Raid

by Kristen Ashley

  He had to know, since Rachelle was at the café a lot even in the evenings, that she might be there and see us together.

  And she’d been there.

  I’d been at that café a lot and never seen Raiden there with a woman.

  Making out with one outside, yes.

  Inside, never.

  And neither had anyone else, like KC or my other friends, all of whom followed Raiden’s actions like, well, what we were: crazy, creepy Raiden Ulysses Miller stalkers.

  So it was not lost on Rachelle (or me) what Raiden taking me to her café meant.

  However, this was the least of my worries, when, after she saw us together and her eyes bugged right out of her head, she came rushing to us, exclaiming, “Ohmigod! Hanna! I haven’t seen you in forever! Look at your hair! I love those highlights! They look great! And it’s so long! I barely recognized you.”

  Raiden gave me a brows raised look as he pulled out my seat, and I belatedly avoided his eyes as I sat.

  “And you’re so tan!” Rachelle went on, stopping at our table. She put two fingers to her cheek, tilted her head and gave me a once over before enquiring, “Have you lost weight?” Then she answered her own question, “No. But definitely toned up. I am so getting my own Schwinn if that’s what it can do.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear and chanced a glance at Raiden to see his lips quirking and his eyes on me.

  Rachelle seemed not to notice the looks Raiden and I were giving each other or the fact that neither of us spoke.

  Instead, she cried, “Don’t order! You’re both getting the special. Tonight’s special kicks ass, if I do say so myself.” She turned to her brother. “Beer for you, bro.” She turned to me. “Hanna, white wine or diet root beer?”

  “Root beer,” I answered.

  “On its way,” she replied.

  She then bounced off, Raiden’s burnished highlights shining in her long, swinging, brunette hair.

  Unfortunately, albeit a gentleman (at times, when he wasn’t cursing or angry and backing me up against walls), Raiden didn’t let this pass.

  “So I didn’t notice you or I didn’t recognize you?”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled to my knife and fork, which were rolled in a pink paper napkin and rounded with a sticky tabbed slip of paper in robin’s egg blue; one of Rachelle’s Café’s many signatures.

  Raiden roared with laughter.

  I quit avoiding him, lifted my head to watch and my discomfiture fled because I enjoyed the show. So much I ended up grinning at him.

  He ended his laughter with his face getting soft when he saw my grin, his lips ordering, “Come here,” but his body not giving me the chance to comply (or not).

  He stretched a long arm across the table and hooked me at the back of the neck. He pulled me across, met me halfway and touched his lips to mine before he let me go.

  This was not lost on the many patrons or Raiden’s sister. I felt it and saw it.

  So much for going slow.

  That was the only thing uncomfortable about dinner, except Raiden told me he’d share about the “job” he was working in town “later”, and he did this in a way I didn’t question at the time, but made me slightly troubled.

  Mostly we talked about what went down with Bodhi and Heather. Or more to the point, Raiden quizzed me about my less-than-stress-free day after the police arrested my friends and raided my kitchen warehouse, a large part of that day being taken up with the police escorting me through my warehouse and asking me questions then taking me to the station to ask more and giving me updates in return.

  “They found ice?” Raiden asked, his mouth still full of Rachelle’s delicious (she was not wrong) grilled turkey and swiss sandwich with a thin coating of French dressing and chili oil infused cream cheese.

  I nodded. “Apparently lots of it. Though, they didn’t share how much.”

  “And Joe was cool with you?”

  Joe was Sherriff Joe who had been Sherriff Joe since I was about twelve.

  I nodded again. “He asked me not to leave town, but he told me he knows I’m not involved.”

  “Did he explain the operation?” Raiden went on.

  Another nod from me.

