Blindsided, page 16
part #1 of Book Two Series
He was luckier than he’d ever realized.
Because this anxious, toxic self-doubt sucked.
He wasn’t guardian material. He was too…self-destructive. Impulsive.
Selfish.
He didn’t know how to care for a child. How to teach Henry everything he should know.
How to be an example.
He was too blunt, too cold. There was no softness in him, nothing gentle or kind.
He was a soldier. A survivor.
Nothing more.
And yet…
I was raised here. In Haven. My mom died in prison, and this place was all I had, and I despised it. When I found out you were here…well. I couldn’t leave you here. It wouldn’t be right.
I’m not what anyone would consider normal…so there is that.
Truth be told, I’m kind of a freak.
Cheyenne’s words suddenly echoed in his head, and he could remember with crystal clarity the look on her face as she’d spoken them: the anxiety and uncertainty in her as she laid it all out, giving him the choice to stay at Haven or to go with her.
She hadn’t been sure, not of anything. She’d just done what she thought was right.
And let the chips fall.
Something he hadn’t truly understood until now.
There were no guarantees.
Not in anything.
But Henry Gordon was not truly his responsibility. Sean was the boy’s uncle; he had a blood tie. Rafe didn’t, no matter what he’d promised Trudy Gordon. Even if Jack had been his best friend; even if Sean was a criminal, who already had one son he was leading down the same path.
Rafe wondered how Sean felt about raising his brother’s child. Oh, he would do it. Rafe doubted many things about Sean, but not that. Sean had loved Jack deeply; he would never abandon Jack’s boy. But whether or not he was the right man for the job—
“And you are,” he mocked softly.
Jesus. What a goddamn mess.
Below him, Henry whimpered again.
Rafe slid off the top bunk and knelt beside the boy.
Tears streaked his cheeks; beside him, Pepper snuggled close, as if trying to ease his grief. Telling the kid his mother was dead had been one of the hardest things Rafe had ever done, and it was not an experience he ever wanted to repeat. It had felt like taking something fragile and delicate and good, and crushing it from existence.
The look on Henry’s face had made him feel sick, and that feeling had clung, heavy and black and cold. Even as he held the boy while he wept; even as he’d tucked him into his bunk and sat with him until he’d slept.
He still felt it.
“Easy,” he murmured when Henry jerked in his sleep. He laid a hand on the boy’s chest. “It’s okay, Henry.”
Sweet pea. That’s what Cheyenne would call him.
Rafe suddenly missed her with an intensity that made his heart squeeze hard in his chest, and he realized all that she’d been and was—everything this tiny slip of a boy needed.
What she’d taught him, given to him.
Expected of him.
He sighed and stood, staring down at the boy.
Too much.
Jack. Ruby.
A biological agent; a suicide mission.
And now Henry.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Somewhere down the hall, the floor creaked, and Rafe stiffened. It was after midnight. After he and Ruby had returned from the park, he’d had to force her to sit down so he could look at the wound on her arm—just a flesh wound, thank God—and then he’d had to tell Henry his mother was dead.
There had been nothing but clothes in the backpack Trudy Gordon had carried, her and Henry’s passports, and a small bag of toiletries, but in the locket she’d given to Ruby had been a photo of Jack and Trudy together—both grinning like love-struck idiots—and behind the photo had been a tiny SD card.
Mickey was still trying to crack the encryption of its contents, but it was only a matter of time.
Hopefully it would prove worth the price Trudy had paid.
You don’t die on me, Trudy, you don’t fucking die on me!
Rafe flinched, remembering the rage and pain in that order.
Ruby’s stubborn determination to save her.
The floor creaked again, and he followed the sound, out of his room and down the darkened hall. He found Ruby sitting in the kitchen nursing a cup of tea. The light over the stove was on, but the rest of the room was steeped in shadow.
She wore a faded USMC sweatshirt—his, which he’d given to her the night they’d arrived, because the clothes in her go-bag hadn’t been designed for Norway in October, which was why he’d bought her a coat, too, a coat now covered in Trudy Gordon’s blood. A pair of gray sweats and thick red socks completed her outfit.
“Hey,” he said and sank into the chair beside her.
“Hey,” she replied and sipped her tea.
She’d been subdued since the park, too quiet and withdrawn. Both Sean and Pete had remarked on it.
To Rafe, she was his. But he was coming to realize they considered her theirs, too.
She’d slid right into place as if she’d always been part of the team.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she replied.
“Ruby.”
“I’ve seen people die.” The words were flat. “It’s nothing new.”
He sat back. “Tell me about it.”
She snorted.
“Come on. Spill.”
She shook her head. But he could see the wild beat of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Her hand clenched on the delicate handle of her coffee mug. Beneath the table, her knee bobbed up and down.
He reached out and wrapped his hand around the curve of her thigh, stilling the movement. “Talk to me.”
Her dark, amber fire gaze blazed at him. “I’m fine.”
“She died right in front of us.”
“You think that’s a first?” Ruby laughed, but it was jagged and painful and ugly. “Leon died in my arms when I was fifteen.”
