Page 27 of Caution to the Wind

Slim fingers pinched my stubbled chin, wrenchin’ my gaze to dark, fathomless eyes ringed in thick, straight lashes. “Stop that.”

I cocked a brow in question.

“Brooding,” she clarified, releasing me to focus on her task. “I don’t know why girls think it’s hot. I think it’s just pouty.” She peeked at my expression and laughed at my scowl. “There we go, that’s much better.”

“You’re a brat.”

She shrugged one shoulder and fell to her knees in the bracket of my spread thighs to get close to the stab wound. It leaked blood down my left side into the growin’ stain at the waistband of my jeans. The sight of her down there made me irrationally irritated.

“I said I can do it,” I growled, grabbin’ her wrist as she made to stitch me up. “Get up from there.”

“No.” She wrenched her hand away and flashed me a look so cold with determination it chilled me. “Even big, bad bikers need someone to take care of them sometimes.”

I scowled but leaned back to let her proceed, avertin’ my eyes so I didn’t have to watch her dark, silky head so close to my groin. It made me uncomfortable, edgy, and irascible in a way only Mei could do. The first press of the needle made me stiffen, but I didn’t make a noise. A little stab wound was nothin’ compared to the shrapnel from an IED in Afghanistan that had nearly ripped my right side to shreds.

“What happened?” she asked softly, noble fingers makin’ quick work.

I closed my eyes, head thuddin’ back against the wall. “Paper cut.”

She made an unimpressed noise at the back of her throat. “You know, I’m not a kid anymore, right? I know more than you think I do.”

“Oh yeah? Brian tell you some of that?” I asked darkly.

I knew she shrugged flippantly even though my eyes were shut. “Maybe. I know The Fallen are serious business. Most of it bad.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“I know you,” she murmured, softer still. A sudden weight on my right thigh had me stiffenin’, eyes flashin’ open to see Mei perched on my lap, medical tools abandoned, one hand raised to press lightly against my bare chest where my heart thrummed too strongly. “I know sometimes the ends justify the means.”

“You don’t know shit,” I repeated cruelly, my stomach turnin’ over on itself, so I thought I’d be sick with anger and guilt. I pushed her off me none too gently even though it made my fresh stitches pull. “You’re not my confidante, Mei, or my daughter. I don’t owe you any explanations so stop crowdin’ me.”

Hurt flared in her expression for a moment before collapsin’ into that calm mask she’d been perfectin’ for months. “Right, well, I’ll get out of here and stopcrowdingyou then. Tell Cleo I’ll see her at school.”

She turned on her heel swiftly, hair archin’ out behind her like a short black cape.

Made it three steps before I cursed myself for bein’ such an asshole.

“Rocky,” I called, on my feet and movin’ quickly despite the sharp pain in my side.

She didn’t stop, but I caught her anyway, tuggin’ her back against me so I could enfold her in a full-body hug. After a second of huggin’ a plank of wood, she softened back against me and turned her nose into the crook of my arm. I felt the cool dampness of tears on my skin and cursed myself again.

“I’m an asshole,” I told her, restin’ my chin on the top of her head.

“Yeah,” she agreed easily, but her hands came up to clutch at my arms. “But you’re our asshole.”

“I am,” I said, even though this was dangerous.

I’d stopped huggin’ her like this, touchin’ her easily and casually the way I did Cleo about the time she started formin’ from a girl to a woman. She didn’t do anythin’ for me that way. She was a kid, Cleo’s best friend, a responsibility I felt too acutely to develop any other feelings for her, but it was good practice to distance us a bit.

It hadn’t really occurred to me that she might miss this, a simple hug. A gesture to prove she wasn’t alone. Daiyu was a hugger, but she was too weak to hold her daughter the way she wanted to, and Florent was too preoccupied with work and his own mad grief to think of comfortin’ Mei and she would never, ever ask for it.

Her pride and the scars from losin’ Kate wouldn’t allow her to.

So, in the kitchen in the middle of the night, blood from my wound wettin’ her tee, my entire body an oversized bracket for her slight frame, I hugged her tight and let us both have the moment of connection we craved.

“I trust you,” she said softly, so softly I could barely hear the words. “I trust you, even if you don’t, Henning. I know you’ll always do the right thing. It’s what makes you so broody. A hero doesn’t mean being a man who never does any wrong. It means being a man who seeks truth and justice no matter the consequences. I know everything you do is to get justice for Kate and to keep Cleo safe.”

A pause, pregnant with the weight of the secrets no seventeen-year-old girl should have. Her short, black nails dug into my forearm. “I know because I feel the same way.”