  “He said the dogs found little baggies of crystal meth at both the bike shop and my place, most of it at my place hidden under the floorboards, but apparently they bagged the drugs at the bike shop. Evidently, Heather packed it with my afghans and shipped it to drug people that were around my boutiques. They got their drugs and hand delivered my shipments to the local shops so no one would be the wiser. Though if the USPS sniffed it out, which thank God they didn’t, they’d trace it back to me and I’d have uncomfortable questions to answer, but Heather and Bodhi would be long gone. Sherriff Joe said Bodhi told the police all this when they interrogated him. They shipped it everywhere, all over the country. Some of my shipments were drug free because they didn’t have a dealer to ship to in that area, but a lot of them were tainted. ”

  None of this made me happy, most especially my friends duping me and putting me in danger of being arrested for a felony I had no knowledge of, but also me being such an idiot. Heck, I actually paid Heather to do it. But there was nothing I could do about it except feel relief it was over.

  The other part of my day was spent calling the boutique owners that were in the areas the police suspected the drugs were shipped to and, luckily, Bodhi was right. None of them were the wiser. They had no idea and Sherriff Joe advised me not to tell them.

  “What’s done is done and unless they read the Willow Chronicle, they’ll never know and don’t need to know.”

  I decided to take him up on his advice.

  For some reason, Bodhi had used his one phone call to call me, and when I picked up he said, “Banana.” Banana was his what I once thought was sweet, now I thought was unoriginal and grating, nickname for me. “Please don’t hang up. Heather and I wanna ex—”

  I’d hung up.

  I also told Raiden about this call.

  He seemed less happy about it than I was.

  “Any more attempts at contact, honey, you disconnect and call me immediately. I’ll shut that shit down,” he’d ordered and the way he did, in his rough and commanding voice edged with more than a hint of anger, I just nodded.

  Close to the end of the meal, Raiden had asked, “How’s Miss Mildred about all this shit?”

  This was another part of my day I didn’t like, and it was the part I didn’t like it most of all.

  “She was shocked,” I answered, a quaver in my voice. I cleared my throat to wash it away. “Upset for me. Worried in general about the state of the world. Rocked that something like this could happen in Willow. Shaken that it happened, and that it happened to me.” I locked eyes with him and concluded, “Not good.”

  “Church tomorrow?” he asked, and I nodded again. “She got someone with her tonight?”

  “Eunice, her widowed neighbor, is over. They’re watching movies.”

  “Good,” he muttered.

  “I’m going to keep a closer eye on her for a while,” I told him. “She acts eighty, which everyone knows is the new sixty-five, but she’s not and I can’t forget that. I did manage to talk her into not calling my folks or Jeremy.”

  At that, Raiden’s brows shot together before he asked, “Why the fuck did you do that?”

  “Uh, sweetheart, Grams freaked. You think I want my parents to freak?” His chin weirdly jolted back when I said the word “sweetheart”, but I ignored that and kept going. “Like Sherriff Joe said, it’s over and they don’t need to know, which, for them, means they don’t need to worry.”

  “Baby, not sure that’s a good plan,” Raiden noted gently.

  “Sat with Grams and saw her face, Raiden, her hands shaking,” I replied and finished firmly. “It might not be good, but it’s my plan.”

  He let it go for which I was grateful.

  Now we were at the Deluxe after he’d paid for dinner and tipped his sister. He
paid for the tickets and paid for movie refreshments we did not need after a big sandwich and Rachelle’s Colorado-wide famous seasoned shoestring fries.

  I knew without worrying even a second about it that this date, without a doubt, was going well, and after our two kisses I was nervous, but excited, about what came after the movies.

  But first, I got two movies.

  I slid down the aisle and did it babbling, “Film noir night. My favorite night of the year at the Deluxe. And best of all, this year, Sunset Boulevard and Chinatown.”

  I sat, immediately tossed my purse in the empty seat beside me and shifted up the armrest—after a huge fundraising drive, the Deluxe had updated their seats two years before. They rocked. They reclined. You could lift up the armrests. They had cupholders. They were awesome.

  I reached up to Raiden and divested him of my drink and slid it in my cupholder. As he folded into his seat I relieved him of the popcorn and plonked it down in the area between us that was freed by the raised armrest.

