by Aly Martinez
With embarrassment overwhelming me, I spun to face my washer and cursed my overactive mouth. “I’m sorry. Maybe a cab wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I mumbled.
“You dreamed about me?” he asked in disbelief, but it didn’t come from the doorway. It came from directly behind me.
I lifted my head at the same time he slipped his hand around my waist.
“A lot,” I found myself admitting.
“Jesus,” he breathed, turning me in his arms.
I craned my head back and mentally prepared myself for his reaction.
Even still, I wasn’t prepared. His eyebrows pinched together and his lips thinned in confusion, but his eyes held the most heart-stopping display of relief I’d ever seen.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “You’re Jude.”
He stared down at me, shaking his head. “And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t want anything to do with me.”
But I did. So fucking badly that it hurt.
When he rocked toward me, I lifted my hands to his chest to help him keep his balance. But, when I touched him, it was as though a live circuit had finally been closed. His gaze darkened, and it flicked down to my chest.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers brushed over the marred skin on my chest, dipping low before retreating.
It probably wasn’t as much sexual as it was sad, but my nipples peaked all the same.
“These are mine,” he whispered, trailing his fingers over my scars.
Taking a step forward, he backed me to the washing machine. A wave of chill bumps washed over me, but more than just my skin became aroused.
Licking my lips, I pushed my hands higher up his pecs and to his shoulders.
He groaned in agony as I curled my fingers around the back of his neck.
“Oh, fuck, Rhion. Don’t,” rumbled in his throat as though he could barely stand the touch.
As cruel as it was, I didn’t let it stop me. If he wanted to take responsibility for my scars, I damn sure was taking it for his.
“Then these are mine,” I declared.
Faster than I thought possible in his state, his hand snaked up and caught my wrist, his eyes burning with a mixture of heat and anger. “No. Those are fucking mine, too.”
“But—” I started softly.
“No goddamn buts,” he growled. Gripping hard on my hips, he lifted me and set me on the washer.
I opened my legs, and he did not delay in fitting his hips between them.
“They’re all mine, Rhion. Every fucking one.” He teased his fingers down my chest to the orange and red tips of the burning butterfly tattoo peeking out the front of my tank top.
My breath froze in my lungs as I watched in absolute awe as he dipped his head down and pressed a kiss to the ink.
“Yes,” I breathed, linking my legs at his back for fear we’d both topple over.
“My Butterfly,” he breathed, kissing lower.
Suddenly, my mind fogged, Jude’s intoxication becoming contagious.
“More,” I pleaded, arching toward his mouth.
“So fucking beautiful.” Another kiss.
Need pooled in my stomach, and I reached up to tug the neck of my shirt down until the pink of my bra was exposed. “More.”
“Say you forgive me,” he murmured against my chest.
“Nothing to forgive,” I moaned.
He suddenly righted himself, keeping himself close with a hand on either side of me. “I—” He didn’t get it out before I finished for him.
“Saved my life.”
My heart raced as his eyes narrowed on me, but I was sick of Jude’s apologies.
We hadn’t gotten there by happenstance. Not the night of the fire. And not right then.
As a woman who had lost her entire family and had been walking through life alone for years, I didn’t believe in chance.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t take advantages of the opportunities presented to me.
Leaning up, I grazed my lips across his and whispered, “No more. It’s done.”
He breathed in deep, but that was the only hesitation he gave.
With a hungry growl, he grabbed the back of my head, anchoring me in place as he began devouring my mouth. There was nothing gentle about it.
There was desperation.
Two broken souls fighting for control of a wildfire.
Our teeth clanked together, and I nearly fell off the washing machine while furiously trying to get closer, opening my legs wide enough to find friction against him.
“Fuck,” he slurred, starting to pull away.
I stopped him by ripping the front of his shirt open, buttons dinging against the metal, before I stripped his undershirt over his head.
“Rhion,” he objected.
The two of us shared a multitude of regrets. But kissing him. Touching him. Being with him would never be one of those. At least not for me.
And, as I pushed to my feet, our hands and our mouths never losing contact, Jude gave his fight up too. Pinning me to the door with his hips, he used his mouth to explore my neck, and his hands roamed my body.
We stumbled from that pantry, both of us equally drunk, but now, it was on need and desire.
A fire blazed between us with only one way to extinguish it.
“Why the roof?”
I blinked.
That was the first question my captain asked me when he showed up in my hospital room at the burn center in Chicago. Not: “How’s your broken leg? Not: “You feeling okay after spending a full day in a medically induced coma while doctors monitored the swelling in your head?” Not: “How are those burns that cover the back of your skull and the back of your neck?”
No. None of those were what he asked me.
It was, however, why my answer was, “I’m sorry. What?”
“You told her to climb up to the roof? Why?”
I stared at him in confusion. My mind was still groggy from the medication, but I did the best I could to focus. “Because it was the only place that wasn’t on fire?”
“Is that a question or a statement?” he asked, raking a rough hand through his thinning, gray hair as he began pacing the room.
Movement at the door caught my attention. Careful not to move my aching head, I shifted my eyes to the side and saw two uniforms standing outside.
