Chase’s hands dropped immediately and a blank look settled onto his face. “Of course. If you want to go get your things, I’ll drive you back to the spa now.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” She didn’t want to see him again. Her hands were shaking. It was all right there under the surface. How had she thought for an instant she could trust them?
“All right then.” He turned. “Benjamin, I believe I’ll skip dinner this evening. Let me know when you put the call in. It doesn’t matter who it is. This op is still on.”
Chase walked out without another word.
And she looked up at the reasonable one. Ben Dawson, nice guy, had a look of rage on his face that made her take a step back.
“You just ripped his fucking heart out, and I don’t know if it can be repaired.”
“Well, maybe he should think about that the next time he acts like an unconscionable prick.” She took a deep breath. What the hell had just happened? One minute she was trying to flirt and the next she’d been fighting for her life. Just like that. She’d been back there. She’d attacked them.
What had she done?
Ben stepped back, his hands up as though he didn’t dare to touch her. “Natalie, he got scared today. We went out to the strip club where we think all the contacts happen for the underground club. We were able to buy drugs and make contacts, but when we left, someone put a tail on us. A man already died and probably because someone at that club killed him. Someone who doesn’t have a problem with hurting you.”
“You two just hurt me.” It was an automatic response. A defense. But his words were starting to sink in.
Ben huffed, his hand scrubbing through his hair in apparent frustration. “If you couldn’t handle that, how the fuck do you expect to survive in a hard-core underground club where Chase and I have to look like badass Doms? It was a test to see if you could handle it and you can’t.”
She’d fucked up. Brutally. Finally. She wasn’t ready for anything. She wasn’t ready for them. Not ready to help. Not ready to love. She’d gone right back to that nasty place she’d been in for years because now she realized she’d never left that cage. Her body was walking around, but everything that mattered about Natalie Buchanan was still trapped in a cage, and she couldn’t get out.
“Well, I can’t handle some prick pushing me around, so I guess Chase is done with me. He can’t handle a girl he can’t put on a leash.” Why did that shit keep coming out of her mouth? She didn’t mean it, but she couldn’t stop. She’d fucking failed. She hadn’t even thought to ask what he was doing. He’d been nothing but kind to her and she hadn’t thought to ask him why he was being a jerk. Hell, he’d told her he was testing her, and she’d just pushed on like she needed to find some boundary behind which the Dawson brothers could neatly be hidden away.
Then she wouldn’t have to come out of her cage.
Ben shook his head, his eyes narrowing in pain. “Fuck, I can feel him. Do you understand that? I can feel his fucking pain, and it’s like a damn knife in my heart. He might look like he doesn’t give a shit, but he is howling on the inside because he loves you.”
He couldn’t love her. She wasn’t lovable. She was too fat. She wasn’t obedient. She was a dumb bitch.
God, she could still hear him.
But now she could also hear another voice. Two, really. Sweet. She was so sweet. She was lovely and sweet like cotton candy.
“I’ll send Logan to drive you back. I can’t look at you anymore.” Ben closed his eyes as though trying not to cry. “He’ll still protect you, you know. I won’t have to ask. That’s what he meant by the op is still on. I’m going to call and get someone down here who can go undercover. We’ll end up spending thousands of dollars because neither one of us can stand the thought of you going to jail. You remember that when you go to sleep alone tonight. We would have loved you, Natalie.”
He stalked off but not in the same direction as his brother. He had his phone in hand, already dialing.
Nat put her hand over her mouth because all she wanted to do was scream.
“Do you want me to drive you home?”
She started, turning. Logan Green stood there. At some point he’d come back and likely he’d heard everything that had happened.
Home? She didn’t have a fucking home. She had a place where she slept and forced herself to eat, and where she struggled to not take a knife to her skin.
She wouldn’t. She would never do that again. She was past it because she’d met two men, and she didn’t need it anymore. It would be a betrayal of them.
Of course, she’d already betrayed them the minute she’d decided they were the same as the criminal who had nearly killed her.
“Don’t worry about it.” Logan stood still, not a muscle of his body moving. “You’re not ready. It’s no big deal. They’ll get over it. So will you.”
Would she? Her brain was still a little foggy. What was she doing? She needed to get out of here before Ben decided to come back and lecture her again. “I have to get my purse.”
It was in the guesthouse—where Chase had gone.
“You’re going to have to actually move if you want to get your purse.” Logan crossed his arms over his massive chest.
“Could you go get my purse?” She couldn’t leave without it. Her little apartment had been trashed. Ben and Chase had immediately gone out and bought her a few things she’d needed like a toothbrush and toiletries and some clothes. They had taken care of her.
“No. If you want it, go get it.” Logan stared at her, those green eyes unmoving.
Bastard. “I’ll get it later.”
She started to move toward the door, but Logan’s voice stopped her. “I want to know how long.”
She turned. Her head was a mire of misery, and she had an aching certainty that she was still making a mistake. “What do you mean?”
His eyes avoided hers. “How long has it been for you because you’re still twelve kinds of fucked up, and I want to know how long because I don’t know if I can stand it much longer. I want Georgia. Fuck, I want her so bad I can taste her. If I was the same guy I was a year ago, I would have charmed my way inside her by now.”
“I don’t see why you wanting Georgia Dawson means we can’t leave.”
“Because I want her like hell on fire and I won’t touch that woman because I’m toxic on the inside, and I want to know how long this fucking thing lasts. How long before I feel like a whole person again? How long before I get to be me again? I have to know.” Logan’s voice came out in a tortured growl. “Because I just watched you throw away a whole lot. Chase is hard and he got soft for you. I don’t think he’ll ever open up again. That’s why I can’t touch that girl. I won’t hurt her the way you just crushed him.”
A little sob escaped. How long? He’d asked how long and she thought she knew the answer. Forever. She was irreparably broken, like a dish someone had brutally tossed to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. No one had thought to sweep her up and throw her away so she continued to cut up the people who came in contact with her.
How long?
Until she finally gave in and gave herself that final cut that allowed her to float away.
Or until she decided to not take it anymore. Not from a dead man. Not from herself. Logan asked how long before he got to be himself again.
“I don’t think we get to go back.” Nat wiped her eyes. She wasn’t sure what had happened to Logan, but the pain was etched in his eyes, in the lines of his face. Chase had told her he was young, barely twenty-five, but he seemed so much older as though agony had aged him before his time. “We can’t be the people we were before.”