a halting voice. “One time, it was Halloween. He was about eight, I think. Mitch, my stepdad, had locked me in the closet for some reason—”
She stiffened. “Oh, God.”
“Oh, it was no big deal, I probably deserved it,” he said, his expression faraway. “Anyway, Mitch got blind drunk and forgot about me for about twelve hours. Jesse couldn't find the key, so he got his blanket and pillow and curled up on the other side of the door. He didn't want me to be all alone in the dark. He passed me all of his Halloween candy that would fit under the door. All the flat stuff. Mini Hersheys, mini Nestles Crunch, all of it. He even squashed his peanut butter cups. I tried to make him go to bed, but he just had to keep me company.” Raine's throat tightened. “Oh, Seth.”
He smiled at the memory. “I think I was off chocolate for years after that. But if you're sitting in the dark on top of a pile of stinking gym shoes, and somebody gives you chocolate, you eat it.”
He paused. His fleeting smile faded, replaced by bleakness. His eyes flicked up to hers. “So there you go. That was Jesse for you. Satisfied?”
Raine pressed her cheek against his chest to hide her tears. “Oh, Seth. I think I would have loved your brother.”
“Yeah, well... I sure did.” His face contracted. He jerked away from her, rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow.
Raine draped herself over his broad back and absorbed the racking tremors into herself. Covering and protecting him. She had no idea how long they stayed like that. They slipped loose of linear time. She would have stayed years if it could have healed him. Centuries.
He finally stirred, and she lifted herself up. “Seth—”
“No more stories about Jesse. He's dead now. Let him stay dead.”
She did not flinch away when he grabbed her and rolled on top of her. “Gently,” she said, cupping his face. I don't want you lost in some tornado in your mind a million miles away. Come back to me.”
His body was rigid, his eyes so lost and dark with pain that her throat burned for him. 'Think island sunset,” she urged, covering his face with soft kisses. “Think garlands of tropical flowers.”
He rolled over and pulled her on top of him, gripping her hips painfully hard. “You run it,” he said roughly. “I can't control anything. I don't know how to give you what you want”
She kissed away the tears that had trickled out of the corners of his eyes, rubbing her wet cheek against his hot, scratchy one. “Sure you do,” she told him. “You always have, from the beginning. You're brilliant at it. You're inspired.”
She smoothed the condom over him with a slow, lingering caress, and guided him into herself, sinking down over him, enveloping his burning heat with a sobbing sigh of pleasure. He grasped her waist with a groan as she rose up onto her knees and sank down again, taking more of him. Deeper, bolder. Soothing him with her silken softness.
Raine pried his hands away from her waist and held them out, spreading them wide. She swayed over him in a divine dance of love and acceptance, rejoicing that he finally trusted her enough to be vulnerable; to ask, with arms and mind and heart wide open, for her love and healing. And she could not help but give him what he needed. It would have destroyed her to withhold it.
She wanted to heal all his wounds, fulfill all his dreams.
She wanted to love him forever.
Chapter 23
It was torture to disentangle himself from her velvety warmth, but his back was throbbing where he had slammed it into the newel post, and he was just now starting to notice it, in a big way.
Raine murmured a sleepy protest. “What's the matter?”
“Sore back,” he said. “No big deal.”
She ran her hand across his shoulders. “Take a hot shower,” she suggested, stroking his spine. “It might loosen it up.”
He could think of fifty better ways to loosen up, but he didn't want her to think he was a total sex maniac. He reached back with a short wince and massaged it. “Don't tell anybody, but I'm a little old for stunts like the stairs tumble.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six in about two weeks.”
She kissed his shoulder. “I'm only twenty-eight, you cradle robber, you.”
He leered at her. “Want to take a shower with me, little girl?”
She stretched luxuriously under the covers. “I can't face the cold. And I don't think I can move yet. My bones are liquefied.”
“That's not your bones that are liquid, sweetheart.”
The kiss he gave her could easily have segued into something hot and pounding and delicious, but he dragged himself away. They could always have more sex later. Lots of it. For the rest of their lives.
“Would you like me to call out for some food?” she asked.
His stomach rumbled eagerly at the idea. “Go for it.”
“Anything in particular?”
He gave her a goofy, foolishly happy grin. “I'm not fussy.”
The water pressure was better than he expected in a dive like this. He relaxed under the hot, pounding spray for a long time, and when he came out, she was asleep. He tiptoed around the room, trying not to wake her. He felt like he was floating. Wanted to laugh and cry at every little thought that passed through his mind. He pulled on his jeans and silently scooted the armchair up next to the head of the bed, so he could just sit there and stare, openmouthed, at how beautiful she was. Every tiny detail fascinated him. The faint, rosy flush that stained her cheek was the most heartbreakingly perfect thing he had ever laid eyes on. He could spend the rest of his life exploring her.
And he would. She might not know it yet, but she was never getting rid of him. He was sticking to her like glue.
She jerked awake when the phone rang. She gave him a sleepy, satiated smile as she reached for it. “Hmm? The... oh, yes. Thank you. How much? Ten ninety-eight. OK, thanks ... we'll be right down.”
“Food's here?” He yanked on his boots and sweater, shrugged on his jacket and shoved his SIG into his pants. “I'll go get it.” One kiss, to send him high and flying, and he set off down the dark path in a loose, easy lope. The rain had eased off, and the wet pine needles were springy beneath his feet. It smelled good. He was ravenous.
It wasn't sound that alerted him, because the guy was utterly silent. It was a weird rush of displaced air. A shiver on the back of his neck, like the sigh of a lover's breath—but cold, not warm.
He spun just in time to see a cannonball of darkness hurtling towards him. The glow from the curtained window of their cabin glinted across the dark surface of a long blade, stabbing for his gut.
He lunged back, parrying the stab with a chop of his arm, but the guy was in too close. The tip of the blade slashed down Seth's side, a thin, white-hot line. He spun, slammed his elbow into the guy's jaw, felt the jolt, the grunt. Jerked to the side just in time to take the guy's knee in his thigh instead of his balls, fucking ouch, but no time to feel it, no time to grab for the gun. He was dancing back to evade another slash, then another. Ducking back, parrying. Sliding in wet pine needles, going down backwards.
The attacker followed up his advantage and leaped, but Seth blocked his knife arm and grabbed his wrist. He slammed both booted feet up into the guy's stomach, lifted and flung. The guy somersaulted in the air and rolled smoothly back up onto his feet. Seth rolled back over his shoulder, sprang up and yanked out his gun. The guy's leg snapped out, quick as a whip, and kicked the gun right out of his hand.
The light behind him brightened as the porch light switched on. He hoped it would blind the guy and give him a split-second advantage, because he needed one, and fast.