  Perfect for both of us to get to.

  I also kept blabbing.

  “My two favorite noirs, though Touch of Evil and Double Indemnity are up there, and Chinatown is a little creepy, you know, considering the whole Faye Dunaway-John Huston thing, which is gross. I won’t ruin it if you haven’t seen it but… serious ick. I mean, it also isn’t classic noir because it was released in the seventies, but it still kicks noir booty. And Sunset Boulevard is otherwise known as noir lush, this, obviously, according to me. But Billy Wilder may be my favorite director and screenwriter of all time. Sunset Boulevard. Double Indemnity. Sabrina. The Apartment. Some Like It Hot. Noir. Romance. Comedy. He was the master of it all. Seriously, sheer talent.”

  Suddenly, Raiden yanked the popcorn from between us and kernels flew everywhere. His arm went around my shoulders. He tugged me into his side and dumped the bucket in my lap. He then lifted his hand to my jaw, tipped my head back and laid a hot, heavy, wet, long kiss on me right in the Deluxe that was not even half filled, but still.

  He came up for air, which luckily gave me the chance to suck some in at the same time I was trying to control my rapidly beating heart and the pulse throbbing between my legs.

  “Not pissed about the double feature anymore, seein’ as you’re so fired up about it,” he murmured.

  “Okay, well… good,” I replied, my voice breathy. I got control of the breathy before I went on to inform him inanely, “You got popcorn everywhere.”

  “Don’t fuckin’ care.”

  There was no reply to that so I made none.

  “I’m gettin’ you really like movies,” he noted.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed.

  His hand, still at my jaw, slid back into my hair. “Then live it up, honey.”

  He tipped my head down and kissed my forehead before his hand slid out of my hair, taking its time, traveling the entire length. He curled away from me, but held me close with his arm still around my shoulders.

  I focused on regulating my breath.

  Then, as the lights went down, I said, “I hope you like the movies.”

  “I’ll like ‘em,” he replied, and I twisted my neck to look up at him.

  “You like noir?” I asked tardily, then continued, “Have you already seen these films?”

  “Not a movie person, or never was. Haven’t seen either. But bein’ in the dark with you close, givin’ you something you like to do, don’t give a fuck what it is. Just glad to be doing it.”

  God.

  That was nice.

  “You’re very sweet,” I blurted as the commercials rolled on the screen.

  “No, I’m not,” he returned. “I’m selfish and goal-oriented. This shit is multitasking. Got you close, smell your perfume, feel your warmth, and later you’ll be in a good mood. All that works for me.”

  To that, being an idiot, I couldn’t stop it

  I kept blurting.

  “You might want to try to stop being so sexy and hot and cool or you’ll give me a heart attack and then your plans for later will be completely derailed.”

  I heard the smile in his voice even over the loud commercials. “Then I better shut up.”

  “That would be wise.”

  His arm drew me nearer and I felt the light shakes of his body, denoting his silent laughter.

  I liked the feel and memorized it as I turned my attention to the screen.

  I’d been to movies with my other boyfriends and none of them held me tucked tight throughout one movie, much less two.

  To be fair, the Deluxe didn’t have those killer seats back then so it would be uncomfortable if they tried.

  Still, they didn’t try.

  If they did, I might have attempted to be less uninteresting.

  Because it was amazing.

  Or maybe it was just Raiden who was amazing.

  Halfway through Sunset Boulevard, when he set aside the popcorn, I put my head to his shoulder. I cuddled closer, he let me and decided it was Raiden.

  All Raiden.

  Amazing.

  Chapter Nine

  Not That Kind of Girl

  After two movies with a fifteen-minute intermission it was late when Raiden, his arm around my shoulders holding me close, my arm around his waist doing the same, walked us four blocks down to the car park at the edge of town.

  When he’d come to my house to pick me up I’d suggested we take my car since he’d said he wanted to drive it.

  He took me up on this offer, and although no one but me had been in the driver’s seat of my girl, I liked sitting beside him in my girl.

