Page 28 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

I have no right to be but I’m fuming.

That fucking presumptuous asshole from the bar. Flirting with my girl?

She’s not my girl.

Still, I told him he wasn’t good enough for her, and he didn’t heed the warning. Then, Lara told me where my place was. She can do what she wants. She can. She can flirt, make jokes… and share any piece of herself she pleases even if my chest says they all belong to me.

But then why do I feel like throwing my fist through a brick wall?

Better yet, his face.

I asked Santi about the guy. He was at the Cantina that night and saw the whole run-in. Said he’s new in town. Doesn’t know anything about him. Too soon for the rumor mill to get grinding.

The pharmacy door bangs shut behind us. I stalk out into the early evening, every step too fast and too hard.

Lara’s trying to keep up, her breaths ragged, her little legs a blur behind me, but I can’t slow down.

Not now. Not when the thought of her with that jackass bar-crawler-cum-pharmacist is tearing at my chest like barbed wire.

“G…” My name is a plea to wait up.

I slow down. I’d do anything for this woman, but there are some things I can never give her and will always want to.

Why? My mind pleads with God. Why do you keep putting her in my arms only for me not to be good enough to hold her?

“G. Slow down…”

She knows I’m pissed. I’m not hiding it. I turn, intending to keep my cool, but instead, all that comes out of my mouth is a bite.

“Give me your bag.”

I have no patience left. Least of all with myself for not offering to carry it before we left. I’m losing my manners. Mom would’ve had my head if she were still alive.

“I can carry it,” she protests, breathless.

“Lara.” I grind out her name, jaw tight.

She hesitates, then shoves it into my chest. I take it, my fingers flexing around the straps like they’d rather be on her hips, pulling her in, keeping her. Keeping her safe. Making her mine.

She tries to keep pace, but my steps eat the sidewalk in angry strides.

“G. Seriously. What is this?” Her voice cracks around the edges.

I whirl so fast she nearly crashes into me. My chest heaves with every breath, my lungs burning. She’s too close. Close enough I can see the worry in her eyes, close enough I can’t hide from her. None of it. None of the possession I feel. None of the crave…

I want to turn back around, not let her see me like this. It’s unfair. I’m the one who asked to be friends, right? So I need to fucking act like one.

She deserves better than the silent treatment, even if I’d rather bury this fury than let her see the way it tears me apart.

“Gabriel?” She raises her eyebrows.

“It’s him, all right?” I say, harder than I want to. “It’s the way he looked at you, like you were some… toy he could play with.” My throat is raw. I clench my fists, trying to hold on to the last thread of control.

“He doesn’t matter,” she insists, but somehow her words are still laced with defiance. “At least he shouldn’t—”

“It’s not just him, Lara. It’s me. It’s the way…” My breath catches, ragged. “The way I can’t stand the thought of anyone else having you.”

I turn, needing to escape before I shatter in the middle of the sidewalk. Not in this town with its prying eyes and the Mendez name on everyone’s lips.

She chases me, footsteps a soft echo behind me. I hate myself for leaving her in the dust, but I can’t let her see me like this. Especially now. Especially when she knows every piece of me I’ve tried to hide.

Not to mention I’m losing my mind and I need to be on point watching dark corners for Cameron and his fucking smoke bombs. I slow my steps, knowing I can’t leave her behind me… goddamn it…

“Gabriel,” she calls.

I stop completely, allowing her to catch up, but I don’t turn. I can’t stand to see her struggle to breathe, but I still can’t let her see me unravel completely.

I walk more slowly this time, keeping us step in step but not daring to make eye contact.

We pass Pages and Perks, Penelope flipping the sign from Open to Closed, and I catch her wide eyes peeking beneath it as we hustle past. I reach the top of the metal stairs to Lara’s apartment and fumble with the keys, my hands shaking.

“Gabriel,” she says, just behind me. “No one has me.”

I slam the key into the lock, the metal rattling with force. I could’ve kicked the damn door in. I throw her bag on the chair by the door, my teeth nearly ground down to dust.

I instantly sense the place is empty. Thank God Freya is still at the coffee shop. It’s embarrassing how out of control I am. Hardly the picture of a top-end bodyguard.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter.

She shuts the door behind her. “That’s not your decision alone to make,” she fires back, cracking with frustration. “You can’t act like this and then just shut me out. We said we were friends. Talk to me.”

I boom, like thunder. “I don’t want to be your friend, all right?” The words rip through me, every syllable a confession I can’t take back.

