Yet the idea of being completely alone didn’t feel good either. I had always been alone, and I was tired of it.
But I was not his to protect. I was just another woman they’d saved, but now it seemed like I’d landed myself in another predicament.
I trusted Grim. The tiniest part of me liked that he stood up for me and took me away when I felt uncomfortable.
But my heart knew what could happen when you placed too much faith in those that tried to act as if they wanted to help you. They crushed it. They sold you to the highest bidder and acted like you were dead.
Would Grim be like that? Crush me? Break what little of me was left?
One lone figure walked out of the church behind us. Locke pulled out a cigarette, taking a drag from it until he had inhaled half the stick. His strides were long, heading straight towards us. I opened my mouth, but Grim and his caveman tendencies grunted in disapproval as he continued to walk further away.
Grim laid me on the bed once we made it back to his apartment. He wrapped a blanket around my shivering body as he sat beside me. He gazed at me with such tenderness. I couldn’t believe I was staring up at the same man that had beat up his friend just minutes ago.
Trust him.
That same little voice whispered in my ears. To trust him, to give him a chance. But could I truly give him a chance with a past like mine? Could I fully trust him despite all his noble actions in the past twenty-four hours?
Blood, already drying thanks to the harsh afternoon wind, stained his face.
I had been rescued from hell on earth because all these bikers had saved me from those evil men that exploited me. But I hadn’t been freed, and I was unsure if I was happy or sad about it. Where would I have gone if Grim had let me walk out of that church alone today?
I stiffened, smelling the remnants of a cigarette.
“A word, Grim?” Locke flicked the butt on the other side of the open door.
Grim’s jaw tightened. Glancing down at me, he gave me a look that told me to stay. I nodded slightly because where the hell would I go? I had nowhere, and Grim seemed to be on my side.
For now.
Grim strode to the door, taking off his jacket and vest and leaving them on one of the two kitchen chairs. He stood in the doorway, turning to see me sitting on the other side of the room. He nodded his head, toward me and shut the door keeping me separated from their private conversation.
What the hell was happening?
I could easily be trading one bad life for another. Now I was a prisoner stuck in a studio apartment with a man who claimed me as his. Who really says “mine” anyway?
A neanderthal.
But he was my neanderthal.
What the hell!?
I shook my head. With Grim right on the other side of the door, it ate at me. Why did I care? Why did I miss it when he didn’t have his arm around me? He was everything I despised. A man. A man could easily overpower you physically, and Grim seemed to be the worst of them all.
He’d killed people and beat up his friend.
He was rugged. Tattoos covered his body. His forearms were as big as my damn thighs, for heaven’s sake. I had seen men like him on the other side of the camera, shamelessly showing things I never needed to see and then watching me.
I trembled.
That was a time I couldn’t go back to—rid it from my mind and never bring it up again.
But it isn’t that simple now, is it?
Grim was unusual. He was the strong and silent type. When he spoke, people listened, and everyone, except for Sizzle, took that seriously. They were all going to leave me alone, but because he said, “mine?” And what was that word they used? Scented? Is that some biker gang slang word for putting the claim on me?
I wrung my hands between my legs. The tick in my eye had returned, which was surprising since it hadn’t happened yesterday. It would tick, tick, tick, throughout the cam girl calls, but they weren’t paying much attention to my face.
It drove my mother crazy. She would try to slap it out of me some days, but I couldn’t help it. That’s when she thought the demon would rise from inside me, telling me to do something awful to her and the rest of the family.
