by Nicole Helm
After a few humming breaths as she tried not to outwardly react to the sting, Brady spoke. His words were quiet and measured, but there was something lingering inside of him that was neither. “What do you think happens when you’re a kid in a gang, Cecilia? Someone bakes you brownies?”
She blinked. Oh. Well, of course. Being hurt and not getting medical attention was probably life in the Sons of the Badlands. She just so often forgot he’d actually...spent years there. Innocent, vulnerable years. He was so good. So strong. She couldn’t even picture it knowing what he’d looked like as a boy—reserved and gangly. It hurt trying to imagine. “Who stabbed you? Other kids?”
He was silent, but he was unwrapping butterfly bandages from their plastic wrapper, which meant she was getting out of a mandatory hospital visit for now.
“Brady.”
He paid very careful attention to the wound on her side as he attached the bandages, one by one, along the line of sliced skin. “Ace had a game, is all. A nice little game just for me. Usually he missed.”
Cecilia’s blood went cold, but she knew if she let that seep into her voice he’d shut down and shut her out. She breathed, steadied her voice. “Usually?”
He shrugged, attached another bandage.
Then it dawned on her. She’d seen him with his shirt off that first night. She’d been somewhat surprised he’d been so marked up, but it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why. “All those scars. They’re from not-misses. He stabbed you.”
“He threw knives,” Brady corrected, as if that were better instead of somehow worse. “Gotta learn to expect the unexpected. Though he was always pulling them out to toss my way, so I’m not sure how it was unexpected, but here I am trying to rationalize a madman’s thinking.”
“He threw knives at you,” Cecilia said, because she couldn’t picture that. Not just because it caused her pain, because it was nonsensical. It was insane.
Brady lifted his gaze to hers over the bandages. She realized she’d let emotion, horror mostly, seep into her tone.
“I’m alive, Cecilia. I survived. But I’d rather not take a trip down memory lane if you don’t mind. Can you sit up?”
She blinked. It was her turn to feel like a foreign language was being spoken. After a few seconds she managed to sit up. He put a pad of gauze over the butterfly bandages, then used a wrap bandage around her waist to keep it in place.
“This is stupid. You need stitches. The chance of infection, of losing too much blood, of this not healing, are extraordinarily large.”
She heard the exhaustion in his tone. The worry. And maybe even the ghost of a little boy whose father had thrown knives at him. She hadn’t had that rough of a childhood. She’d thought it had been the worst, but it really hadn’t been. Being poor and neglected and then moved into a loving house at the age of six had nothing on Brady’s experience.
But she thought they needed the same thing in the face of those old ghosts. The only thing that had ever helped her had been to face down the current ones. And win. “Elijah’s not coming for us, Brady. We have to go to him.”
She thought he might pretend to misunderstand her, but his words were stark. “We don’t know where he is.”
“I know where he’ll be. I know you do too.”
Brady inhaled. “I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never go back there, Cecilia.” He met her gaze. “Never.”
She was closer to crying than she’d even been in the bathroom, but she didn’t look away. “We need to.”
Chapter Fourteen
Brady didn’t precisely agree with Cecilia, but in the end he didn’t argue with her. He’d patched her up best that he could, got her some clothes from her pack, ibuprofen for the pain, and ice for the particularly nasty bump under her eye—because apparently she’d gotten hit in the same exact spot as a few nights ago.
He ignored his own aches and pains as he ran through a shower. They’d agreed to spend the night at the cabin and get a fresh start in the morning. A fresh start doing what was still up in the air.
Go to the Sons camp? He’d promised himself he’d never do that, with one simple caveat: only if his brothers ever needed him to.
Cecilia wasn’t his brother. Mak wasn’t his brother. But wasn’t it all the same? You went back if you had to protect the people you...cared about.
Brady dried off from the shower, examined his own injuries. His gunshot wound continued to heal, and that was something to be thankful for. He had a riot of bruises rising across his chest and arms, but that was to be expected after the fight they’d had. He was in a lot better shape than Cecilia.
He’d brought in a change of clothes but forgotten to grab his own stash of bandages. They were going to run out at the rate they were going.
He took a moment to look at himself in the foggy mirror. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he’d started down this path. He hadn’t really planned—he’d only wanted to protect.
He’d been somewhat...disapproving of his brothers rushing in to face what they’d all left behind. He’d understood Jamison’s need to help Liza save her young half sister from the human trafficking ring the Sons had been starting. A person, especially Jamison, couldn’t turn his back on that. And yes, Cody obviously had to save his ex and his secret daughter from Ace’s threats. And when Gage helped investigate the murder Felicity had been framed for, of course it ended up connecting to the Sons.
Everything did.
He’d known going in Elijah had ties to the Sons and his father, so going back to Sons territory seemed inevitable.
Still, he recoiled from it.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. A good night’s sleep and surely he’d have a better handle on everything roiling around inside of him. He’d be able to compartmentalize and function as he normally did.