“What’s going on?” I asked suspiciously.
He stopped and gave me his full focus. “Why the roof, Levitt?”
“There was nowhere else. She was gonna die.”
And that’s when it hit me. My foggy mind finally caught up as, all at once, the pieces began to click into place. The last thing I remembered was the horrible creak of the house and the terrifying sound of her screams as it fell down on top of us.
My aching body protested as I sat upright, bile igniting a path up my throat. “Oh God, did she die?”
His head snapped back as he stopped pacing and fisted his hands on his hips. “What? No. She’s down the hall.”
“Thank God,” I exhaled, relief doing far more to soothe me than whatever cocktail of pain medication was pumping through my IV.
His expression turned hard. “Don’t be so quick to send up thanks. That woman you saved is Rhion Park. Sole heir to the Park Empire.”
He stared at me as though he’d laid out the secrets of the universe.
“Okay?” I drawled.
“Okay?” he repeated.
I winced as I attempted to shift in the bed. “I’m not following where you’re going with this.”
He stopped at the foot of my bed and crossed one arm over his chest, his other hand going up to scrub his jaw. “Where I’m going with this, Levitt, is I’ve got the entire Park family legal team and every fucking news station in the country crawling up my ass, wanting to know why in the hell a cop—my fucking cop—would send a woman up higher when a fucking fifth-grader knows to stay low.” He threw his hands out to his sides and took a
n angry step in my direction. “But, more than that, they want to know why a cop—my fucking cop—was making this astronomically stupid call with alcohol in his system. So yeah, Levitt. I’m gonna need some goddamn answers. First up: Why the roof?”
Suddenly, the air in the room became too thick to breathe. Reality crashed down on me harder than that three-story house ever could.
I’d wanted to be a cop since I was eight years old and my father had nearly cut his finger off while trying to trim the trunk of our Christmas tree. Blood was everywhere and my mother wouldn’t stop screaming regardless that my father was cussing at her for calling 911 for a simple cut. I paced the front porch, praying that he wouldn’t die, because, when you’re eight, that’s what happens when you bleed even the slightest bit. A cop arrived first. He rolled up onto the curb in front, lights flashing and sirens blaring, giving me, along with the rest of the neighborhood, the whole emergency experience. I’d never forget the wake of tranquilly that trailed behind him as he jogged up the front steps.
My mom stopped screaming. My father stopped cussing. I stopped worrying.
Looking back, I thought that cop had probably been relieved when he’d walked in and seen my too-proud-to-ask-for-help dad holding a washcloth around his finger. No guns drawn. No vile human beings destroying lives. No wounded butterflies.
But the little cut that ultimately earned my father eight stitches and an expensive ride in an ambulance changed my life. As I stood beside my mother, watching the cop drive away, I realized exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up. Donning on that uniform became my dream.
Yet, as I sat in that hospital bed, my chest physically aching, I began to wish that it had been a firefighter to respond to my house first that afternoon.
“Start talking, Levitt,” my captain ground out when I didn’t reply.
I cut my gaze to the door, an ocean of regret churning in my gut.
One night, one call, one decision—and I was going to lose it all.
“I think I need an attorney.”
When I awoke, blinding lights poured into the room, making it impossible to open my eyes. For the way my retinas ached, the sun might as well have been in the same room. A marching band was playing in my head. Okay, maybe not an entire marching band, but definitely the drum line.
I attempted to swallow, but my mouth was so dry that the action only made me cough. I threw my hand out to the side and blindly patted the nightstand down, praying that, in my drunken stupor, I’d had the foresight to grab a bottle of water.
In my search, my hand landed on a glass.
I lived in a hotel, and not a nice one, at that. I didn’t have cups at all. Much less a glass.
“Oh God,” I breathed as I pried one eye open.
Pale coral-and-white vertical-striped walls greeted me. My stomach rolled as I slowly sat up. Squinting, I attempted to take inventory of the spinning room. White, distressed dresser. Dark mahogany wood floors. A canvas painting of a starfish. And the salty smell of the ocean wafting in the air.
How the hell did I end up at the beach?
The last thing I remembered was staring down into an empty bottle of Jack at Park Hill.
I glanced down and saw that I was still in the same slacks I’d been wearing the day before, but my chest was bare. Where the hell is my shirt? My gaze dropped to the floor, where I spotted my white undershirt folded on top of my shoes, but my button-down was MIA.
I looked to the nightstand and saw my keys, my phone, and my wallet neatly stacked on top of each other. I was no detective, but it didn’t take any special skills to deduce that, if I couldn’t remember taking my damn shirt off, I probably hadn’t been the one to organize the contents of my pockets. Clearly, I hadn’t come to the beach alone. But who…
“Oh God,” I whispered to myself.
It came back in a rush. But none of the memories were complete. I only caught the tiniest bits and pieces.
Pale-blue eyes barely peeking through a cracked door. My mind sloshed as I stood up, dread settling in my stomach.
Fiery-red-and-blond hair brushing against shoulders as she led me inside. I shook my head while I tugged my shirt and my shoes on.
