Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,62

intimidate me from the moment I saw him, even though I’d been delirious and half dead in the woods.

It was his defense mechanism, I guessed.

Or an early warning system.

“No,” he said finally.

There was nothing else.

I chewed my lip. Sure, this man was definitely capable of murder, but weren’t we all? He might’ve already even murdered someone, or at the very least, put them in a coma.

Also, he didn’t strike me as a man that was completely stupid. Which would’ve been stupid, killing your neighbor, the one you were doing the dirty with.

“Okay,” I said finally.

I got it there. The slight eyebrow twitch.

“Okay?” he repeated.

I nodded.

“No follow-up questions?”

“Were you in love with her?”

His brows narrowed at that question. It pissed him off. “I was fucking her,” he repeated, as if that were some kind of answer to the question.

Which it was.

“Then okay,” I said, turning.

A firm grip on my wrist yanked me back.

I didn’t even fight it, so surprised at the contact. The violence of it. Not that I should’ve been surprised. Had I really thought this man would be any kind of gentle with me?

“You just take me at my word?” he hissed, pulling me close to him. Close enough for his breath to be hot and pleasing on my face.

My body, of course, reacted to this. My brain managed to stay on track.

“Yeah, I take you at your word,” I replied.

His eyes darkened. “You shouldn’t take a man at his word when he says he hasn’t killed someone.”

I rolled my eyes. “Duh,” I muttered. “That’s not what convinced me that you didn’t kill her. You didn’t love her.”

He waited, like he needed more of an explanation.

He obviously wasn’t that smart.

I sighed. “You barely seem to have any reaction to her at all,” I continued. “And sure, you’re a gruff, wild man who I’m guessing is well-versed at hiding anything that resembles feelings, but I’m good at reading people. You liked her well enough. From what I hear, everyone did.” I swallowed more jealousy I felt over the dead woman. Loved and grieved by the town. Great taste. Had this man to warm her bed every night.

Suddenly, and passionately, I hated this woman with the great interior decorating skills. She needed flaws.

“I’m guessing she was a good lay,” I continued, cementing my place as an asshole for talking about a dead woman in this way.

No response. Apparently even the gruff, maybe murderous wild man wasn’t down for talking about a dead woman’s sexual prowess.

“She was.”

I was being harsh, ugly, and Saint was going to match me on that.

It interested me, the thought of them together. How it would work. Sure, I didn’t know her. Not at all. But she didn’t seem to fit with Saint. No, she needed a man named Trevor who made furniture for a living, had a simple mind, and a good heart. What did he want from her?

Maybe the same things I wanted from all the Todds.

“You were fucking her,” I said.

“We established that.” He didn’t sound irritated at my firm grasp on this. Though, I was yet to see him even a little annoyed. He seemed unflappable. But I knew there was a rage there. Simmering. Waiting.

I wanted to be the one to bring it out. Tease out that ugliness inside of him. Surely, he must have had some emotion over the woman he was fucking being murdered in his woods. He was that kind of man. That, “did you look at my woman for a second too long, I will murder the fuck out of you” kind of man.

“You have a sordid past,” I continued.

“We’ve also established that.”

“And you weren’t tempted to use your background to…” I trailed off.

“To find whoever it was that killed her and put them in a grave myself?” he finished for me, voice flat, almost teasing.

“Something like that.”

“Of course I was.”

I should’ve been snarky and sarcastic in the face of such a cliché in toxic masculinity. The avenging of a woman’s death, as if it were his responsibility because she was some kind of property.

That should’ve been the internal monologue I was going through. I was practiced enough.

But no.

It attracted me. Pleased me. That he would be thirsty for violence. To butcher the person who took something from him.

Frustration roused inside of me. I had no interest in solving her murder. That was up to the local police to fumble. Or that’s what I’d been so sure of. But the more I learned about this woman, the longer I