He stilled. “What happened?”
“He got his dumb ass shot, what do you think happened? It was inevitable. Always.”
Leon, Ruby’s brother and the abusive, relentless bully of Rafe’s childhood; a kid who’d been a gang member when he was just twelve years old. That Leon had died how he lived was no surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said softly.
It took everything to save myself. I had to die, Rafe. Just like them.
“What about your mom?” he asked when she fell silent.
“A year later with a needle in her arm. They all fell, one by one. Every member of my family, six feet under in six months.”
“How?”
“Gang violence. Addiction. Suicide.” Another jagged laugh. “Take your pick.”
She was alone. More alone than he’d ever been.
His hand tightened on her. “And then?”
“And then me.”
Ice slid through his veins. “What does that mean?”
Her gaze met his. “I died, too.”
“Explain.”
“Stray bullet.” She shrugged. “I was walking to school. I died in the ambulance.”
Rafe stared at her, his heart a heavy, sickening thud in his chest.
“The paramedics saved me,” she continued. “Brought me back and saved my life.”
Unable to stop himself, he reached over and dragged her onto his lap.
She struggled, but he only wrapped his arms tight around her and refused to let go.
“Stop fighting me,” he told her. “Just let me hold you.”
It’s been so long.
“Please,” he whispered in her ear, and she subsided, leaning against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, pathetic, useless words that in no way conveyed the depth of his regret.
Or his rage.
Life was not easy or simple or kind to anyone. Rafe knew this, had known it most of his life. But to hear what she’d lost, to understand—finally—some of what had shaped her… All that she’d survived.
Strong and stubborn and brave.
She deserved so much better.
“You shouldn’t be. It changed my life.” She tangled a hand in his t-shirt, her knuckles pressing into him. “Suddenly, I knew who I was and what I was meant to be.”
When she fell silent again, he said, “Tell me.”
She looked up at him, wary. “Why?”
“Because I’m asking,” he replied evenly.
Outside, the wind lifted, whistling through unseen holes in the hostel’s walls. Snow fell heavily outside of the narrow window that sat above the sink.
“I lived in a shelter after the hospital cut me loose,” she said finally. “They offered a free CPR class, so I took it. I didn’t go back to school, because I knew social services would be waiting. I got a job waiting tables instead. One day, I was on the el headed to work, and the man standing beside me had a heart attack.”
“You saved him.”
“Yes.” A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “It was the first time in my entire life that I felt…valuable. What I did made a difference.”
“You made a difference to me,” he told her.
She only shook her head. “His name was Bishop, and after I got my GED, he paid for me to get my degree in emergency medical care, and then he gave me a job to do while I earned my certification.”
Rafe’s gaze narrowed on her. “The Messenger service.”
She nodded.
“That’s a fucking dangerous job,” he said coldly, anger pooling in his belly. “He should have found you something safer.”
“He was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The predator within him stirred. “He endangered you.”
“He empowered me.” Her words were hard. “Messengers don’t happen overnight. There is extensive, intensive training. I have belts in karate and aikido; I can use an AR15, a SIG Sauer, or an RPG. I know French, Spanish, and a fair amount of Russian. I can drive any vehicle, and if I had to, I could probably fly a plane. Can you say the same?”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he smiled reluctantly. “You’re more spook than I am.”
She gave him a dark look.
“You like the adrenaline,” he said softly. “You get off on the rush.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. He realized his hand was back on her thigh, his thumb tracing her shape.
“You’re like me,” he murmured.
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“You are. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“No,” she said again. “Different things matter to us.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want to live.”
Those simple words fell like stones. “And I don’t?”
“I don’t know.” She stared up at him, challenge glinting in her amber gaze. “Do you?”
He stroked her thigh again. She was so close, her body lush and round and tensile against his. Her scent filled his head; her heat curled around him. Everything within him was hard and tight and aching.
He didn’t want to let her go. Ever.
“When I found out why Jack was dead, I understood it was my mission to make sure it wasn’t in vain,” he said. “To finish what he started—no matter the cost.”
“Acceptance is one thing,” Ruby said quietly. “Eagerness is another.”
He looked away, out the window. She wasn’t wrong.
“It felt inevitable then.” He turned back and met her gaze. “It doesn’t now.”
“What’s different?”
You. But he knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“All I wanted was to make up for what she did,” he replied. “And then, one day, I realized it was impossible…nothing would ever be enough. No matter the sacrifice. And all of the fire that’d kept me going just…went out. I was sick of the blood and the killing and the fucked up, never-ending games. And then Jack died, and I realized nothing I’d ever done mattered. When I learned why he’d died…” He shrugged. “It felt like my last chance.”
“How many people have you saved?” she demanded. “What else do you want? What more is there? You change lives, Rafe. And you might not think that matters, but I can assure you, it does. I know, because I change lives, too. And it matters. Every moment of every day, it matters.”
“You save lives, sweetheart. I take them.”
