“Griller would beat me for the simplest things. If I didn’t get him a drink fast enough, or if I made his food the wrong way. One time, he threw a full beer can at me, hitting me in the back of the head because… well, just because.”
Several expletives fell from his mouth right before he ran his fingers through his hair, flinching when he touched his temple. “We’ll make them pay for what they did to you. Trust me on that.”
Not knowing what to do with myself, I toyed with the bottom of my shirt, plucking off imaginary pieces of lint in order to have something to focus on other than the tightly wound guy wearing a hole in the carpet.
I sucked in a quick breath when he suddenly appeared back in front of me.
“Sorry.” His voice was tense. “I’m gonna make you that sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry,” I whispered.
“I think you need to eat somethin’.”
“I just want to go to sleep, if that’s okay.” My voice was small, fragile sounding to my own ears.
“Sure.” There was a slight pause before he added, “Of course. You must be exhausted.” He pulled down the blankets, fluffing the pillow afterward. When he retreated, he gave me a tight grin. “Get some rest. And don’t worry. No one will bother you.”
I didn’t say a word as I climbed under the covers, pulling them up until they rested under my chin. Watching him walk away tore at a piece of me, and even as the odd sentiment took hold, I didn’t have the emotional strength to understand the notion.
Right before he opened the bedroom door to leave, he turned to look at me.
“I’m Lincoln, by the way.”
“I know.”
Whether he was surprised by my admission, he didn’t show it, instead disappearing and ending our brief back-and-forth.
14
“Hi.”
His voice roused me, pushing away the remaining dredges of sleep. As I pried my lids open, I saw Lincoln standing directly beside me, dressed in jeans but nothing else. For some reason, I glanced down at his feet and saw he was barefoot, the sight comforting. Then my eyes roamed back up the length of him, noticing a few scattered water droplets dripping down his finely sculpted bare chest. The muscles of his arms flexed when he raked his hand through his damp hair. He had a tattoo on his upper right arm I’d caught sight of briefly during his fights, but I didn’t know what it was until right then. If I wasn’t mistaken, the image, which was a skull with flames shooting out from both sides and a large sword slicing through the middle of it, was the same as it was on the back of his friends’ vests, leading me to believe it was their club’s emblem.
I must’ve been dead to the world because I never heard him come in or run the water in the adjacent room. Shifting on the bed, I sat up, dropping the covers only when I peeked underneath to make sure my shirt covered me enough to remain decent. Although, I’d exposed myself to him last night, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me naked.
“Hi,” I answered, finally finding my voice. We stared at each other for several moments, a twinge of awkwardness and nerves mixing to form some kind of other emotion I couldn’t identify. While I didn’t feel like I was in danger in Lincoln’s presence, I remained guarded, and unfortunately… ready for shit to go south.
“How did you sleep?” He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking down at me in a way that made my heart speed up. Without realizing, my muscles tensed, and the air I’d drawn into my lungs was released in choppy spurts.
“Better than I thought I would.” I tossed and turned for quite a while last night before drifting into a dream I could only now recall bits and pieces of.
“Good.” He shifted his feet. “Good,” he repeated. “I’ll let you get to it, then.”
“Get to what?” The expectation of his answer frightened me.
He gave me a half-hearted shrug. “Whatever you wanna do. I found an extra toothbrush in one of the other rooms. I left it on the sink in there,” he said, pointing toward the bathroom. “And there’s plenty of hot water left if you wanna jump in and wash off. After that….” Lincoln’s shoulder bounced once more before his phone vibrated on top of the dresser, flopping around and making noise.
He swiped the screen and held the device to his ear, turning away from me and mumbling something I couldn’t make out.
While he was busy talking to whomever, I looked around for a clock because I had no idea what time of the morning it was.
“I’m here,” he said loudly, disappearing into the bathroom, but he wasn’t gone long. After a few obscenities, he reemerged, this time with a shirt on and his boots in his hands. He sat at the edge of the bed, but before he pulled them on, he rose up and reached into the dresser for a pair of socks. From the angle of his body, his jeans formed around his ass like perfection. I shouldn’t be looking at him like that because I sure as hell didn’t want to see it. If I never saw another naked man again for the rest of my life, it’d be too soon. But still, there was something innocent in my appreciation of him, a hint of an image I’d keep tucked away in the deepest parts of my brain.
When he finished, Lincoln stood up, craning his neck from side to side before pulling his arms behind his back in a stretch.
“I won’t be long.” His teeth toyed with the corner of his bottom lip, and my eyes fixated on his mouth because of the action. “Maddie.”
I tore my gaze from his mouth. “What?”
“I need you to stay in this room until I get back. Okay?”
I nodded.
“I’ll be back in