My index finger tracing the intricate tattoos covering her shoulders. Pressure built in my chest when I reached the door and slowly twisted the doorknob.
Her back flush against my chest as I stared down at the delicate curve of her neck. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and sent up prayers to every god in the universe that I was wrong.
Maybe this was another nightmare. That’s where she usually found me.
But, as I opened the door and caught sight of her sitting on the ground, her knees tucked to her chest, her colorful arms wrapped around her legs, and her eyes aimed up at me, I knew there would be no waking up from this one.
“Hey,” she whispered, scrambling to her feet.
Scrubbing my hand over the scruff on my jaw, I muttered a cursed, “Jesus Christ.”
She toyed with the ends of her hair, and like a shock of electricity, a mental souvenir from the night before assaulted me. Her hair smells like coconut.
She cleared her throat uncomfortably and then rushed out, “Um…so, good morning. Can I get you some coffee, breakfast, toothbrush, memory eraser, anything?”
I cringed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’ll take the memory eraser with a side of coffee.”
“Excellent choice,” she mumbled under her breath before taking off at a speed just under a sprint.
Mentally chastising myself, I followed after her. The narrow hallway opened up to a living-room-kitchen combination. It might as well have screamed money for as nice as everything appeared. Two tan couches with carved wooden legs, covered in countless throw pillows of all colors and patterns, sectioned the living room off, while a long, chocolate-and-taupe-veined granite counter served as a barrier for a kitchen with stainless-steel appliances lining the wall. It looked a lot like Guardian, but it felt oddly familiar in a different way.
Confused, I asked, “Are we at the beach?”
Her head snapped up while she was filling two mugs with coffee. “The beach?”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “That room. Seemed…I don’t know, beachy.”
She stared at me blankly for several beats. “You said you loved the beach.”
I awkwardly scratched the back of my head. “Okay. So we talked last night. Good to know.”
Her body jerked and her face paled as she gasped, “You don’t remember?”
Dear God. I was seriously an asshole. “I’m sorry.”
Her back shot ramrod straight, and something strange—and surprisingly painful—sifted through her features. “Nothing?”
Oh, I remembered a few things. All of which I wished I could forget.
“Any chance you could fill me in?” I asked.
She quickly turned away to put the coffee pot down, her shoulders hunched over in defeat.
And then she lied to me. Plain as day.
“You’re not missing much. You showed up drunk. I was half-asleep. I put you to bed. Went to bed myself. Now, we’re drinking coffee.”
I opened my mouth to apologize only to clamp it shut when she continued to talk.
“That was my ocean room you were in. When I moved to Chicago a few years ago, I missed the beach. So I had a guy come in and set it up. It has special lighting to mimic the afternoon sun, a scent-infused humidifier installed in the wall, and a strategically placed surround-sound system to add the natural echo of the waves.” She turned back to face me. “I turned that off when I heard you snoring. I hope that’s okay. It’s really loud in the room next door, which happens to be my bedroom.”
Her whole body turned solid, and her face slid through three different shades of red. “I mean, not that you needed to know where my bedroom is or anything. Well, I mean, unless you want to take a bath. I have an amazing jetted tub in my bathroom. The other two only have showers. The showers are really nice though. I h
ad the contractor add these kickass showerheads. It’s quite the experience. You should give it a try. Oh, that reminds me. I laid out an extra toothbrush in the bathroom.” She paused only long enough to suck in a huge gasp of air. “The bathroom in the hall—you know, with the shower, not mine… You know, with the tub. Anyway—”
When it became abundantly clear the woman had no intention of stopping, I attempted to wade in. “Rhion,” I called, stepping toward her.
“I also put a hairbrush in there. You know, for your hair. Which I have to say is really nice. It looks good on you. Not all guys can pull that off. It’s the perfect mix of bad-boy and clean-cut.” She squinted her eyes closed as embarrassment contorted her face. “Not that I’m saying you’re either of those things. I wasn’t checking you out or anything.”
I took another step in her direction, making yet another attempt to cut her off. “Rhion.”
Her nose crinkled adorably, and she began worrying with the diamond hanging from a silver chain around her neck. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re a handsome man. I just—”
“Rhion,” I repeated, closing the final few steps between us.
“I can’t stop talking!” she exclaimed a second before she ducked around me and burst into tears.
The knock on the door startled me awake. My upper body was on fire, but not the kind that could be extinguished. The doctors had tried, but there wasn’t a medicine in the world strong enough to ease the pain. For a full week, it had been excruciating. And, from what the nurses had told me, it was going to be a while longer before it finally started to fade.
The knock came again. I lifted my head off the pillow and glanced around the room, finding it surprisingly empty. Katie and Pete had been fixtures at my bedside since they’d arrived in town.
“Come in!” I called out in a scratchy voice. It was no doubt another doctor or nurse coming to torture me under the guise of help. My body tensed in anticipation.
“Rhion?” His voice filtered into the room, causing my heart to stop beating just before it went into overdrive.
I froze, my emotions stuck somewhere between shock, dread, and exhilaration.