Chapter 157
[ 500 words ]
Chapter 157:
Caroline choked on a breath. She rolled her eyes hard in the dark, but the tight, angry lines around her mouth involuntarily softened.
She rested her chin on his shoulder and watched the dark silhouettes of the trees sliding past them.
A strange, heavy sense of peace washed over her. She hated his control, but she couldn’t deny the physical reality of his protection. When the hospital staff attacked her, he destroyed them. When her parents betrayed her, he took her away. And now, when her feet bled, this terrifying man willingly became her beast of burden.
Caroline closed her eyes. The heat radiating from his skin seeped into her bones. The thick, defensive walls around her heart cracked open just a little wider.
She stopped holding her upper body stiff. She let her arms slide forward, wrapping them securely around his thick neck. She let her full weight sink against him.
𝗧rе𝗇𝖽𝘪𝗇𝗀 n𝗈𝘷e𝘭𝗌 o𝘯 𝗴a𝗅ոo𝘷𝗲𝘭𝗌.c𝘰𝘮
Jarrod felt the sudden, trusting surrender of her body. His hands tightened around her thighs. In the cold Washington night, his eyes softened into something dangerously close to devotion.
Jarrod carried Caroline smoothly past the final intersection. The towering, glass-and-steel structure of his ultra-luxury apartment building finally came into view.
Caroline lay heavily against his back. The cold night wind tangled her hair, but her core was completely enveloped in his heat. The rhythmic sway of his walking and the absolute, terrifying safety he provided began to drag her consciousness down into a thick fog.
Hovering in that vulnerable space between waking and sleeping, the massive question that had been suffocating her finally broke free.
“Why me?” Caroline mumbled. Her voice was soft, muffled against the collar of his shirt. “Washington is full of perfect, wealthy socialites. Why pick a nobody with a target on her back?”
Jarrod’s heavy boots faltered for a fraction of a second. The question pierced straight through his armor, hitting the darkest, most obsessive corner of his mind.
He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t tell her that he had seen the lethal, bloodthirsty predator hiding behind her nurse’s uniform, and that he was completely, hopelessly addicted to her hidden claws.
He resumed his steady pace.
“Because,” Jarrod said, his voice dropping into a harsh, gravelly rasp, “my men reported what happened in that ICU. When other people are faced with a loaded gun, they scream and cry. You grab a surgical scalpel and aim for the throat.”
Caroline heard the answer through the haze of sleep. A bitter, cold sting hit her chest. He didn’t want a wife. He wanted a tactical asset. He wanted a human shield who wouldn’t panic in a warzone.
“Cold-blooded capitalist,” Caroline whispered. Her eyes fluttered shut, and the sheer exhaustion of the day finally pulled her under. She fell completely asleep against his back.
Jarrod listened closely. Her breathing shifted, becoming slow, deep, and perfectly even.
He slowed his pace. He glanced over his shoulder, ensuring Bell and the armored SUV had parked out of sight. He didn’t want the sound of the heavy engine waking her up.
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