Page 23 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

“Hijo…” My Dad says. “Can you get me my basting sauce? I need more salsa magica…”

I hesitate, eyes darting to Freya. I can’t read her anymore. I scan the perimeter of the yard, remind myself of the guards dotted around Monarch Hills. Enzo is one paranoid dude and has this place wrapped up like the White House.

But I don’t trust anyone.

“G, the ribs are burning!” His tone has shifted now, and even though I’m thirty-six, he isn’t above clipping me around the ears.

Get a grip, G. She’s fine. This is a family barbecue, not a war zone. Just a minute. Anton is close by, and she’s with Dad…

I pop my beer down and bolt up Dad’s back stairs to the kitchen, racing like a bat out of hell.

The fridge is packed with party food. I shift peppers, avocados, tomatoes, and onions and examine three different plastic containers of goops scanning for the burgundy color I know as my dad’s secret sauce.

Shit. Not here. He probably put it in his basement fridge.

I bolt down the stairs and I’m getting hot. Not because I can’t handle the running but because every second I’m away from Lara is a second too long.

I should have outright refused…

My blood pressure rises, and I swear a vein must be popping in my temple when I finally bolt through the back door again.

I practically Hail Mary the magic sauce onto the table next to the grill, the grill where Lara no longer stands. And before my eyes even scan the area… I feel it.

Panic explodes in my chest like a grenade, shrapnel tearing through every last shred of calm.

I rush over to Anton. “Where the hell is Lara?”

He takes a pull of his beer and glances around. “With Freya.” He lifts an eyebrow. “They’re getting some fresh air in a secure, guarded compound. This is the most freedom she’s going to get until we bring down Cameron.”

I haven’t told him about my Freya suspicions yet.

Fuck. I should have…

He tosses me a look as if I’m overreacting, but gives in to what I’m asking before I need to.

He puts his beer down, instantly on the move with me. We split in two directions. I head off to the front of the house. Anton tears off toward the drive leading toward the gate.

Gates. They’re all guarded, but I don’t trust the guards any more than anyone else. If anyone wants to take someone from this place, they’d go through one of the gates near the paddocks. I run up the gravel path toward the stables.

The barn looms ahead, old wood, sweet hay, a darkness that feels like a trap, and that’s when two voices filter out. Including hers, light, airy, and full of the thrill of a goddamn roller coaster.

She’s okay.

But my relief only last for a beat until I see her with Freya. Freya, who if she truly was a friend, wouldn’t take Lara out of my sight.

“Lara!” My voice rips out of me. Every horse in the place jumps. My boots slam on the ground, wood echoing underfoot as I stalk inside.

She freezes, wide-eyed, lips parted in shock.

Freya puts her hands up. “Gabriel, we were just…”

“Out.” The word is a bullet.

Freya is stunned.

“Now.” My tone is deeper than I want it to be, but the last few minutes have been enough to drive me to dark places.

She scurries out, sneakers squeaking, and I don’t spare her another glance.

I was probably harsher than she deserved, but when Lara wasn’t there… things inside me got ugly. The fear raking hot metal through me doesn’t make room for manners.

I’ll worry about manners later. Right now, all my focus is on Lara.

Her chest rises fast with quick, shallow breaths, and rage steams off her small frame. She was dancing to my family’s music a heartbeat ago, making me believe, if only for a song, that nothing could take her from me. Now she looks ready to strike me down.

The whiplash nearly guts me.

Damn, I would have died ten minutes ago if I could have.

But we’re here now instead, with me acting like an ill-mannered monster with a need to protect what’s mine.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I crack open. “Sneaking off with her? After last night, after that fucking note?”

I glance at the door. Freya’s gone, but her shadow lingers, a threat in the back of my mind. I don’t want to scare Lara. Don’t want her to see the suspicion that’s been chewing me alive when I don’t really have any basis yet for why Freya might work with Cameron or ever try to hurt Lara.

But I’m still emotional and unfiltered.

“She was home when that smoke bomb was planted,” I snap. “She had the keys, Lara. How the hell do you know she didn’t lure you out here so someone could finish what they started last night?”

Lara sets her jaw, and her words rumble out like thunder. “How dare you? She’s my friend. She’s the only one who…”

She shakes her head like she’s trying to hold back from lamping me.

“She went out yesterday. It clearly was planted when she was gone,” she grits out. “I trust her.”

“Yeah? I’ve seen trust put men in cages.”

“Gabriel…”

I cut her off not with words but by stepping closer, every muscle taut. My heart is pounding so loud I swear the horses can hear it. “I turned around and you were gone. Do you think I’m gonna let that happen again?”

She doesn’t back down. “What? So you’ll put me in a cage, too?”

“Maybe I’ll have to.” The words scrape out, more confession than a warning.

Her eyes flare with heat and challenge because she is Xander’s sister, a soldier in a dress, and I might have just started a war.

What I wouldn’t give to end it by locking her in my bedroom, safe, mine, breathing only for me.

“You’re mine to protect,” I grind out. “And I don’t give a shit if you think that’s too much.”

Every cell in my body is screaming to take her. To press her so close she can never disappear again.

She tries to jab her finger at my chest, and I grab her wrist before it makes it there. My pulse slams so hard I can’t hear anything else. Her heartbeat thrums on my fingertips.

She hisses. “You’re only able to watch me because I let you.”

Her hand burns in mine, heat searing up my arm, locking me in place. My head spins, every sense on overload, dragging in the scent of hay and her shampoo, the sound of her sharp breaths, the way her lips part.

