I could make no further move because Merry was so close to me, he was fencing me in.

Even if he wasn’t, he grabbed my wrist, lifted my hand, and pressed it to the wall over my head.

I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and held it, lifting my other hand toward his chest, not knowing if I intended to rest it there in an attempt to calm him or push it against him in an attempt to escape.

I wouldn’t find out because he caught that wrist too, and then both of them were pinned to the wall over my head.

“Is there an us?” he asked.

My breasts brushed his chest as I started breathing heavily.

“Goddamn it, Cher, is there an us?” he clipped.

“I want there to be.”

Fuck!

It came out because he was freaking me out.

Fuck!

“Then there’s an us,” he declared firmly.

Oh God.

He wanted that to be too.

That made me unimaginably happy.

And it scared the absolute fucking shit out of me.

“And there bein’ an us, Cher, that means you’re mine. Ethan’s mine. Are you followin’ me?”

“Merry—”

“Yes or no, you followin’ me?”

I swallowed and it hurt that mid-throat it hitched because I needed way more than my normal oxygen in that moment and shutting my mouth to swallow meant not sucking in air.

“Answer me, sweetheart,” he ordered.

“Yes, I’m followin’ you.”

He adjusted my wrists to hold them in one hand so he could rest his other hand at my upper chest, right at the base of my throat.

This did not mean he was calming down or about to let me go.

It meant something else.

I just didn’t know what.

Yet.

“You’re followin’ me, which means you get me, which means from now on, any asshole phones you, you tell me,” he commanded.

That was when it occurred to me that his motions were claiming.

Shit.

“Okay, Merry.” I thought it sensible in his current mood to agree.

His hand at the base of my throat slid down, and suddenly, I wasn’t uncertain about the situation.

Well, not true. My head still was, but my body was having a different reaction.

“They come to the door, you do not lose your mind on them. I’m not close, you shut the door in their face and call me immediately.”

“Okay, Merry,” I repeated.

His hand kept going down.

“You don’t look after yourself. That’s not your job anymore, Cher. You leave that to me.”

Oh God, God, God, my eyes were burning even as the backs of my knees were tingling.

“Cher,” he prompted harshly.

“Okay, honey.”

“You don’t go it alone, not anymore, not in anything, with assholes like that guy or anybody who tries to get to you, ’cause while we ride this out, you don’t need that fortress. You don’t need it because you got me,” he declared.

I nodded, at that moment, his words penetrating, I was unable to speak.