Whoa, he’s not even mine. Doesn’t matter what he says, I’m not anything to him. How could I be when I’m nothing. I just need to hightail it out of here and get gone. They don’t need me here and I don’t want to cause them any issues. Especially now with a fifty-million-dollar bounty out for me.
Those men will do anything to get their hands on me and I’m not about to let that happen. I won’t do as they want. I know who it is, and I refuse to work for them. They tried to get me to work for them in the past two years, but I deny them each time.
My work is to help people not hurt them. Well, at least I don’t want to hurt good people, like they do.
Chapter Thirteen
Venom
Sitting next to Lincoln I keep switching my gaze between the two of them. Where my kid is tearing his waffle up and eating the bacon, Amaya hasn’t touched her food.
To say the least she’s surprised me in a lot of ways this morning and none of it she’s said a word about. I sure as fuck wouldn’t have thought she would be the woman Nerd has mentioned, in church, working with in the past. Or that she’s the one he wanted to bring in on finding the men who wanted to auction off the women we’d found months ago.
Let’s just say she doesn’t seem the type, but then again, I can’t be surprised she’s a beautiful woman who is quiet and keeps to herself. For her to do something that could potentially be dangerous, she’s kept herself guarded.
Amaya, at twenty-four years old, seems to have been through more shit than I can imagine, and I don’t even know what it is. I can only sense it in her. My question right now is why the fuck she’s not eating anything on her plate.
I glance from the two people who now belong to me to Whip then Stoney and Tracker. The three of them have noticed this as well. She’s not touched a thing in front of her.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks, leaning forward so she could look at Amaya from her spot next to Stoney.
Amaya nods her head, keeping her gaze cast down to the plate in front of her.
“Sweetness, you need to eat,” I say, urging her to eat.
“I can’t,” she utters so quietly I barely hear her.
“Why not?” Whip asks, piping in.
“Um . . . I . . . um don’t eat meat or, um, anything it touches,” she whispers. I don’t miss the wobbling in her voice.
Fuck.
She’s embarrassed.
Standing to my feet, I look to Whip with the unspoken question for him to watch over Lincoln. He nods and I step closer to Amaya, reach out and grasp her wrist and pull her up. I then guide her out of the room away from everyone else. In the hallway, I turn my woman to face me pressing her back into the wall.
“Is that why you looked like you were going to puke last night?” I ask, thinking of when she’d eaten the pizza.
Amaya nods her head but doesn’t utter a word.
“You want to tell me why?” To this she closes her eyes and shakes her head in answer.
“Amaya, Sweetness, look at me,” I murmur, stepping further into her space. My hands go to her waist, holding her in place and wanting her to feel my touch. Slowly Amaya opens her eyes and lifts her gaze to mine. “You might not want to tell me, but eventually, you will. Right now, I’m going to tell you something and I want you to fuckin’ listen to me good. You don’t hide something like this from me. I’m not going to have you sit there starving yourself because you don’t eat something and it’s on your plate. No way in hell am I gonna have you doing that shit. I want you to be you and no one else. If something’s bothering you, or you’re uncomfortable, tell me. I’m not going to allow you to hide Amaya. You’ve done that enough already.”
With wide eyes, her mouth parts and I release her waist with one hand and lift my hand to cup the side of her face and stroke her bottom lip with my thumb. I tilt my head down and press my lips to hers for the first time, unable to stop myself. I keep it brief, even though I want nothing more than to keep it going.
“Now, how about you tell me what you would like for breakfast,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers.
“Um, I normally eat fruit for breakfast,” she whispers.
“We have fruit,” I murmur and step back and pull her with me. I keep her pressed into my side as we walk back to the main room. I take her over to the table and help her back into her seat then head into the kitchen. I grab some random types of fruit and put them on a plate and went back out to sit down. This time when I set the plate down in front of her, she thanks me and slowly started to nibble the grapes.
“Aya loves fruit,” Lincoln says, gaining my attention.
“Looks that way, kiddo.” I grin and pluck him out of his seat. “You want to go play with some other kids?” I ask him.
“I’ll take him to the playroom. Luca and Corinne are in there playing with James,” Rachel offers.
“Thanks, Rach.” I nod and put Lincoln on the floor.
Rachel nods her head and stands to her feet. She reaches out and takes Lincoln’s hand.
“So, brother, when were you gonna tell us you were a dad?” Coyote chuckles.
Giving him my middle finger, I scoot to the seat right next to Amaya and throw my arm along the