God, those lips. The beautiful heart shape they make, soft and slick with gloss. I shouldn’t be thinking about them, not when danger’s closing in. Not when I should be healing this rift of ours with friendship instead of this unhinged need to claim her.

We cannot be together. Not like that.

You’re staying, G.

She’s leaving.

Xander wouldn’t want me bringing broken into her life…

I could stack the reasons why not a million miles high, carve them into stone, etch them into my own skin, and still my cock presses hard against my zipper, still my lips ache to crash into hers.

We’re too close, but I can’t make myself let go.

She yanks her hand back, but there’s no real fight in it, and I hang on for a beat longer, refusing to let her slip. The spark of challenge in her shifts. Her lips part, just barely, and the fire in her gaze turns molten, sliding into something else.

Something like permission.

Her hand flexes in mine but she doesn’t try to free it from my grip. It feels like a yes, even though she hasn’t said a word.

And every part of me wants to seize it—her, us, everything I buried years ago but never stopped guarding.

Strands of blonde hair have slipped free, framing her wild pixie eyes. Her body sends a warm current along my skin, static and dangerous. I shouldn’t want her like this. I shouldn’t want her at all. If one kiss hurt us that much back then, doing more would kill me.

She deserves better.

I lean in, my mouth hovering a breath away from hers, every muscle screaming to close the distance while my chest coils tighter with restraint. For one suspended moment, I almost stop myself.

Almost save us both.

“I’m not losing you,” I murmur, voice rougher than I mean it to be.

She swallows hard and lowers her gaze, lashes sweeping down. “I’m not yours to lose.”

“Lara…” I raise her hand above her head and guide her two paces back until she lands softly on the solid wood between two stalls. I tip her chin up with my knuckles, forcing her to see me, to see the truth.

“You’ve always been mine.”

And then my lips are on hers, inevitable, as if I was never going to stop myself.

It’s not a kiss. It’s a wildfire. Teeth, heat, desperation—everything I’ve been holding back ignites at once. My hands are on her, her delicate jawline, in her hair, on her waist…pulling her so close I can’t tell where she ends and I begin.

She gasps, her hands fisting in my shirt, and I press her against the stall door. The wood makes a soft thud behind her when I thrust my hips between her thighs, seeking more contact. The musk of horse and her perfume fills the air.

“Gabriel…” she breathes into my mouth.

I want to do more, pleasure her, anything that will make her say my name like that again.

It’s the most dangerous sound I’ve ever heard. Because she’s talking to the man I once was, or the one who’s been buried. But it’s like her voice alone can raise me from the dead.

I grind against her, every muscle trembles with restraint and need.

She’s so much smaller than me, but she moves with fearless fire writhing on my body, stronger than she looks.

I tangle my fingers in her hair, cradle her jaw with my palm, and take her mouth like she’s the last thing I’ll ever taste on this earth.

And underneath the hunger, I try to be sensible, to know this could fuck everything up when we say goodbye again.

It’s everything I swore I’d never let myself take.

I cup her breast outside her sweater. It’s pert, and my hand enjoys every inch of it. Her hand slides lower, my lungs still, and before I can brace myself, she undoes my belt. I’m hard as steel, straining for her, every pulse of blood a countdown to ruin.

Her delicate hand slips past the waistband, and the world fractures.

My balls tighten, my body jolts… too fast, too hard, unstoppable. My eyes slam shut, my forehead drops to hers, and I shudder violently, trying to hold back the release that tears through me.

Her hand stays knotted in my shirt, not pushing me away, not pulling me closer, just holding me in the wreckage, and she keeps her hand on the outside of my boxer briefs until I’ve released every last drop.

And then the world slams back.

The dust of the barn. The whicker of a horse.

I force myself to lean back just enough to see her flushed face and wide eyes, lips swollen and bitten from my kiss. She’s beautiful, ruined, perfect. And I’m wrecked.

Because this is what I’ve wanted for years, and it’s also the one thing I can’t have.

She pulls her hand from my pants with a wicked little grin, but her smile falters when she sees my eyes. I know Lara uses humor to get through heavy situations but I can’t this time. My heart is still floating somewhere outside my chest while it was trying to get closer to her.

I press my lips to the top of her head, just needing to hold her, even though I know it’s wrong. “That was…”

She rolls her eyes, the corner of her mouth quirking with another attempt to ease the blow with humor. “Wait until I leak this story to the Echo Valley Gazette.”

I should laugh. I should let her make it easy. But my ribs are splitting open, my chest hollowed by everything I can’t say.

But the truth claws its way out anyway, ragged and raw. “You have that effect on me, Firefly. Being with you is something between losing my mind and finding my soul.”

Her breath falters, lips parting like she’s on the edge of something fragile and dangerous—something that could unmake me if she said it.

“G!” Anton’s voice cuts through the barn.

We break apart like teenagers caught, scrambling. I yank my belt closed, she smooths her hair.

Anton leans on the doorframe; his look says everything. He knows and he’ll never let me forget it.

“Your dad said the food’s getting cold.”

I nod tightly. “Be right there.”

Lara shoves her hands in her back pockets, chin tipped up in defiance, like nothing just happened. “Let’s go. Luis worked too hard on the meal.”

She skips out ahead of me, confident, untouchable. Maybe she means it. Probably she’s faking. I can’t tell but now I’m left without her truth. Without knowing what she thought of my confession. Without any clue where to take this mess next.

All I know is I crossed a line. Brother’s best friend to something far worse. Protector to predator.

And God help me—because I don’t know if I’ll ever want to find my way back.