  I liked more the way he handled my car. The ride was smooth; the car maneuvered unbelievably, but I wasn’t exactly a daredevil. I’d never explored the limits of her functionality.

  Raiden was not so hesitant.

  He drove her faster than I’d ever risk, testing her handling on the winding roads that led from my place to Willow.

  This normally would frighten me, but he operated the car with a natural confidence, like he drove her every day, or like he drove NASCAR for a living. So I wasn’t frightened.

  I was exhilarated.

  And thus looking forward to the ride home.

  We approached her, he beeped the locks and I saw the kick butt “Z” at the side illuminate in a flash when he did.

  I loved my girl.

  And, Bodhi and Heather notwithstanding, I was back to glad I made my decision months ago to broaden the horizons of my life.

  Case in point: Raiden Miller walking me to my car at midnight on a Saturday night.

  He moved me to the passenger side, but I turned my back to the car, blocking the door and looked up at him.

  “You said at intermission that you thought Sunset Boulevard kicked ass. How did you feel about Chinatown?”

  “You were right, that Dunaway-Huston gig was freaky, but it was a fucking good movie,” he answered.

  He liked noir. For some reason, this thrilled me.

  Yes, he just kept getting better and better.

  Therefore, I blurted, “In case I forget, I’ll say it now to be sure you know. I had an amazing night, Raiden Miller.”

  At my words, one of his hands moved to span my hip, the other one cupped my jaw. He shifted close and dipped his face to mine.

  “Good to know, Hanna Boudreaux,” he rumbled through smiling lips.

  I smiled back then shared, “I’m glad I didn’t eavesdrop and ruin the night by freaking out and being stupid.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t leave a pretty woman at a table and make a poorly timed phone call,” he returned.

  My smile got bigger. “I’m also glad nothing world rocking happened, like learning my best friend since forever, KC, was the evil mastermind behind a dire plot to take over the world, Homeland Security raided her house and hauled me in as a possible accomplice due to our copious phone conversations and pedicure appointments.”

  His body was shaking as were his words when he replied, “Reason to rejoice.
”

  I was laughing softly when I finished, “So thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, baby.”

  Baby.

  I loved that.

  So much I rolled up to my toes and kissed him.

  Again, I was going for a quick peck. I was looking forward to making out with him on my porch (or wherever) when he took me home, but just then I was going to do what he did.

  A brush of lips against lips.

  Raiden, as I was learning anytime this happened, had other ideas.

  Except this time, without reason, when Raiden’s arms locked around me, crushing me to him and his tongue slid into my mouth, the world exploded.

  The other kisses were phenomenal.

  Even though this one was not executed in the privacy of my farmhouse at the end of a single track lane that was surrounded only by trees, but instead in a public parking lot in our hometown after a movie just let out, the kiss detonated.

  Maybe it was because I wasn’t freaking out, heartbroken and being stupid.

  Maybe it was because we hadn’t just finished exchanging heated words or heartfelt confessions.

  Maybe it was because my dream actually was coming true, bigger and better than I expected. I was in Raiden’s arms and he wanted me there.

  Maybe it was just because it was the end of a really good date.

  Whatever it was, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Nothing I even knew existed.

  And something I wanted never to end.

  It was huge. Consuming. The world melted away and there was just Raiden, his arms, his big, hard body, his mouth and his tongue.

  I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t give enough.

  And Raiden felt exactly the same.

  I knew this when he arched me into the car, pressing close, hips, chest, lips.

  I knew it more when his hands slid down over my bottom and he jerked me up.

  I had my hands in his hair and I held on even as my legs automatically circled his hips. He shifted down the car, planted my booty on the hood and bent into me so my back was to the Z, my legs circling his hips, his groin pressed deep to me and his tongue ravaging my mouth.

  I was so lost in the kiss, in Raiden, I would have been happy for it to go on forever and more, even in the parking lot. No kidding, I would have been happy for it to escalate to bigger and better things.