Her eyes widen with hurt.

“What do you mean?” she asks slowly.

I step forward, crowding her until her back hits the door.

I brace my arms on either side of her, boxing her in.

“I don’t remember the last time I just wanted to be your friend, Lara.

” My voice is all gravel. “That’s the problem with all of this.

With us. I can’t be the man you need me to be but I can’t be just a friend.

” Her body heat on mine consumes me and every shred of restraint I have left. “I want too much.”

I close the gap, forehead pressing to hers, our breath mingling, hot and uneven.

My heart’s pounding like a fucking war drum.

“I’ve always thought I could survive the wanting.

But since high school, hell, maybe even before, when I see another man look at you, like you’re his for the taking, like he has any right to you…

Goddamn it, Lara. I want to tear him apart. ”

And I have torn men apart. More than once. She knows that. Now she knows it was more than protection.

It was a silent claim.

Her tongue darts out over her lip, leaving it wet and pink, and I can’t stop staring. I’m losing every ounce of control I’ve spent years building.

My hands snap to her hips, gripping hard. “I accepted that you would haunt me softly for the rest of my life,” I rasp. “Now that you’re here, in the flesh… I don’t know how to hold it all together.”

She runs her finger down my chest. “Then don’t,” she dares.

A single thread of restraint holds on. I told myself a thousand times that she was off-limits. That I’d keep her safe, even from me. That I’d be the brother’s best friend who didn’t cross the line. But now I’m so far past that line I can’t even see it anymore.

Her fingers clutch the fabric of my t-shirt, and she stands on her tiptoes so her lips are close to mine. “Just do it.”

That single thread isn’t enough.

It snaps.

I crush my mouth to hers, hard, desperate, messy. Heat explodes between us. I pin her against the door, wrapping my hands around her wrists, pressing them above her head. My mouth devours hers like I’ll never get another chance.

The world vanishes. She moans, a sound that rips every bit of sanity from me. She deserves better than this. She deserves better than me.

Why can’t I stop myself? Why does everything about her, about us, feel inevitable?

“You have no idea,” I snarl against her lips, my voice a wreck of want, “how bad I want you.”

“Then take me,” she breathes into my mouth. “God, G… fucking take me.”

I seize her mouth again and dance my tongue around hers. I lift her, her legs wrapping around me, pressing her against the wall so hard a picture frame rattles. I’m beyond control. I’m beyond reason. I’m beyond everything but her.

I clutch her ass and turn, crashing into the dining table. A glass falls, shattering at our feet. She jerks, eyes blazing like she’s going to shatter, too. And I want her to.

But I told myself I’d let her go. I promised I’d protect her from every kind of damage, even me.

But I can’t protect her from me tonight.

I’m pure emotion.

Pure desire.

Pure animal instinct.

She is my soulmate. The only one my body is greedy for. The only one my heart needs…

My hands are everywhere, in her hair, on her throat, gripping her hips so tight she gasps. I can’t get enough. I’ve never wanted anything this much. Not even close.

Every second with her is a battle between wanting to worship her and wanting to own her. She deserves tenderness. She deserves a man who can be gentle. But I can’t be that man right now.

I scoop her up, my hands on her firm ass, still kissing, coming up only to ask, “Can you handle this?”

“Yes…” she murmurs between our lips.

I carry her down the hall, every step a war against my own sanity. My cock pushes on my zipper. I kick open her bedroom door, throw her down like the prize she is, covering her tiny frame with mine, pressing my hips between her legs with a force that makes her gasp.

“Gabriel…”

My name is airy and intimate on her tongue and my heart explodes.

She’s said my name a thousand times before, on playgrounds, on horseback, in hospital rooms, across dinner tables. But never like this. Never like it’s the only word left in her lungs.

“I love how you say my name, Firefly,” I growl, ripping at her jeans with a violence I don’t even recognize in myself. “Now I want to hear you scream it.”

Her fingers claw at my shirt. “Then make me,” she fires back, dirty and fearless.

I yank her shirt over her head so fast the seams pop. She gasps, but her eyes blaze like a challenge. She’s not afraid. She’s daring me to let go. To show her everything I’ve been fighting to keep inside.

“Fuck,” I growl, shoving her jeans down her legs. “If your mouth tastes this good, I can’t wait to bury my face in your pussy.” I drink in the sight of her bare skin. “I’ve jacked off to the thought of this body more times than I can count.”