

  I look at her. Her eyes are serious. She really could do it, and, it seems, has thought about doing it before.

  “It’s…different,” I say, faltering.

  “What is it that is different?” Jacqui presses.

  I don’t know why it’s different. My stomach drops. Is Jacqui right? Am I finding it so much easier to believe because Kyle’s in a motorcycle club?

  Jacqui shakes her head.

  “Just talk to Kyle,” she says. “If you guys decide it won’t work out from there, then fine. But don’t just cut him cold when you haven’t even given him a chance.”

  “But…” I try.

  “Allison.” Jacqui turns to face me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Is this about Jesse? Are you scared to trust Kyle because of what happened with Jesse?”

  I say nothing. She hit the nail on the head. Jacqui sighs.

  “Okay,” she says, nodding. “I think I understand a little more. This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to take Kyle on a date.”

  “What?” I ask, shocked.

  “And on this date, the two of you are going to talk,” Jacqui says. “Hear me? You need to get things out into the open. And you need to learn more about each other. You can decide what you want to do then.”

&
nbsp; I inhale deeply and let it out slowly. She’s right. I nod to myself. After college, I decide, I’ll track Kyle down and talk to him. It won’t be hard, after all.

  I’ll probably find him right outside my apartment.

  I hear the roar of Kyle’s motorbike as I get off the bus. He’s a tad early this afternoon, since it’s only four. I draw in a deep breath for courage and walk down the street, setting my shoulders. I can do this. I owe it to both Kyle and myself to do something about this stalemate that I pushed us into. I’ll talk to him and get some answers.

  And then I’ll decide what to do next.

  Surprisingly, I don’t see Kyle anywhere when I approach the apartment. I know he’s definitely here, because I heard him arrive, but for once, he’s managed to hide himself somewhere that I can’t see him. There’s very few places he can be, though; he’s so tall and broad that the alleys are the only real place he can go.

  But I’m not here to play a game of hide and seek. Knowing that he’s probably watching me, I snatch my phone out of my pocket and send a message.

  “Come and talk to me.”

  I hear a phone chime with an incoming message somewhere to the left, but I don’t look, waiting. Finally, I hear shuffling footsteps and Kyle comes into view, looking sheepish.

  “How did you know I was here?” he asks.

  “You’re the worst spy in the world,” I inform him.

  I look him over. He has bags under his eyes, which proves that he’s barely been sleeping the last few days, too busy watching over me to make sure Jesse doesn’t get to me. I sigh. It’s harder to be angry with him when I can see the proof of him running himself ragged for my sake.

  “Were you serious?” I ask him abruptly.

  I see him hesitate. I wound up kicking him out of my apartment last time he answered this question. But I’m calmer today, and I’ve promised myself that I won’t jump to conclusions until I hear him out.

  “I…want Jesse to go away,” he admits. “But! I wouldn’t kill anyone. And I wouldn’t have him killed, either.”

  His expression is earnest. It’s exactly as Jacqui said. Kyle doesn’t care what happens to Jesse. But he also wouldn’t organize something like that.

  “Grant wouldn’t have repeated what I said,” Kyle continues when I don’t say anything. “He would have just told the guys to keep a look out for Jesse, maybe rough him up a little with some threats. Nothing else. I swear.”

  Do I believe him? I want to.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?” I demand.

  Even as the words exit my mouth, I know I’m being stupid. Of course he didn’t explain. I didn’t give him much chance to.

  “Sorry,” Kyle says anyway with a sigh. “My friend Ethan… He told me I was a fucking idiot, that I should have chosen my words more carefully and then not messed up when I tried to explain. All I did was make it worse.”

  Well, admittedly, all he managed to do when he attempted to explain was make me angrier and more liable to believe that he would conspire to commit murder. But…

  “It’s partly my fault too,” I admit. “Jacqui ran me over the coals, too. She said I was being an idiot, even if she understood why I was angry, and that I should at least have let you explain before kicking you out. Also…” I sigh. “I’m sorry I said I misjudged you. I shouldn’t have been judging you at all. How can I judge you when I don’t even really know you?”

  Kyle winces. “Yeah, there’s that, too. I’m not surprised you jumped to conclusions. I’m just a stranger, after all.”

  “Well…maybe not a complete stranger,” I snort.

  We’ve slept together three times by now. One of us should have behaved like an adult and said something instead of just going with the flow. I had planned on talking to Kyle on Tuesday night, when we organized our move date, but then all this happened.

  And I know Kyle wanted to talk to me, too. He wanted to know how I was feeling after the photos at my door on Saturday morning. He wanted to talk before I dragged him into sex, but then we collapsed and watched movies for the rest of the day, ignoring the world, instead.

  Now, however, it’s just awkward. How do you say to someone that you’ve had sex with three times that you want to go out on a date and get to know them? That’s what should have happened first.

