Caged (Defiant Kings, #1)

by Bella Matthews

he holds my door open, then rounds the front of the car and gets behind the wheel. The twenty-minute drive back to his house feels more like twenty hours. He never looks at me. Never speaks to me. Nothing. Not a single word. And I hate every minute of it, but I have no idea what I did or if he’s even mad at me. By the time we pull into his garage, I want to scream, and that kind of outburst goes against every instinct I’ve ever had. Once Hudson turns the car off, I decide to take my chances and turn toward him. “I’m—” “Nope.” He opens the door and gets out of the car. “We’re not doing this yet.” Then he slams the door behind him, and I watch as he stomps up the stairs and goes inside. What? Is he kidding me? I follow him into the house, my own anger growing as I try to decide whether he’s mad at me or just mad. And there he is, leaning against the counter in the kitchen with his head hanging low. “Hudson—” His head snaps up, and those dark eyes hold me hostage. “Don’t, Madison. Don’t speak. Not yet. You have no fucking clue what you did tonight.” I tentatively step into him, forcing his head up and ask quietly, “What I did? Explain to me what I did. Because as far as I can see, the only thing I did was remove the two of us from the situation.” Hudson swiftly picks me up and deposits me on the counter, so we’re eye level with each other, then cages me in. “What you did was put yourself in the mouth of the goddamned lion, Madison. You put yourself between two trained fighter...