But there was something about this situation that made it harder. He’d patched up Cody’s horrendous injuries. He’d helped Gage after he’d been basically tortured by Ace. Granted, those were after-the-fact situations. Mopping up a mess, not wading into one while worrying about the woman wading into it with him.
He didn’t understand it, though. He trusted Cecilia, as much as any one of his brothers, to take care of herself. He didn’t understand why this felt harder. Maybe it was his own weakness. A mental softening from all his time off.
He stepped out of the bathroom, determined to shove it all away again.
She was sitting up in the bed, though he’d told her to be as still as possible. Her hair was damp and leaving spots of wet on her T-shirt. She had an impressive bruise forming on her cheek.
She was not a weak woman, or even a soft one. She was all angles and muscle with a smart mouth and a sharp mind, who could take care of herself and save herself, no questions asked. He did not understand his desperate desire to wrap her up and keep her far from harm.
He wanted to protect his brothers, no doubt, and same for the Knight girls. He’d quickly and easily thrown himself in the way of harm to protect them, save them.
But this was different. This thing he felt toward Cecilia was different, and not liking it and pushing it away didn’t seem to change anything.
When she glanced his way, she threw the covers off and started to move. “Oh my God, Brady. Look at you.”
“Don’t you dare get out of that bed. You are supposed to keep that cut immobile.” He looked down at himself and frowned. “What?”
“You’re covered in bruises,” she said, outrage tingeing her words, though she had stopped herself from getting out of bed. “You didn’t say you’d been hurt.”
“I’m not hurt. Like you said, I know what serious injuries feel like. Just a little bruising.”
“These aren’t little. And there are quite a few.”
“You really want to have this argument when I can still load you up in that truck and take you to a ho
spital?” He stalked over to his pack and pulled out the bandage and disinfectant he needed for his shoulder.
“You really don’t want to have this argument when you gave me hell for not telling you right away I’d been stabbed?”
“Stabbed. A stab wound that needs stitches and I—”
“You’re insufferable.” She held out a hand toward him when he sat down on the opposite side of the bed. “Give it to me.”
“You need to be still.”
“Give me the damn bandage, and scoot over here if you don’t want me to move.”
He grumbled and did as he was told. She smoothed the bandage on the back side, then he turned so she could do the front as well.
She touched his most pronounced scar, which was in a similar spot as her wound. The injuries were in fact quite similar, though he’d been ten when he’d gotten his. She sighed. “I don’t know how you survived this and still became you, Brady. I really don’t.”
He shrugged, trying to ignore the effect her touch had on him. “You just do.” He reached for his shirt, but something about her touching his scar kept him from his full range of motion.
“You do. You did. I know you don’t want to go back there.” She looked up at him, though her fingers lingered on his scar. “I don’t want you to have to go back there.”
“If you’re about to suggest you go alone, you can—”
“No. No, I know better than that, believe it or not. We have to do this together. Have each other’s backs. At some point that might mean splitting up, but not yet.”
“Not ever.”
She studied his face, as if looking for something. An answer. A clue. A truth. She reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand, the other hand still pressed to his scar.
He held himself very still, trying to think back to all the arguments he’d had against this when she’d been throwing herself at him to irritate him.
But this wasn’t that. Even he knew this wasn’t that.
“Brady, I really thought I was going to die. Maybe not out there, but if they’d gotten me, taken me to Elijah, I knew it was over.”
Fury spurted through him. “He won’t—”
“Shh,” she said lightly, her thumb brushing against his cheekbone. “I’d do it. I don’t want to, but if it would keep Mak safe, I’d die for him. I think we all feel that about our families, but I’ve never actually been put in a position where I had to specifically accept it would be at someone’s hands. Elijah’s hands.”
Maybe she wouldn’t let him say it, but he’d do everything in his power to make sure that never, ever happened.
“I don’t want him to take anything from me. I will fight tooth and nail to make sure you and Mak and I come out of this in one piece. I’m not being fatalistic here, I’m just telling you...”
She cupped his other cheek, moved so they were knee to knee. He would have admonished her for moving, but her body brushed his—lightning and need.
“I know it would change everything, but maybe everything needs to change. Maybe it’s already changed.”
He had to clear his throat to speak. “It wouldn’t just change us. Our families. Duke isn’t exactly thrilled with my brothers for similar happenings.”
Her smile was soft, her touch on his face even softer. “Duke doesn’t approve of anything I’ve done. Becoming a cop. Living on the rez. Et cetera. He loves me anyway.” She trailed her fingers over his cheeks. “You didn’t have to do any of this. I brought you into this. I plopped Mak in your arms and—”
“Elijah already—”
“Shut up and listen, Brady. I came to you and convinced myself it was because you were the one who had the time, but it was because you were the one I trusted. I could have gone to Jamison or Cody—they have experience keeping children away from the Sons’ reach. I could have gone to Tucker, he’s a detective for heaven’s sake. They all would have helped me. I came to you.”
He didn’t know how to react to that, or how to sift through the assault of emotions. Hope too big among them.
