Chapter 53: Chapter 53

I should have known better. So he has pretty eyes, so what? So he has manners and a nice smile and a soft voice. He’s still a regulator, he’s still one of them, those men who ride through this war-torn wasteland and control what’s left.

“You don’t get my drift,” he says in that damnably quiet voice of his, and then, when I don’t reply, he wants to know, “That girl? What did you call her, Delia?” Involuntarily my hand closes into a tight fist, a gesture he doesn’t miss. “Who’s she to you?”

“My sister,” I tell him through clenched teeth. “I’ll not have your men stay the night—”

“Just me,” he corrects.

Yes, that’s what I thought.NowI look up and I see the hunger in his eyes, the lust, the need, and dammit the hell, I was right all along. I don’t realize there’s a part of me that hoped he might prove different until I feel my heart twist angrily in my chest. Fuck him.“I guess I can’t really say no, can I?”

He shrugs.