  “We really did things in the wrong order, didn’t we?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but that night was just a fluke,” Kyle says, shaking his head. “A one-night-stand. I left your apartment on Thursday morning thinking we’d never meet again.”

  “Then you knocked on my door at two-thirty, demanding that I let you protect me from Jesse,” I say dryly. “After that, you never left.”

  Kyle makes a face. “Maybe I really did become a stalker.”

  “The last few nights certainly suggest you have,” I joke.

  We laugh. It’s tentative, but we’re smiling at each other, and something warm blooms in my chest. I didn’t realize that I actually missed Kyle since yesterday. His absence had left an oddly large hole in my life, and I find myself relaxing now that we’re filling it back in.

  “I guess we were both idiots,” I say. “Good thing we both had friends to knock our heads together.”

  Kyle chuckles. “I had fun trying to explain that one with Ethan’s daughter in the room, trying to take part in the conversation. Lily was horrified to hear that I might get the police called on me, and she automatically thought it was my fault.”

  I snort. “I would have loved to see that. How old is Lily?”

  His smile turns fond. “She’s ten, now. Her mother ran off not longer after she was born. Ethan has his hands full with her; she’s always propositioning other women for him because she wants a new mother. Of course, both she and Ethan are completely blind to the woman who stands beside them, wanting desperately to be part of their family.” He laughs. “Like father, like daughter, I guess.”

  His face is lit up and his smile is soft. He really loves these people, whoever they are. I feel a little jealous of the people that can put that sort of smile on his face.

  “I’d love to meet them all,” I say.

  “I’ll take you around one day,” he promises. “Lily demanded to meet you, anyway, when Ethan told her you were my girlfriend.” He coughs, suddenly awkward. “Though, I know you’re not. I told Ethan off for that.”

  I blink and smile. But my chest clenches at his denial. He’s right, we’re not actually in a relationship with each other. All we’ve done is have sex.

  And cuddled together to watch movies, my mind argues. And didn’t you organize to watch a movie last night? That would definitely have counted as a date!

  “I could be.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Kyle blinks at me and I flush. But, suddenly, I don’t want to back down.

  “Could be what?” Kyle asks, confused.

  “Your girlfriend,” I say, and his eyes go wide. “I could be that.”

  We stare at each other, neither of us knowing what to say. In the end, I break the silence first. I snort and then burst into laughter.

  “Oh my god, look at us!” I exclaim, giggling. “We’re acting like a pair of teenagers!”

  Kyle laughs too, shaking his head. “You’re right. This shouldn’t be so difficult. We’ve had sex. We’ve watched movies together. You made me fucking breakfast and I made you coffee and popcorn. Aren’t we already in a relationship?”

  I laugh harder. “You’re right! Shit, we’re idiots!”

  I’m laughing so hard that tears are coming to my eyes. Because I can’t believe the two of us. I can suddenly understand why Jacqui is so exasperated. I’ve known Kyle for a week and, in that time, I’ve been so drawn to him that it was painful to send him away. Should that be a good enough foundation for a relationship?

  Maybe it isn’t. But it’s good enough for us, right now.

  Finally, we calm down. It’s hard to believe how ridiculous we’ve been, dancing around each o
ther like we have no idea what to do next.

  “So, if you’re my girlfriend, we should probably go on an actual date,” Kyle finally says, grinning at me. “Not that poker parties and movies on the couch aren’t nice, but…I’d like to take you out to dinner?”

  “You asked before I could,” I say, chuckling. “Actually, Jacqui challenged me to go on a date with you. Said I needed to go on an actual date and get to know you a little better before I made any decisions about our relationship.”

  “Sounds like she knows what she’s talking about,” Kyle says.

  He smiles at me. It’s soft and fond, and reminds me, oddly, of the smile he wore when he was talking about Ethan and Lily. I flush and clear my throat.

  “Let’s meet back here in a couple of hours?” I ask. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it tonight. “We can find somewhere to go.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” Kyle promises. “Do you mind if I bring my bike around and park it here? We can walk to the bus from here.”

  An odd sort of recklessness comes over me then. I need to get to know Kyle. That means appreciating and understanding the things that he likes.

  “No, we’ll ride your motorbike,” I decide.

  He shoots me a look. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” I say, looking him in the eye. “Don’t forget to bring me a helmet.”

  The smile he gives me, this time, is giddy, and it washes away some of the doubts that I still have. I draw in a deep breath. I don’t know what tonight is going to bring, but I’m determined to see this through.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Allison

  I’m a bundle of nerves by the time Kyle arrives back, the engine’s roar announcing his arrival. I almost messaged Kyle four times to tell him that I’ve changed my mind.

  But, no, I promised I would do this. I might hate it, and I might never do it again, but I need to experience life with Kyle at least once. His motorbike is his only form of transport, so I would need to get used to it being around if we pursue a relationship.