Her hand suddenly flattened against his chest, spread above his heart. “Some people do what’s hard, because they have the strength, and they’re led. There’s no shame in that. There’s valor.”
He stiffened. “I’m no hero.”
“You don’t have to be.” She patted him. “That’s my point.”
He looked down at her hand, so delicate but so strong.
“Henry needs you,” she said. “But he needs you all in.”
“I know.”
“Sean is a good man, but…that boy needs you, Rafe.”
He said nothing, watching her. Her hand on him was making his body throb in exquisite, heady rushes he wanted to feed. He didn’t want to talk about Henry, or Trudy Gordon, or his mother.
He wanted…to feel. To lose himself in her again. To touch and be touched—by someone who knew him. Someone who understood him.
Someone who cared for him.
Selfish bastard.
Yes. He didn’t care. Because he was more than willing to give back everything he took—and then some.
“And what about you?” he asked. “Do you need me?”
She tensed in his arms. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Bullshit.”
She pushed against his chest, but his arms only tightened.
“I need you,” he told her bluntly. “I’m tired of just surviving, of being without. I missed you. And now that you’re here…I’m not letting go.”
Her head was shaking, but her eyes were on fire, and her mouth was trembling. Her hand clenched in his shirt. “Don’t.”
“I don’t care if you believe me,” he told her sharply, even though it was a lie. “I’ll prove it. Every moment of every day, I’ll be here. Doing whatever you need, being whoever you need me to be. And someday soon, you won’t be afraid to fall, because you know I’ll catch you.”
The tear that slid down her cheek made panic lick through him.
“Don’t cry,” he muttered and pressed his mouth against the wet, salty trail. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” she whispered and another tear leaked from her eye.
“I didn’t know what I had,” he told her raggedly. “I took you for granted. I won’t do it again.”
She shook her head.
“Please,” he grated.
“We might not even live through the week,” she whispered.
He leaned back and glared at her. “Hell yes, we will.”
“Because you’ve decided it?”
“Yes,” he told her seriously.
She stared at him, her eyes wet, her pulse a furious flutter in her throat.
“I’m going to regret this,” she said.
And then she pressed her mouth to his.
For a moment, Rafe didn’t understand what was happening. And then he decided it didn’t matter.
Her tongue stroked into his mouth and touched his; her hands slid into his hair and clenched there. The chair beneath him groaned when she suddenly shifted to straddle him.
He couldn’t halt the rough sound he made, or his hands from cupping her butt and squeezing. The wild, spicy heat of her in his arms; her sharp teeth nipping his tongue; her hips thrusting against the painfully hard line of his cock…the pleasure was almost blinding. Her lush breasts pooled against him; her thighs tightened around his. A soft, deep moan murmured in her throat.
His hands slid up under the sweatshirt she wore and found the silken skin of her back, which he stroked, reveling in the freedom to touch her. Her softness.
Her welcome.
“More,” she whispered against his mouth, and his cock twitched. The rush of his blood was like an avalanche roaring down a mountain in his skull.
“Your wish,” he muttered. “My command.”
And his hands slid around her ribcage and traced the delicate shape of her bones, his thumbs just barely brushing the undersides of her breasts. She made another hungry sound and shifted on top of him, grinding the heat between her legs against him, and Rafe let her kiss him again, content to drown in her spell.
He was brute force; fury and passion and need. She was…slow, sensual exploration. Measured appreciation and drawn out, exquisite sensation. And no matter how much he wanted to take control—he wanted inside—he forced himself to follow her lead.
“Please,” she said, and the darkness within him quivered in anticipation.
“What do you want, honey?” His thumbs slid up and rubbed her nipples, his touch bold and proprietary in a way he had no desire to temper. “Like this?”
She arched against him. “More.”
He tugged her and then pinched, just a bite, and she shuddered and said, “Yes,” and then she was kissing him.
Again.
But Rafe wanted more. He tore his mouth from hers so he could shove up her sweatshirt and stare at her. All that dark, mocha skin; bronze nipples, hard and hungry and impatient for his mouth. Like sweet, fresh peaches.
She was perfect.
His tongue touched her first, just a flick, and her moan filled the kitchen.
He knew he should stop; this was not the time, not the place. Anyone could walk in—
“Don’t tease,” she ordered, but her voice broke. “It’s been too long.”
And he put his mouth on her, because she was right, and no matter how much he wanted to draw this out, he was desperate for her, too.
He suckled her, hard. She thrust against his cock, and his spine tingled, and his hands went back to her butt and lifted her against him. Then he bit her, and his hand slid inside the waistband of her sweats so he could stroke the soft curve of her—
“Rafe?”
The sound of that sleepy, timid voice made him freeze. Ruby, too, went abruptly still. They both turned their heads to see Henry standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Pepper stood beside him, watching with a curiously tilted head.
Ruby tried to push him away, but Rafe held on, because he wasn’t ready to let her go, and they were safely cloaked in shadow. He reluctantly slid his hand from her sweatpants and tugged down her sweatshirt, making sure his palm stroked boldly over her as he did so.