But then he didn’t have to, because she kissed him. It was soft and gentle. He didn’t think either of them had much of that in their lives. Maybe it was why they needed to show it to each other.
Maybe all this time he’d avoided her and that New Year’s Eve kiss because he hadn’t wanted to allow himself that. It certainly didn’t feel right to take it now, except she needed it too.
And how could he resist giving her what she needed?
* * *
CECILIA WASN’T SURE what had changed inside of her. Only that something had opened up or eased. Something had shifted to make room for this, and once it had, she couldn’t hide it away again.
She’d kissed Brady on New Year’s Eve because he made her feel something she couldn’t name, and for a long time she hadn’t wanted to. Still, it hadn’t gone away so she’d convinced herself it was merely attraction and backed off when Brady made her understand it couldn’t be only that.
Now, just a little while later, she was the one kissing him. Saying things had already changed.
His hands were gentle, his kiss was dreamy, and it was as if those tiny pieces inside of her that had still felt so out of place clicked together and made sense.
If it hadn’t been for this afternoon, fear of change would have continued to win—continued to keep her hands off when it came to Brady. But fear of death—and the possibility of that death being very much right in her face—made the fear of change weaker. Change was hard, but regret was too steep a price to pay.
What would be the point of this life she’d been given if she didn’t accept all the emotions inside of her? She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t even good half the time, but the things she felt for Brady were real. They were here.
Why had she been avoiding that? To not be embarrassed? To not be hurt? It seemed so silly in the face of what could have been her last day on earth. Maybe that was dramatic, but it had led her here.
No one had ever kissed her like she was both fragile and elemental all at the same time. But it was more than just the kiss.
No man, including Duke—the only man in her life she’d let herself truly love as both uncle and father figure—had ever made her feel understood. No one in her whole life had made it seem like the strong parts of her and the weaker parts of her were one complex package...one that someone could still want and care for. She was either fully strong or fully weak to others, but inside she was both.
She didn’t want to be protected, but sometimes she wanted to be soothed. She didn’t need anyone to fight her fights, but sometimes she needed someone to dress her wounds. Literally. Figuratively.
Brady was that. Just...by being him.
His fingers tightened in her hair, and the kiss that had begun as soft and lazy heated, sharpened. Something ignited deep inside of her, a hunger she hadn’t really thought could exist inside of her. It had certainly never leapt to life before.
But now...now she wanted to sink into that heat and that unfurling desperation. It was new and it was heady and it was better than all that had come before.
But she could feel Brady pulling back. “You’re hurt,” Brady murmured against her mouth, as if he wanted to break the kiss but couldn’t quite bring himself to.
She was vaguely aware of her sore body, but mostly those aches and pains were buried underneath the sparkling warmth of lust. She didn’t just want a kiss, she wanted Brady’s body on hers. She wanted to get lost for a few minutes in something other than pain and fear.
Some part of her she didn’t fully understand wanted the hope of more with Brady when this was all over. Change seemed better than standing in the same place feeling alone. Feeling as though no one understood her or loved her as a whole, complex human being.
She sank into another kiss, desperate for him to forget her injuries. Forget where they were and w
hat they had to do and finish this.
“I’ll live,” she insisted. “I want this, Brady. I want you.”
He undressed her, and she knew he was being mindful of her injuries, but she didn’t feel it. She felt worshipped and surrounded by something bigger than she could describe. A light, a warmth, a renewal of who she was.
Made somehow more awe-inspiring by the fact the man currently kissing her scrapes and caressing her many bruises was...gorgeous. He was all muscle and control. In another world he might have been a movie star, if he wasn’t so raw and real. So... Brady. Good and noble and making her body hum with a desperate need she was sure, so sure, he could take care of.
And he did, entering her, moving with her, a gentle, heated tangle of all those things she’d been afraid of: change, need, hope.
Why had those been fears? When they were this good. This comforting and right.
He said her name and it echoed inside of her. It felt like a hushed finally. Like they’d been waiting all their years to do this, when she didn’t think they had. Certainly not consciously.
But it was here now, and she knew this was just...it. Him. Them.
She slid her fingers through his hair, focused on pleasure over the pain of her injuries, and gave herself over in a way she’d never done before. Because she trusted Brady. Wholeheartedly. He was the person she went to when she was in the most trouble, and he was the person she wanted to be with in this dangerous, desperate situation.
Always.
The crest of release washed over her, a slow roll of pleasure and hope and relaxation. A finally whispered through her body as Brady followed her into oblivion.
She sighed into his neck, snuggled in when he carefully tucked her against his body, and slept.
Chapter Fifteen
When Brady’s phone trilled, waking him from a deep, restful sleep, he jerked, then immediately relaxed his body so he didn’t jostle Cecilia, still curled up against him. Naked.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Then again he hadn’t meant to sleep with Cecilia. But both had happened and left him feeling...settled. Instead of the scatterbrained panic, hopping from one problem to another, he felt clearheaded.